by Susan Wiggs
“This is wine country,” he said. “We don’t kid about grapes. You’re about to compete in the hope of being named America’s greatest stomper.”
“Really? Really?”
He grabbed her hand and led her up to the stage. “Come on, I’ll be right next to you.”
She eyed the mounded dark grapes in her barrel, then her sister, who stood below to catch the juice from the spigot into a clear jug. “How come I have to stomp?” she demanded.
“You never stop moving,” Dominic said. “You’ll be a natural. Shoes off.”
“Stompers, take your places,” called the official. “The timer starts...now!”
Leaving all dignity behind, Tess jumped in. She immediately teetered on the mound of grapes and would have fallen, except that Dominic grabbed her by the arms and held her steady.
“It’s harder than it looks,” she admitted, holding on tight.
“In winemaking, everything is harder than it looks,” he said.
She let go of him. “I’ve got this,” she said, her drive to succeed kicking in.
The stomping frenzy was accompanied by loud cheers from the crowd. Tess found a kind of crazy pleasure in the sensation of the grapes under her bare feet, the cool juice spurting, turning her feet and ankles a deep, rich shade of burgundy. She was amazed at how liberating it was to simply immerse herself into the messy fun. She could hear Dominic next to her, laughing, encouraging his kids to take turns as swabby.
Showing an unexpectedly competitive side of herself, Isabel was an expert swabby, efficiently pulling the grape skins away from the screen and pushing juice toward the pipe. Tess sped up as the timer ran down, and the crowd counted out the final seconds until the bell rang.
Breathless and laughing, she stood in the delicious-smelling muck and cheered as Isabel hoisted her jug. However, when the official amounts were announced, the winners were Bob and Fay Krokower, who apparently had been in training for the event for weeks.
“We were close,” Isabel said, spraying Tess’s and Dominic’s feet with a water hose. “But Bob’s feet are huge, did you see? There’s no competing with that.”
* * *
Dominic brought them home just after dark. Tess felt grubby and sticky, but decidedly more cheerful than she had earlier in the day. “You were right about us needing to get out,” she said to Dominic.
“Yes, thanks for that,” said Isabel.
He said something in Italian. The sound of him speaking so fluently nearly undid Tess.
“Okay,” she said, “translation, please?”
“Having a little fun never made a problem worse, right?” said Trini.
“You got it,” he replied, turning up the long drive to Bella Vista. There was a big golden moon tonight, nearly full, lighting the orchards.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” said Dominic. He went around and let Charlie out of the back of the car.
“Good night, you two,” said Tess. Trini and Antonio looked sweetly sleepy, slumped together in the backseat.
As she went up the walk, she felt Dominic’s hand, very light on her waist. She sent him a questioning glance. Was his touch simply chivalry, or something else?
* * *
The long, sad process of sorting through the estate records had to start somewhere. Tess and Isabel elected to begin with Magnus’s study the next morning, sifting through the souvenirs and relics of the life he’d lived since first coming to Bella Vista with his war bride. Although the foreclosure couldn’t be stopped, barring a miracle or winning lottery ticket, there were key records that needed to be accounted for. More than that, there were questions that needed answers.
An air of unfinished business hung in the study, a huge, cluttered room with a big arched picture window and shelves as high as the ceiling. As they regarded the mounds of old records and papers, Isabel sighed in frustration. “It’s hard to decide where to start. Getting his things in order is like finding a needle in a haystack. No, it’s not,” she corrected herself. “At least we know what a needle looks like. This is a disaster.”
Tess looked around at the crammed shelves, the littered desk, the drawers stuffed with detritus. “Doesn’t look so bad to me.”
“It’s completely disorganized. Look, he’s shelved used checkbooks with back issues of the Farmers’ Almanac. Who does that?”
“Just one used checkbook, see? He probably took some notes on the back of a check copy and— See?” Tess found a handwritten note on the back of a check: Newtown Pippin. “No idea what he meant by that, though.”
