I wasn’t as dark as Freda had been, though I supposed the family resemblance ran pretty strong between Freda, Kitty, Ruby, and me. The lady glanced back at me again, narrowed her eyes, and sat back down.
“Then how may I help you, Miss, uh…”
“Lucy. My name is Lucy.”
Max offered his hand. “Maxwell Sheffield, ma’am. We just wanted to look around. Do you give tours?”
“Yes, but not until two. Could you come back then?”
“Yes,” we both said in unison. I smiled back at her, but she still looked surprised and uncomfortable with my presence.
I waited until we’d exited the B&B and walked a few paces before asking Max, “Were you trying to warn me about something back there?”
“Yes!”
“Why? That portrait was obviously my great-grandmother, and that’s obviously the only tasting room in town that has my grandfather’s wine.”
Max took my hand and escorted me across the street toward a bench overlooking the duck pond. “I don’t think you should go around advertising to these strangers who you are just yet.”
“The locals probably aren’t strangers to my grandfather,” I protested. “They can give me information.”
“Yes, I’m sure they could.” He looked evenly at me. “Listen, I just want to help you. I don’t know why, but I feel like something’s not right…like Rosaleda has been waiting for Kitty’s and your return for a long time, and if you reveal yourself too soon something bad could happen.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid?”
“I hope so,” he said calmly. “But I was just thinking about a few things in there. For one, you don’t want someone to run off and tell Blake that you’re in town before you’re ready to see him.”
I nodded. He was right.
“And, well, one thing you haven’t talked about much is the fact that Kitty is an heiress.”
“What are you saying?” I sounded more defensive than I meant to. “That someone is going to know who I am and try to rob me?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Anything’s possible. There are scam artists everywhere.”
“True. I see what you’re saying. Money and prestige might not be a big deal to Kitty, but around here it might be big news.”
“Especially if Ruby walked these streets when she was an adult. With your grandfather’s status so obviously high in this community, Ruby’s homecoming and then death would have sent more than a ripple through the community, I’m sure.”
I suddenly felt taken aback. I hadn’t realized that my family history would bombard me as soon as I stepped out of the van.
“This is overwhelming, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to go home? La Rosaleda isn’t going away.”
“But it’s been this secret for so long, you know? I’m tired of waiting.”
“And it has been here all along. It’ll still be here next week or next month.”
I took a deep breath and was unable to fill my lungs. After a few tries I reached into my purse for my inhaler, shooting the medicine deeply into my throat. I closed my eyes and thought of Kitty’s remedies.
“I need some tea. Then we can decide what to do next.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “But now you have to choose a place to have tea.” He motioned around the square at its array of shops. There were so many.
We stood to go, but I tugged at Max’s hand and led him to the center of the square.
“Let’s look at the fountain first.”
Several paths twisted around the fountain and through the square, and we walked along one. At the fountain’s edge, the fragrance of fresh rose petals floating in and about the monument filled my senses.
“Wow,” Max said. “I wonder if they throw the petals in the fountain on purpose or if they just fall in.”
What an interesting observation. I walked around the fountain wondering the same thing. On the other side Max had paused, his head cocked to the right. I wasn’t sure, but his lips moved slowly as if he was reading something. I shuffled around as he was pushing aside petals floating on the water’s surface. We leaned in and stared into the depths of the rippling pool.
A large brass-looking plaque glittered at the bottom: IN MEMORY OF ISAAC AND FREDA DICAMILLO.
The connection I felt to this town was suddenly magnified, and I realized I couldn’t sit down for tea if I wanted.
Max clasped my hands.
“I am part of here! This place!”
Max smiled wryly. “Lucy, I think your family is this town.”
The idea was heady. “I’ve never been, you know, connected to anything significant at all.”
“Wait a minute. I disagree.”
I raised my eyebrows at him.
“You are significant, more than you know, and you’ve always had Kitty. That’s significant.”
He was right. I needed to give Kitty the credit she was due. A pang stabbed my chest. “Yes,” I agreed. I thought about all Kitty’s losses, all she had left behind or had taken from her. “Surely she must miss this.”
I reached over and ran my fingers through the fountain pool. The fragrance of the roses filled the air around me as I watched the petals swirl around my fingertips. I stared directly into the fountain, pretending I didn’t feel Max staring at me. For a while I didn’t turn back, and when I did, his eyes locked on mine.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just you.”
“Just me?”
“You are so amazing, Lucy. Not just beautiful, but you have a delightful heart.”
“How do you know?”
“I can see it in how you live your life. You search for truth. That’s noble.”
But I knew that I wasn’t noble at all. I was a coward, and I’d spent way too much time disrespecting Kitty and way too much energy on my own selfish needs and wants.
“What about you?” I asked. “What do you search for?”
He looked upward, contemplating his answer, then feigned nonchalance. “Besides the chance to spend more time with you?” I blushed as he winked. “Besides the obvious? I’m looking to feel peace with who I am and with who my parents think I am. My mom really has a hard time with my choice to be a youth minister.”
