The Apple Orchard

Thirty



Now that she’d figured out the truth about Annelise Winther, Tess had no choice but to take her to see Magnus. The idea of returning to Archangel made her heart skip a beat, but it was from excitement, not panic. During the long drive from the city, Annelise talked nearly the whole time.

“People under siege tend to grow up fast or die,” she said.

“You mean, in Copenhagen during the occupation.”

“Yes. Although there were no official battles fought in Denmark, everyone, even the youngest of us, felt embattled. There was the constant pressure of keeping secrets and staying out of trouble. I was no exception, even as young as I was when it all started. Even though there was no active fighting, there were casualties. I remember seeing men who’d had a limb blown off by a bomb or mortar in some distant theater where the fighting raged. And in some way I felt just like them, someone who had lost a vital part of herself, whose entire future had been changed in a single moment. My missing family was like that phantom limb. I knew where it was supposed to be. I could feel it, but it was gone.”

“Listen, if this is hard to talk about—”

“It’s hard, but it should be talked about. Magnus’s accident was a horrible reminder that we’re fragile, we mortals.”

“How long have you known him?”

“I met Magnus for the first time the day my parents were taken away. He was just a boy, a few years older than me, but I believe he was already working for the Holger Danske—the Resistance. He spirited me away by boat to Helsingør—the place Shakespeare fans know as Elsinore, where my grandmother lived.”

“Did Magnus stay there with you?”

“No. I didn’t see him again until a few years later.” She took a handkerchief from her purse and briefly dabbed at her eyes. Then, with exceeding care, she folded the handkerchief in her lap. “I was flung out of childhood by the delivery of a telegram. After my parents were arrested, I was taken to live with my grandmother when the message arrived.”

“The telegram,” said Tess, keeping her eyes on the road, though she wanted to look at Miss Winther. Annelise.

“It was a mechanically produced telegram on extremely thin paper, as if the murder of my parents didn’t warrant a sheet of fine stationery. Of course it wasn’t called murder. Officially, the cause of death was typhus. That moment, when we read the telegram, created a clear dividing line between my childhood and some other state, not adulthood...but in that moment, I turned into a different person, hardened and fearful. I had never felt such emotional pain. The horror of a family being torn apart...it is the worst kind of nightmare. That was when my childhood ended, thoroughly and completely, never to be regained. In normal times, that change for a girl might coincide with the gentle appearance of womanly curves. But these were not normal times.”

“I’m so sorry,” Tess said. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“When my grandmother died half a year later, I was sent to a church orphanage. I hated it there, and ran away as soon as I could escape. The trouble was, I had no place to go...except to find Magnus. In time, I joined the Resistance, because even though I’d lost everything, I dedicated myself to helping others avoid the terrors of German occupation.”

“So you and Magnus worked together?”

“We did. There was a large group of us—all young, all angry and passionate as only the young can be. Ramon Maldonado was a member of that group. He’d been in the merchant marine, and threw in with the Resistance fighters out of a sense of adventure, at first. And then a sense of purpose.”

“He was a long way from Archangel,” said Tess. “Why would he be in Denmark, of all places?”

“A girl. When you’re young and in love, you don’t let something so small as a world war stop you. It didn’t last, though. In those times, very little lasted. I’m not sure what happened. The Resistance got very busy in October of 1943, when the Germans instituted martial law. The Nazis ordered a roundup of all the Danish Jews, and we took part in the greatest rescue of the war. Nearly all of Denmark’s eight thousand Jews were ferried to safety in Sweden. There was a very narrow strait between Helsingør and Sweden. The fishing boats sailed both day and night for two weeks.”

“That’s remarkable,” said Tess. “It must have been so gratifying for you.”

“It was. We were known as the Helsingør Sewing Club, organized by a man we knew only as Erling. All the Jews, except five hundred, were taken to safety.”

“And the five hundred,” said Tess, feeling a chill. “Were they sent to Theresienstadt?”

“Yes.”

“So Eva was one of those.”

“Yes,” she said again. “Of the five hundred Danes at the camp, fifty-one were lost. All the others were rescued. By the time Denmark was liberated in 1945, Magnus and Ramon were more than just comrades in arms and coconspirators. They were best friends. Ramon gave us all a new life. In 1948, he arranged for all of us to come to California.” She paused, watching out the window. “I had nowhere else to go. All I knew of America was what I saw in the movie pictures. It seemed like a dream to me. Eva and I became fast friends during that time.” She paused again, watching the rolling dairy country pass by the window. “In America, life was perfect, except for one thing.”

Tess scarcely breathed, waiting.

“There was only one Magnus,” Annelise said with stark honesty, “and both of us were in love with him. We were all so young. Eva and I were still teenagers. I never told him the way I felt.”

“Why not?”

“Appearances were everything back then,” the old lady said, gazing out the window. “It’s odd, isn’t it, that we survived so much only to find we couldn’t survive each other.” She unfolded the handkerchief again, then refolded it. “Magnus chose based on who needed him more, and that was Eva. She’d always been fragile. And I kept my distance, though it was terribly hard.”

