Only the Beautiful by Susan Meissner EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Susan Meissner
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
FEBRUARY 1939
The chardonnay vines outside my open window are silent, but I still
imagine the bursts of teal and lavender their summer rustlings always called
to my mind. That sound had been my favorite, those colors the prettiest.
The leafless stocks with their arms outstretched on cordon after cordon look
like lines of dancers waiting for the music to start—for spring to set their
performance in motion. Looking at them, I feel a deep sadness. It might be
a long time before I see again these vines that had for so long been under
my father’s care, or hear their leaves whisper, spilling the colors in my mind
that belong to them alone.
Perhaps I will never see this vineyard again.
The Calverts won’t welcome a future visit from me. Celine Calvert has
already made it clear that after today she is done with me. Done.
For a moment the words if only flutter in my head, but I lean forward
and pull the window shut. What is to be gained by wishing I could turn back
the clock? If I had that power, I would have done it before now. I wouldn’t
even be living with the Calverts if I had the ability to spin time backward.
I’d still be living in the vinedresser’s cottage down the hill with my parents
and little brother.
The doorbell rings from beyond the bedroom. Shards of heather gray
prick at the edges of my mind. I hear Celine cross the entry to open the
front door and invite the visitor inside.
Mrs. Grissom is here to take me away.
It’s almost a year to the day since I first met Mrs. Grissom on the
afternoon my whole world changed, just like it is changing now. On that
day my father’s truck got stuck on the railroad tracks outside Santa Rosa. In
one blinding instant, he and my little brother, Tommy, were snatched away
from this life. The next, I was sitting in a ghostly white hospital room for
the handful of minutes before my mother slipped away to join them.
“Rosie . . .” Momma’s voice was threaded with the faintest colors of
heaven as I sat in a cold metal chair next to her bed. She lay in a sea of
bandages seeping crimson.
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