Blackberry Winter

Chapter 20





The next morning, I sat up in bed and stretched my arms. Ethan was gone, yes, leaving a vacant spot in my heart, but I tried not to think about it. I put a bowl of instant oatmeal in the microwave and watched out the window as a ferry streamed into the bay. Ethan and I used to love to sit and watch the ferries come in and out. We had pet names for them. Edgar. Duncan. Maude. I smiled, recalling the day he’d named one Horace.

The phone rang from the kitchen, and I ran to pick it up. “Hello?”

“Claire, it’s Eva.”

“Hi,” I said. “It’s good to hear from you again.” I couldn’t wait to tell her about Warren.

“I was wondering if you might be able to stop by today,” she said. “There’s something that occurred to me and…well, we can talk when you get here. Are you free?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking of my afternoon plans with Warren. We could stop by Eva’s place first. I could reunite two old friends. “Would noon be all right?”

“Fine,” she said.

“Oh, and Eva, I’ll be bringing along a friend. Someone I’d like you to meet.”

“Wonderful,” she said. “The more the merrier.”



I finished my oatmeal, then pulled my hair into a ponytail. Without thinking about what I was doing, I lifted a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from my dresser, and stood in front of the floor-length mirror in my bedroom. My legs were not what they were. Once toned and strong, they looked soft and doughy. I wasn’t a runner anymore. Could I ever be again?

I turned to the closet, which looked bare without Ethan’s clothes inside. I looked away, and a flash of blue caught my attention on the lower shoe rack. My running shoes. They sat there unassumingly, no longer taunting me the way they had in previous months. Now they only waited patiently, quietly. I walked to them and picked them up, sitting on the bed as I slowly sank my feet into their soft soles. I liked the way they felt, snug and sure. I laced them up, tying the bow into a double knot. My heart beat faster as I took a sip of water and tucked my cell phone and keys into my pocket, rituals I had done hundreds of times before going on jogs in the past.

Gene didn’t say anything as I stepped off the elevator and walked through the lobby. It was a moment unworthy of conversation. Besides, my mind was churning and my heart heavy. It had been a year since I’d last set out for a jog. A life-changing year. He simply held the door open for me as I walked out onto the street, nodding as I crossed the threshold. I’d run many races over the years. But this one, even if it only turned out to be three blocks, felt like the race of my life. And it was.

At first I walked. One foot in front of the other. Once strong and solid, my legs felt like popsicle sticks under me. I shook my head. No, I can’t do this. A gap in the sidewalk sent my heart racing. I remembered the car jetting toward me. The way I’d tripped. The impact, followed by the snap in my abdomen. One foot in front of the other. I picked up my pace, cautiously. Breathe. The sun shone down on my cheeks, warm and approving. A woman looked up at me from a nearby café and smiled. Breathe. Birds chirped from their perch on the electrical lines overhead. Before I knew it, I was running again, really running.

I zigzagged through the blocks by the apartment, then decided to make the hike up past Café Lavanto. I wouldn’t go in, not after Dominic’s revelation the other night. But I longed to run past it, to imagine Warren playing outside as a boy. Sweaty and out of breath, I reached the top of the hill and doubled over with a side ache. I clutched my side and took several deep breaths, then looked up at the café on the block ahead. The building was partitioned off with orange cones. Men in hardhats holding clipboards buzzed around the entrance, pointing to the structure. Yellow caution tape forbade anyone from coming in for a latte. Or a hot chocolate. Surely they aren’t starting demolition yet? I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed Dominic’s number, but after three rings, his voice mail picked up. “Dominic,” I said loudly over the noise of a large truck backing up in front of the café. “You said you were selling it, but I didn’t think this was happening so soon. I…”

Speechless, I hung up my phone, inching closer to the caution tape, and waved at a man wearing a yellow hard hat. “Excuse me!” I shouted.

He walked over with the look of someone who did not want to be bothered.

“What’s going on here?”

“The building’s going to come down,” he said. “Well, not today. We’re just getting ready.”

“No!” I cried. “It can’t be.”

The man shrugged. “Well, it is.” He flipped his clipboard around to display the architectural drawings for what looked like a new condo building. In the renderings, a Starbucks café occupied the bottom floor. “We got permits pushed through quickly on this one. Boss wants the new building up before the one across the street is finished.

I shook my head.

