Blackberry Winter: A Novel (24 page)

I washed them down with a sip from the water bottle in my purse. “I’m starving. What did you have in mind?”

He pointed to a creperie across the street. Ethan and I had eaten there when I was pregnant and craving crepes. “How about La Bouche?”

I shrugged. “OK.”

We crossed the cobblestone street. My heels sank into the large grooves. I loved the exposed brick in this part of Seattle. It’s how the
city must have looked when Vera and Daniel walked through the Market so many years ago.

Dominic and I sat down on two stools facing the street. The waitress took our crepe orders. He ordered mushroom, and I goat cheese and roasted red pepper, the same thing I’d sent Ethan down for on multiple occasions when a pregnancy craving struck.

“Listen,” I said, “I’m really sorry for my behavior last night.”

“No need to apologize. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I think I do,” I said. “I’m married, and I was acting like a—”

“You were acting like a woman who was hurt,” he said. “And for the record, you did not kiss me.”

I arched my eyebrows. “I didn’t?”

“You tried to,” he said, grinning. “And I thought about letting you, but I didn’t.”

I exhaled deeply.

“What’s with your sister-in-law, though?”

The memory was fuzzy, but I recalled Leslie’s accusatory stare. “She’s never liked me.”

“Sounds like a real peach.”

I took a sip of water. “You’re telling me. By now, she’s probably recounted the story to Ethan and her parents in great detail. But in her version, I’m sure I had my tongue down your throat.”

“Naturally,” he said, smiling.

Moments later, the waitress reappeared with our crepes. I took a bite of mine. The mélange of roasted red peppers and warm goat cheese tasted just as luscious as I remembered.

Dominic dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “All joking aside, how are you doing?”

I shrugged. “It’s weird. I feel like a storm’s coming—a big one that I’m not prepared for. I have this sense that it’s going to pummel
my house, my life, everything I’ve been holding on to so tightly, for so many years. I’m bracing for it. I know it’s going to hurt.” I sighed. “And after what I went through this year, I’m not sure I have the strength to handle it.”

He gave me a confused look.

I hadn’t told him about the accident, not yet. I clasped my hands together and took a deep breath. “We lost a baby,” I said. “A year ago.” The words whizzed out of my mouth before I could think them over.

“Oh, Claire,” Dominic said, his eyes filled with sorrow. “I don’t know what to say.”

Outside the window, a woman jogged by. Her ponytail swayed as her strong legs carried her through the market, dodging pockets of tourists. I followed her with my eyes until she disappeared around the corner. I wanted to stand up, run after her, and shout, “Be careful! In a mere blink of the eye, everything you love can be taken from you!”

Dominic opened his mouth to speak, but his cell phone struck first, ringing loudly inside his jacket. He looked at the screen, then smiled apologetically. “I have to take this. I’ll be right back.”

“No worries,” I said, turning my attention back to the neglected crepe.

Dominic stepped to the sidewalk, and I watched him hold the phone up to his ear as he paced nervously.
Who is he talking to?
The crowd in the café was loud, but because the window had been propped open, bits and pieces of the one-sided conversation seeped in.

“I don’t know what to say…. Well, I’m a little speechless right now, I guess…. I understand, but I wasn’t planning to…All right, I’ll give it some thought…. I’ll call you…yes.”

I nervously stuffed a bite into my mouth when he returned to the counter.

“Sorry,” he said.

My curiosity swelled. “Something important?”

“Just my…sister. She needed some business advice.”

“Oh,” I replied. It didn’t add up, but I decided not to press him. If he had a secret, he’d reveal it in time.

After lunch, we walked through the Market, stopping at the park overlooking the bay. I could smell salmon grilling on alder planks at a nearby restaurant. Seagulls patrolled the salty air above, swooping down to accept scraps of food and bread that tourists offered. Dominic leaned against the guardrail. “Can we talk about something?”

“Sure,” I said, leaning back beside him. Our arms touched.

“What you said, back there,” he said. “About the baby.”

My eyes met his.

“It seems”—he ran a hand through his hair, trying to find the proper word—“wrong that your husband isn’t there for you right now after what you went through.”

Dominic was right, at least in a sense. On paper, Ethan’s behavior appeared despicable. Wife loses baby, followed by midlife crisis, followed by reconciliation with ex-girlfriend. In my heart, however, I knew that I was just as much to blame. I’d pulled away from him, too. In my grief, I’d frozen, shut him out. And just as my heart was starting to thaw, it was too late.

“I’m just saying,” he continued, “he should have been there for you.” He paused, turning to me. “
I
would have been there for you.”

He draped his arm around me. I didn’t pull away.

V
ERA

T
he morning light streamed inside the window as I opened my eyes. I hated the feel of the silky sheets on my naked skin, hated the feel of Lon’s rough leg on mine even more. I peeled my body away from his hot, moist skin and sat up, wrapping a sheet over my body. He snored so loudly, the pillowcase quivered with each rise and fall of his chest.

My dress and undergarments lay on the floor beside the bed. I’d died a little inside each time Lon removed a piece of clothing. I cringed, remembering the heaviness of his hands, fumbling to unfasten a button, only to resort to ripping it in eager frustration. I had numbed the pain with champagne. Too much champagne. And now my head spun. I closed the bathroom door and vomited into the toilet, purging the contents of my stomach and the memory of last night. I felt a sudden urge to bathe, to wash every breath, every fingerprint of Lon’s from my body. I turned on the faucet and watched as the water fell like raindrops from the steel showerhead, ricocheting off the marble tiles. I’d polished hundreds of showers, maybe even this one, in suites at the hotel, scrubbing the grout with precision. Estella was a stickler about grout.

