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| Categories | Genre Fiction |
| Author | Kristin Hannah |
| Publisher | St. Martin’s Griffin; Reissue edition (January 4, 2011) |
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 448 pages |
| Item Weight | 14.4 ounces |
| Dimensions |
5.5 x 1.15 x 8.2 inches |
I. Book introduction
Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn’t know her mother?
From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes Kristin Hannah’s powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past.
Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time―and all the way to the end.
Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.
Every once in a while a writer comes along who navigates the complex and layered landscape of the human heart. For this generation, it’s Kristin Hannah. Mesmerizing from the first page to the last, Winter Garden is an evocative, lyrically-written novel that will long be remembered.
Editorial Reviews
“Another powerful story of family love, and strong women…a fascinating story that weaves fairy tales into reality, fairy tales that don’t always have the expected endings.” ―The Herald-News
“…a gripping read. Hannah’s audience will find plenty to discuss in this enthralling entry.” ―Booklist
“It’s a tearjerker, but the journey is as lovely―and haunting―as a snow filled winter’s night.” ―People magazine
“Readers will find it hard not to laugh a little and cry a little more as mother and daughters reach out to each other just in the nick of time.” ―Publishers Weekly
“Winter Garden is Kristin Hannah’s best written and most deeply affecting novel yet.” ―The Huffington Post
“This tearjerker weaves a convincing historical novel and contemporary family drama….” ―Library Journal
“A…searing story with a breathtaking, beautiful ending.” ―The Seattle Times
About Kristin Hannah
Kristin Hannah (born September 25, 1960) is an American writer. Her most notable works include Winter Garden, The Nightingale, Firefly Lane, The Great Alone, and The Four Winds. In 2024, St. Martin’s Publishing Group published her novel, The Women, which is set in America in the 1960s.
Kristin Hannah was born in California. After graduating with a degree in communication from the University of Washington, Hannah worked at an advertising agency in Seattle. She graduated from the University of Puget Sound law school and practiced law in Seattle before becoming a full-time writer. Hannah wrote her first novel with her mother, who was dying of cancer at the time, but the book was never published.
Hannah’s best-selling work, The Nightingale, has sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide and has been published in 45 languages.
Hannah lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with her husband and their son.
II. Reviewer: Winter Garden
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1. MELISSA reviews for Winter Garden
Once again, I find myself in awe of the power and beauty of Kristin Hannah’s words. She gives her readers the ability to crawl inside the story and see the world through the eyes of her characters. It’s her stunning gift for capturing the heart wrenching and emotional aspect of every connection that left me completely enamored with this family. Every single one of them. By the time I reached the end of the story, I was nowhere near ready to let them go.
There are people everywhere that find themselves in tumultuous relationships, but I think it would be the cold and uncaring attitude of a parent that would have the power to slice anyone to the core. Welcome to Meredith and Nina’s world. They grew up vying for their mother Anya’s love and attention, only to be pushed away and ignored. The worst part was seeing that she was actually capable of love in some ways. Anya shared an enviable connection with her husband; he adored her despite her frigid nature towards their daughters, but why? What did their dad see that Meredith and Nina couldn’t?
Interlaced with a Russian fairytale that changes absolutely everything, this story is harrowing and heartbreaking, in so many ways. It’s the buried resentments that get unearthed, the hidden regrets that are revealed and the realization that there is more to everyone’s story that provides the much needed answers. Reality is, life is a series of choices – some are remarkable and some naturally morph in to regrets – good or bad, the culmination make us who we are.
My favorite part of the entire story was the dynamic between the two sisters. Meredith was always the steadfast and responsible one and Nina was the wild and free sister, but they were both strong, just in different ways. Both admired one another for exactly what they regretted the most in themselves and I found that quite interesting. I guess, the grass always seems greener on the other side, right? And of course, the love story junkie in me would be remiss not to mention Danny and Jeff. I was completely smitten with both, they were as different as the sisters, but worthy in their own ways.
Of course, the ending left me in tears. If you didn’t know, I’m a complete and utter cry baby. It felt like my heart was literally torn in two – between what could have been and what was – but ultimately it was still a happy place to be.
Favorite Quote:
“To lose love is a terrible thing. But to turn away from it is unbearable. Will you spend the rest of your life replaying it in your head? Wondering if you walked away too soon or too easily? Or if you’ll ever love anyone that deeply again?”
2. GLORIA reviews for Winter Garden
Be patient during the first half, it gets very good and emotional the second half. This is written in the past and present tense, which is a common format in many novels, but one that I enjoy. It’s like reading two different novels.