I wondered how Max’s mom could ever be disappointed in him. “Talk about noble—I would think your parents would be proud that their son works to help children.”
Max looked down at his shoes and picked up a stray rose petal. “I was thinking about all the time your grandmother has lost with her family,” he said, twirling the petal in his fingers. “It makes me want to make things right with my mom—not that we’re estranged, but I just want her to understand and know that I accept her disappointment too.”
“Her disappointment?”
“That I didn’t decide to be a lawyer like her.”
Max—a lawyer? I couldn’t imagine.
“For a long time she’s been disappointed, and I’ve just avoided the subject. I need to make it right.”
“Well, you can’t have it as bad as Kitty. She has about thirty years to make up for.”
“Yes.” He looked serious. “But I don’t ever want my life to get to that point of regret. I feel a lot of anger with my mom right now, and I don’t like that.”
“Then go home and talk to her. San Francisco is right down the road from here. You say you go out on the boat with your dad all the time. Go this evening. Let’s go now.”
“You’d do that?” His eyebrows crinkled in surprise. “When you have such an important day ahead of you?”
“My day can wait until tomorrow. You’ve been so supportive of me. I owe you that. Plus, I’m scared half out of my wits of what’s going to happen next. Maybe if I go to San Francisco, then I can get another day to think.”
He laughed loudly. “Well, I’m not going to let you get away with that. Today is yours, and I’m staying with you.”
Our hands tightened as
we stared through the fountain pool at Freda and Isaac’s names on the bottom. I was reminded that my life could have been so different, and I wasn’t thinking of vineyards, estate houses, or fortunes. I was thinking about having a father, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
I wondered, what would it have been like to live on soil that had been worked by my own ancestors for generations? What would it have been like for me to receive love from someone other than Kitty? What would it have been like to see Kitty grow older with the one she’d always loved instead of alone? Would she have been more cheerful, like she’d been during our picnic with Max? Would she have dressed the same? Would we have gone to church on Sundays? Or the local quilting bee? Would we have worked together at Frances-DiCamillo?
I could have asked more questions, but there were no answers. Those things were lost. Gone. Not even possibilities, thanks to Kitty’s decision to leave and Ruby’s death and the enormous space between Kitty and Blake…
At that moment someone jostled me.
“Excuse me,” the stranger said.
“Sure.” Max gently tugged me back into him a little. A young couple were mischievously splashing each other in the fountain. Half smiling at their playfulness, I put up my hands to shield myself from the water and backed up a few paces.
“Hey!” the girl exclaimed. “There’s the name of that lady whose picture we saw in the hotel.”
“Yeah? It’s sad her winery closed down.”
“It’s not closed.” Another couple had joined the first, and the second man explained, “It’s just closed to the public. My wife heard that after the daughter of the matriarch’s son-in-law died, the son-in-law stopped entertaining visitors.”
Max and I backed away a little, like we were studying some roses.
“I heard one of the locals say he has a broken heart.”
“It’s a sad story,” her husband interjected. “The lady at the hotel over there said the son-in-law has become a recluse. His wife has been missing for so many years, and his in-laws have died, and then there was the tragic loss of his daughter.”
“A broken heart.” His wife nodded, reaffirmed. Her tone was one of wonder. “The hotel clerk said something else intriguing too. The son-in-law’s granddaughter has been missing or something for years until today. The clerk thought she saw the granddaughter in town today!”
Max gently placed his hand on my elbow in warning.
“I didn’t believe that part,” the wife was telling her husband. She turned to the other couple still playing in the fountain. “I’m sure she was sensationalizing because we’re tourists.”
Her husband winked. “Same as the haunted winery we toured yesterday?”
I winced at their laughter.
“Well,” the young woman said, “I heard that same hotel clerk say that rumor has it the old man might have killed his wife and daughter. That would explain why his granddaughter doesn’t come back.”
Tears of anger sprang to my eyes. I wanted to shake these strangers and tell them that Blake didn’t kill anyone, and he does too know where I am, and he’s waiting for me! I could barely catch my breath, and Max helped me fumble through my bag for my inhaler.
The wife shook her head in disgust at the young couple.
“You guys are ridiculous. That clerk is obviously using the poor man to promote her business. She’s practically taken over the Frances-DiCamillo name. She claims that she is the only one who offers tastings of the wine, but we tasted a glass of Frances-DiCamillo just yesterday at that little wine store over there.”
I wanted to hug that woman as she and her husband and their young friends left the fountain and walked toward the shops.
As they moved away from us into the square I saw one of the men shrug and heard him mutter, “Let them think what they want. They’re probably just scared. I heard the vineyard gate is literally chained shut with a handmade sign that says KEEP OUT. I’m telling you, the man is crazy.”
I wanted to run behind and shout at him, but Max reached over and grabbed my hand.
“How dare they say such mean things about my grandfather!”
