Blackberry Winter: A Novel

by Sarah Jio

  Tears blurred my vision. No, I would not let them see me cry. I lifted the hem of my skirt and ran, down the hallway and out to the foyer, where I let myself out the front door. I sat down on a stone bench on the porch, contemplating my next move. Moments later, I heard the creak of the hinge behind me. Expecting to see Charles, I turned, and was disheartened to find Josie standing beside me with a satisfied smile.

  “He’s in there explaining to my parents that he’s proposed to you,” she said, shaking her head at what she obviously believed was a laughable idea. “You should see Mother. She’s devastated.” She looked back to the house and smirked. “I know who you are, Vera Ray,” she continued. “I knew your mother, too. I assume you’re a thief like her. Like mother, like daughter, right?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “So your mother didn’t tell you about all the things she stole from our family? The jewelry? The coins from father’s study?”

  “Josie,” I stammered, “you—you must be mistaken. My mother would never—”

  “I watched her take a diamond bracelet from Mother’s jewelry box,” she said.

  “I don’t believe it!” I cried. “How dare you speak of my mother that way? She was a good woman. She did her best to take care of you, Josie. But you tormented her.”

  Her icy stare frightened me. “I know your angle,” she said. “Just like your mother, you see my family as your meal ticket.”

  I shook my head, wiping a tear from my cheek. “You have it all wrong.”

  “Well,” she said, “if you expect me to stand back while my brother is duped by a common whore, then, my dear, you’re mistaken.”

  The words stung. “A common…?”

  I couldn’t let the vulgar word cross my lips. “What makes you think that I…?” Then I remembered the envelope in the suite. The money Charles had set aside for the poor widow. Josie had seen it. She’d thought it was for me.

  “No, no,” I continued. “You have it all wrong. That money was for—”

  Josie shook her head. “And now you’re having his child.”

  I placed my hand on my belly.

  “How long did you think you were going to keep that a secret?”

  I gasped. How does she know? I hadn’t told anyone. Not even Charles.

  “You didn’t have to tell me,” she said. “It’s obvious.”

  “But I—”

  “How much?” she said.

  I searched her face. “I don’t understand.”

  “How much do I have to pay you to get out of our lives, to get out of Charles’s life?”

  I shook my head. “Why would you do this?”

  “Because he can’t be permitted to end up with a woman like you,” she said. “It would destroy Mother. And Father would write him out of”—she gestured to the house and gardens—“all of this. Do you think he would love you then? Well, Miss Ray, I know my brother better than you, and I can tell you the answer is no.”

  I loved him with every inch of my heart, but would my love be enough to make him happy, without…the privileged life he was accustomed to?

  I knew it then. I couldn’t fit into Charles’s world any more than he could fit into mine.

  “So how much do I need to give you?” she asked again. “How much to get you out of here?”

  I held up my hand. “Nothing,” I said, rising to my feet. “I understand.”

  I walked up the gravel path and to the road. Charles’s voice rang out in the distance, calling to me like a lighthouse to a lost ship, and yet I kept walking. The charade had to end. Josie may have been cruel, but she was right. It would never work, Charles and me.

  “Vera!” he shouted, catching up to me. I felt his hand on my shoulder. “Please wait. I’m so sorry about the way they treated you in there. Let’s go. Let’s leave together.”

  I blinked back tears. “I can’t, Charles,” I said. “This is what I have feared all along, but today, it just confirmed everything for me. I love you. So much. But I can’t marry you.”

  I hated to see my words wound him so deeply.

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t you see?” I ran my hand along his face. “We could never make it work. We’re from two different worlds.”

  “But that doesn’t matter,” he pleaded. “It doesn’t have to.”

  “But it does,” I said. “I’m sorry, Charles. I’m not the woman for you.” He would have given up everything for me, but I loved him enough that I wouldn’t let him do it.

