“Tomorrow? You are escorting Emma back to the hospital there?”
“Yes, but it’s more than that. I have to go back to California for a little while,” Rosalyn continued. “I have things to do in Napa.”
“You have to get back to selling wine?”
“Actually, I quit my job. I don’t want to sell wine anymore. But I have to finish up with my boss and help train my replacement. And, most important, I have to clean out my medicine cabinet.”
The lines between his eyes deepened. They reminded her of the vineyards, carefully laid out in their parallel rows. The worries of war and harvest, the preoccupations of Champagne and theChampenois, now and forever.
“The medicine cabinet?” he asked. “Is that a metaphor?”
“In a manner of speaking. I’ll explain it to you one of these days, I promise.” Rosalyn’s mind went to the aqua bath mat, the vials lined up on the shelves. They no longer felt like a temptation, just a sad reminder of what Dash—and she—had gone through toward the end. “I left a life behind in Napa, Jérôme. Not one that I want anymore. I realize that now. But I have to go put things right.”
Their gaze held for a long moment.
“I was going to call you,” Jérôme said. “I have something to show you in the library.”
As they carried their mugs of coffee down the hall, Rosalyn studied the stone of the floor, the chartreuse molding, the surprising modern art hung on the ancient walls, splashes of color everywhere.
They stepped into that fantasy library.
Jérôme took a book off a stack on the desk and handed it to her. “Look inside.”
She opened the crumbly leather cover and saw the signature she had read so many times:Émile Paul Legrand.
Rosalyn let out a little gasp. “Where did you find this?”
“Right here, in the library. After what we found in the Pommery caves, I started looking through the books in earnest. There are many inscribed with the name Émile Paul Legrand—the man who built this library.”
“So we were right? Émile—myÉmile—was your great-grandfather,” Rosalyn said, a note of wonder in her voice. “Among other things, that means that you and Emma are cousins.”
“Pardon?”
“Emma discovered she’s the granddaughter of Émile and Lucie’s daughter. Everyone thought Émile had been killed in the war, so when Lucie died their daughter, Narcissa, was adopted by—”
“The Australian woman who corresponded with Émile during the war?”
“The very one.”
“I don’t understand.... Why didn’t Émile search for their baby?”
“He didn’t even know Lucie was expecting a child,” said Rosalyn. “She hadn’t told him yet when he went missing and was presumed dead. I suppose by the time he was well enough to return to Reims, everyone had dispersed, and he couldn’t find anyone who knew her, or who knew what had happened to her.”
“I also found this, tucked into a book of Charles Baudelaire’s poetry.” Jérôme handed Rosalyn a very old newspaper clipping, in which one Émile Paul Legrand, of Reims, was searching for anyone with knowledge about one Lucie Camille Maréchal Legrand, whose last known address was in the Dakar niche of the Pommery caves.
“So hedidsearch for Lucie.”
Jérôme nodded. “I wonder how long he looked before giving up, assuming he ever did give up.”
“Why didn’t he write to Doris to let her know what happened, after he’d recovered?” Rosalyn asked herself as much as she asked Jérôme.
“I doubt he even still had her address; he had no personal items with him. Or perhaps he simply didn’t want to remember anything that would remind him of the war.”
“And yet he remarried, and started another family, kept his bees, planted a vineyard, and built this library. That’s quite a spirit of resilience. I wish I could have known him.”
“I have a feeling you know him better than a lot of people, because of his letters.”
Once again their eyes met, and held. Jérôme reached out and took Rosalyn’s hand, traced the faint blue veins, toyed with her fingers. Her skin felt hot under his touch.