“Hard to believe an old place like this stuck around as long as it did,” he said, glancing at the sign on the window. “What a dump.”

“This dump,” I said, “happens to be a very special place. It’s where—”

The man shouted something at a worker in the distance and walked away.

“It’s where Vera and Daniel lived,” I continued, even if I was the only one listening. “You can’t tear it down. You just can’t.”

I watched for a while as the construction crew milled about. They swarmed like termites gathering to devour a rotted piece of wood. I wanted to fling myself at the building and hold my arms out to protect it, the way hard-core environmentalists chain themselves to trees. I felt sick thinking of all the memories, all the secrets, that would come toppling down when the wrecking ball tore through it. I hated to think that I might have missed something, but most important was making sure Warren got the chance to see it one more time.

I willed myself to walk away, picking up my pace to a jog as soon as I rounded the corner. As my breath quickened, my mind turned to Ethan again. The memories caused my feet to push harder, my heart to pound louder. Before I knew it, I’d sprinted past Pacific Place and up to Broad Street, where the Space Needle gleamed overhead. That’s when it hit me. It isn’t Ethan’s forgiveness I’m looking for; it’s my own.

My phone rang inside my pocket and I slowed my pace. When I saw Ethan’s number on the screen, my first instinct was to let the call go to voice mail. I thought about letting him go. I reached inside my pocket and clutched the phone as it rang a second time and then a third. I pulled it out. We had lost a baby. We had lost part of ourselves. We had been through so much. Too much. But it didn’t mean we had to lose each other.

I clicked the green button.

“Hi,” I said into the phone.

“Hi,” he said. “I want to come home—that is, if you’ll let me.”

“But I thought you said—”

“Claire, I don’t know what I said, and I can honestly say I don’t know how to fix us. All I know is that I want to.”

“Oh, Ethan,” I cried. “I want that too.”

“I’ll be on the next ferry.”



I ran another mile, then slowed to a walk once I was a block away from the apartment. Heart pounding. Face unable to stop smiling. I reached for my cell phone in my pocket and dialed Elliott Bay Jewelers.

“Yes, this is Claire Aldridge. I purchased a watch for my husband a while ago, and, well, I’ve decided on the engraving.”

“Yes,” the woman said, “what will it be?”

“Can you just print ‘Sonnet 43’?”

“That’s it?” the woman asked. “Nothing else?”

“No,” I said. “It sums up everything I need to say.”

I hung up the phone just as I reached the apartment building. Gene held the door open for me, sweat streaming down my face. “You’re back,” he said with a proud smile.

“I’m back,” I said, stepping into the elevator. This time, the words finally rang true.



I looked up from the couch as Ethan walked into the apartment. He set his bag down by the door, and it toppled over, spilling a file folder out onto the rug, but he didn’t stop to retrieve it. “Claire, I’m so sorry,” he said with a cautious smile, “for the way I’ve behaved.”

“Me too,” I said quietly.

He walked to me and knelt down so that his face was directly in front of mine. “You’re running again,” he said quietly.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Finally.” I ran my fingers through his hair. A kiss of gray appeared at his temples, reminding me how much I longed to grow old with this man.

“A funny thing happened,” he said. “On the ferry over to the island, I saw a couple with a little boy.” He wiped a tear from his eye. “He was about the age our son would have been. One. Just barely walking.”

I clasped both hands behind Ethan’s neck and began to cry. “Our son?”

He nodded. “We had a son.”

“Ethan,” I cried, letting the revelation sink in and pierce my heart.

“He was a beautiful boy,” he said through tears. “He had your nose. I love your nose.”

I buried my face in his chest as he rocked me slowly. “I started to think about what life would be like without you, Claire, without us. Honey, I don’t want that life.”

“I don’t either,” I said, feeling a lump in my throat.

“What did the grief counselor say? That when you lose a child, you’re twice as likely to end up divorced?”

I nodded. “Something like that.”

“Let’s beat that statistic,” he said, wrapping his arm around my waist. “Let’s start over.

I nodded. “Daniel,” I said softly under my breath.

Ethan looked confused. “Daniel?”

“Yes,” I said, smiling. “Our baby. I want to call him Daniel.”

“Yes,” he said, his voice shaking with emotion. “Daniel. A perfect name for our first son.”

I smiled. “You talk as if we’ll have another.”

