Sari MacLeish took the envelope from me with a hand that trembled only slightly. I don’t think I would have shown as much composure under the circumstances. Actually, I’m pretty sure I would not.
“And it was in a desk, you say?”
We were at her house again, having called her to let her know what I’d found.
“That’s right. A desk I bought at auction last week. It was his. Brine’s.”
“And it’s addressed to me,” she said, looking at the envelope, at her name in what I guessed was his bold printing. There was disbelief in her voice.
“Do you want to read it after we leave? It’s all right if you do.”
“No. Stay, please. Just for a while.”
“Sure,” Kyle and I said almost in unison.
I watched her closely as she read. Her face was cloudy as she began, but the more she read, the lighter it seemed to become. It wasn’t a long letter, judging by the time it took for her to read it. And by the end, tears ran down her cheeks like spring rain from a clear sky.
“He loved me,” she said, wonderment in her voice. “He loved me all along.”
“What did he say?” I didn’t like to pry, but curiosity was getting the better of me.
“So much. But most of all, he said he should have made different choices. He had regrets.” Her voice hardened then, surprising me. Until she spoke. Then I understood. “Regrets! All those years. What a waste of time.”
She was right, of course. Because whatever else it said, the note and his apology indicated a loss there was no coming back from. You can’t take it with you, as they say. And when a day is gone, you’ll never get it back.
“What a waste of time,” she said again. The anger was gone from her voice now. Regret was all I heard. And maybe grief.
* * *
In the morning I got up early and went for a run. I like to run in the morning, but today it was the newspaper I was after. The morning edition. My story in particular, of course. It wasn’t front-page stuff. I knew that. But I’d written a good, solid piece that might make a difference in the end.
I got back to my place, made tea in anticipation of reading, then spread the paper out, preparing to find and read my piece. It wasn’t anywhere. But an article on page six under my rival Brent Hartigan’s byline caught my eye.
Auction-House Event Solves Decades-Old Mystery
Brent Hartigan
And, in very small type, with files by Nicole Charles.
I felt a flood of rage, followed by a despair that threatened tears, followed by a near-hysterical urge to laugh. I went with the last of the emotions. If a choice had to be made, it seemed the healthiest of the three.
The article under Brent’s byline was my story. And yet it was not. Brent had hit the highlights, and the stuff about the wine had been left out altogether.
I called my editor.
“What the hell, Mike!” I said. I didn’t think he’d need me to fill him in. I was right.
“Sorry, Nicole. I know you wanted this story. And your piece…well, honestly, it was okay but not as objective as I needed it to be. You understand.”
“It was plenty objective,” I said. “And if you needed it to be different, I could have fixed it. Easily.”
“Sure, I get it, Nicole. But there just wasn’t time…” He said more, but I tuned it out. Everything I needed to know, I’d heard. The rest was just whitewashing—I understood that. He’d known I’d be pissed, and he was right. I wanted to rail at him, but I knew I wouldn’t do that. No sense burning bridges or closing doors. In future, there would be a chance for me to get what I wanted. In the meantime, nothing I could say or do would alter what had happened.
So I’d lost another story. Brent Hartigan had gotten another byline. An opportunity for Joe MacLeish had gone astray. But of all of us, I thought Sari MacLeish had suffered the greatest loss. She’d discovered that she’d been loved in return. A useless love for both her and Brine. Years of hurt and loss when there could have been joy.
If the cops ever got around to giving me back the wine, I was thinking I’d give it to Sari. In so many ways, I didn't feel I had a claim to it. And it seemed to me that, as the mother of Brine’s child, she really did. I didn't think a few bottles of wine would make everything better. But maybe it would take the edge off. And at this late date? Maybe that was enough.
There was a message in all of this. I tried to decipher it. A lesson to be learned. I thought about it as I drove to the office. Something about taking opportunities when they presented themselves. About watching sunsets when they occurred and taking love and chances when they landed, before it was too late.
I thought again about what Clark had told me when I’d met him at his book launch. About how writing a book made you the expert on a thing. And though I knew I didn’t have the experience to do it, I had a sudden urge to be writing about opportunities taken and lost. About how windows open when doors shut, and that satisfaction is for those who drive toward it.
I parked the car and got on the elevator to zoom up to the newsroom. There was a calm determination in my heart. There would be other stories.