Chapter Two

They called her five days later with the results of the biopsy, and Joy felt as though she was hearing it through a wall of cotton. She knew all the language and the terms. The biopsy showed a malignancy, they told her all the pertinent details, and this time they recommended a mastectomy, even a double one to be on the safe side, given her history. And they wanted to do it as soon as possible, and start chemo after she recovered. It felt like a death sentence, and she remembered Barbara Marshall when she told Joy what was happening to her.

“I’ll let you know,” Joy said vaguely to her doctor and hung up. She didn’t want anything to spoil Camille’s graduation from Stanford, and if she told Christophe, he would be so worried that Camille would sense it. It could wait three months. What difference would it make? If the cancer had come back, Joy feared she was probably doomed anyway. She needed time to face the reality of it, and called her doctor back three days later. She scheduled the surgery for the week after Camille’s graduation, and the doctor offered a compromise. He suggested three sessions of radiation before the surgery, to shrink whatever was there, and she agreed, and said nothing to her husband or her daughter. She went to the city when Christophe was in Los Angeles for the day. The second time, she went when he had to fly to Dallas, and the third time when he was at a vintners’ conference at Sam Marshall’s, so she had all three sessions of radiation before Camille’s graduation, and no one ever knew.

She was dreading the mastectomy, and debating reconstructive surgery. The doctor told her they were going to use a more aggressive form of chemotherapy this time, and he was cautiously confident that with the surgery, chemo, and radiation, that would do it. She wanted to believe him, but she didn’t.

When Camille came home for a weekend with two friends before graduation, Joy acted as though everything was normal, but she felt as though she was moving underwater. She had to get through the graduation, the surgery, and a year of chemotherapy and radiation after that.

The graduation ceremony was beautiful and everything Camille hoped it would be, and it reminded Joy of her own. There were tearful goodbyes with her college friends, and a long ride back to Napa, with all her belongings in the winery van they’d brought with them. They gave a dinner for her the next day at L’Auberge du Soleil. And two days later, Joy told them, and they looked like she had dropped a bomb on them, the same one that had dropped on her with the bad news of the malignancy in her right breast. Christophe and Camille cried and were shocked. Joy tried not to fall apart, for their sakes, and they all promised each other that she’d be fine, and no one mentioned Barbara Marshall. Christophe clung to Joy in bed that night, and she felt his tears on her face.

“I’m going to be okay,” she promised him as she held him.

“I know you will. You have to be. Camille and I need you.” She nodded and couldn’t speak, and then she lay awake while he slept, thinking about how much she loved them, and how unfair life could be at times, how cruel. They had such a wonderful life, and this horror had come to spoil it, for the second time. She just prayed that they were right and she’d be cured again. She had to be. For their sakes.

The surgery went as smoothly as possible, and Joy was home at Château Joy in a week, moving slowly, but within another week she was back in her office. There was so much she wanted to teach Camille now and show her, just in case, so she could help her father if she had to, and while Joy was sick.

Camille was a quick student, and learned her lessons rapidly. She knew what her mother was going through, and thought it would help ease the burdens on her during chemo.

Four weeks later, the treatments began. She had them at the hospital in Napa again, so she didn’t have to waste time going into the city. And she was just as sick as last time, and started losing her hair shortly after she began chemo. She brought out the wig she’d worn before, which depressed her profoundly. It was a long, painful summer, and by mid-August, Joy couldn’t go into the office. It was all she could do to get out of bed for a few minutes and wander around her bedroom at the château, but Camille assured her mother that everything was in control at the office. It was, but Christophe’s mood was dark and gloomy, which he never admitted to Joy.

In September, she was too weak and too sick to go to the Harvest Ball, and Christophe made a rueful comment that he was off the hook, and Joy strenuously objected.

“You can’t do that to Sam,” Joy said firmly, sounding stronger. “He expects us to be there, and he needs your support now. He continued the ball to honor Barbara, he told me so last year. You have to go. You can take Camille. We’re the same size, she can wear my dress. You’ll have fun together.” He groaned but knew that Joy was right, and Joy had Camille dress in her room, where she could watch her, and helped her with the costume. She looked exquisite when she left with her father, seeming like a young Marie Antoinette. It touched Joy’s heart to see them. They drove to the ball in Christophe’s Aston Martin, his pride and joy, and Camille suddenly felt very grown up, being out with her father in her mother’s costume.

Sam was visibly relieved the moment he saw them arrive. “I’m so glad you came,” he said to Christophe, grateful that he had made the effort, and he smiled at Camille, recognizing her even with the mask, and then he looked seriously at her father. “How’s Joy doing?”