He grinned. “I’d like it if we did. If you’re ready…”

“I’m getting there,” I said, nuzzling my cheek against his neck.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” he said softly. “Can you ever forgive me?”

I weaved my fingers through his. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“I already have,” he said, looking out the window at the Sound and then back at me. “Hey, let’s forget about work today and go somewhere, right now, to celebrate our new beginning.”

I looked at the clock. “I can’t,” I said. “Not just yet. I already have a date.”

Ethan looked confused.

“With your grandfather,” I said, pressing my face against his chest, breathing in the scent of his crisp white shirt. My heart sank when I remembered the café’s proposed demolition. We were too late, but not too late for a final glance. Maybe that’s all Warren needed, anyway. “I’d love it if you came with us,” I said, looking up at Ethan. “It’s a big moment for him.” I paused. “And for me.”

His keys jingled when he pulled them from his pocket, the sound of two people moving forward—together. “I’ll drive you.”



Ethan parked the car on the street in front of Eva’s building and Warren turned to me with a confused look. “But I thought we were going to—”

I looked at my watch, conscious of every minute passing. Even if the building wasn’t going to come down today, just knowing that it was so close to demolition made me increasingly anxious for Warren to see it one last time. But I’d promised Eva. “I wanted to make a stop first,” I said. “Just for a minute. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Warren and Ethan followed as I led them to the elevator up to Eva’s floor. I knocked when we got to her door.

“Claire,” Eva said cheerfully, welcoming us inside. “And you brought friends! Let’s see, this must be your husband?” she said, turning to Ethan.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ethan said, slipping an arm around my waist. I loved the warmth of his embrace, but it wasn’t our moment; it was theirs.

“Eva,” I said quietly, “this is Warren Kensington, but you know him by another name.”

She looked at me and then at Warren, searching his face.

“Eva,” Warren said. Remembrance flickered in his eyes as he extended a hand to her. “It’s so good to see you again. You may remember me as Daniel. Daniel Ray.”

“My God,” Eva gasped. “Am I dreaming?” She sat down in a chair by the window. “It’s a miracle,” she continued, turning to me. “How did you…? Where did you…?”

“He’s my grandfather,” Ethan said.

Eva looked at me and then at Warren, astonished.

Warren nodded. “And this fine reporter here cracked the case.”

Eva looked shaken. “You mean, you’ve been alive this whole time?”

Warren sat down beside her and smiled. “Well, this old ticker’s still beating, so I guess so.”

Eva reached her hand out to Warren’s arm. “I can hardly believe you’re here,” she said. “Your mother missed you so.”

“I can only imagine,” he said.

“Do you remember, Daniel?”

“I think so. I have moments when I believe I can remember that life. When I close my eyes, I can see her face.”

Eva smiled. “Vera’s face?”

“Yes,” he said quietly.

I knelt down beside Warren’s chair. “I found her grave site,” I said.

Warren looked deeply moved. “How?”

“Eva told me.”

“My God,” he said. “I’ve been looking for her for so long, I…”

“Would you like me to take you there today, after we visit the old apartment building?”

“Yes,” Warren said, shifting in his chair. As he lifted his leg, he knocked a magazine from the coffee table. I reached to pick it up and my bracelet slid down to the base of my wrist. The sapphires sparkled in the afternoon sun streaming through the windows.

Eva sat up in her chair. “Claire, that bracelet,” she said. “It’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I noticed it on your wrist the other day. May I ask where you got it?”

I turned to Ethan, who waited quietly near the door, leaning against the doorframe. “My husband gave it to me,” I said proudly. “It was a gift.”

“Let me see it,” she said, extending her hand.

I held my wrist out to her and she studied the gold chain for a long time. “Yes,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Vera’s bracelet. The one Charles gave to her as a gift when he was courting her.”

“It can’t be,” I said.

“She’s right,” Warren said with certainty. “Father gave it to me when I was a young man. He said to give it to a very special woman because it had belonged to someone he once loved. I gave it to my wife, and when she died, I passed it on to Ethan to give to you.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “All this time, I’ve been wearing her bracelet.”

Ethan knelt beside me and I squeezed his hand. “I remember now,” I said, recalling my research. “The autopsy report. Charles Kensington”—I turned to Warren—“your father picked up her personal effects. This must have been after Josephine told him the truth about you, after he found out that Vera had died searching for her son.”