Tess didn’t say anything. Coming as she did from a line of independent women, she was in no position to judge anyone.

“As time passed, things between Magnus and Eva became strained. They wanted a child so very badly. And I...I wanted him so very badly. We lost ourselves in the situation. It was brief. I wanted it to last forever but I knew it had to end. Then I discovered I was pregnant.”

Tess tried to picture what the situation had been like, so long ago. Annelise—alone, pregnant, scandalized. Magnus and Eva, yearning.

“I came out of the fog and realized the answer was right there before me,” Annelise continued. “I had nearly destroyed their marriage. There was no way to undo the damage. But I could save the child we’d made by giving him a family, a beautiful life. I wish Erik had been in the world longer, but wishes are sometimes not enough.”

A long silence passed. Winery gardens, gorgeous even in winter, flowed past the car windows. “Thank you for telling me this,” Tess said. “It means a lot to me.” She was amazed at how her simple question had opened a floodgate of memories. Annelise, Eva and Magnus had become intertwined during the war years. They had suffered unspeakable losses, had fought and faced danger, ultimately escaping to a new life.

But America, for all its opportunity, had not been a panacea after all. There was still struggle, still tragedy, still acts committed in the heat of passion and reconciled with cold precision. Annelise seemed almost relieved to talk about it.

“I have one more question,” Tess said as she took the winding county road toward Archangel. “After Eva passed away, did you and Magnus ever see each other?”

“No,” said Annelise. “We talked on the telephone. It’s funny, at our age, we acted as if we had all the time in the world. It was only when I saw you on the History Channel program that I began to think it was time to try to make things right.”

When they arrived at the medical center, Annelise paused at the front door and placed her hand on Tess’s arm. “I lost the love of my life because I was too cowardly to declare myself. Make all the mistakes you need to in life, but try not to make that one, Theresa.”

She took her hand away and moved with a brisk eagerness that belied her age. She didn’t even hesitate in the doorway of Magnus’s suite, but strode right to his bedside. Tess knew she would be forever haunted by the expression on Annelise’s face—a mixture of awe, regret, tenderness and love. She sank into a chair and took hold of Magnus’s hand as if it were the most precious of artifacts, and lifted it to her cheek. She whispered something in Danish, and though Tess didn’t understand, she felt shivers course down her spine.

The love emanating from the old woman was as unmistakable as the sun breaking through the clouds. Love, Tess realized, didn’t always take a predictable course. Time and circumstances could batter away at it, like waves on a rocky shore, but for some people, love never died.

With all her heart, Tess knew she was one of those people, too. She couldn’t turn off her feelings for Dominic, not even after walking away. Maybe the lesson to be learned here was that the price of letting someone into her heart was the pain of letting go. Or maybe the even harder work of holding on, no matter what the risk.

Annelise turned to Tess and switched to English. “I’d like to sit with him for a while, if that’s all right.”

* * *

The anxiety Tess had felt upon first coming here had belonged to a different person, someone who was alone and uncertain, scared to jump into life. Now, as she wended her way along the highway to the turnoff, she simply felt a sense of bittersweet nostalgia, as if she were coming home.

Isabel still hadn’t done anything about the egg. At one time, Tess would have declared the decision a no-brainer, but now she was not so certain. Perhaps it was time for Bella Vista to pass into someone else’s hands, after all.

The old roadside market still stood suspended in time, its homey wraparound porch seeming to be waiting for the springtime. She wondered if the future owner of Bella Vista, whoever that might be, would ever do something with the place.

Isabel rushed out of the house to greet her. Their embrace felt natural and comforting. “I missed you,” Tess said.

“Same here. Come on in. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Where’s...? What do we even call her? Miss Winther? Annelise?”

“She’s with Magnus. She’s anxious to meet you, too.”

“In the meantime,” Isabel said, on autopilot as she put out tea and lemon bars, “we need to talk about the egg.”

Tess smiled. “You know me well.”

“You weren’t going to sit through a bunch of small talk.” She went to the freezer and took out an ornate case, a redwood box carved by Magnus. “I didn’t get a safe deposit box for it. I took your advice and stored it with the walnut pesto.” Setting the box on the table, she opened it up. The egg gleamed on a pillow of white satin.

“I don’t want you to feel pressured, Isabel,” Tess said. “I used to be focused on separating people from their treasures, but I get it now. The egg belongs to Magnus and it’s a part of you. The decision to keep it or sell it is in your hands.” Tess felt good about saying it aloud. She wouldn’t blame her sentimental, impractical sister if she felt that keeping the egg would keep her closer to Magnus.

“It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen,” said Isabel. “It’s amazing to imagine Grandfather keeping it with him throughout the war, and after. It’s followed him through all of his days. I’ve thought and thought about it. There’s no price to be put on a man’s life, is there?”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Isabel.”

She closed the box and pushed it across the table. “I’d like you to sell it to the highest bidder.”

