If Rosalyn had anticipated a sun-drenched bacchanal, or anI Love Lucy–style escapade stomping grapes with her bare feet, she had seriously miscalculated. Instead, clad in rubber boots and rain slickers and wide-brimmed hats, gripping theirsécateurs, the workers left at dawn in vans that transported them to their daily section of the vines.
Foliage rustled, birds chirped, frogs croaked, andsécateurssnapped as Rosalyn pawed through dew-wet vine leaves in search of the correct stem to cut, which was tougher than it looked. The plants wereladen with fruit, the warm air redolent with the honeyed scent of ripe grapes. She reached up to touch the silver locket she still wore around her neck; it had become her talisman.
Dash would have loved this.
Rosalyn carried her late husband with her still, a constant companion. His presence was no longer a burden, but a memory she embraced, a balance of contradictory emotions, both happy and sad at the same time.
Dash—through Hugh—had brought her to Champagne, where she had met Emma and Blondine and Jérôme and had uncovered the story of Émile and Lucie and baby Narcissa.
It was because of Dash that Rosalyn had come to savor champagne, and to love the region of Champagne, with all the secrets and stories hidden within and beneath its lush vineyards.
A bunch of grapes tumbled into her hand, and she placed it in a bucket, which would then be dumped—gently—into a thick plastic box at the end of the row, its contents later to be tipped into thepressoir.
Kneeling, stooping, and bending over the plants, she thought of Lucie doing the same, somewhere among the grapevines, bringing in the harvest no matter the circumstances. She pondered Émile putting one foot in front of the other after the war, heartbroken and maimed, but making a new home, setting up his beehives, planting the vines, and starting a family. She reflected on the terrible pathos of Émile losing not only his first wife but also his unknown daughter. She also thought of the joy of learning that Narcissa had grown up strong with Doris’s brother in Australia, safe from the destruction and ruins of war-torn Champagne.
Her bucket grew heavy as she crept down the row, but Rosalyn was happy to be part of thehordon. They would bring in the harvest; they would make the wine.
And then they would drink their fill.
The skies began to clear, the sun peeking out from behind steel gray clouds, sunlight reaching the vines in streams like heavenly spotlights. Rosalyn straightened to stretch her back just as Jérôme came by to retrieve her full bucket of grapes, dropping an empty one in its place.
“Bon travail.Are you doing okay? Need a break?”
“No. I’m doing great.”
Their eyes held for a long moment, and they shared a small secret smile. Jérôme had insisted on picking Rosalyn up at the airport in Paris, and their reunion had been sublime, both of them feeling excited and shy, especially after the intimate revelations in their letters. They passed two romantic nights together in his flat on the Left Bank of Paris, not far from the Sorbonne, and spent their days walking, sightseeing, eating at brasseries, and walking some more. Pausing in front of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, closed for renovations to repair damage from a devastating fire, Rosalyn couldn’t help but think of the Reims Cathedral after the First World War: how the stained glass had been replaced, the wooden features carved anew, and the Smile of Reims restored and returned to her rightful place.
As Lucie said, the human spirit is a resilient thing.
On the third day, as they drove from Paris to Comtois Père et Fils, Jérôme stopped in Cochet to show Rosalyn yet another discovery, this time in the little village cemetery adjacent to the church. In a Comtois family plot, listed alongside numerous names of the extended family, was one Émile Paul Legrand, 1895–1976. Jérôme brought a jar of honey in lieu of flowers to place at the grave, and suggested he and Rosalyn return to plant narcissus bulbs, which would rise and bloom each spring, in recognition of the daughter Émile had never known.
After all the time they had spent searching for him, it turned out Émile had been right there with them in Cochet.
As Rosalyn bent over the vines, she sent out a whisperedmercito Émile and Lucie for reaching out over the years, beyond the veil, to help her to come to peace with death and, most especially, life.
Two rows over, a man started singing in a language Rosalyn didn’t recognize.
Turning her face up to the sunshine, she let the graceful, sonorous notes of the tenor voice slip over her. She didn’t need to understand the words to recognize their beauty.
She would be patient with all that was unsolved in her heart.
She would live thequestions.