What starts as a dysfunctional domestic situation between 2 sisters (American born) and their Russian-born mother ends up being so much more. Grief and a deathbed promise brings these unhappy women reluctantly together, and what seemed like a familial dysfunction becomes an intimate look at the mother of these two sisters who was raised in Russia during the war. Primarily they learn about a side of her they never knew. Her story of war-torn Leningrad, paints a vivid picture of the atrocity of war. One cannot fathom the pain, hunger, starvation and death all around the survivors, the terror of small children being taken by train away from their parents, starving, cold, crying and afraid. Your heart sinks and you feel your throat all choked up. Don’t be surprised if your eyes smart a few times and tears cloud your vision as you’re reading this emotional rendering. This part of the novel is truly heartbreaking. I found it very moving, and well written.
In the present-day story the description of Sitka, in Alaska and its history was depicted such as one can easily visualize it. Kudos to author Hannah. She carries the reader through the scenes effortlessly. You feel yourself there and want to see it for yourself some day. The characters are flawed but believable, the novel hard to forget and the ending entirely satisfying to this reader. Definitely recommended.
Gloria Bernal – Murrieta, CA.
3. THOMAS reviews for Winter Garden
5*
This book starts off slow. It is a story of relationships–mother and two daughters, Meredith and Nina, and the two daughters who have a strained relationship. Their father, Evan has held the family together, making up for his wife not being able to show affection for her two daughters. But he has had a severe heart attack and is dying. In one last attempt to heal the emotional gulf between his wife and children, he asks his wife to tell them the fairy tale of the peasant girl and the prince. Then he asks Nina to listen and to do whatever is necessary to get Anya, their mom to tell them the whole story.
Both Nina and Meredith have grown up into adults who are unable to have normal relationships with others. Meredith’s marriage is failing, because she shuts her husband out with an emotional wall. Nina is a world famous photographer who runs away from family and commitment by flying off to the latest war/famine/disaster. She refuses to accept a marriage proposal from someone who loves her and she loves because of her stunted emotional growth.
But Meredith and Nina and their mother come together through the fairy tale, which reveals long buried secrets of pain and sadness. I can’t say more without going into spoiler territory. There is a connection to the siege of Leningrad. I recommend reading The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad by Harrison E. Salisbury.
I visited St. Petersburg in 2012 and found a warning plaque, mentioned in the Salisbury book, that warned citizens to go to the opposite side of the street in case of shelling from the enemy.
I liked the ending, which has a healing touch. I recommend this book to fans of historical fiction and fans of strong woman characters.
One quote: “Was that what they’d discover on this trip? That their mother was like one of her precious Russian nesting dolls, and if that were true, would they ever really see the one hidden deep inside?”
Thanks to St. Martin’s Griffin for sending this book through the Goodreads giveaway program.
My wife just finished this book and she agrees it is a 5 star read. She says that you should read it slowly and savor it.
4. JULIE reviews for Winter Garden
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah is a 2020 St. Martin’s Press publication.
After the death of their father, his daughters, Meredith and Nina, two women who are polar opposites, must cope with their cold mother, Anya, who is exhibiting signs of dementia. Nina is determined to grant her father’s dying wish, which is to get Anya to tell his daughters the entire Russian fairytale she had started and stopped so many times when the girls were younger.
Meredith, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about fairytale stories. Meredith promised to take care of her mother- which may mean moving her to a care facility for her own safety. As she goes about packing up her mother’s things, Nina coaxes Anya to tell her story, a story, which despite her resentments, Meredith eavesdrops on, suddenly finding herself enthralled by it…
This novel begins like a highly emotional contemporary/women’s fiction novel as a death exposes the monumental dysfunction within a family. A marriage is in trouble, the sisters bicker, and their mother seems unmoved by the drama, refusing to budge from her cold shell to comfort them or bring about peace. But, as the story develops, the saga takes on an entirely different tone with Anya taking control of the main narrative.
Once Anya begins her narration, I found myself riveted by her story. Naturally, her story can put one’s own struggles into perspective and is a horrible reminder of the sacrifices, and sufferings of a complicated war. The story ends with a bittersweet tone- at once sad and triumphant.
Kristin Hannah is a powerful storyteller. For some reason I have only read a few of her books, though I have several of them on my Kindle- if they are all as good as this one- I’ll be reading a lot more of Kristin Hannah- especially since older books are working out much better for me than the new releases- by far!
Were there some weaknesses? Yes, but I’m so grateful for the quality of this novel, I’m willing to overlook them. By and far, this book blows anything and everything I’ve read this year, so far, completely out of the water.
If I had read this book a few years ago, I might have given it a four-star rating, but because I feel like a person dying of thirst in the middle of the desert who was just been given a long, refreshing drink of cool water- this book gets the full five stars!