I clutched the bracelet with new appreciation. It had clung to Vera’s wrist the night she took her last breath and had found its way to my arm some eighty years later.

“My late wife always loved that bracelet,” Warren said. “If only she could have known the real story. We’ll meet again,” he said, looking up toward the sky with a wink. “And I’ll have quite a story to tell her.”

“Will you ever,” Eva said.

I stood up. “I’m sure you two could reminisce forever, but Warren has one more stop to make—that is, if you’re ready.”

“Yes,” he said, standing. “I am.”

Eva followed us to the door. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you,” she said to Warren. “I feel like Mother’s soul can rest now.”

“Aunt Caroline?” he said, as if extracting a memory long buried in his mind.

“Yes. My mother. It was her dying wish to find you.”

“I hope she’s smiling down now,” he said.

“I know she is,” Eva replied. “With Vera.”



My heart pounded as Ethan drove toward Café Lavanto. He pulled the car into a load-and-unload zone at the foot of the hill leading up to the café. “Doesn’t look like there’s any parking on the street,” he said, squinting ahead. “I’ll just drop you off here.”

I unfastened my seat belt in the backseat and inched closer to Warren in the passenger seat. “It may be the last chance to see the old building,” I said. “They’re going to tear it down.”

“What a shame,” he said, trying to get a look at the scene ahead. “Why?”

“Condo buildings,” I said.

“Doesn’t this city have enough of those?”

I shrugged. “Seattle seems to have an insatiable appetite for condos and Starbucks.” I looked out at the café. “It’s a shame, really. The owner is a good man. He’s selling it to support his mother. She’s been ill for a long time and she can’t pay her medical bills.”

I wasn’t sure if Warren was listening. His gaze remained fixed on the street.

“Are you coming in?” I asked Ethan, before stepping out onto the sidewalk. The afternoon sun beamed in through the windshield and made his green eyes sparkle.

He glanced at his grandfather and then at me. “You go ahead, Claire,” he said with a smile. “It’s your story to finish.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“I’ll be back to pick you up in a half hour,” he said, his eyes filled with the love I’d missed so much. “Think that will be enough time?”

I nodded and gave Warren’s hand a squeeze as we stepped out of the car and onto the sidewalk, inching toward the café cautiously, quietly. “Are you ready?” I asked.

He nodded, and we walked slowly up the steep block, pausing many times so Warren could catch his breath. A construction zone was no place for someone recently released from the hospital, and for a moment I felt guilty about taking him there. But then I remembered that it had been his idea, his wish.

“Claire!” I looked up to see Dominic rushing toward us. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve been trying to call you back all afternoon, but your phone must be off.”

I reached into my bag and realized that I’d accidently turned the ringer off. “Listen,” I said, “I don’t blame you.”

He clutched a manila envelope. “I’m signing the papers this afternoon,” he said apologetically. “It will be a day or two before they start demolition.” He rubbed his brow. “Claire, I really hate that I have to do this, but it’s the only way I know how to provide for my mother.”

I held up my hand. “Please, don’t apologize. I understand.”

“You do?”

“Yes,” I said. “I just wish there was another way. I’m sick about seeing this old place go.”

“My brother and sister offered to chip in,” he said. “We started a fund in her name to get community support. A bank back home has offered to match donations dollar for dollar. But we haven’t raised near enough.”

Warren stood next to me, half-listening to the exchange without taking his eyes off the door to the café. The trim, a burnt red, was in dire need of paint, particularly the upper right edge, which exposed the bare wood underneath the chipped topcoat. I wondered what color the doorframe had been in the 1930s.

Dominic gave me a knowing look and nodded toward the café, just as another truck pulled up to the street. “It’s OK,” he whispered. “I’ll ask them not to go in until you two are done. Take all the time you need.”

I looked at Dominic curiously. “How do you even know who…?”

He smiled. “Daniel, right?”

I nodded. “But how did you…?”

“I knew you’d find him,” he said, grinning.

We took a step closer, and Warren looked at me for reassurance. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,” he said, staring at the door, then turning to face me with misty eyes.

I worried about his heart, both the physical and the emotional toll. But he needed this. His life was like a tragic novel missing the final Chapter, a beautiful one. We’d found it, dusted it off, and now it was time to read it. “Thank you, Claire,” he said.

