Visible from windows in the front office, grape laden vines awaited an evening harvest at the California Gold Country winery, where Susanna grew up and which she now co-headed with her brother.
Normally Susanna would not be in the office this close to harvest time, but she was watching for the mail truck that would soon deliver a copy of the photo that Caydance had found under the backing of the watercolor painting of Utah Beach.
It had been three years since the loss of the man whom she married when her son was in first grade. Her husband's death was not unexpected, he was significantly older than she was, but she missed his companiable presence in her life and the shared stability he brought to the winery. Today, her brother was in the fields preparing for the harvest. Her son, although he visited regularly, was at his restaurant in Berkeley.
Aside from the letters that stopped coming in 1944, her last memory of Ted was Christmas almost 50 years ago, but-- as if somewhere he was still alive -- his presence had always been on her mind. In her letters, she had never told him that he had a son.
If her long ago love had painted the picture that hung on the wall of the only accessible by window studio/workshop in the Hotel California Trail, what evidence of his ghostly presence would that photo reveal?
No one would be with her when that photograph arrived.