5. JJSPINA reviews for Winter Garden
An exceptionally emotional and heartfelt read!
Winter Garden was an emotional story of the relationships between daughters and their mother. It is told in two timelines, one from the present and the other from the mother’s past life. It is a heartbreaking read as the story unfolds with the mother’s recall of her life explaining the reason for her coldness and lack of love for her daughters.
The author created an extraordinary read that expands across time and place as she takes the reader on a journey they will never forget. The story told by the mother is related to a fairy tale which she has been sharing with her daughters at bedtime since they were young. She never tells the whole story until she is forced to after her husband’s sudden death leaving her to live with her daughters.
It is heartbreaking to see how the two sisters struggle with life and decision making after they lose their father who has been their support. He never explains why their mother is so distant and strange toward them. He keeps telling them that it is their mother’s story to tell.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story that swept me away to the past life of their mother, Vera. Like all books created by Kristin Hannah, this is an exceptional story that is full of interesting characters, fascinating storylines, and expertly written prose.
I highly recommend it!
6. BARBARA reviews for Winter Garden
It took me a while to get into this story. But persevering was worth every second. Once she started telling her story I couldn’t put this book down. Her struggles and the choices she was forced to make had me captivated. Her strength amazed and inspired. The depth of her love overwhelmed. It is a glimpse into a period far to long held in secret
7. PATTI S reviews for Winter Garden
Wow! This book had me smiling and also crying. With that said, it is one of the best books I have ever read. My Dad, an amazing man, whose father was Russian. I know a little about his father but not very much. My Dad was a loving, kind and absolutely amazing Dad, however there were times he was very quiet and never talked about his father. This book reminds me of my Dad and all the questions I never was able to ask him because he passed away at the age of fifty one. Anyway an excellent story, a must read!
8. AMBER IN THE PAGES reviews for Winter Garden
Another emotionally charged novel from that truly tugged at my heartstrings.
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah. Another emotionally charged novel from Kristin Hannah that truly tugged at my heartstrings. I fell in love with this book, finding myself fighting back tears more than once. 💔
The women in this story, particularly the mothers, are a testament to the strength that women possess. It’s a powerful reminder that a mother’s love can hold us together even when life tries to tear us apart. 💪🏼 The theme of love is woven throughout every character’s journey, reminding us how love is not only a gift but the force that helps us endure.
Set in modern-day America, the story beautifully alternates between the past and Leningrad, Russia, capturing the horrors Anya endured and the immense strength passed down to her children. The historical backdrop made me appreciate the strength of generations before us.
If you’re a fan of historical fiction, this one is a must-read. It’s a poignant reminder of the gift it is to love and, more importantly, to be loved. ❤️ 10/10📚
9. ALWAYS POUTING reviews for Winter Garden
Meredith and Nina spent their whole lives without really knowing their mother Anya. Any attempts they tried to make to get close to her were rebuffed, so they gave up trying and began to believe that maybe their mother just didn’t really care about them very much. When their father dies though he makes them promise to try to get to know their mother, and says that now that he will be gone their mother needs them. The story follows Meredith, Nina, and Anya as they get to know one another and grow closer and transition into different places in their individual lives. I really really enjoyed this book. This is the second book by Kristin Hannah that I read and I have been equally impressed by both. She really can tell a story because I was drawn in from start to finish. I even enjoyed the happy ending which I know I complained about but here it just felt like it flowed to that point naturally. I really want to read more from her.
10. ELISABETH PLIMPTON reviews for Winter Garden
4.5 stars
One of my favorite Kristin Hannah novels. Winter Garden is a heart-breaking but beautiful story of the power of love, family, and connection.
Meredith and Nina are two sisters that lead very different lives. They grew up with a distant mother and in turn have never been close to one another. Their mother told them a fairytale as children. When their father dies it is his last wish that their mother tell them the whole story.
With differing opinions on how to help their heart-broken mother, the sisters work to convince her to tell the full fairytale. We soon find out that the fairytale is a real story about the hardships of life in Leningrad during WWII. Their mother, Anya, begins to soften by opening up. She releases her guilt and forgives herself for the impossible choices she had to make in her past. By sharing, she shines a light on the loss and starts to heal her wounds.
Everything in the story become more connected by the end; however, the last hundred pages were the most captivating. The author spent a lot of time in the beginning setting the scene. The first half of the book was dominated by family tension and each character’s own personal dilemmas. The novel didn’t feel as historically focused as other WWII books. Most of the history was in the second half. It was devastating but interesting to learn about this unique WWII perspective along with the terror of the Stalin regime and the siege of Leningrad.