Dominic held the door open and we walked inside. The old La Marzocco espresso machine had been moved from its spot on the bar. A dark shadow of coffee stains remained in its place. The tables and chairs had been pushed to the side wall, lined up and ready to be carted out. The beautiful fireplace looked lonely on the far wall. I took a deep breath. Those beautiful tiles by Ivanoff the mason. They’d be destroyed along with everything else.

“Warren?” I said.

He didn’t answer.

I reached for his hand. “Warren, are you all right?”

“I remember,” he said, his eyes big and his body still. “This hallway. There were men here. Drunken men. Mother used to hurry me inside and we’d run past them, up the stairs.”

He walked a few paces, slowly, toward the back of the café. “May I?” he asked, turning back to Dominic.

“Please,” Dominic said.

I followed Warren through the door that led to the back room and up the staircase. The stairs creaked underfoot, and I offered my arm to steady him, but he shook his head.

He stood on the little landing and ran his hand along the baluster. “All these years,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his coat, “I have dreamt about this place.” He paused to pull out a handkerchief and dab the corner of his eye. “And to be here…it’s just as I remember it.”

I reached for his hand. “Do you remember her? Vera?”

He nodded. “I do. Well, I suppose it’s less of a memory, and more of a…feeling.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “An instinct. Your heart never forgets your mother.”

I blinked back a tear, watching his eyes search the wall by the stairs. He walked closer, operating on instinct, patting his hand along the base of the trim.

I approached the wall. “What is it?”

He stepped back and sighed. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I thought I remembered something, but…”

“It must be difficult,” I said, “to be here again.”

His eyes glimmered. “It must have destroyed her, losing me the way she did. It would have destroyed my wife to lose one of our children. She would have never been the same.”

“To have searched for you the way she did, she must have loved you very much,” I said.

Warren nodded, before starting his descent down the stairs. I followed, keeping my hand near his elbow to help steady him.

“I’ll take you back now,” I said. “You must be tired.”

He didn’t seem to hear me. He looked right, then left, as if he could sense something, feel something.

“Warren?” I asked. “Are you OK?”

He walked back to the stairs in silence, then stopped in front of a few boxes nestled against the wall. He knelt down and pushed them aside, exposing the paneling along the crumbling lath and plaster. Dominic and I watched as he traced the grooves in the wall, as if operating on muscle memory. Moments later, we heard the creak of a hinge, and Warren pried open a tiny door. A secret compartment. My heart beat faster.

He pushed his hand inside the little space in the wall. I knelt beside him and watched as he pulled out a feather caked in dust. He twisted it between his fingers and smiled to himself before setting it on the hardwood floor. Beside it, he set an apricot-colored pebble, a penny, three white shells, and a tattered ace of hearts. “I found it downstairs,” he said, marveling at the card. “Mama let me keep it.”

Mama.

I watched as he reached inside the wall again, this time pulling out an envelope. He held it up to me with a trembling hand. In faded ink were the words “To Daniel.” He turned to me. “Claire, could you please read it to me?”

I nodded, lifting the edge of the yellowed envelope. I pulled out the delicate page inside and unfolded it, looking at Warren before casting my gaze on the first line:

My dearest Daniel,

My world ended the day you disappeared, my sweet son. Whoever took you away also stole my heart, my life. I lived to see you smile, to hear you laugh, to share your joy. And the world seems less beautiful without you. I know you are near. I feel it in my heart; I believe you will come back to this place. Our special place. And when you do, I want you to know how much I love you, even though I may not be here to tell you so.

One day we will be reunited, my child. One day I will sing to you again and hold you in my arms. Until then, I will be loving you, and dreaming of you.

Your loving mother,

Vera



Here was little Daniel before me. I could see him as Vera once had. Soft, plump cheeks where wrinkles were. Blond curls instead of white wisps. Bright blue eyes unclouded by age.

Warren looked up to me. “The café,” he said. “It’s being destroyed?”

I nodded. “I’m so sorry, Warren. Dominic is selling. He has to—”

“How much is the offer?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The developer who wants to buy it, how much have they offered?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Dominic didn’t say.”

“I’ll double it.”

I couldn’t contain my smile. “Really, Warren? You’d do that?”

He smiled. “I can’t let them tear down my childhood home, now, can I? And didn’t he say that his family needed the funds? Might as well put this old Kensington money to good use.” He looked around the little room. “Yes, that fine young man can keep things just as they are. I won’t change anything.” His eyes looked misty. “Well, except one thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“The name,” he said. “I will change it to Vera’s Café.”

