by Susan Wiggs
* * *
That evening, as Isabel prepared for another cooking lesson, she seemed to blossom, a woman totally in her element. Tess wondered if her sister lay awake at night, worrying that she would soon have to leave this place and find herself adrift in a world she found deeply threatening.
“Can I ask you something?” She felt tentative, bringing up the subject with Isabel.
“Sure.”
“Um, suppose the foreclosure goes through, Isabel. Suppose you have to vacate Bella Vista.”
Isabel took out a clean apron, her face impassive. “I can’t think like that.”
“Listen, I’m really sorry to be the one to bring it up, but we should figure out a Plan B for you.”
“I know you mean well, Tess, but it’s not...” Her voice trailed off.
“Not what?”
“It’s not time. Not yet, anyway.”
“Time’s running out. Much as we both hate the idea, there will probably come a day when we have to vacate the premises.”
“But not today.” Isabel tied on the apron with a firm tug.
“Right. Not today.” Denial, she reflected, had its uses.
“Fine, then.” Isabel turned to the fridge and took out a sack of tomatoes.
“Fine. No matter what happens,” Tess said to her sister, “no matter how this turns out, you’re going to be fine. Anyone who can cook like you has a bright future.”
Isabel offered a wan smile. “It’s so hard to get my head around the idea of a different life. You’ve inspired me, though, the way you’ve adapted to being here. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“I haven’t adapted,” Tess admitted. “I’ve spent practically every day here wondering when I can get back to my life in the city, my job and friends. I’m sorry, Isabel, but as nice as it is here, I just don’t belong.”
“That’s not the impression I get when I see you and Dominic together.”
They shared a look, and Tess felt a wave of emotion. How quickly she’d found an affinity with Isabel, a woman so unlike her, they might have been from different species. Only a short time ago they had been strangers. Now she couldn’t imagine not knowing Isabel, her guileless and fragile sister. They shared a birthday, they shared their father’s DNA, but the bond now ran deeper than that; it ran as deep as blood and secrets.
“We’re going to be all right,” she said to Isabel. “One way or other, we’ll be okay.”
It was never a good idea to argue with denial. Or with magical thinking.
The process of cooking seemed to anchor Isabel, and she exuded contentment as she went about her business with a smooth competence Tess had never felt in a kitchen. She tried to act as if this were any other evening, but the prospect of Dominic coming over with his kids had filled her with a kind of breath-held anticipation she’d never felt before. She had done her makeup and dressed with special care in faded jeans and a dove-gray turtleneck, a pair of freshwater pearl earrings she’d found in one of the upstairs dressing rooms, her hair looped back in a ponytail. She studied her image in a small mirror on the wall. The line of tension between her eyebrows had eased; just letting in the feelings she was having for Dominic seemed to cause something inside her to unfurl.
“Nice,” said Isabel, checking her out.
“Am I too transparent?”
“Not at all. He’s into you, no matter how you’re dressed.”
“You read my mind,” Tess admitted.
“That’s what sisters do, right?”
“I met his wife,” Tess blurted out. “His ex, that is.”
Isabel busied herself arranging herbs and tomatoes on a big olivewood cutting board. “And?”
“She came barging into his house while I was over there, as if the place still belonged to her.”
“Sounds like Lourdes,” Isabel murmured.
“He said she has a problem with boundaries. She’s not what I expected. Actually, I don’t know what I expected. I figured she’d be pretty, and she is. Down-to-earth, too. Nice, even. Not to me, of course.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s understandable. She’s a lawyer, right?”
“A good one. She’s a partner in a local practice.”
“She told me flat out she wants to get back together with Dominic.”
Isabel paused in setting up the cutting board. “She’s never made a secret of it.”
“What’s up with that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe being single isn’t all she thought it would be. She’s had a few boyfriends, and none of them have worked out. Could be she didn’t realize what she had with Dominic until it was over. Does it worry you?”
“Hell, yeah, it worries me. I hardly know anything about him. For all I know, there are still feelings buried inside him—”
“You can’t think like that, Tess. If he says he’s moved on, he’s moved on.”
“But they have a family. A past. History...”
“We all do. You can’t rewind life or undo things.”
“How’d you get so smart?”
Isabel smiled. “I take after my big sister.” She was referring to the gap of a few hours, after Tess had been born but before Isabel had made her appearance. “Grandfather says—”
“We’re here,” sang Trini, coming in through the back door. “We’re ready for more cooking.” Charlie trotted into the room and barked a greeting, and Antonio started tussling with him on the floor. Dominic arrived last, straight from work with his dress shirt unbuttoned at the throat and his sleeves rolled back, a grin lighting his face. He always looked so happy around his kids. No wonder Lourdes wanted him back, thought Tess. Look what she’d lost.
“First, the hand-washing,” Isabel announced. “Doesn’t matter how delicious the food is if it’s contaminated.” Everyone took turns at the sink, and Isabel handed out the aprons.
“Allow me,” Dominic said to Tess, stepping behind her. He tied it on with a peculiar intimacy she hoped was lost on the kids. It was far too soon to involve them in the equation.