The ending was unexpected but happy. Each character learned lessons and grew into their best selves. Anya is a warrior and a lioness. From hearing her story we learn that being vulnerable makes us stronger. Sharing our pain helps us heal and we must forgive ourselves in order to love fully. Anya’s heartfelt and tragic story was truly beautiful.
“To lose love is a terrible thing, but to turn away from it is unbearable.”
“Life—and love—can be gone any second. When you had it, you needed to hang on with all your strength and savor ever second.”
III. Winter Garden Quotes
The best book quotes from Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
“We women make choices for others, not for ourselves, and when we are mothers, we…bear what we must for our children. You will protect them. It will hurt you; it will hurt them. Your job is to hide that your heart is breaking and do what they need you to do.”
“To lose love is a terrible thing. But to turn away from it is unbearable. Will you spend the rest of your life replaying it in your head? Wondering if you walked away too soon or too easily? Or if you’ll ever love anyone that deeply again?”
“They would always be a family, but if she’d learned anything in the past few weeks it was that a family wasn’t a static thing. There were always changes going on. Like with continents, sometimes the changes were invisible and underground, and sometimes they were explosive and deadly. The trick was to keep your balance. You couldn’t control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.”
“And maybe that was how it was supposed to be…Joy and sadness were part of the package; the trick, perhaps,was to let yourself feel all of it, but to hold on to the joy just a little more tightly…”
“To those who are here, those who are gone, and those who are lost.”
“It is a kiss that, once begun, never really ends. Interrupted, yes. Paused, certainly. But from that very moment onward, Vera sees the whole of her life as only a breath away from kissing him again. On that night in the park, they begin the delicate task of binding their souls together, creating a whole comprising their separate halves.”
“Nina stared at the woman who had raised her and saw the truth at last.
Her mother was a lioness. A warrior. A woman who’d chosen a life of hell for herself because she wanted to give up and didn’t know how.
And with that small understanding came another, bigger one. Nina suddenly saw her own life in focus. All these years, she’d been traveling the world over, looking for her own truth in other woman’s lives.
But it was here all along, at home with the one woman she’s never even tried to understand. No wonder Nina had never felt finished, never wanted to publish her photographs of the woman. Her quest had always been leading up to this moment, this understanding. She’s been hiding behind the camera, looking through the glass, trying to find herself. But how could she? How could any woman know her own story until she knew her mother’s? ”“Before this trip and all that she’d learned about the three of them, she would have gotten angry or changed the subject. Anything to obscure the pain she felt. Now she knew better. You carried your pain with you in life. There was no outrunning it.”
“Nina knew the power of black and white images. Sometimes a thing was its truest self when the colors were stripped away.”
“I’m an insomniac lately. It’s one of the many prizes you find in the Cracker Jack box of a crumbling [relationship],”
“I think maybe love can just…dissolve.”
“No, it does not,” her mother said.
“So how do–”
“You hang on,” her mother said. “Until your hands are bleeding, and still you do not let go.”“Young has nothing to do with love. A woman can be a girl and still know her own heart.”
“I would not love him again. Not if I had known how it would feel to live with a broken heart.”
“what shall we drink to?”
“How about family?” Stacy said, showing up just in time to pour a fourth shot. “To those who are here, those who are gone, and those who are lost.” and she clicked glasses with mom”“He has been in her heart for so long it is as if she knows him already, but she doesn’t. She does not know what to say or how to say it, and suddenly she is afraid that there is a wrong way to move forward, a mistake that once made cannot be undone.”
“life—and love—can be gone any second. When you had it, you needed to hang on with all your strength and savor every second.”
“To be a great photographer you had to see first and feel later.”
“How could any woman know her own story until she knew her mother’s?”
“The only real thing in this icy blue-and-black world is my daughter’s hand in mine.”
“And maybe that was how it was supposed to be, how life unfolded when you lived it long enough. Joy and sadness were part of the package; the trick, perhaps, was to let yourself feel all of it, but to hold on to the joy just a little more tightly because you never knew when a strong heart could just give out.”
“Every choice changed the road you were on and it was too easy to end up going in the wrong direction. Sometimes, settling down”
“Children become adults who become children again.”
“I should have called Dad more from Africa,” Nina said. “I knew how much my phone calls meant to him. I always thought there was time. . . .” “Sometimes the door just slams shut, you know? And you’re all by yourself.”
“Grief had become her silent sidekick. She felt its shadow beside her all the time.”
“She’d lost too much of herself in parenthood to simply go back to who she’d been before.”
“But I was wrong and stupid. I do love you. I love you and I miss you and I hope to hell I’m not too late because I want to grow old with the man I was young with.”
“Nada je krhka stvar, jako lomljiva ako se njome prečesto barata.”
