West Wind (Complete Book on Author's Site)

West Wind: Chapter Two

Chapter Two

For the next few days, Sabrina visited quietly with her grandmother. She gave the nurses the space and privacy they needed as they developed a routine for caring for the elderly woman. Rose slept for hours, thanks to the scheduled morphine shots to ease her pain. Sabrina filled her free time wandering around the mansion, organizing books on shelves, dusting knickknacks, and rearranging photographs of Norman and Marta in foreign locales.

Ricardo Brothers began forwarding her mail, and she arranged an alcove in the sitting room as her new office. The kindly landlord also adopted her houseplants, keeping them on his patio until her return. She had few clients since her business was new, and for one-on-one consultations, she referred them to a reliable financial pro. She hoped they would reconsider her services when she returned.

One afternoon, bored and snooping, she discovered a scrapbook and a collection of letters and journals tucked in the antique chest in her grandmother's dressing room.

Sabrina felt guilty as she untied the lilac ribbon that encircled the letters. She seldom ventured into her grandmother's bedroom as a child, intimidated by the lavender gloom and the overwhelming scent of roses. It reminded her of a mausoleum.

This afternoon, however, she pulled the long, heavy drapes away from the window, turned on the bedside lamps and spread the items on the satin coverlet. Some of the letters were in her grandmother's handwriting. Others were from Don Windham, Rose's late husband. There were some letters with no return name on the envelope. Sabrina didn't know where to start, and her stomach flip-flopped.

I'm not meddling. I'm researching family history, she told herself.

She sorted the letters according to the dates on the postmarks. They ranged from 1955 to 1975, twenty years of Rose's life. She also organized the journals, starting with the earliest. They began in 1965, and ended in 1975.

"As if she stopped living when Grandfather died," Sabrina murmured. "Why? What happened?"

Sabrina never knew her family's history. Norman preferred to live in the present, never mentioning his father, never talking about his own childhood. Marta talked about her childhood, but it was a bittersweet story of a young Brazilian orphan brought up by affectionate Catholic nuns. Born Marta Valente, she did not know her mother or father, and had no family until she met Norman in college. It was an important connection: Both felt abandoned, alone, until they found each other. The difference was, Norman did have Rose, a wealthy, yet distant, mother.

When Sabrina was born, the thrilled couple had no idea how to form a family. Instead, they viewed Sabrina as a toy, almost a pet.

Impatient, Sabrina picked up the last letter, dated December 12, 1975. It was a small, creased envelope with no return address. With shaky fingers, Sabrina extracted the one-page note. The edges were torn, the blue ink faded and, in some parts, stained. Tears?

"I must see you again. It can't end this way. Meet me tonight. Believe me, Rose. We can do this. We deserve this. D."

Sabrina frowned, then re-read the letter.

"D?" Don Windham? Was she planning to leave him? Had she already left him and he wanted her back?

She picked up another letter, this one a brief note from Don Windham.

"Rose, Delivered the boat. It handled well, even in Force 8 winds off Bar Harbor. Be home soon. Love, Don."

Sabrina glanced at the postmark on the envelope: September 21, 1975. She picked up the first letter and held one in each hand, comparing the script. They were dissimilar. Even the paper and the envelopes were distinct, although that wouldn't make much difference.