“It’s an apple variety,” said Isabel. “We used to sell the entire crop of that variety to Martinelli’s for cider.”
Tess continued with the sorting. “Everything is so humble,” she said. “Ordinary. A shaving mug and brush, a sewing kit, a cribbage board.” Tess came across one of Magnus’s special carved boxes. More than one person at the healing ceremony had spoken of his distinctive carving style and his affinity for puzzles. She was intrigued to see it for herself. The top depicted a stylized apple tree laden with fruit, the sides twined with sunflowers in bas-relief. The design was a combination of whimsy and abundance, with a subtle Nordic look. Nothing was symmetrical, but she felt a peculiar balance in the design of the piece.
She held it up, feeling the contents slide around. “Recognize this?”
“Definitely one of Grandfather’s. He made so many of them.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Tess, holding it out. “Very refined. Any clue how to open it?” The thing had no visible hinges or latches.
Isabel took the box and tipped it to and fro. “Grandfather loved his puzzle boxes. He made so many of them. He used to say they were for keeping family treasures.” A wistful smile softened her face. “When I was little, I asked him why they were almost always empty. He said because I’ve grown too big to fit in a little box.”
Tess could see the fresh wave of sadness breaking over her sister. To Isabel, this wasn’t some puzzle or Nancy Drew mystery to be solved. Magnus was the biggest part of her life, and now he was likely dying, leaving her with nothing but memories.
Isabel shook the box Tess had found, her eyebrows lifting in surprise as she heard something rattling inside. “This one was a gift to Bubbie—our grandmother, Eva. I can tell because he always used a sunflower design in his gifts to her. He gave her a box each birthday, and she’d spend half the day trying to get it open.”
Tess wondered if it was easy for Isabel to say “our” grandmother. “If he gave her a box for each birthday, I wonder why we’re only seeing this one,” she mused.
“He put most of Bubbie’s things away after she died. Too many reminders of her made him sad. There’s a cupboard in one of the closed wings.... I think he stuck them all away there.” Isabel ran her fingers along the edges and joinery of the piece. Eventually she touched the center of a carved sunflower, and the lid cracked open.
“Very clever,” Tess said. “What’s inside? Please tell me it’s the deed to Bella Vista, free and clear.”
Isabel flashed her a rare smile and flipped open the box. It contained immigration papers, ticket stubs, items clipped from the paper—the sort of things people kept to remind them of a particular moment. “This is pretty,” she said, removing an object from notebook paper with writing on it. “It’s a little knickknack or ornament.” She smoothed the paper on her knee. “Looks like a poem in Bubbie’s handwriting.” Taking a breath, she read, “‘To the child I want who can never be/please fill the empty cup of my heart/With the love I held in reserve just for you.’”
A shiver coursed through Tess. “What do you suppose that’s about?”
“I don’t quite understand,” Isabel said. “I get that she was sad, though. She got that way sometimes. I know she lost her entire family in the war, and she always carried that sadness with her.”
Tess picked up the knickknack. It was unexpectedly dense. Alabaster, she thought. The angel had golden wings, its halo a crown of leaves and its tiny
hands holding a candle.
She peered through her loupe, inspecting each detail. She kept a poker face, but her gut clenched, the way it did when she came across something valuable. Her instincts vibrated like a tuning fork. “Do you know anything about this?” she asked Isabel.
“I’ve never seen it before.”
“It’s...unusual. Alabaster, with some amazing detail that’s probably pure gold. This looks almost like a cameo in 3-D, doesn’t it? The filigree pattern might be Polish or Russian.”
“Pretty,” said Isabel. “And Bubbie was never big on souvenirs. This must have meant something to her. I wonder where it came from.”
“I’ll do some research on it,” said Tess. “I mean, if that’s okay with you.”
“Of course it’s okay.” Isabel was flipping through the photos. “You know what I think these are? Pictures for Bubbie’s scrapbook collection. I remember, she gathered them all together years ago. She’d joined a scrapbooking club in town. Women would get together and create these amazing books filled with family photos. The books were like works of art.”