“It was ridiculous. She knew crying wouldn’t help, because she cried in her sleep. Night after night she woke with tears on her cheeks, and none of it helped one bit. In fact, the opposite was true. The expression of grief didn’t help. Only its suppression would get her through these hard times.”
“Unaware of Nina, the woman paused at the riverbank and looked out over the scar on the land where the water should run. Her expression sharpened, turned desperate as she reached down to touch the child in her arms. It was a look Nina had seen in woman all over the world, especially in times of war and destruction. A bone-deep fear for her child’s future…Someday her portraits would show the world how strong and powerful women could be, as well as the personal cost of that strength…
She heard Danny come up beside her. “Hey, you.”
She leaned against him, feeling food about her shots. “I just love how they are with their kids, even when the odds are impossible. The only time I cry is when I see their faces with their babies. Why is that, with all we’ve seen?”
“So it’s mothers you follow. I thought it was warriors.”“I stand up feeling my new role. I am a motherless daughter now, a sisterless woman. There is no one left of the family I was born into; there is only the family I have made. My mother is in all of us, though especially in me, and the dreams of my father to, so it is my job to be all of us now.”
“You couldn’t control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.”
“This is what my story gave them, and in the past ten years, we have loved enough for a lifetime. I think, Good-bye, my girls. I love you. I have always loved you. And I go.”
“To lose love is a terrible thing,” Mom said softly. “But to turn away from it is unbearable. Will you spend the rest of your life replaying it in your head? Wondering if you walked away too soon or too easily? Or if you’ll ever love anyone that deeply again?”
“Sometimes a thing was its truest self when the colors were stripped away.”
“And maybe that was how love was supposed to be, how life unfolded when you lived it long enough. Joy and sadness were part of the package; the trick, perhaps, was to let yourself feel all of it, but to hold on to the joy just a little more tightly because you never knew when a strong heart could just give out.”
“She hadn’t been where it mattered, making memories with her husband and children. Maybe she’d thought time was more elastic, or love more forgiving.”
“You couldn’t control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.”
“They would always be a family, but if she’d learned anything in the past few weeks it was that a family wasn’t a static thing. There were always changes going on. Like with continents, sometimes the changes were invisible and underground, and sometimes they were explosive and deadly. The trick was to keep your balance. You couldn’t control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.”
Excerpted from Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
Part One
2000Was this what forty looked like? Really? In the past year Meredith had gone from Miss to Ma’am. Just like that, with no transition. Even worse, her skin had begun to lose its elasticity. There were tiny pleats in places that used to be smooth. Her neck was fuller, there was no doubt about it. She hadn’t gone gray yet; that was the one saving grace. Her chestnut-colored hair, cut in a no-nonsense shoulder-length bob, was still full and shiny. But her eyes gave her away. She looked tired. And not only at six in the morning.
She turned away from the mirror and stripped out of her old T-shirt and into a pair of black sweats, anklet socks, and a long-sleeved black shirt. Pulling her hair into a stumpy ponytail, she left the bathroom and walked into her darkened bedroom, where the soft strains of her husband’s snoring made her almost want to crawl back into bed. In the old days, she would have done just that, would have snuggled up against him.
Leaving the room, she clicked the door shut behind her and headed down the hallway toward the stairs.
In the pale glow of a pair of long-outdated night-lights, she passed the closed doors of her children’s bedrooms. Not that they were children anymore. Jillian was nineteen now, a sophomore at UCLA who dreamed of being a doctor, and Maddy—Meredith’s baby—was eighteen and a freshman at Vanderbilt. Without them, this house—and Meredith’s life—felt emptier and quieter than she’d expected. For nearly twenty years, she had devoted herself to being the kind of mother she hadn’t had, and it had worked. She and her daughters had become the best of friends. Their absence left her feeling adrift , a little purposeless. She knew it was silly. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have plenty to do. She just missed the girls; that was all.
She kept moving. Lately that seemed to be the best way to handle things.
Downstairs, she stopped in the living room just long enough to plug in the Christmas tree lights. In the mudroom, the dogs leaped up at her, yapping and wagging their tails.
“Luke, Leia, no jumping,” she scolded the huskies, scratching their ears as she led them to the back door. When she opened it, cold air rushed in. Snow had fallen again last night, and though it was still dark on this mid-December morning, she could make out the pale pearlescence of road and field. Her breath turned into vapory plumes.
By the time they were all outside and on their way, it was 6:10 and the sky was a deep purplish gray.
Right on time.