Tess nearly choked on a lemon bar. “Wait...what? You’re selling it?”

“Didn’t you estimate it’ll fetch twenty million?”

“I did. Jude thinks it could go higher.”

“Then of course we should sell it.”

“Isabel—”

“The egg is not the treasure. The real value is... It’s this.” She opened her arms to encompass the room. “Us, Tess, and what we’ve found together. That’s what I think, anyway. I’ve thought long and hard about this, and selling the egg is exactly what we should do. We can pay off Grandfather’s debt and get the payroll straightened out, and you’ll have whatever you need to have the life you want.”

The life I want can’t be bought with money, thought Tess. “What about you, Isabel? What are you going to do for yourself?”

Her face lit up as she folded her arms on the table. “How does this sound to you? The Bella Vista Cooking School.”

“You want to start a cooking school?”

“Crazy, right? You were my inspiration for that, Tess. It’ll be a working farm and culinary school. I’ll have my beehives after all. I can convert the bedrooms to guest quarters, and turn it into a destination for people who need to get away and learn something new.”

“That could have described me, when I first came here,” Tess admitted. She pictured the place filled with people who wanted to learn more about the earthly delights of food and the pleasure of preparing it well. “It is crazy. And you’re going to be fabulous.”

They strolled outside together into the freshening breeze that was just beginning to smell of springtime. Almost reflexively, Tess checked her phone before remembering that she didn’t get a signal here.

“Maybe if the auction goes well, I’ll put in a cell phone tower,” Isabel said.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Kidding.”

Tess looked around, envisioning what the trees would look like in blossom. They walked along in silence for a bit. The auction was going to be the firm’s biggest event of the year. Tess wondered why she wasn’t more excited about that. Maybe the excitement would sink in later.

“You haven’t asked about him,” Isabel said.

Tess’s stomach dropped. “And I don’t intend to.”

“You should,” Isabel insisted.

“It’s none of my bus—”

“She left,” Isabel said. “Lourdes. She moved to Petaluma. Jake Camden did, too, although I have no idea if they’re together. A lot of things have changed for Dominic. He, um—he was fired from the bank.”

Her stomach dropped. “What?”

“He broke some kind of rule, or did something wrong—for us, Tess. For Grandfather and Bella Vista. He committed some kind of technical foul to defer the foreclosure, and they fired him.”

“Oh, God. It was about the egg,” she said with sudden clarity. “He classified it as an unrecovered asset, something like that.”

“Go see him, Tess. If you don’t, you’ll always wonder.”

Tess regarded her, aghast. Go see him and say...what? “I’m scared,” she admitted.

“People don’t die of fright,” Isabel reminded her. “My older, wiser sister once told me that.”

* * *

It was mid-afternoon on a weekday, but Isabel had said Dominic would be at home, probably working in the winery or vineyard. Tess drove too fast over the gravel road to his place, determined to get there before she lost her nerve. She kept hearing Annelise’s voice in her head, reminding her to live this day, and love like there was no tomorrow.

As she got out of the car, she saw Dominic coming toward her, and her heart seized. She was not over him. She would never be over him.

He looked...different. Gone were the banker’s suit and wingtip shoes, the frown of worry between his eyes. She noticed something else there, though. A deep hurt, one she recognized. One she had caused.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself.” He stood firm, impassive.

“Do you have time to talk?”

“I’ve got nothing but time. I’m unemployed.”

“Isabel told me about the bank, and I’m sorry about that. I know you put your job at risk for us. If I’d realized it could get you fired, I wouldn’t have let you do it.”

He shrugged. “It was the nudge I needed. Nudged me right into irresponsibility and unemployment. Right into doing what I should have been doing all along.”

“I wish you’d called, Dominic. I wish you’d told me what was going on.”

“Why would I call you, Tess? You walked away.”

“I had to leave. You have a family with her, Dominic—”

“And we’ll always have that.”

“She told me you were going to counseling.”

“For Trini. Did she tell you it was to help Trini at school?”

“I assumed it was to reunite your family.”

“I tried to explain it to you that last day, but you didn’t listen. I wanted you, Tess. I thought you wanted me.”

“You thought?” She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You thought? Did I not make it obvious enough?”

“You walked away,” he reminded her again.

She weighed all the possible facts she could reveal here, and settled on the raw, painful truth. “I was scared. And then you took down my walls, Dominic, and everything you see here—it’s all me. It’s all I have, far from perfect, but it’s all yours, if you’ll have me. Every minute I’ve been gone, I’ve missed you. I love your life, your kids, your dogs—and you. I love you.” She looked at him, and her heart sped up. “I’m still scared, but I won’t hide anymore. No more running. No more secrets.” She took a breath. “I...I stole a shirt.”

“What?”

“I stole one of your shirts, a soft, faded denim one that smells like you, and I sleep with it every night and I’ve been afraid to wash it because I don’t want to lose you.”

For a moment, he looked angry or maybe baffled, but then he laughed softly. “Tess. Why steal my shirt when you can have the whole guy?”