in here,” he told Lillian with a sly grin as he dug into his pocket for his key ring. He unlocked the door, which creaked on ancient hinges as he opened it. Then he led her into a small room and switched on a light. A few hundred dust-covered bottles were stacked up against each wall, resting on wooden slabs.
“I didn’t know this little cellar existed,” Lillian said.
Mr. Clark gave her a moment to look around, then spoke in a quieter voice. “When you’re leading the tour out there and you talk about the family’s private collection, that’s just for show. This is the real private collection.”
Small wooden plaques hung on the walls above each stack. The plaques indicated a name and a year.
“These were gifts for the Maurizio children,” Mr. Clark explained. “Whenever a child was born, one hundred bottles were set aside from that year’s harvest. The intention was for them to begin aging so that the child could enjoy the wine later in life, on special occasions. As you can see, some of the children enjoyed their wine quite a bit while they lived. But look at this one.” He pointed at the largest stack. The plaque said LORENZO, 1920. “All one hundred bottles are still here. I looked into it, and this man lived to be fifty-seven, but he never opened a single bottle. I wonder what he was waiting for.”
“Maybe he didn’t drink,” Lillian suggested. “Or maybe he was a wayward son who wasn’t close to the family. Either way, it’s sad. Especially for the father, to have outlived all his children and to know that they didn’t get to enjoy every last drop of the wine he had left them. Or that they chose not to enjoy every delicious drop of life when they had the chance.”
“Exactly,” Mr. Clark said.
Suddenly, Lillian felt a shiver run down her spine. She rubbed at her arms to warm herself. “It feels like a tomb in here.”
He turned to her. “You’re right. It does. Maybe I shouldn’t have presumed . . .”
“No, don’t apologize. I’m glad you brought me here. I’m honored to see it, especially after . . .”
She stopped herself, because she didn’t want to become maudlin or overly philosophical about the car accident. Freddie certainly hadn’t wanted to talk about it. He kept shutting the conversation down whenever she brought it up.
“You’re thinking about what happened to you when you went off the road,” Mr. Clark conjectured.
Lillian dropped her gaze. “Is it that obvious?”
“Maybe. To me, anyway.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe that’s why I brought you here. Because I’ve been thinking about it myself, quite a bit.”
“Really? Why?”
“I’m not sure. There was just something about the way you fell to your knees when you climbed out of the car. You seemed so grateful to be alive. It was . . . I don’t know . . . humbling to see that. We should all be so grateful. Every day.”
She felt a rush of emotion. “Yes, and I have been feeling immensely grateful. More than that. I feel different. Like it changed me somehow. Now I can’t seem to take my eyes off the moon at night or the way the mist rolls between the hills in the early hours of the morning. Just looking at the world makes me feel euphoric. I’ve never felt such joy before. I can’t begin to explain it.”
He smiled with understanding. “I once read that people who are going through cancer treatment sometimes feel like the disease was a gift, no matter the outcome, whether they beat it or not, because they feel like their spirits are awakened.” He grew quiet and contemplative for a moment. “I’m not sure if I would consider it a gift, myself, because I already feel in awe of the world most of the time, and I don’t want to leave it anytime soon. But who knows what I have yet to learn? Socrates believed that true knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing. So I guess I’m still just a student of life. Always will be.”
Lillian marveled at the way he spoke about spiritual awakenings and true knowledge. Freddie never spoke that way, even though he considered himself to be a poet. He was very good at rhythm and rhyme, but she couldn’t say that he ever wrote deeply about the heart or the soul. A touch of guilt struck her suddenly for comparing Freddie to Mr. Clark, but she supposed none