Meredith ran slowly at first, acclimating herself to the cold. As she did every weekday morning, she ran along the gravel road that led from her house, down past her parents’ house, and out to the old single-lane road that ended about a mile up the hill. From there, she followed the loop out to the golf course and back. Four miles exactly. It was a routine she rarely missed; she had no choice, really. Everything about Meredith was big by nature. She was tall, with broad shoulders, curvy hips, and big feet. Even her features seemed just a little too much for her pale, oval face—she had a big Julia Roberts– type mouth, huge brown eyes, full eyebrows, and thick hair. Only constant exercise, a vigilant diet, good hair products, and an industrial-sized pair of tweezers could keep her looking good.
As she turned back onto her road, the rising sun illuminated the mountains, turned their snowcapped peaks lavender and pink.
On either side of her, thousands of bare, spindly apple trees showed through the snow like brown stitches on white fabric. This fertile cleft of land had belonged to their family for fifty years, and there, in the center of it all, tall and proud, was the home in which she’d grown up. Belye Nochi. Even in the half-light it looked ridiculously out of place and ostentatious.
Meredith kept running up the hill, faster and faster, until she could barely breathe and there was a stitch in her side.
She came to a stop at her own front porch as the valley filled with bright golden light. She fed the dogs and then hurried upstairs. She was just going into the bathroom as Jeff was coming out. Wearing only a towel, with his graying blond hair still dripping wet, he turned sideways to let her pass, and she did the same. Neither one of them spoke.
By 7:20, she was drying her hair, and by 7:30—right on time—she was dressed for work in a pair of black jeans and a fitted green blouse. A little eyeliner, some blush and mascara, a coat of lipstick, and she was ready to go.
Downstairs, she found Jeff at the kitchen table, sitting in his regular chair, reading The New York Times. The dogs were asleep at his feet.
She went to the coffeepot and poured herself a cup. “You need a refill?”
“I’m good,” he said without looking up.
Meredith stirred soy milk into her coffee, watching the color change. It occurred to her that she and Jeff only talked at a distance lately, like strangers—or disillusioned partners—and only about work or the kids. She tried idly to remember the last time they’d made love, and couldn’t.
Maybe that was normal. Certainly it was. When you’d been married as long as they had, there were bound to be quiet times. Still, it saddened her sometimes to remember how passionate they used to be. She’d been fourteen on their first date (they’d gone to see Young Frankenstein; it was still one of their favorites), and to be honest, that was the last time she’d ever really looked at another guy. It was strange when she thought about that now; she didn’t consider herself a romantic woman, but she’d fallen in love practically at first sight. He’d been a part of her for as long as she could remember.
They’d married early—too early, really—and she’d followed him to college in Seattle, working nights and weekends in smoky bars to pay tuition. She’d been happy in their cramped, tiny U District apartment. Then, when they were seniors, she’d gotten pregnant. It had terrified her at first. She’d worried that she was like her mother, and that parenthood wouldn’t be a good thing. But she discovered, to her profound relief, that she was the complete opposite of her own mother. Perhaps her youth had helped in that. God knew Mom had not been young when Meredith was born.
Jeff shook his head. It was a minute gesture, barely even a movement, but she saw it. She had always been attuned to him, and lately their mutual disappointments seemed to create sound, like a high-pitched whistle that only she could hear.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“You didn’t shake your head over nothing. What’s the matter?”
“I just asked you something.”“I didn’t hear you. Ask me again.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Fine.” She took her coffee and headed toward the dining room.
It was something she’d done a hundred times, and yet just then, as she passed under the old-fashioned ceiling light with its useless bit of plastic mistletoe, her view changed.
She saw herself as if from a distance: a forty-year-old woman, holding a cup of coffee, looking at two empty places at the table, and at the husband who was still here, and for a split second she wondered what other life that woman could have lived. What if she hadn’t come home to run the orchard and raise her children? What if she hadn’t gotten married so young? What kind of woman could she have become?
And then it was gone like a soap bubble, and she was back where she belonged.
“Will you be home for dinner?”
“Aren’t I always?”
“Seven o’clock,” she said.
“By all means,” he said, turning the page. “Let’s set a time.”
Meredith was at her desk by eight o’clock. As usual, she was the first to arrive and went about the cubicle-divided space on the ware house’s second floor flipping on lights. She passed by her dad’s office—empty now—pausing only long enough to glance at the plaques by his door. Thirteen times he’d been voted Grower of the Year and his advice was still sought out by competitors on a regular basis. It didn’t matter that he only occasionally came into the office, or that he’d been semi-retired for ten years. He was still the face of the Belye Nochi orchard, the man who had pioneered Golden Delicious apples in the early sixties, Granny Smiths in the seventies, and championed the Braeburn and Fuji in the nineties. His designs for cold storage had revolutionized the business and helped make it possible to export the very best apples to world markets.