Isabel started with a simple pasta sauce, created with the last of the heirloom tomatoes from the fall garden. “The key is to taste,” she said. “You have to taste the tomatoes to determine how much sweetness to add.” She passed everyone a wedge of tomato, which they dutifully ate.
“It’s good,” said Antonio.
“Does it taste sweet to you, or tart?”
“It tastes like a tomato.”
“Sweet,” said Dominic. “Definitely sweet.”
“Now, here’s where a lot of people go wrong. They heat the olive oil in a big pot and dump everything in. You don’t want to do that. Tomatoes are juicy enough to stew without the oil—that comes later. You don’t even have to cut up the tomatoes. Just slice them in half and put them in this big shallow pan without oil. We’re going to keep the heat low. No good meal ever came from hurrying.”
Antonio was fascinated by Isabel’s razor-sharp knives from Japan. He made kia sounds like a karate expert as he sliced the tomatoes and added them to the pan. There were some unexpected ingredients, things Tess would never dream of putting in tomato sauce—whole star anise, a vanilla bean split down the middle, a sprinkling of sugar, a sprig of thyme and bay leaves from the herb garden.
“You want the tomatoes to be concassé.” Isabel gave the word a French pronunciation. “Now, some people think that means you have to peel and seed them, but that’s totally unnecessary. They’ll be concassé if you gently stew them in their own juices.” She used a wooden spoon to demonstrate the technique of pressing the fruit against the side of the pan. “Give it a try,” she said to Dominic.
“Yeah, Dad. Give it a try.” Antonio seemed amused, watching his father cook.
Dominic used the spoon, the way Isabel showed him. “Is this concassé?”
“Not yet. Take your time. The slow evaporation of the juice will produce a nice deep color without any bitterness.”
The sound of Isabel’s v
oice and the gentle rhythm of the meal in progress had a soothing effect on Tess. Maybe there was something to what Isabel had said, that the art of creating in the kitchen was good for the soul. Regardless of anything else that was happening here, Tess conceded that she was learning to take her time. Lately, she didn’t automatically jump to check her messages or her email the moment she woke up anymore, or immediately start making a plan. She was starting to see that there was nothing wrong with sometimes letting the day unfold according to its own rhythm.
“Now we’ll make an infusion,” said Isabel.
“Have you ever heard of an infusion?” Tess asked Trini.
“It’s just what it sounds like,” Isabel explained. “You warm the oil, and it becomes redolent of all the flavors you put into it—the garlic and herbs and spices. After the tomatoes have been stewing for an hour or so, we mix in the infusion.”
“It’s like science time,” said Antonio, peering over his father’s shoulder as Dominic stirred the pot.
“Only tastier.” Dominic gave him a sample of the sauce.
Antonio nodded and gave it two thumbs up.
“Your turn,” Dominic said, offering a spoonful to Tess.
“Délicieux,” said Tess, kissing the tips of her fingers.
“What does that mean?” asked Antonio.
“Delicious, numbskull,” said Trini. “It’s practically the same word.”
“Why do you kiss your fingers?” asked Antonio, ignoring his sister.
“It’s an expression of accomplishment,” Tess explained. “Like, ta-da. I’ve seen it in movies. And cartoons.”
“It was the signature gesture of Hugo Bernard,” Isabel explained. “He was one of the premier food critics of France. His approval meant everything to the chefs of Paris.”
“I’m seeing a lot to approve of here,” said Tess. She caught Dominic’s eye and they shared a smile. She loved seeing him in this mode, relaxed and having fun with his kids. The more she watched him, the more she unfurled inside, letting go of tension, making room in her heart for something different, something more. Maybe this was what her mother had been trying to tell her about the day she left. It was a quiet awakening, invisible, even, but she could feel it, a change coming over her, as inevitable as the advancing of the season. At moments like this, she felt as if she was emerging from a long, heavy sleep filled with unremembered dreams, and waking up to find there was nothing left to dream about.
I don’t want this to end. The intensity of the notion took her by surprise. The changes in Tess’s life were happening swiftly and inevitably, and something told her not to question them. Yet an inevitable reality check told her that her time in Archangel would soon be done, whether she wanted it to or not. Despite the loophole Dominic had found, it provided only a temporary hold on the proceedings. The bank was going to foreclose. Tess would go back to the city. Isabel would be forced to leave Bella Vista. And Dominic...
Maybe one day she would step back and try to sort it all out, but until then—
The phone rang, and she checked the caller ID: Trianon Galleries. Her heart sped up, though she kept a poker face as she said, “I’ve got this,” and answered the phone. “Tess Delaney.”
“It’s Michel Christiansen, returning your call, Miss Delaney.”
“Thanks for getting back to me.”
“We’ve done some happy business with Sheffield, though I don’t believe you and I have met. How can I be of service to you?”
Shaken, she moved into the living room, leaving the happy sounds of the kitchen behind. “This is a long shot,” she said. “Goes all the way back to 1984. I understand you were affiliated with the gallery back then.”
“Indeed I was. It’s a family business.”
“Then...can I ask you...there was an incident in March of that year. Do you have any recollection at all about a man named Erik Johansen?”
“Thirty years ago? Doubtful...”