  He stood dumfounded as I ran past the clipped boxwood hedge, pushing open the iron gate. I walked along the road, unsure of how I’d get home, miles away from the city. When I heard the sound of Charles’s car approaching and his voice calling my name out the window, I ducked behind a tree. “Vera!” he screamed. “Vera!” His desperate tone broke my heart. I wanted to shout, Here I am, Charles! Let’s run away together. Let’s start a new life on our own terms. But in my heart, I knew that Josie was right. I crouched lower until the Buick was out of sight.

  On the main road, cars barreled past, splashing mud onto my dress. What does it matter? I held out my hand, trying unsuccessfully to flag down a car, and then another. Finally, a truck pulled over. White, with a rusted hood and piles of tile stacked in the back. A man waved to me from the front seat. “Where to, miss?” He spoke in a thick foreign accent that reminded me of the Russian families who lived in my building.

  “I’m trying to get back to the city,” I said, wiping away a tear. “Can you take me?”

  “That’s where I’m headed,” he said.

  I climbed inside the truck and closed the heavy door with all my might. It smelled of must and gasoline. As he revved the engine and turned in to traffic, I cast a backward glance on the entrance to Windermere.

  “The name’s Ivanoff,” the man said, casting a sideways glance at me. “Sven Ivanoff.”

  Chapter 16

  CLAIRE

  Istuffed a piece of pizza in my mouth, then washed it down with a sip of red wine. “He called,” I said to Abby. We both sat on the floor in front of the TV in my apartment, pizza box open on the coffee table, wine bottle at the ready.

  “Wait,” she said. “Which one?”

  “Ethan.”

  “And?”

  “He left two voice mails. The first: ‘Claire, I stayed at my parents’ suite at the hotel last night after the party. Had too many drinks. You understand.’”

  “Oh, honey,” she said. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  I frowned. “It gets worse. The second, which I just got an hour ago, went like this: “Claire, I’m heading to Portland tonight for a conference. Will be back on Sunday.”

  Abby shook her head. “What conference?”

  “That’s the thing,” I said. “I did some searching, and take a wild guess.”

  “No,” Abby said. “Don’t tell me he went with—”

  “Cassandra? You guessed it. Well, I’m not one hundred percent certain, but the only conference that I could find in Portland is a food writers’ convention. So, you do the math.”

  “That doesn’t bode well,” Abby said, taking a sip of wine. “If it’s true.”

  I shrugged. “After seeing them together last night, I have no doubt it is.”

  I set my foot on the lower ledge of the coffee table and a stack of photo albums toppled over onto the rug. One flipped open, spreading its pages out as if to taunt me. I picked it up and leaned over the page. There we were, Ethan and I on our wedding day, I in my strapless white gown. Ethan’s mother had made a fuss about strapless being inappropriate in a Catholic church, but Ethan had put a stop to it. He’d been on my team. I longed for those days. I longed for him. I ran my hand along the photo, letting my finger rest on his cheek. I’d tucked a photo of my grandparents on their wedding day next to ours when I put the album together. The black-and-white print had faded over the years. I’d looked at it hundreds of times as a girl, memorizing the look of love on both of the
ir faces. True love. But not until that moment did I notice a piece of paper in my grandmother’s hands. I squinted, trying to make out the words.

  “Abby, look at this,” I said, pointing to the photo. “Can you tell what that says?”

  She reached for her glasses on the table and took the album in her hands. “Well,” she said, “I think it says, ‘Sonnet 43.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “A little rusty on our English lit, are we?” she said in a mocking voice.

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, while you were reciting poetry, I was hunched over the copy desk, line-editing the newspaper. There wasn’t time for fluff.” Abby had been an English literature major, while I had taken the journalism track. It was a long-running feud.

  “All right, all right,” she said. “But do you want to know what this is or not?”

  “Fill me in, Shakespeare.”

  Abby smirked. “It’s Elizabeth Barrett Browning, silly. You know, the famous poem, ‘How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways.’”

  “Oh,” I said, remembering it in an instant. “I do know that one.”

  “Of course you do,” she continued. “It’s only the most important love poem in the history of love poems.” She pulled up the verse on her phone and read out the lines.