She had had a part to play in the company’s growth and success, to be sure. Under her leadership, the cold storage ware house had been expanded and a big part of their business was now storing fruit for other growers. She’d turned the old roadside apple stand into a gift shop that sold hundreds of locally made craft items, specialty foods, and Belye Nochi memorabilia. At this time of year—the holidays—when train-loads of tourists arrived in Leavenworth for the world-famous tree-lighting ceremony, more than a few found their way to the gift shop.
The first thing she did was pick up the phone to call her youngest daughter. It was just past ten in Tennessee.
“Hello?” Maddy grumbled.
“Good morning,” Meredith said brightly. “It sounds like someone slept in.”
“Oh. Mom. Hi. I was up late last night. Studying.”
“Madison Elizabeth,” was all Meredith had to say to make her point.Maddy sighed. “Okay. So it was a Lambda Chi party.”
“I know how fun it all is, and how much you want to experience every moment of college, but your first final is next week. Tuesday morning, right?”
“Right.”
“You have to learn to balance schoolwork and fun. So get your lily-white ass out of bed and get to class. It’s a life skill—partying all night and still getting up on time.”
“The world won’t end if I miss one Spanish class.”
“Madison.”
Maddy laughed. “Okay, okay. I’m getting up. Spanish 101, here I come. Hasta la vista . . . ba-by.”
Meredith smiled. “I’ll call on Thursday and find out how your speech went. And call your sister. She’s stressed out about her organic chemistry test.”
“Okay, Mom. I love you.”
“Love you, too, princess.”
Meredith hung up the phone feeling better. For the next three hours, she threw herself into work. She was rereading the latest crop report when her intercom buzzed.
“Meredith? Your dad is on line one.”
“Thanks, Daisy.” She picked up the call. “Hi, Dad.”
“Mom and I were wondering if you could come to the house for lunch today.”
“I’m swamped here, Dad—”
“Please?”
Meredith had never been able to deny her father. “Okay. But I have to be back by one.”
“Excellent,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
She hung up and went back to work. Lately, with production up and demand down, and costs for both export and transportation skyrocketing, she oft en spent her days putting out one fire after another, and today was no exception. By noon, a low-grade stress headache had crawled into the space at the base of her skull and begun to growl. Still, she smiled at her employees as she left her office and walked through the cold ware-house.
In less than ten minutes, she pulled up in front of her parents’ ga-rage.
The house was like something out of a Russian fairy tale, with its turretlike two-story veranda and elaborate fretwork trim, especially this time of year, when the eaves and railings glittered with Christmas lights. The hammered copper roof was dulled today by the gray winter weather, but on a bright day it shone like liquid gold. Surrounded by tall, elegant poplar trees and situated on a gentle rise that overlooked their valley, this house was so famous that tourists oft en stopped to photograph it.
Leave it to her mother to build something so absurdly out of place. A Russian dacha, or summer house, in Western Washington State. Even the orchard’s name was absurd. Belye Nochi.
White Nights indeed. The nights here were as dark as new asphalt.
Not that Mom cared about what was around her. She got her way, that was all. Whatever Anya Whitson wanted, her husband gave to her, and apparently she’d wanted a fairy-tale castle and an orchard with an unpronounceable Russian name.
Meredith knocked and went inside. The kitchen was empty; a big pot of soup simmered on the stove.
In the living room, light spilled through the two-story rounded wall of windows at the north end of the room—the famous Belye Nochi turret. Wood floors gleamed with the golden beeswax that Mom insisted on using, even though it turned the floors into a skating rink if you dared to walk in stockinged feet. A huge stone fireplace dominated the center wall; clustered around it was a grouping of richly upholstered antique sofas and chairs. Above the fireplace hung an oil painting of a Russian troika—a romantic-looking carriage drawn by matching horses—sailing through a field of snow. Pure Doctor Zhivago. To her left were dozens of pictures of Russian churches, and below them was her mother’s “Holy Corner,” where a table held a display of antique icons and a single candle that burned year-round.
She found her father in the back of the room, alongside the heavily decorated Christmas tree, in his favorite spot. He lay stretched out on the burgundy mohair cushions of the ottoman bed, reading. His hair, what he had left of it at eighty-five, stuck out from his pink scalp in white tuft s. Too many de cades in the sun had blotched and pleated his skin and he had a basset-hound look even when he was smiling, but the sad countenance fooled no one. Everyone loved Evan Whitson. It was impossible not to.
At her entrance, his face lit up. He reached out and squeezed her hand tightly, then let go. “Your mom will be so glad to see you.”
Meredith smiled. It was the game they’d played for years. Dad pretended that Mom loved Meredith and Meredith pretended to believe him. “Great. Is she upstairs?”