“So, did your grandmother ever create one?”
Isabel’s eyes turned misty with affection. “She came home after the first meeting practically in tears. She was overwhelmed by the work it would take to put everything into some sort of order.”
“That kind of project isn’t for everybody,” Tess said.
“Definitely not for Bubbie. She never went back to the scrapbooking club, although she felt sort of guilty about that. I remember she told me she could either spend her time working on a scrapbook about her life, or actually living her life. And she chose to live her life.” Isabel picked up a print of a small, dark-haired woman in tennis clothes, grinning at the camera. She had bold features, and Tess found herself looking for a family resemblance. She couldn’t find any, not in this picture.
“Seems like that was the right choice for her,” Tess said, searching the face in the photograph.
“Absolutely,” said Isabel. “About a year later, she was diagnosed with cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. It’s been years, and I still miss her every day. She was the only mom I knew.”
Tess nodded at the box, suddenly consumed by curiosity about the strangers who had contributed half her DNA. “Do you mind if I take a look?”
“Go ahead,” said Isabel. “This must be weird for you.”
“It is. And kind of fascinating.” She flipped over a photograph or two, checking the dates on the backs. “The pictures might be in chronological order.”
“Maybe Bubbie did a little organizing, even though she never got going on that scrapbook.”
The more recent shots were located toward the front of the box. Tess paused to study a studio portrait of a smiling, ginger-haired baby, seated next to a sock monkey against a backdrop of fake fur.
“Our father was a beautiful baby,” Isabel said softly. “Look at those green eyes.”
A chill crept across Tess’s spine. “This is not our father.”
“What do you mean? It looks like all the other pictures of him.”
“This is a color portrait,” Tess said, her pulse accelerating. “Pictures didn’t look like this in the sixties.”
“You’re right.” Isabel frowned. “Then who...how?”
Almost reluctantly, Tess checked the back of the photo. One word was written there: Theresa. “How the hell did they get a picture of me?” she whispered.
“I have no idea,” Isabel said. “Honestly, I don’t.”
Tess didn’t know how to feel about this new development. The photo created more questions than answers, and it was the only one of her. The rest of the archive featured Isabel prominently, the star of the show. The snapshots told the story of a happy childhood in a storybook setting, nearly always in the middle of a party or celebration. If the photos were to be believed, the former Isabel was outgoing, constantly entertaining people, always on the go. Tess found this surprising, because the Isabel before her now, grieving and timid, seemed to have very little in common with the Isabel of the past.
“One day you’ll have to tell me what it was like, growing up in one place,” said Tess.
“And you’ll have to tell me what it was like, traveling the world as you were growing up.”
They regarded each other briefly, and Tess felt a twinge of emotion. A connection? Maybe not that, but a sense that went deeper than mere curiosity.
Tess went back to the photo archive. She noticed a change in Isabel in the shots before she left for culinary school and after she came back home. The earlier pictures depicted a young girl just growing into her beauty, her expression on fire with excitement. The latter photos showed a more subdued, grown-up Isabel, her beauty muted or maybe even haunted. Tess wondered if the passage of time alone had changed her or if something had happened.
Losing her grandmother had undoubtedly been an enormous blow. Tess understood that; she still remembered the emptiness of life without Nana and the way she’d worn the grief like a hair shirt for months. However, eventually she’d shaken herself out of it, knowing Nana would scold her to kingdom come if she caught her moping.
“Look how young they were.” Isabel showed Tess a black-and-white 8 x 10 shot of Magnus and Eva. The two of them posed in the flat bed of a farm truck between rows of apple trees, the boughs heavy with fruit. Between them, they held up a bushel filled with ripe apples. The label on the bushel read Bella Vista Honeycrisps.
“I think this was taken to commemorate their first harvest,” said Isabel. “Bubbie was so young and pretty.”
“It’s a wonderful shot,” said Tess. “They look genuinely happy.”