“It sounds like the woman who runs that B&B is the one who’s crazy. If we go back for a tour, she’s liable to kidnap you and post signs for all to come see the crazy man’s long-lost granddaughter.” His face filled with drama.
I shook my head and tried to laugh at his effort to relax me.
“I wonder why my grandfather allows her to do all that stuff with the vineyard name.”
“If he’s withdrawn from the public eye, he might not know what she’s saying,” Max offered. “But that doesn’t mean he’s crazy. The first thing you can do after you reunite with your grandfather is put a stop to that nonsense.”
I was grateful for Max’s faith in Blake when he’d never even met him. “Do you think it’s true?” I asked.
“What?”
“That maybe Blake has become a recluse?” The very idea made me sad.
“We can see. It’s a close walk, right?”
I nodded. “But let’s—I mean you—drive.”
31
We crested a hill, and I caught sight of the vineyards—acres of them spilling over an enormous portion of the valley. I sucked in my breath when I saw the large iron gate decorated artistically with iron grapes and roses. It really was padlocked shut with a KEEP OUT sign. But the estate didn’t look neglected, and the gates were edged with beds of carnations and more roses. Beyond the gates, nestled between vine-covered hills, was the estate house. The late afternoon sun bounced off the huge, white mission-style house with its spectacular columns and a very large bell encased in one section. An abundance of windows sparkled. No. La Rosaleda had not been abandoned.
Max pulled to a stop in front of the gate, and I looked out the window at the heavy lock and chain. I could see how people might think the whole scene was odd, but for tourists to repeat some rumor they’d heard without knowing the truth just wasn’t right.
“It’s beautiful,” Max remarked.
“I never could have imagined this. It’s so well kept.”
“I guess we can’t exactly go in and see Blake now, can we?”
I shook my head. “That’s okay. I need a little time.”
Max began to inch the van away.
“Hold up!” I pointed toward a structure close to the main house and grabbed the door handle to step out for a closer look.
The Rose House.
I stared through the gate at a structure half covered by a blanket of red. It was too far away to see clearly, but I knew those were the rosebushes Ruby had described to Kitty—the roses that had taken over the entire front porch and crept over the top of the house from the front two corners.
Over the years I’d seen Kitty spend mornings and afternoons, evenings and weekends, training her favorite climbing rosebushes over the large trellis in our garden. She told me that trellises could be attached to roofs to help the flowers climb up and that with time the right kinds of climbing roses, well cared for, could cover a small structure. But I knew the work was painstaking and required great persistence. Eying the spectacular result in the distance, I also knew that my grandfather had to have spent a lifetime getting the roses trained over the house like that.
I tried to imagine Ruby when she had gone back to La Rosaleda and seen the house my grandpa said he’d saved for her return—and Kitty’s. Had Ruby’s heart swelled too when she was finally home?
I marveled that she had brought me here. Had I run across these grasses and touched those roses to my own cheek like any little girl would have who had such a playground as Frances-DiCamillo? I had no memory of this, of course, but I was sure we’d walked up and down those rows of vines, played in the gardens. I suddenly had an image of rose petals clasped in my fists, taken from a large rose near the big house. Was it me who had run up to the big porch and dropped the petals at my mother’s feet, bare with red-painted toenails?
Another image flashed in my mind:
clasping and unclasping hands, one a woman’s and the other a child’s. I could feel the woman’s breath on my cheek as she leaned over, exhaling from the effort and inhaling as she lifted me onto her lap to sail back and forth in the white swing. I couldn’t remember her face, only her feet and the feel of her arms around me and the warmth of her breath as we stared ahead toward the driveway, the town of La Rosaleda stretching in the distance.
These were memories, I knew, and suddenly I wished for my paints and canvas to record them. A memory canvas that could be filled in.
I climbed into the van, glancing back at the estate, searching the yard and the porch, hoping for a glance of my grandfather. Stillness. Nothing.
“I’m so sad that he’s shut himself away from the world.”
“Maybe it’s just the tourists he doesn’t want to talk to.”
But I knew that wasn’t true. All the other vineyards and wineries we’d driven past advertised tasting rooms and tours, and their gates were flung open wide.
Why not Frances-DiCamillo’s?
A van of tourists passed us, cruising slowly past the estate, the driver pointing and talking to his passengers. I felt sick inside as I imagined the rumors he might be passing to voyeurs and strangers.
And I felt scared.
I was scared that the locked gates meant my grandfather wouldn’t want to see me. The property was practically barricaded; it didn’t look like he was awaiting anyone’s return. I leaned back on the seat and closed my eyes. I only wanted a short nap and Max’s strong fingers occasionally massaging my hand.
So when my phone rang I nearly hit the top of the van. It had to be Kitty, and the growing protective tenderness I felt for her made me frantic. I searched around the seat as Max calmly pulled my phone out of the cup holder and handed it to me.
“Thanks.”
“Lucy?”
Ruby Among Us Page 23