  I leaned back against the couch, keeping my wineglass close at hand. “How romantic,” I said, glancing at the photo again. “I bet she read it to him at their reception.”

  Abby nodded. “You can see the words echoing in his ears. Look at his face. He cherishes her.”

  “He did,” I said. “It’s all Mom talked about growing up, which is why she’s had two failed marriages, I think. She could never find her prince charming the way Grandma did.” I sighed, closing the album.

  Abby leaned her head against my shoulder. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I’m afraid of failing, Abs. I’m afraid that our marriage was put to the test, and it wilted under pressure.”

  Abby opened up the album again, pointing to the black-and-white photo. “I don’t care how perfect you say their marriage was; I’m sure they had their own problems.”

  I gave her a doubtful look.

  “Listen, I know you, Claire, and I know you love Ethan deeply. So why not fight for him? Cassandra has her hooks in him, but only because you stepped aside.”

  I took a bite of pizza crust and then tossed it back into the box, thinking of the fine food she and Ethan were probably enjoying at the conference. “So what do you think I should do? Drive down there?”

  “No, but for starters, you could return his call,” she said. “He’s called you, what, twice now and left messages?”

  “Yeah.”

  Abby grinned. “Call him.”

  I picked up my cell phone and scrolled to his number. The connection went through, and my heart beat the way it would when calling someone after a first date. After the third ring, however, I let out a disappointed sigh.

  “Voice mail,” I mouthed to Abby.

  “Leave him a message,” she whispered.

  I shook my head.

  “Do it!”

  “Uh, Ethan, this is Claire. I got your messages. Listen, when you get back from the, um, conference, can we talk? I miss you.” I paused, and Abby poked me in the thigh. “And I love you.”

  “There,” I said. “I sounded like a total idiot. Are you happy?”

  “Good girl,” she said, refilling my wineglass.

  A moment later my cell phone buzzed. The vibration startled me and I spilled wine on the coffee table as I reached for the phone. Abby sopped up the mess with a stack of napkins by the pizza box. I looked at the screen. “Abby, it’s him.”

  The phone buzzed again. “Well, aren’t you going to answer it?”

  I took a deep breath and picked up, holding the phone to my ear. “Hi Ethan.” I couldn’t wait to hear his voice, to hear him tell me how much he missed me, that the message I’d left had touched him. After all, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d uttered the words I love you.

  But instead of his voice on the line, I heard only commotion, a distant jostling sound. I detected the jingle of car keys, then a door slamming. “Ethan?” I said. “Can you hear me?” I turned to Abby dejectedly. “I think it’s a pocket call.” I continued to listen until I thought I heard the muffled sound of a female voice.

  I hung up.

  “What happened? What did he say?”

  I wiped a tear from my cheek, before pushing the photo album away with my foot. “I think he’s with her.”

  “How do you know?” Abby said.

  I folded my arms, staring ahead, crestfallen. “There was a woman in the background.”

  “Claire, it could have been anyone. Maybe it was a waitress at a restaurant.”

  I shook my head. “No. It was her. I know it was.”

  Abby held out her hand. “Not yet,” she said. “Don’t mourn the marriage yet. Don’t write the obituary. Wait until he’s back from Portland. Talk to him. Then make your decision.”

  I shrugged.

  “For now, we’ll have pizza and wine.” She reached for the remote control. “And Lifetime Original Movies.”

  I sighed, never more grateful for my friend than at that moment.

  Before my trip to see Lillian Sharpe in Windermere on Sunday morning, I stopped at the assisted living facility where Ethan’s grandfather was recovering. After the terse exchange with Glenda at the hospital, boundary lines had been drawn, and it was clear I was to leave Warren well enough alone. But he’d called me over the weekend. He missed me. For Warren, I decided to break the rules.

  “How are you?” he said as I entered. He motioned me toward the bed. The room resembled a hospital with a few extra furnishings—a sofa, a mini-refrigerator, and a dresser and closet.