“Oh, Warren!” I exclaimed, hugging him tightly. “She’d be so proud.”

I glanced at Vera’s letter a final time, and a sentence at the bottom of the page caught my eye. A postscript. I’d overlooked it somehow.

“Wait,” I said. “There’s something I missed.”

P.S. Daniel, don’t forget Max. I found him in the snow. He’s missed you.

I shook my head in confusion. “Max?”

Warren looked astonished. He reached inside the wall again, a little deeper this time. A moment later, he retrieved a child’s teddy bear, ragged, with a tattered blue velvet bow.

“Max,” Warren said, adjusting the dusty bow. “I dropped him, the night she came for me.” His chin quivered. “She wouldn’t let me go back to get him.”

“Josephine?”

“Yes,” he said. “All I could think about was how cold he’d be in the snow. It was so cold.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Your mother found him and saved him for you,” I said. “She knew you’d come home.”

Warren rose to his feet, cradling the little bear in his arms. He pressed his face against the bear’s, tucking his finger under the frayed ribbon, the way he might have done as a boy. It was only fabric, thread, and stuffing, crudely sewn. But to Warren this stuffed creature might have been worth every dollar of his fortune.

“I’ll be out front,” I whispered, offering him the moment of solitude I felt he needed. “We can leave when you’re ready.”

He nodded, and I walked out to the front of the café. Dominic tucked his hands in his pockets and looked at me sheepishly. “I’m so sorry for—”

“Please don’t apologize,” I said. “Everything worked out the way it was supposed to.” I looked back at Warren. “When he’s ready, he has something he’d like to talk to you about.”

Dominic looked at me quizzically. “He does?”

I smiled and walked to the door without pausing to see the regret in his eyes.

“Good-bye, Dominic,” I said, pushing the door open and stepping out to the street. Ethan would be there soon. We were beginning a new chapter—a better one—and every part of me felt lighter because of it. The sun filtered through the trees, and I noticed a barrel-chested robin pecking around near my feet. Bold and unscathed by my presence, she stared up at me with her head cocked to the right. It took a moment before I noticed her nest a few feet away, lying in a mangled pile of loose twigs and swaths of moss on the sidewalk. A single blue egg with a jagged crack along the center lay on the cement, its yolky center spilling out onto the curb.

Poor thing. She lost her baby, just as Vera had lost hers—I took a deep breath—and just as I had lost mine. It was unfair. It was tragic. But it was life.

The bird circled the nest, pecking in vain at a twig, before retreating a few feet away on the curb. I could almost feel the moment when she realized her efforts were futile. The moment she let go. She flew into the air, stopping briefly on a branch of the cherry tree overhead as if to memorize the scene, to say a final good-bye.

I felt the tug in my belly just then, the old ache. I wrapped my arms around the abdomen that had carried and lost a baby. Good-bye, my Daniel. “I will always love you,” I whispered.

The wind picked up just then, rustling the branches of the cottonwood tree overhead, disturbing its fluffy seedlings and sending them flying through the air. Just like snow. I caught one in my hand and smiled, looking up to the sky as the robin flapped her wings, circled overhead, and then flew away.





Acknowledgments


A heartfelt thank you to my dear literary agent, Elisabeth Weed, for her encouragement, guidance, and kindness, always. Elisabeth, working with you is such a pleasure and a privilege. Also, much gratitude and a double-shot latte to Stephanie Sun, whose feedback always make my stories stronger. (Wait, make that a triple!) And, a huge thanks to Jenny Meyer for sharing my books with readers in so many countries—from Germany to Italy, Spain to Turkey, and more (wow!)—and Dana Borowitz at UTA, for representing my books so proficiently in the world of film.

To my friends at Plume, beginning with my extraordinary editor, Denise Roy, who was immediately enthusiastic about this story, from the title to its characters, reading the first draft late into the night so she could give me quick feedback—you are, in a word, amazing, and I adore working with you. To Phil Budnick, Kym Surridge, Milena Brown, Liz Keenan, Ashley Pattison, the incredible Plume sales force, and the many, many others at Penguin who work hard to make my novels successful, I am so grateful for your support and partnership.

