My mother waved again as though the reason we were stuck in place was that we hadn’t seen her. Her words ran through my head. Be careful what you give up.
Still, I met his eyes, taking in his smell, his sweetness. “I think you should leave.”
“You can’t be serious,” he said.
He reached forward and held my face, trying to make me look at him. Except I couldn’t look at him and not see all the stories he had kept private about his life this last year. There were breakfasts with Maddie, secret cards and phone calls, a million stories that he hadn’t shared—including the story about how much Michelle still loved him.
Wasn’t the ultimate form of fidelity whom you told your stories to? Ben had stopped telling me his.
Ben leaned forward. “If the situations were reversed, I would look to understand as opposed to the opposite. You know that I would. What does that say about what you want from me?”
I had no answer for him. All I knew was that my heart had moved in my chest, right into a place where it felt heavy and stuck.
“We’re getting married in five days, Georgia. Five days. Don’t you still want that?”
Ben met my eyes, asking me to say yes.
I didn’t say anything.
Then he walked out of the beautiful and empty wedding tent.
Sebastopol, California. 1999
When she reached for his arm, Dan followed her into the dining room, irritated and tired.
“I just need to talk to you for a minute,” Jen said.
It was the night of the harvest party and he didn’t have time for this conversation. In a couple of days, Dan would have endless time. He was closing down for the season. The grapes had come in early. He was already putting chamomile on the vines. He would take her, his lovely wife, down the coast. He would take her to Los Angeles, a night at the symphony. He was ready to give her what she needed, just not tonight. Except tonight was when she wanted his attention.
“I got an offer,” she said. “To go to New York for five months. And substitute.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the symphony. It’s not in the city. It’s outside, but it’s a good symphony. And they need a cellist. I’d be working with Henry Morgan again. Do you remember Henry?”
Dan did remember Henry and he didn’t like him. Jen had dragged him to Portland when Henry was in town, a guest conductor at the prestigious symphony there. They had drinks afterward at their hotel, Henry and Jen talking about music into the early morning hours. Dan would have excused himself and gone up to sleep, but he felt like he couldn’t leave them alone together. He didn’t like the way that Henry looked at his wife. He didn’t like the way Jen seemed to enjoy it.
“He’s a fantastic conductor.”
He bit his tongue, staying quiet. This was a trope of Jen’s—Henry’s brilliance. A trope that presented itself every so often. Not regularly enough to cause alarm, but enough to cause irritation. Jen noting any new symphony he moved to, Jen sharing a photograph of his son with a gorgeous model. As if that proved Henry’s brilliance.
“You want to take it? We could let someone take over the vineyard for a year.”
“We’d be back before then. I’d go next week. And we’d be back before the grapes finished coming in. You’d only miss part of it.”
“The quiet winter.”
She nodded. “The quiet winter.”
Though of course nothing was quiet these days. It was an exciting time to be in Sebastopol. It was the boom. Everyone was coming to Sebastopol. Winemakers were buying land, making Pinot Noir, people moving up from San Francisco to open restaurants, to open music stores. Sebastopol was getting a hotel. It was the community he’d always wanted. He didn’t want to leave it.
“You don’t want me to take it,” she said.
“I didn’t say that,” he said. Then he used the only ammunition he could think of. “But it will disrupt things for the kids.”
“They’re not kids anymore. They’re in high school. It won’t be the worst thing for them to experience school in New York. Your daughter will love it. She’ll never want to come back.”
He relented. “They’ll be fine. What are we really talking about?”
She shook her head. “You won’t like living in New York. You didn’t even like living in Burgundy. It made you queasy living away from here.”
What made him queasy was Jen bringing up the south of France, Marie standing in front of him. What he’d almost thrown away just to touch her. He had walked out of the room, though. Didn’t that count for something?
“Jen,” he said. “Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow? We can sit down and see how we can work it out. Because if you want to do this, we need you to do this. That’s important.”
“I have to tell them tonight.”
“Okay. So you do want this?”
She shook her head. “It is flattering that they want me still.”
“Of course they do.”
“There is a version in which I go alone. And you come and visit. We could do that too.”
He wasn’t going to separate again, not after what had happened last time. He didn’t think he was strong enough. Marie, standing before him.
“I’d rather go with you.”
She smiled, but it wasn’t loving.
“What?”
“That’s not the same thing as you saying you want to come, Dan.”
“I said I’ll go. I’ll go. What do you want from me, Jen?”
“What do you want from me?” she said.
She waited. It was clear that she wanted everything. She wanted the devotion that she gave to him. She wanted him to stop standing there, pretending he didn’t know these things.
He watched as she walked away from him. He should have stopped her. He should have insisted that they go because he knew how much she wanted it, even if she wasn’t saying it. She wanted to go back to New York if for no other reason than to remember how much she didn’t need to be in New York anymore. Having a taste of that life again would show her she had picked the one that mattered more to her.
What was there to debate? There was one thing for him to say. The details don’t matter, we’ll figure it out.
He was ready to say it, what she most needed to hear.
“Jen,” he said.
But when she didn’t hear him, he didn’t say her name louder. He said it softer, like that was the very same thing.
Home I didn’t want to go back into the house—not until Michelle was gone—so I headed toward the vineyard, toward the winery, calling Suzannah on the way.
“What’s going on?” she said.
“I ended it.”
“What?” She sounded shocked. “What do you mean, you ended it? You’re getting married in five days!”
“Maddie’s mother showed up here and she’s still in love with Ben.”
“So I take it that you didn’t listen to my turtle analogy?”
“How does that apply?”
“Someone opened the door for her!”
I moved deeper into the vines, wanting to feel something besides what I was feeling. “How could he not tell me she wanted to be with him again?”
“How can you let her win?”
“I didn’t know it was a contest.”
“Of course it is!”