I lathered my body with soap, but even with every inch of my skin covered in a thick film of bubbles, I still felt filthy. Tainted. I scrubbed harder, until my hand cramped and I dropped the bar of soap. My lip quivered as the tears came. I couldn’t stop them. I prayed that Lon wouldn’t hear my cries. The water rushed over me, and after a while, I couldn’t differentiate between the shower’s stream and my tears.

I closed my eyes and Daniel’s face appeared again, calling to me, comforting me. I remembered why I was there. I turned off the shower with new strength, patting myself dry with a fluffy cotton towel that waited on the rack. I selected a dress from the closet and put it on. As I waited for Lon to wake up, I sat by the window, thinking about Daniel, and his father.

Four Years Prior

Charles kissed my neck, and I smiled, rolling over to face him. “Good morning, beautiful,” he said, tracing my face with his index finger.

I looked away shyly.
Was last night a dream?
We both looked up when we heard a knock at the bedroom door.

“Breakfast is ready, sir.” The muffled male voice sounded like the steward from last night.

“Thank you,” Charles said, sitting up. He walked to the bathroom and returned with a fluffy white robe. “Will you be comfortable in this?”

I nodded. “As long as we don’t have any breakfast guests.”

“Just us,” he said.

I grinned, slipping into the robe, and followed Charles out to the front room.

“Will you take breakfast on the terrace, sir?”

I looked down at my feet, not wanting to make eye contact with the steward.
What does he think of me?

“No,” Charles said. “There’s a breeze this morning. The table will be fine.”

“As you wish,” the man said, distributing the contents of two silver platters onto the table. I eyed the glasses of orange juice. We could get oranges in Seattle, but grapefruit were harder to come by. Last year I’d saved my tip money for a whole week and bought a single grapefruit. It had cost a fortune, but I’d felt very fancy slicing into its thick skin, until I discovered that the flesh inside was rotten.

The steward bowed and let himself out, and I relaxed a little when he did.

“I want to do this every day,” Charles said, smiling at me from across the table.

“Me too,” I said.

I took a sip of orange juice, taking in its tangy sweetness. I wished I could share some with Caroline and the others. I thought about tucking a croissant in my pocket for Georgia. She’d always wanted to try one.

“I was wondering,” Charles said between bites of omelet. “What are you doing tonight?”

“I’m afraid I have to work,” I said.

“Work?”

“Yes. It’s a little thing one does to earn a living,” I said sarcastically.

“Very funny,” he said playfully. He looked at me for a long moment. “What if you didn’t have to work again?”

“What do you mean?”

He placed his hand on mine. “What if—”

The hinge of the door squeaked. Someone was coming into
the suite. I felt like sinking my head deeper into the robe and hiding under the table, especially when I saw who it was: Charles’s sister, Josie. A maid followed behind her, carrying a dozen shopping bags.

“Charles?” she said with arched eyebrows. “What are you doing here?”

“What are
you
doing here?” he countered. “I thought you were in Vancouver on a shopping trip with Mother.”

“We came home yesterday,” she said, walking toward us. “I was just picking up some things in town, and I thought I’d stop…” She paused the moment she recognized me. I could see the look of astonishment in her eyes.

“Josie, you remember Vera,” Charles said, as if there was nothing awkward about reacquainting his sister with me, while I was clad in a
bathrobe
. “Vera Ray.”

“Of course,” she sneered, staring at me for a moment longer than was comfortable. In the morning light, I noticed a familiar quality I had missed at the dance marathon. Where had I seen her before? “Yes, Vera, from the dance hall.”

“Hello,” I managed. I wished I’d decided to dress before breakfast. The robe was a terrible mistake.

“
Well
,” Josie huffed. “Clearly I’m interrupting an
intimate
moment, so I’ll go.” She eyed the envelope of cash on the side table, the one Charles had given me the night before for the widow in my building.
What must she think of that?
I prayed that Charles would explain, but he ignored his sister’s shocked expression and continued eating.

“See you,” he simply said. The maid followed with Josie’s parcels. The door slammed behind them.

I spent eight more glorious weeks with Charles before the fairy tale came hurtling to an abrupt end. There were gifts—one night at
dinner, he slid a sapphire bracelet around my wrist—flowers, trips, phone calls. It was enough to make my roommates green with envy.

Even so, I waited to tell him about the baby. I’d known about the pregnancy for almost two weeks, and I wanted to give it more time to be certain. I knew he’d be overjoyed. We were having a child together. A child conceived in love. And yet, I worried. Everything was perfect, and I feared the news could change that.

And then, one night in the hotel suite, he knelt down and asked me to marry him. I said yes, of course. He might as well have been a boy from the factories; I’d have married him anyway. I had fallen in love with his goodness, his heart, not his money. And when he gazed into my eyes, I almost told him about the baby right then and there, but the nausea had subsided, and I worried I’d miscarried. I couldn’t bear to think of telling him I had lost his child. So I waited.

“It’s about time you meet my family,” he said. “Why don’t you come for dinner at the house tonight?”

“I don’t know,” I said, feeling apprehensive about the previous interactions with Josie.