The Winemaker's Wife by Kristin Harmel

Author:Kristin Harmel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

twenty

JUNE 2019

LIV

Liv knew she’d been rude to snap at Grandma Edith the day before, but she was tired of walking on eggshells, of fumbling her way through the dark while Grandma Edith held all the cards. Besides, what was so wrong with expressing disgust over the possibility of an affair? She still couldn’t believe Julien had kissed her—and that she hadn’t immediately stopped it. The thought had kept her awake all night, and she was up before dawn, ready to apologize to her grandmother, at least. But Grandma Edith spent the morning holed up in her own bedroom, refusing to talk to Liv beyond barking through the closed door that she was perfectly all right.

After a while, Liv got dressed and set out from the hotel headed south, away from the Place d’Erlon, not sure where her feet would carry her. Why was it that the first man to make her laugh in months—the first man who’d made her feel valued in ages—belonged to someone else? She wiped at her lips angrily, furious at herself. Had she led Julien on by confiding in him about her own troubles and giggling at his jokes?

But even now, even with guilt sweeping through her, she felt a strange, shameful sense of emptiness. She had liked bantering with him. She had been at home with him. And when he’d kissed her, it had felt right. What did that say about her? She was apparently no different from Eric’s new girlfriend—except she was a decade and a half older and knew all too well the kind of despair and damage infidelity could bring.

She slowed to let a group of tourists pass in front of her on the corner of the rue de Thillois, and as she did, she looked up and saw that she had paused just across the street from the Brasserie Moulin. She stood there, wondering if she had subconsciously come this way or whether it was a sign. But it didn’t matter. She was here, and she wanted the truth. She crossed the road and headed inside.

“Bonjour, une table pour une personne, s’il vous plaît,” Liv said to the waiter up front, glancing again at the framed photo of her grandmother by the door. The waiter smiled, grabbed a menu, and began to lead Liv to a table, but she called out, “Wait!”

He turned, surprised. “Oui, madame?”

“Do you speak English?”

He hesitated. “A little. What can I do?”

“I just—I had a question about this photograph.” She pointed to the picture, and he returned to look at it.

“Yes?”

“This is going to sound strange, but I think the people in it might be my grandparents.”

The man frowned. “These people, the Thierrys, they owned this brasserie many years ago.”

“Yes.” Liv tapped the photo. “My grandmother is Edith Thierry. She brought me here to Reims this week.”

“But the woman in the picture, she couldn’t possibly be alive, madame. She’d be well over one hundred years old, I think.”

“Ninety-nine, actually, which would have made her nineteen in this photo.

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