  “I’ve been better,” I said. “I’m researching a story that’s turning out to be quite a goose chase.”

  “Oh?”

  Before I could give him the details, my phone rang. I pulled it from my bag. “Ethan,” I said to Warren, dismissing the call and tossing the phone back into my purse.

  “I’ve been worried about you two,” he said. “Marriage trouble?”

  I sighed. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “Let me tell you about my wife,” he said, smiling up at a spot on the wall, as if he could see his beloved there gazing back at him. “Annie was a lot like you. Spirited. Driven. A bit of a temper.”

  I grinned. “I would have liked her.”

  “You would have loved her, Claire. She was passionate about life, just as she was passionate about me.”

  The phone rang beside his bed. “Now, who would that be?” he said, giving the phone a puzzled look. He picked up. “Hello?” He paused for a long moment, his eyes showing signs of disappointment. “I can’t believe you didn’t find it…. You thought this was it…. All right…. No, now is not the time for…I’ll call you later.”

  I occupied myself with a magazine on the side table, wondering what Warren was talking about.

  He turned back to me. “I’m sorry about that. Now, where were we?”

  “Your wife,” I said.

  “Ah, yes, my wife.”

  I patted his arm. “I bet you miss her so much.”

  “I do,” he said. “Losing your true love is like losing your right hand. It feels just like that. Everything takes more effort. Everything feels different when she’s gone.”

  “I’ve never thought about it that way.”

  He nodded. “I want to tell you something.” He clasped his hands together. “A few years after she and I were married, we separated.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “What happened?”

  “She left me,” he said. “I didn’t have an affair, mind you, but I did have an inappropriate friendship with a woman. A secretary at the office.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Inappropriate?”

  “I was dumb as a doornail. Thirty-year-old men are, you know.” />
  I nodded in agreement.

  “It started out innocently enough,” he continued. “I’d stay late at work. We’d flirt. Then we started having drinks together after hours. I was playing with fire. Well, Annie found out, and you can believe she was livid. She packed her bags and moved back home with her mother.

  “So you think I should move out?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m just saying that when I lost Annie for that short period of time, I realized how precious she was to me. I never forgot that lesson. We both loved each other more for that early blip in our marriage. Annie came to appreciate it, actually.”

  “I wish I could imagine that happy ending,” I said. “Ethan seems to have a different outcome in mind.”

  A nurse came in and gestured to the clock. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Kensington, but it’s time for your physical therapy.”

  He nodded and held up his finger. “Just a minute.” Then to me he said, “Call him back. Give him one more chance to prove himself. Think of me and Annie.”

  I hugged him. “You’re right. Thanks, Warren.”

  The nurse helped him out of his bed. “You know, they’re wasting their time on me,” he said playfully. “I’m an old geezer.”

  “An old geezer who needs his physical therapy,” the nurse sparred back.

  Warren winked at me. “We didn’t get a chance to talk about your article,” he said.

  “Glenda will be glad,” I replied. “She forbade me from bothering you with any of my—what did she call it?—oh yes, ‘drama.’”

  “To hell with Glenda,” he said without mincing words. He loved his daughter-in-law, I knew that, but not her meddling ways. “Come back and tell me about your story as soon as you can.”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  “Now, call that husband of yours,” he said as the nurse led him out the door. “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  The cab dropped me off in front of Lillian Sharpe’s home in Windermere, the kind of neighborhood my parents might have driven through on Sundays when I was a kid, daydreaming about a better life. I looked up at the enormous home. Lillian had been right; it had the look of a place that hadn’t seen visitors in a very long time. The paint peeled. The moss-covered shingles on the roof looked weary. And while the grass had been mowed and the beds weeded, the garden didn’t appear to be loved the way the neighboring yards did. I stared at the empty driveway and looked at my watch. Five minutes early. I sat on the stoop, waiting for Lillian to arrive. My heart fluttered thinking about how I might be one step closer to understanding why Daniel Ray had disappeared.