“Seriously, Rosalyn? What happened?”
“It was just too much, too fast, I guess. Maybe. I don’t know, with Lucie’s cave and everything....” She trailed off.
“Maybe it’s the meds, but I’m not following you, sweetie.”
“Isleptwith Jérôme,” Rosalyn finally blurted out, letting the tears come, and turn into sobs.
“Crikey, was it that bad?”
“No. It waswonderful. More than that. Absolutely amazing. I had forgotten how it could be.”
“But?”
“But as soon as it was over, I felt...” Rosalyn’s voice wavered. “I feel like I’ve betrayed Dash. Iknowhe’s been dead for years now. I know he’s never coming back, but it still feels like a betrayal, as if I’m forgetting him, letting him go.”
“I think it’s more than that.”
Rosalyn sniffed loudly, and Emma passed tissues.
“I think you need to forgive yourself for loving Dash,” Emma said. “For loving him despite the fact that he screwed up royally. He left you in debt, and given that he was human, I assume there were a few other thoughtless or stupid things he did.”
“Like hiding from me the fact that he was sick.”
“Dash didn’t tell you?”
Rosalyn shook her head. “Not until he had to. Sometimes I wonder... maybe if he’d gone to the doctor earlier, if he had taken better care of himself, if he had let me help him... maybe things would have been different.”
“Maybe. But then, maybe not. My point is this: It’s all right to love deeply flawed people. You can be angry at Dash and yet still love him; you can love other people and still honor what you had with him. In a way you’re betrayingyourselfby seeing Dash as perfect.”
She could love Dash even though he was flawed. She could mourn him even though she was angry at him.Rosalyn was going to have to ponderthat one further. Still, she felt like a weight was lifted off her back—not the boulder she usually hauled around, but a stone, at the very least.
“But I really didn’t come here to talk about me,” said Rosalyn. “Back to you, and your wine business... I could... I mean, if you really need someone to take over for you...”
The weight settled right back on Rosalyn’s shoulders. She would do this for Emma; she would do anything Emma wanted her to do. But running a wine business, going back into sales... Her heart dropped at the thought. It was one thing to bring in the harvest, maybe even to try her hand atmakingwine, but never again did she want to have to sell.
“For the love ofGod, Rosalyn,” said Emma, “you are incapable of keeping the emotions from your face. Listen, it was just an idea. You don’t want to do it, I’ll find someone else. I’ve got a little time, several months, at least, maybe more.”
An idea occurred to Rosalyn. “What about Blondine? I could help out until she gets her feet under her—I don’t mind consulting. I just don’t want torunthe thing. I was planning on introducing her to my boss, Hugh; maybe you three could form a partnership of some sort. An international concern, with Blondine as liaison, and André here on the ground in Champagne.”
Emma smiled. “I like the sound of that. I’ll look into it. But back to you: If you don’t want to work for Hugh, and you don’t want to stay with that luscious vintner Jérôme... what is it that youdowant, Rosie? You want to go back to Napa?”
“Not permanently.”
Rosalyn’s life in Napa had been all about Dash: what he’d wanted and what he’d needed. And she had loved it. But she realized now that even if Dash hadn’t gotten sick, things would have changed. He would have had to admit the money problems, and given their different approaches to the world, their dynamic would have shifted.Perhaps they would have weathered the storm; perhaps it would have put them on a more even keel as partners. But things would have changed, no matter what.
Fairy tales didn’t last. But maybe that was okay.
Her life couldn’t be about what Dash wanted anymore. It had to be about whatshewanted.
“Hey, you’ll never guess what Jérôme and I found in the Pommery caves,” said Rosalyn, eager to share her news—and to change the subject. She brought out her phone and scrolled through to show Emma, but it was hard to make out very much in the photographs.
“What am I looking at?”
“It’s Dakar, the niche Lucie’s family lived in, in the Pommery caves. Jérôme got us permission to explore. See? They had carved their names into the wall! And at the back, there was a crumbling section of wall, and we busted through and found the little area Émile wrote about, the ‘attic’ of Dakar.”
Emma sat up straighter. “Are you serious? You broke through a wall in the cellars? I knew we were on the same wavelength.”
“It’s hard to tell in the photo, but we found Doris’s letters.”