This novel may have never been written had I not heard the haunting song “Blackberry Winter” on the radio by the gifted singer and pianist Hilary Kole (see Author’s Note for the full story). And I may have never heard the song had it not been aired on the truly fantastic Sirius Satellite Radio station Siriusly Sinatra, which always makes me want to write a novel about Frank Sinatra.

Thank you to the friends who have cheered me on—especially those who are mothers. Big hugs to you, Sally Farhat Kassab, Camille Noe Pagán, the lovely PEPS gals, and so many others. I also want to mention two very special friends who have rebounded from disappointment and loss in recent years—both have been a tremendous inspiration to me as women and mothers: Lisa Bach, your great strength and resilience amazes and inspires me. And Wendi Parriera, you have taught me so much about faith and hope in the face of the unthinkable.

To my parents, for too many reasons to list here, but especially to my mom, Karen Mitchell, for her blackberry pies and making life lovely for her children and her grandchildren; and to my dad, Terry Mitchell, for his dedication to his children, for our jogs together, and for all those long walks to that old cemetery where childhood curiosity blossomed into literary inspiration. To my brothers Josh and Josiah, and my sister, Jessica, my dearest friend who is a profound inspiration to me in motherhood and life—love to you all.

I am continuously grateful to my husband, Jason, for being the type of supportive spouse who encourages me in my writing and who loves to celebrates all the little (and big) things in life with me. J, I love traveling on this journey with you. And, my beloved sons—Carson, Russell, and Colby—this book is for you.

Finally, to my readers: Thank you for welcoming my stories into your lives, for reading them with your book clubs, and for telling your friends and families about them. I have many more to come—some in progress, others just little glimmers in my mind—and I can hardly wait for you to read them.





Author’s Note


One morning, while in the car with my husband and our young sons, an intriguing song came on the radio. I had never heard it before, but I was instantly transfixed by the melody, and the singer’s haunting voice. I turned to my husband, who was driving: “This is a beautiful song!” I exclaimed. “Do you know it?” He shook his head. I glanced at the radio, and the screen read, “Blackberry Winter by Hilary Kole.” The title made my heart flutter. As a lifelong Northwesterner, blackberries are special to me. I get nostalgic when I think about the after-dinner walks I took with my parents and siblings during the summers of my childhood. We’d all take bowls and tromp through the woods near our home, scouting for blackberries. My sister and I would eat the majority of them, and the rest would find their way into one of mom’s famous pies or cobblers. Summer just wasn’t summer without berry-stained fingers.

That day in the car, I pulled out my phone (which, ahem, happens to be a BlackBerry) and e-mailed myself the name of the song and its artist. I wanted to read the lyrics, but mostly, I wanted to know the origins of the title. What is a blackberry winter? Later, at home, I sat down at my desk to do some research. I learned that the term is old-fashioned weather jargon for a late-season cold snap—think of plunging temperatures and snowfall in May, just when the delicate white flowers are beginning to appear on the blackberry vines.

I couldn’t get the words “blackberry winter” out of my head, and that night, I began to sketch out the concept for this novel. The story came to me quickly and vividly: Vera and Daniel and the little apartment they shared in the 1930s; his beloved teddy bear lying face-down in the cold snow; Claire and her curious reporter’s mind and her own deep pain and grief; snowflakes falling on the spring cherry blossoms.

For the next many months, I lived and breathed Blackberry Winter. At the heart of this story, for me, were the raw emotions of motherhood. I began writing the novel when I was pregnant with my third son, and I channeled Vera and Claire’s pain and often heartbreaking experiences. I thought a lot about how it would feel to lose a child, and what I would do. Then, in a heartbreaking turn of events, shortly before I finished the book, one of my dearest friends, Wendi Parriera, lost her two-year-old son to a rare form of brain cancer. It broke my heart to watch her say good-bye to her precious boy, and I wept with her on the phone as she held her son against her chest in the final hours of his life. But, I also saw her strength, and the light in her eye—the one that told me how thankful she is to have been the mother of this beautiful child, and how excited she is to know, with certainty, that she’ll be seeing him again, in heaven. Wendi reminds me, always, that motherhood—life—no matter how short, is a gift.

While my characters’ challenges are great and their stories tragic, like my dear friend, I like to think that they found their own sense of peace and truth—swirling in a late-season snowstorm and hidden among the protective thorns of the blackberry vines.

Thank you for reading. I hope this novel touches your heart in the same way it touched mine.