Blackberry Winter: A Novel (27 page)

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“So your mother didn’t tell you about all the things she stole from our family? The jewelry? The coins from father’s study?”

“Josie,” I stammered, “you—you must be mistaken. My mother would never—”

“I watched her take a diamond bracelet from Mother’s jewelry box,” she said.

“I don’t believe it!” I cried. “How dare you speak of my mother that way? She was a good woman. She did her best to take care of you, Josie. But you tormented her.”

Her icy stare frightened me. “I know your angle,” she said. “Just like your mother, you see my family as your meal ticket.”

I shook my head, wiping a tear from my cheek. “You have it all wrong.”

“Well,” she said, “if you expect me to stand back while my brother is duped by a common whore, then, my dear, you’re mistaken.”

The words stung. “A common…?”

I couldn’t let the vulgar word cross my lips. “What makes you think that I…?” Then I remembered the envelope in the suite. The money Charles had set aside for the poor widow. Josie had seen it. She’d thought it was for
me
.

“No, no,” I continued. “You have it all wrong. That money was for—”

Josie shook her head. “And now you’re having his child.”

I placed my hand on my belly.

“How long did you think you were going to keep
that
a secret?”

I gasped.
How does she know?
I hadn’t told anyone. Not even Charles.

“You didn’t have to tell me,” she said. “It’s obvious.”

“But I—”

“How much?” she said.

I searched her face. “I don’t understand.”

“How much do I have to pay you to get out of our lives, to get out of Charles’s life?”

I shook my head. “Why would you do this?”

“Because he can’t be permitted to end up with a woman like you,” she said. “It would destroy Mother. And Father would write him out of”—she gestured to the house and gardens—“all of this. Do you think he would love you then? Well, Miss Ray, I know my brother better than you, and I can tell you the answer is no.”

I loved him with every inch of my heart, but would my love be enough to make him happy, without…the privileged life he was accustomed to?

I knew it then. I couldn’t fit into Charles’s world any more than he could fit into mine.

“So how much do I need to give you?” she asked again. “How much to get you out of here?”

I held up my hand. “Nothing,” I said, rising to my feet. “I understand.”

I walked up the gravel path and to the road. Charles’s voice rang out in the distance, calling to me like a lighthouse to a lost ship, and yet I kept walking. The charade had to end. Josie may have been cruel, but she was right. It would never work, Charles and me.

“Vera!” he shouted, catching up to me. I felt his hand on my shoulder. “Please wait. I’m so sorry about the way they treated you in there. Let’s go. Let’s leave together.”

I blinked back tears. “I can’t, Charles,” I said. “This is what I
have feared all along, but today, it just confirmed everything for me. I love you. So much. But I can’t marry you.”

I hated to see my words wound him so deeply.

“Why not?”

“Don’t you see?” I ran my hand along his face. “We could never make it work. We’re from two different worlds.”

“But that doesn’t matter,” he pleaded. “It doesn’t have to.”

“But it does,” I said. “I’m sorry, Charles. I’m not the woman for you.” He would have given up everything for me, but I loved him enough that I wouldn’t let him do it.

He stood dumfounded as I ran past the clipped boxwood hedge, pushing open the iron gate. I walked along the road, unsure of how I’d get home, miles away from the city. When I heard the sound of Charles’s car approaching and his voice calling my name out the window, I ducked behind a tree. “Vera!” he screamed. “Vera!” His desperate tone broke my heart. I wanted to shout,
Here I am, Charles! Let’s run away together. Let’s start a new life on our own terms.
But in my heart, I knew that Josie was right. I crouched lower until the Buick was out of sight.

On the main road, cars barreled past, splashing mud onto my dress.
What does it matter?
I held out my hand, trying unsuccessfully to flag down a car, and then another. Finally, a truck pulled over. White, with a rusted hood and piles of tile stacked in the back. A man waved to me from the front seat. “Where to, miss?” He spoke in a thick foreign accent that reminded me of the Russian families who lived in my building.

“I’m trying to get back to the city,” I said, wiping away a tear. “Can you take me?”

“That’s where I’m headed,” he said.

I climbed inside the truck and closed the heavy door with all
my might. It smelled of must and gasoline. As he revved the engine and turned in to traffic, I cast a backward glance on the entrance to Windermere.

“The name’s Ivanoff,” the man said, casting a sideways glance at me. “Sven Ivanoff.”

C
LAIRE

I
stuffed a piece of pizza in my mouth, then washed it down with a sip of red wine. “He called,” I said to Abby. We both sat on the floor in front of the TV in my apartment, pizza box open on the coffee table, wine bottle at the ready.

“Wait,” she said. “Which one?”

“Ethan.”

“And?”

“He left two voice mails. The first: ‘Claire, I stayed at my parents’ suite at the hotel last night after the party. Had too many drinks. You understand.’”

“Oh, honey,” she said. “That doesn’t sound good.”

I frowned. “It gets worse. The second, which I just got an hour ago, went like this: “Claire, I’m heading to Portland tonight for a conference. Will be back on Sunday.”

Abby shook her head. “What conference?”

“That’s the thing,” I said. “I did some searching, and take a wild guess.”

“No,” Abby said. “Don’t tell me he went with—”

“Cassandra? You guessed it. Well, I’m not one hundred percent certain, but the only conference that I could find in Portland is a food writers’ convention. So, you do the math.”

“That doesn’t bode well,” Abby said, taking a sip of wine. “
If
it’s true.”