Eva hardly resembled a farm wife. She was perfectly made up, and had every hair in place. She wore tailored slacks nipped in at the waist and a plaid shirt with the sleeves carefully rolled back. Tess studied her for a long time—her father’s mother. She had deep-set eyes enhanced by thick lashes. The shape of her face, the arch of her brow, her smile—they added up to a very pretty woman, but Tess could see none of herself in Eva. For that matter, she couldn’t see a resemblance to Isabel, either.
She tried to hold herself detached from Magnus and Eva, but there was something in knowing she was connected to them, that they’d lived in this world, moved through these rooms, cultivated the vast and colorful orchards and gardens. Their son had fathered her. She found herself yearning to know more about them, to know the sound of their voices and the smell of their hair, the feel of their hands, holding hers.
Her gaze was drawn to a shadow on the woman’s arm. At first she thought it was a bruise. Then she frowned, looking closer. Finally she took out her magnifying glass, the high-powered, lighted one she always carried in her bag.
“What are you doing?” asked Isabel, who was sorting through more farm pictures.
“Trying to get a closer look. There’s something on her arm.”
Isabel hesitated. “It’s a tattoo.”
Theresienstadt. Tess pictured a small, frightened girl being marked for life by her Nazi captors. With a shudder, she set aside the magnifier and stared at the smiling couple in the photograph. It was a miracle, she thought, that anyone could smile like that after such an ordeal.
“She never talked about it,” Isabel went on. “I kind of wish she had, but I understand why she didn’t.”
Tess set the picture aside, her throat aching with grief. That was the trouble with learning the history of things and the secrets of another person. Sometimes you discovered hurt beyond imagining, and there was no way to make it better.
“Our father,” said Isabel, laying a group of snapshots out on the table. Various phases of his life had been captured, from moon-faced newborn to strapping young man.
Tess bit her lip, drawn to the images of the stranger who had fathered them both, presumably within weeks or even days of each other. There was no denying he was a handsome boy, tall for his age in the class pictures, a high
school jock and college fraternity brother.
“He looks so much like Grandfather,” Isabel murmured. “And you. Do you see it?”
“I see a stranger,” Tess said. She made herself study the shape of his nose and the tilt of his head when he smiled. “Okay, yes, it’s weird, but there’s something familiar about him.”
“Let’s keep these separate,” Isabel said, placing them on a shelf.
Tess sorted through more photographs, most of them faded to soft grays and some even in sepia tones. There were stiffly posed formal portraits of long-gone strangers, shots of Magnus and his comrade in arms, Ramon Maldonado, both of them looking skinny and impossibly young, grinning from ear to ear on the deck of a ship of some sort. Near the bottom of the box they found some pictures of old Denmark. The Johansen family had lived in a genteel-looking area of old Copenhagen, and they’d had an apple farm out in the countryside in a place called Helsingør. As expected, pictures of the past were sparse. When Tess was doing research for work, the scarcity of evidence excited her, made her want to dig deeper. She felt that now, but with a heightened sense of urgency.
Lastly, she came to a translucent vellum envelope containing a hinged frame the size of a small book. Tess carefully opened it and laid it on the desk. “This might be the oldest of the lot.”
Isabel peered over her shoulder. “I don’t recall ever seeing that one.”
The photo showed a boy of perhaps twelve, standing next to an older man by a Christmas tree lit with candles and hung with traditional wooden ornaments and sprigs of holly and woven paper hearts. The room was decorated with old-fashioned opulence. There was a fringed ottoman and in the background, a painting on the wall and a curio cabinet.
Tess studied the smiling face of the boy. It was the smile that shone on the faces of children everywhere at Christmastime—eyes sparkling with anticipation, lips ripe with secrets. Her gaze touched every detail of the photo. It was part training, part simple curiosity. As she scanned the background of the photograph, a frisson of awareness touched her spine. She made no sound, and her expression didn’t change as she took out the magnifying glass again.