“But shouldn’t we hold on to our dreams?” Claire asked, feeling almost desperate.
“Not when they keep us from moving forward,” Vivien said sadly.
The two women sat quietly, each lost in her own dreams.
Then Vivien’s voice broke the silence.
“Tell me about Peter,” she said.
Claire looked at her, surprised.
“It’s all right, darling,” Vivien said. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“I’ve hurt him,” Claire said. “I—”
“My son will be all right. And so will you.”
Claire rested her head on the old woman’s chest, and Vivien stroked her hair.
“Don’t waste your one beautiful life,” Vivien said softly.
Peter found them like that a few minutes later. He walked into his mother’s room with Kathy in his arms.
“Mommy,” Kathy said, her voice hushed.
“Kit Kat,” Claire said, standing and opening her arms to hold her daughter close.
Beside her, Vivien slept, her breathing shallow.
Claire met Peter’s eyes.
“The baby,” she said. “She was ours.”
She watched the news settle in him.
“I want to go home,” Claire said.
“Home?”
“It’s time to begin our farewells,” she said.
“Oh, Claire,” he said.
Claire glanced at Vivien, whose face had grown paler.
“It’s time,” Claire said.
Claire closed her eyes and breathed deeply all the smells around her. Death hung in the air. But so did the beautiful little girl scent of her daughter, the pungent smell of flowers, her husband’s clean soap smell, her own familiar one, all mingled together. Claire breathed them all in.
Then she took the first tentative, terrifying, exhilarating steps into her future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, I have many people to thank for helping me to tell this story. Gretchen Jaeger helped me with details about vineyards; Nan Young told me about Denver in 1919; Diane and Pablo Rodriguez gave me a lesson in obstetrics in 1961; David Pires and Thom Anderson explained how someone in 1919 would get from San Francisco to Denver by train. The books The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson, 52 McG.’s by Robert McG. Thomas, The Great Influenza by John M. Barry, and A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester all inspired my imagination as well as providing necessary information. Kerrie Hoban, Lyndsay Ursillo, Hillary Noble, and Mary Hector who gave me the time in which to write, and Sharon Ingendahl who is a friend and a reader extraordinaire. Thanks too to Gail Hochman and Jill Bialosky, the best agent and editor a writer could have. And to Lorne, Sam, and Annabelle, who always give me the love and support a writer needs.