I shrugged. “After seeing them together last night, I have no doubt it is.”

I set my foot on the lower ledge of the coffee table and a stack of photo albums toppled over onto the rug. One flipped open, spreading its pages out as if to taunt me. I picked it up and leaned over the page. There we were, Ethan and I on our wedding day, I in my strapless white gown. Ethan’s mother had made a fuss about strapless being inappropriate in a Catholic church, but Ethan had put a stop to it. He’d been on my team. I longed for those days. I longed for him. I ran my hand along the photo, letting my finger rest on his cheek. I’d tucked a photo of my grandparents on their wedding day next to ours when I put the album together. The black-and-white print had faded over the years. I’d looked at it hundreds of times as a girl, memorizing the look of love on both of their faces. True love. But not until that moment did I notice a piece of paper in my grandmother’s hands. I squinted, trying to make out the words.

“Abby, look at this,” I said, pointing to the photo. “Can you tell what that says?”

She reached for her glasses on the table and took the album in her hands. “Well,” she said, “I think it says, ‘Sonnet 43.’”

“What does that mean?”

“A little rusty on our English lit, are we?” she said in a mocking voice.

I rolled my eyes. “Well, while you were reciting poetry, I was
hunched over the copy desk, line-editing the newspaper. There wasn’t time for
fluff
.” Abby had been an English literature major, while I had taken the journalism track. It was a long-running feud.

“All right, all right,” she said. “But do you want to know what this is or not?”

“Fill me in, Shakespeare.”

Abby smirked. “It’s Elizabeth Barrett Browning, silly. You know, the famous poem, ‘How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways.’”

“Oh,” I said, remembering it in an instant. “I do know that one.”

“Of course you do,” she continued. “It’s only the most important love poem in the history of love poems.” She pulled up the verse on her phone and read out the lines.

I leaned back against the couch, keeping my wineglass close at hand. “How romantic,” I said, glancing at the photo again. “I bet she read it to him at their reception.”

Abby nodded. “You can see the words echoing in his ears. Look at his face. He cherishes her.”

“He did,” I said. “It’s all Mom talked about growing up, which is why she’s had two failed marriages, I think. She could never find her prince charming the way Grandma did.” I sighed, closing the album.

Abby leaned her head against my shoulder. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m afraid of failing, Abs. I’m afraid that our marriage was put to the test, and it wilted under pressure.”

Abby opened up the album again, pointing to the black-and-white photo. “I don’t care how perfect you say their marriage was; I’m sure they had their own problems.”

I gave her a doubtful look.

“Listen, I know you, Claire, and I know you love Ethan deeply. So why not fight for him? Cassandra has her hooks in him, but only because you stepped aside.”

I took a bite of pizza crust and then tossed it back into the box, thinking of the fine food she and Ethan were probably enjoying at the conference. “So what do you think I should do? Drive down there?”

“No, but for starters, you could return his call,” she said. “He’s called you, what, twice now and left messages?”

“Yeah.”

Abby grinned. “Call him.”

I picked up my cell phone and scrolled to his number. The connection went through, and my heart beat the way it would when calling someone after a first date. After the third ring, however, I let out a disappointed sigh.

“Voice mail,” I mouthed to Abby.

“Leave him a message,” she whispered.

I shook my head.

“Do it!”

“Uh, Ethan, this is Claire. I got your messages. Listen, when you get back from the, um, conference, can we talk? I miss you.” I paused, and Abby poked me in the thigh. “And
I love you
.”

“There,” I said. “I sounded like a total idiot. Are you happy?”

“Good girl,” she said, refilling my wineglass.

A moment later my cell phone buzzed. The vibration startled me and I spilled wine on the coffee table as I reached for the phone. Abby sopped up the mess with a stack of napkins by the pizza box. I looked at the screen. “Abby, it’s him.”

The phone buzzed again. “Well, aren’t you going to answer it?”

I took a deep breath and picked up, holding the phone to my ear. “Hi Ethan.” I couldn’t wait to hear his voice, to hear him tell me how much he missed me, that the message I’d left had touched him. After all, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d uttered the words
I love you
.

But instead of his voice on the line, I heard only commotion, a distant jostling sound. I detected the jingle of car keys, then a door slamming. “Ethan?” I said. “Can you hear me?” I turned to Abby dejectedly. “I think it’s a pocket call.” I continued to listen until I thought I heard the muffled sound of a female voice.

I hung up.

“What happened? What did he say?”

I wiped a tear from my cheek, before pushing the photo album away with my foot. “I think he’s with
her
.”

“How do you know?” Abby said.

I folded my arms, staring ahead, crestfallen. “There was a woman in the background.”

“Claire, it could have been anyone. Maybe it was a waitress at a restaurant.”

I shook my head. “No. It was her. I know it was.”

Abby held out her hand. “Not yet,” she said. “Don’t mourn the marriage yet. Don’t write the obituary. Wait until he’s back from Portland. Talk to him. Then make your decision.”

I shrugged.

“For now, we’ll have pizza and wine.” She reached for the remote control. “And Lifetime Original Movies.”

I sighed, never more grateful for my friend than at that moment.

Before my trip to see Lillian Sharpe in Windermere on Sunday morning, I stopped at the assisted living facility where Ethan’s grandfather
was recovering. After the terse exchange with Glenda at the hospital, boundary lines had been drawn, and it was clear I was to leave Warren well enough alone. But he’d called me over the weekend. He missed me. For Warren, I decided to break the rules.