Ellen Crosby: The Viognier Vendetta

“Who was Richard Boyle the Fourth?” I asked.

She gave me a knowing smile as though she’d expected me to peek at the card attached to the bouquet.

“My father.”

I stopped walking. “Johnny Natale’s your father.”

I’d met her parents at her graduation. That year it fell on Mother’s Day weekend, rough for me. Her parents had been wonderful, especially her beautiful, vibrant mother, Linh, who treated me like another daughter, inviting me to their dinners and celebrations, including me in everything.

“Johnny Natale is my real father as far as I’m concerned. Richard Boyle died before I was born.”

“How come you never mentioned him?”

“Because I just found out about him.”

Rebecca did not sound like a daughter anguished by the loss of a father she never knew. Instead she sounded calm and matter-of-fact.

We resumed walking, pausing in front of mementos left as tributes. A combat boot, American flags, more flowers, photos encased in plastic, letters commemorating birthdays and events that would never be celebrated with a loved one, handmade cards tucked into the cracks between tablets.

“Why did you write, ‘Never find fault with the absent’?” I asked.

Again that fleeting glance and an apologetic smile. “He and my mom never got married. Don’t ever mention this to anyone, okay?”

I wondered whom she thought I’d tell.

“Sure,” I said again. “I promise.”

We reached the apex of the memorial commemorating the first and last American deaths in 1959 and 1975 where two tablets intersected like an open book. Next to me a woman laid a piece of notebook paper on the black stone and began rubbing the paper with the lead side of a pencil. I watched names appear on the page like ghost images. A packet of letters tied with a yellow ribbon lay at her feet.

“I’m glad you came,” Rebecca was saying. “I knew you’d understand.”

“Pardon?” I dragged my attention from the woman. “Understand what?”

“Why I’m doing this.” She knelt and leaned the roses against the wall.

“Richard Boyle died at the end of the war?” I asked.

“Yes.” For a second she looked flustered. “I’m not quite sure of the exact date.”

“We should find his name,” I said.

It was the one thing she hadn’t done.

She pulled her oversized sunglasses down and I could no longer see her eyes, only my own reflection in the dark glass. “I can’t. I’m late. All I wanted to do was leave the flowers. Can I get you a cab back to the hotel?”

Suddenly she was brisk and businesslike and I got a glimpse of the person she’d become.

“Aren’t you going to the hotel, too?” I asked.

“I’ve got to go to Georgetown to pick up something for Tommy.”

“I haven’t got any plans. Why don’t I come with you?”

“Uh … no. You can’t.”

My face felt hot. “Sorry. I should have realized it’s business.”

“It’s just that it’s sort of delicate … I mean, Tommy trusted me with this errand. I shouldn’t even have mentioned it.”

“Sure. I didn’t mean to pry.” I knew the sound of a door slamming shut, especially coming from her.

“Oh, what the hell.” Rebecca fished in her purse and took out her cell phone, tapping the screen a few times. “Take a look at this.”

I squinted at the display. “It’s a silver wine cooler. Looks like an antique.”

“Right, but not just any silver wine cooler. It belonged to James Madison. One of Tommy’s ancestors stole it.”

“Are you serious?”

She nodded. “He was a soldier who fought the Americans during the War of 1812. Apparently he took it when his regiment looted the White House just before the Brits burned it. Madison had left the city to join his troops, and Dolley Madison ended up fleeing by herself with whatever she could take just before the soldiers arrived,” Rebecca said. “That wine cooler has been in the Asher family all this time and Tommy had no idea until recently. He and Mandy are going to return it to the president and first lady.”

“Tonight at the gala?”

“God, no.” She looked aghast. “He’d never do that. Besides, the Japanese prime minister is in town. There’s a reception this evening, so the White House called and sent regrets. Tommy and Mandy are handing it over at a private meeting in the Oval Office on Monday. He doesn’t want to admit in public that a family member was a thief and a plunderer, even if it did happen nearly two centuries ago during a war.”

“So where’s this wine cooler now?”

“Being cleaned by some professor at Georgetown. Ed Shelby. A colleague of the historian who helped put together the Asher Collection.”

“Dr. Alison Jennings.”

“You know her?” Rebecca seemed surprised.

“Of course I do. She’s married to Harlan Jennings. He grew up in Middleburg, a few miles from where I live. I’ve known him since we were kids,” I said, “although I was still in elementary school when he went off to Harvard. I had such a puppy-love crush on him. Worked for his campaign when he ran for the Senate.”

Rebecca smiled an enigmatic smile. “What a funny coincidence. I know Harlan, too. He does business with Tommy.”

“So I guess we’ll meet back at the hotel later? What time are we leaving?”

“The gala starts at seven. Cocktails for an hour, then dinner and dancing after that.” She rearranged her windblown shawl. “What are you going to do now?”

“Walk around for a while, I guess.”

“Thanks for coming, Little. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.”

She hugged me, another swift embrace. Before I could reply, she turned and ran toward the Lincoln Memorial, long legged and graceful as a gazelle, head held high, the wind still tugging at her shawl.

It was the last time I would ever see her.

I spent an hour walking the paths of the Reflecting Pool before I went back to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The reunion with Rebecca had been odd, almost as though she had staged it with me as her spectator. She’d changed since I knew her at school; there was a harder edge to her now.

A flock of geese honked noisily overhead as they flew in an untidy V. I stopped in front of Rebecca’s roses and did some math. Richard Boyle would have been among the last to die—in 1975—based on Rebecca’s age. I put my hand on the Wall and stared at my reflection in the polished stone, letting the heat from the hot granite warm me. Why didn’t she want to find him? Being late to pick up a package in Georgetown sounded like a made-up excuse.

I scanned the names of the dead and missing from 1975 and 1974. Any earlier and the numbers really didn’t add up. More than fifty-eight thousand names were engraved here, commemorating decades of sorrow and loss for an unpopular war. Wherever Richard Boyle IV was, I didn’t find him. Maybe Rebecca knew more than she told me and that’s why she asked me to say nothing about our visit here.

The sun slipped behind a wall of clouds and the breeze grew sharper. I turned up my jacket collar and decided to return to the Willard. On my way back to Ohio Drive, I passed others who, like me, knew Vietnam from history books. For us, this place was a tourist attraction the same as the eternal flame at Arlington or the other monuments scattered throughout the city honoring dead heroes. But for some, like the woman who’d left the letters, it had to be like visiting a grave at a cemetery.

On the cab ride to the hotel, I couldn’t get Rebecca’s face or the face of that woman out of my mind. Both left me unaccountably melancholy.

They were still serving lunch at the Occidental Grill when I got back from my trip downtown. Another Washington landmark, it was located next door to the Willard. A man in a dark suit seated me in a booth where I could study the rows of black-and-white head shots of unsmiling political celebrities from an earlier era that covered every wall. I ate a club sandwich and drank a glass of unsweetened ice tea before walking back to the hotel.