“He had an appointment with you,” she said, not wanting to give him too much information.
“In that case, it would be on the company agenda. We hand-wrote everything in those days.”
“Have you kept the agendas?”
“Organized by year,” he said. “However, the actual agendas were pulped long ago.”
Her heart sank. “So you wouldn’t have a record...”
“Everything was scanned and digitized. Hang on.”
She couldn’t breathe. Her heart felt as if it were lodged in her throat.
After a few moments, he said quietly, “Yes, I’ve found the appointment. March 1984.”
“I don’t believe he ever made it to your establishment,” she said.
“That’s correct,” he said after a moment. “We never met face-to-face. It was most unfortunate. Mr. Johansen had a terrible accident that day.”
“Yes, I...I know that part of it. He was my father.”
“Miss Delaney, I’m terribly sorry.”
“Thank you. I never met him. I was born after the accident. Did he give you any information on the item?”
“He did. He said he had an item from the House of Fabergé, a family heirloom.”
She nearly hyperventilated. “That’s all he said?”
“I believe so. I thought it could be worth a look.”
You have no idea, she thought. “Thank you. I was hoping... I mean, I was wondering if you had any other recollection of that day.”
“In fact, I do. I made a notation... Hold for a moment, please. My business diary is in a different file folder.”
Hearing the click of a keyboard, Tess felt the beginnings of a panic attack as she held the phone pressed to her ear, listening to empty air.
“I keep everything in date order,” said Mr. Christiansen. “My notes are right here. March 23, 1984.” His voice trailed off; then he added, “I had a call later that day from a gentleman named Carlos Maldonado.”
Tess’s grip tightened on the phone. “He was a friend of Erik’s.”
A pause. “Perhaps.”
She stopped breathing. A casual listener might not have noticed the pause, but Tess was trained to detect every nuance when she was working on a provenance project. People paused before an answer when there was more to the story. One thing she’d learned in her line of work was that very few friendships were able to withstand the temptation of financial gain.
“And did Carlos Maldonado say what it was about?”
“He intended to complete Mr. Johansen’s transaction.”
Tess felt a ball of ice forming in her stomach.
“Of course I told him I never deal in objects lacking a clear provenance,” Mr. Christiansen continued. “I never heard from him again.”
And there it was. Her father had intended to support her mother. Maybe that wasn’t the same as having a father, but now for the first time, she knew for certain that he had once cared about her.
Had he cared so much it had gotten him killed?
Twenty-Six
The shadow of the bank’s deadline loomed like a gathering storm. The strain was wearing on Isabel; Tess could hear her pacing the floors at night. Still, they never gave up the search. So far, every avenue had led to a dead end, yet Tess couldn’t stop herself from believing the puzzle could be solved. She was hanging on by a thread to her job in the city but this was too important to abandon.
Thanksgiving Day at Bella Vista dawned damp and gloomy, an inauspicious start to the festivities. Tess wandered into the kitchen while it was still dark and staggered toward the carafe of coffee and steamed milk Isabel always set out.
“You’ve been up for hours,” she said to Isabel.
Isabel was working on the turkey with single-minded focus, slipping fresh sage leaves and butter under the skin and monitoring a delicious-smelling broth on the rangetop. “Since five,” she admitted.
“What can I do?”
“Drink your coffee. If you want, you could set the table—I’ve made a seating chart.”
“You’
re kidding.”
“It’s a good-sized crowd this year. We’ve got Father Tom coming. The Navarros, of course; Ernestina’s making her famous tamales. Dominic and his kids, and his sister, Gina. You’re going to love Gina.”
Tess studied the penciled chart. “My mother?”
“I invited her.”
“And she said yes? Okay, I’m finally ready to admit it. Your food does have magic powers.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent Thanksgiving with her mother. It was one of those family-oriented holidays that made people without families feel like crap. In the past, she’d sneaked away to Vegas, or to Vancouver, where it was just another day. One year, she’d joined a crew from the firm serving dinner at the Tenderloin Sheltering Arms. But never had she spent the holiday like this—with friends and family.
She sipped her coffee and went into the dining room. There was already a fire crackling cheerfully in the fireplace, the flames illuminating the morning frost on the windows. The big rustic table of hewn pine and hammered iron dominated the room. Ernestina said it was original to the house, more than a hundred years old. Tess tried to imagine the family gatherings the table had seen. Where had Erik sat? Did he have a favorite food? Had his wife, Francesca, brought traditions of her own into the family? On the last Thanksgiving of his life, had Erik thought of Shannon while feasting with his wife and family?
And now Shannon, the sole survivor of that generation, was going to take her place at Bella Vista’s table at last. Tess couldn’t imagine what Isabel had said to entice her back to Archangel.
According to the penciled seating chart, Tess would be between Dominic and Shannon. Isabel had seated Father Tom at the head of the table, with herself at his right hand. Interesting. There was a place setting for Magnus, she noticed, at the other end of the table. She set it with care, as if he might come walking in at any moment.
“I can finish that for you,” Ernestina said, bustling into the room with a centerpiece of stargazer lilies and dried milkweed, a trio of slender candles in the middle. “You go help in the kitchen.”