Only the Beautiful

NOVELS BY SUSAN MEISSNEROnly the BeautifulThe Nature of Fragile ThingsThe Last Year of the WarAs Bright as HeavenA Bridge Across the OceanStars over Sunset BoulevardSecrets of a Charmed LifeA Fall of MarigoldsThe Girl in the GlassA Sound Among the TreesLady in WaitingWhite Picket FencesThe Shape of Mercy BERKLEYAn imprint of Penguin Random House LLCpenguinrandomhouse.comCopyright © 2023 by Susan MeissnerReaders Guide copyright © 2023 by Susan MeissnerPenguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Meissner, Susan, 1961– author.Title: Only the beautiful / Susan Meissner.Description: New York: Berkley, [2023]Identifiers: LCCN 2022031862 (print) | LCCN 2022031863 (ebook) |ISBN 9780593332832 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593332856 (ebook)Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.Classification: LCC PS3613.E435 O55 2023 (print) |LCC PS3613.E435 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20220707LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022031862LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022031863Cover design by Colleen ReinhartCover illustration by Elisabeth Ansley / Trevillion ImagesTitle page illustration by Masha Dav/Shutterstock.comAdapted for ebook by Estelle MalmedThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.pid_prh_6.0_143231560_c0_r0 ContentsCoverNovels by Susan MeissnerTitle PageCopyrightEpigraphPart One: RosanneChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Part Two: HelenChapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36EpilogueAcknowledgments and Author’s NoteReaders GuideDiscussion QuestionsAbout the Author_143231560_ Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.”Genesis 1:26 PART ONEROSANNE 1SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIAFEBRUARY 1939The chardonnay vines outside my open window are silent, but I still imagine the bursts of teal and lavender their summer rustlings always called to my mind. That sound had been my favorite, those colors the prettiest. The leafless stocks with their arms outstretched on cordon after cordon look like lines of dancers waiting for the music to start—for spring to set their performance in motion. Looking at them, I feel a deep sadness. It might be a long time before I see again these vines that had for so long been under my father’s care, or hear their leaves whisper, spilling the colors in my mind that belong to them alone.Perhaps I will never see this vineyard again.The Calverts won’t welcome a future visit from me. Celine Calvert has already made it clear that after today she is done with me. Done.For a moment the words if only flutter in my head, but I lean forward and pull the window shut. What is to be gained by wishing I could turn back the clock? If I had that power, I would have done it before now. I wouldn’t even be living with the Calverts if I had the ability to spin time backward. I’d still be living in the vinedresser’s cottage down the hill with my parents and little brother.The doorbell rings from beyond the bedroom. Shards of heather gray prick at the edges of my mind. I hear Celine cross the entry to open the front door and invite the visitor inside.Mrs. Grissom is here to take me away.It’s almost a year to the day since I first met Mrs. Grissom on the afternoon my whole world changed, just like it is changing now. On that day my father’s truck got stuck on the railroad tracks outside Santa Rosa. In one blinding instant, he and my little brother, Tommy, were snatched away from this life. The next, I was sitting in a ghostly white hospital room for the handful of minutes before my mother slipped away to join them.“Rosie . . .” Momma’s voice was threaded with the faintest colors of heaven as I sat in a cold metal chair next to her bed. She lay in a sea of bandages seeping crimson.“I’m here.” I laid my hand across her bruised fingers.“I am so . . . sorry . . .” Her voice sounded different from what I’d always known. Low and weak.Tears, hot and salty, slid down my cheeks and into my mouth.“Promise me . . . Be happy . . . for me . . . and be . . . careful.” She nodded as if to remind me of a past agreement between us. “Be careful, Rosanne. Promise . . .”“Momma, don’t.”“Promise . . .”A sob clawed its way out of my mouth as I spit out the words: “I promise.”“Love . . . you . . .”I don’t know if she heard me say I loved her, too.The moments after she left me seemed at the time made of the thinnest of tissue paper. I remember being allowed to sit with Momma after she’d passed. I remember being told my father and brother had been taken to the morgue straight from the crash and that I’d have to say good-bye to them in my heart.And then I was meeting Mrs. Grissom, a woman from the county who’d arrived at the hospital sometime during that stretch of shapeless minutes. She’d asked Celine—who had brought me to the hospital—if she knew of any next of kin who could take me in. There weren’t any. She’d asked if Celine would please consider speaking to Mr. Calvert about the two of them taking on the role of legal guardians for me since I’d lived the entirety of my sixteen years on their property anyway. The county had a terrible shortage of foster families willing to take older children, and the nearest orphanages were full. It wouldn’t have to be for forever. Just for the time being. And