I took the unlabeled bottle, the glass shiny and blue. My father could have meant several wines from that vintage, but referring to it in that way, it was clear he meant the 2005 Block 14: the one wine on his spreadsheet that he never messed with. The first wine he’d ever made, an expression of a single site. Every year, those were the grapes he picked after the harvest party—everything else off the vine except for them. These were his most valuable grapes, juicy and rich from the extra time on the vine. He saved those grapes for last and fermented them as they were.
Some years Block 14 turned out well, some years not well. Biodynamics at its most pure. And, 2005, it turned out gorgeous. The fruit was present in every sip of the wine, a rich, dark berry explosion. It won my father two national awards, his distributor insisting he charge ninety dollars a bottle. He liked to joke that 2005 was the wine that paid for all the wines. Tonight, it was like drinking comfort. Ripe and simple.
“Not bad, huh?” he said.
I breathed into the wine, thick with chocolate and jamminess, the way only the best Pinot Noir was. “Beautiful.”
“Beautiful. I’ll take it.”
I motioned toward his spreadsheet. “How’s it looking?”
He smiled. “These last grapes came off lovely,” he said. “The whole southwest corner came off lovely. I’ll feel better when Block 14 is off the vines, but I’d like to give them a little longer to ripen fully.”
“Forecast clear?”
“Forecast clear, but they’ve been wrong before.”
He pointed to the last page of his spreadsheet, the weather services lining the top. He updated each of them daily, all five of them showing sunny skies.
“Jacob is getting into my head,” he said. “He thinks they should come down.”
“Why would you listen to him?”
He picked up his wine, considering the question. “He’s paying me plenty to.”
“Well, not enough, in my opinion.”
“Good thing it’s my opinion that matters.”
Then he tipped the glass in my direction, looking at me, and smiling a little sadly.
“Not that you asked, but it might help to separate out what’s going on with the vineyard and with our family from what’s going on for you and Ben. They are all separate things.”
It all felt like the same thing: the loss of the vineyard, the coming apart of our family. Finn and Bobby and Margaret. My parents. Ben and Maddie. Michelle. It all felt tied up, like the same thread was running through them. Where there had been trust—to keep each other safe, to make each other feel loved—there was none. Maybe it was tied up. Synchronized to come apart the moment my father turned his back on the vineyard and we were all too busy to stop him.
“Not that you asked, but it might help you to stop thinking of them as separate things. Everything is falling apart.”
“Not everything is falling apart,” my father said.
“Did you see your sons trying to kill each other tonight?”
He nodded, considering that. Then dismissing it.
“Finn and Bobby are fighting over the wrong thing. But at least they’re fighting.”
“And how is that good?”
“Because that’s the only way to get somewhere better.” He shrugged. “If you fight, you work it out. If you don’t fight, you move into your own corners, and nothing gets decided there.”
I looked up toward the house. All the lights were off. Everyone sleeping where they shouldn’t: my mother in my parents’ bedroom without my father, my father apparently resigned to that. The man who had built a vineyard from nothing, who had kept my family together in spite of everything. He was just giving up. That was suddenly the scariest part.
“It’s not like you,” I said.
He looked at me. “Not to fight?”
My father had fought hard for the vineyard his entire life—he fought for everyone in our family. “Yes.”
He poured more wine, pointing at my empty ring finger.
“You either,” he said.
Pancakes at The Violet Café The last harvest that Finn and Bobby were still living at home, Finn and Bobby and I moved into the winemaker’s cottage. My father stayed in the house with my mother. My father allowed us to do this as long as we worked the entire harvest start to finish. It was my father’s last chance to show us fully what running the vineyard would be like. He wanted us each to have that knowledge. Of course, we took it as an opportunity to stay up late and smoke cigarettes and avoid homework. The three of us spending time together and talking, really talking. The way you often avoid doing with your siblings while growing up—-everyone too busy doing other things.
It was only recently that I realized the knowledge my father wanted us to have. It wasn’t about the vineyard. It was about each other.
Five days before my wedding, I woke up in the winemaker’s cottage, in the extra bedroom, in another world. Finn and his angry words snaked through my head most of the night. Was he right that if I truly loved Ben I’d have reacted differently? It felt simplistic to think so, but in my own way I was being simplistic too. As if Ben’s wrong freed me to stop behaving right.
I slid out of the cottage, past the cold toast and jelly my father had left on the table. My father was already gone. No such thing as a day off during the final days of the harvest.
I headed up toward the main house, toward the one person that could make me feel better about what Finn had said, about what my father had said, toward the one person that I needed to try with most. Toward Maddie.
She was already up, dressed in her heart leggings, watching Beauty and the Beast in my mother’s bed, lying with my mother, and the twins—in their fireman uniforms.
It startled me for a second, seeing the three of them there, watching morning movies, like the three of us had done, growing up. The twins like Finn and Bobby. Maddie, a little like me.
My mother looked sad lying there and I bent down, kissed her on the forehead.
“What’s that for?” she said.
“It’s a new day.”
My mother studied me in my faded jeans and a tank top, my hair piled into a messy bun on top of my head. “Then don’t you think you could use a shower?” she said.
I gave her a smile and turned toward Maddie. “You sleep well?”
Maddie nodded, her eyes on the movie. “We watched Beauty and the Beast.”
“Last night also?”
Maddie smiled, eyes on the television. “Twice,” Maddie said.
My mother shrugged. “Don’t judge,” she said. “I learned a long time ago to pick my battles, and it’s not like they aren’t learning something,” she said.
“What’s that, Mom?”
She pointed at their happy faces, intent on the princess. “Commitment,” she said.
I looked at Maddie, trying to get her attention. “Maddie, what’s your favorite breakfast in the world?”
“Pancakes,” she said.
“With chocolate chips?”
She looked at me like I had just solved a code. “How did you know that?”
“Would you let me take you for some, if your dad says it’s okay? There’s a place near here that has the world’s gooiest chocolate chips.”
“Just you and me?” She looked skeptical about that. I held her gaze, letting her know she could trust me about the chocolate chips. And everything else.
She turned toward Josh. “Can I borrow your fireman hat?”
He nodded, handing it over, too entranced by the movie to care.
Then Maddie looked at me.
“Can we put the movie back on as soon as we get back?”
My mother gave me a look. “Pick your battles,” she said.
And like that, I agreed.