“I couldn’t keep her out of the garden this morning.
”Meredith wasn’t surprised. “I’ll get her.”
She left her father in the living room and walked through the kitchen to the formal dining room. Through the French doors, she saw an expanse of snow-covered ground, with acres of dormant apple trees in the distance. Closer, beneath the icicle-draped branches of a fifty-year-old magnolia tree, was a small rectangular garden defined by antique wrought-iron fencing. Its ornate gate was twined with brown vines; come summer, that gate would be a profusion of green leaves and white flowers. Now it glittered with frost.
And there she was: her eighty-something-year-old mother, bundled up in blankets, sitting on the black bench in her so-called winter garden. A light snow began to fall; tiny flakes blurred the scene into an impressionistic painting where nothing looked solid enough to touch. Sculpted bushes and a single birdbath were covered in snow, giving the garden a strange, otherworldly look. Not surprisingly, her mother sat in the middle of it all, motionless, her hands clasped in her lap.
As a child it had scared Meredith—all that solitude in her mother—but as she got older it had begun to embarrass, then irritate her. A woman of her mother’s age had no business sitting alone in the cold. Her mother claimed it was because of her ruined vision, but Meredith didn’t believe that. It was true that her mother’s eyes didn’t process color—she saw only white and black and shades of gray—but that had never struck Meredith, even as a girl, as a reason for staring at nothing.
She opened the door and went out into the cold. Her boots sank in the ankle-deep snow; here and there, crusty patches crunched underneath and more than once she almost slipped. “You shouldn’t be out here, Mom,” she said, coming up beside her. “You’ll catch pneumonia.”
“It takes more cold than this to give me pneumonia. This is barely below freezing.”
Meredith rolled her eyes. It was the sort of ridiculous comment her mother always made. “I’ve only got an hour for lunch, so you’d better come in now.” Her voice sounded sharp in the soft ness of the falling snow, and she winced, wishing she had rounded her vowels more, tempered her voice. What was it about her mother that brought out the worst in her? “Did you know he invited me for lunch?”
“Of course,” her mother said, but Meredith heard the lie in it.
Her mother rose from the bench in a single fluid motion, like some ancient goddess used to being revered and adored. Her face was remarkably smooth and wrinkle-free, her skin flawless and almost translucent. She had the kind of bone structure that made other women envious. But it was her eyes that defined her beauty. Deep-set and fringed by thick lashes, they were a remarkable shade of aqua flecked with bits of gold. Meredith was sure that no one who had seen those eyes ever forgot them. How ironic it was that eyes of such remarkable hue were unable to see color.
Meredith took her mother’s elbow and led her away from the bench; only then, when they were walking, did she notice that her mother’s hands were bare, and turning blue.
“Good God. Your hands are blue. You should have on gloves in this cold—”
“You do not know cold.”
“Whatever, Mom.” Meredith bustled her mother up the back steps and into the warmth of the house. “Maybe you should take a bath to warm up.”
“I do not want to be warm, thank you. It is December fourteenth.”
“Fine,” Meredith said, watching her shivering mother go to the stove to stir the soup. The ragged gray wool blanket fell to the floor in a heap around her.
Meredith set the table, and for a few precious moments there was noise in the room, an approximation of a relationship, at least.
“My girls,” Dad said, coming into the kitchen. He looked pale and slight, his once-wide shoulders whittled down to nothing by weight loss. Moving forward, he put a hand on each woman’s shoulder, bringing Meredith and Mom in close. “I love it when we’re together for lunch.”
Mom smiled tightly. “As do I,” she said in that clipped, accented voice of hers.
“And me,” Meredith said.
“Good. Good.” Dad nodded and went to the table.
Mom brought a tray of still-warm feta cheese corn bread slices, drizzled with butter, put a piece on each plate, and then brought over bowls of soup.
“I walked the orchard this morning,” Dad said.
Meredith nodded and took a seat beside him. “I guess you noticed the back of Field A?”
“Yep. That hillside’s been giving us some trouble.”
“I’ve got Ed and Amanda on it. Don’t worry about the harvest.”
“I wasn’t, actually. I was thinking of something else.”
She sipped her soup; it was rich and delicious. Homemade lamb meatballs in a savory saffron broth with silken egg noodles. If she didn’t exercise extreme caution, she’d eat it all and have to run another mile this afternoon. “Oh, yeah?”
“I want to change that field to grapes.”
Meredith slowly lowered her spoon. “Grapes?”
….
Note: Above are quotes and excerpts from the book “Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah”. If you find it interesting and useful, don’t forget to buy paper books to support the Author and Publisher!
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