“It’s pretty rough right now, but you know how she is, she’s a strong woman. She’ll get through it,” Christophe said and Sam nodded, hoping he was right.

They ate from the buffet, and there was an amazing seafood bar, champagne and caviar, and vodka for those who preferred it. A roast suckling pig, a table of Indonesian cuisine, and Kobe beef flown in from Japan that you could cut with a fork. The food was superb, and the wines Sam’s best. The guests were dancing to the ten-piece orchestra, and it was difficult to recognize people when they wore their masks.

Camille had taken hers off when Phillip came up to her. She had seen him with a gorgeous girl who looked like a model, but he left her for a few minutes to talk to Camille, whom he hadn’t seen in months, since her mother got sick and even before. He had been away helicopter skiing over Christmas when she was home, and other than occasional chance meetings in St. Helena, their paths didn’t cross often anymore. He was busy, so much older, and they moved in different crowds, and Camille had been at home helping her mother, and driving her to chemo all summer. She hadn’t even been into town to do errands, she hated to leave her.

“I’m sorry your mom is sick,” Phillip said kindly. “Congratulations on your graduation, by the way. Welcome to the working world.” He always teased her and she smiled, but he noticed she seemed tired and worried, and he felt sorry for her. “I’ll have to come and visit one of these days,” he promised and smiled back at her. His father had said he wanted to visit Joy too, but didn’t want to intrude while she was so sick. Camille noticed that his date, standing several feet away, appeared impatient and annoyed at their exchange. Camille was no threat. Phillip still thought she was a baby and saw her that way, even in her mother’s elaborate costume. She felt like a little girl playing dress up around him. “I’d better get back,” he said, with a glance over her shoulder to his date, and Camille nodded.

She danced with her father once, and then they left the ball and drove home. It had been tiring more than fun, with five hundred people there. The property looked beautiful with decorations and lines of topiary trees they’d rented, and so much going on. Her father had greeted a lot of people he knew, and he seemed tired too. They were both worried about Joy, and she was fast asleep when they got home. Camille kissed her father good night, and went to her own room down the hall, happy to get out of the costume, take off the white wig, and put on her nightgown.

Joy wanted to know all about it the next day, and Christophe made it sound like more fun than it had been. After giving her mother breakfast, and helping her tie a scarf to cover her bald head, since she didn’t wear the wig all the time, Camille went to her office, even though it was Saturday. She wanted to catch up on work, and it was a good distraction from the reality of what they were living. Joy was fading away and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Christophe was in denial and kept telling Joy she was winning the fight, but she didn’t look it. She had lost a shocking amount of weight, and as the harvest continued in their vineyards, she slept most of the time. She had no idea what was happening outside her room.

She had another chemo treatment scheduled, but her white blood count was too high and she was too weak, so they postponed it. She kept remembering things to tell Camille, and kept a little notepad next to her bed so she wouldn’t forget them. It was as though she was trying to empty her mind into Camille’s, everything she knew about the winery and how to run it, and all the things she needed to do to help her father. And finally, for the last few days, nature took over and Joy slept all the time, and one by one her systems shut down. She spent her last night dozing and smiling in Christophe’s arms, as Camille came in and out of the room to check on them. She was sitting quietly next to her father, holding his hand, when her mother took her last breath, and then she drifted away, as Christophe held her, and Camille sat next to her on the bed and cried silently. And then they held each other, but Joy was at peace by then, she was gone.

The funeral was serious and dignified, in the church that Camille had filled with white flowers. Every important vintner in the Valley was there, and many lesser ones, along with their friends, employees, and vineyard workers. The men wore suits, and the women proper dresses. Sam Marshall was one of the pallbearers, and after the service, Phillip came over and hugged Camille with tears running down his cheeks. There was nothing he could say to her, and they clung to each other like children who fully understood how much pain the other was in. It didn’t need words.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered before he left her, and he drove away with his father in the red Ferrari. It brought back their own loss when Phillip’s mother died nearly four years before.

Hundreds of people came to the château afterward. Camille had had the winery caterers set out a buffet of sandwiches, salads, and light food, and Christophe opened their best wines, which everyone appreciated. It was a terrible day for Christophe and Camille. Neither of them could imagine life without Joy. She had been the strength and the backbone of all they did, and he recognized that she had not only been the foundation of everything he did, she was the inspiration and magic too. Camille realized why her mother had rushed so frantically to teach her everything she could. She had known that she was dying, and now it was up to Camille to take care of her father and help run the winery. Whether she wanted to or not, she had to follow in her mother’s footsteps. The future of Château Joy rested on her now too. It was an awesome burden to carry, and she would have to find a way to do it, no matter what it took.