“Where is she?”
He reached for his thermos, poured the rest of his juice inside. “She’s taking the twins to see a friend of ours in Healdsburg.”
“She’s missing the harvest party?”
“No, they’re coming back tonight, but I can’t handle her being in the house today more than she has to be. I thought it was a good idea for us to have a little space.”
“What does Margaret think?” I said.
“What does it matter what she thinks?”
“You need to talk to her, Bobby. Shutting her out isn’t going to do what you think it’s going to do. Margaret would never do anything to hurt you.”
“Do you think that makes this better or worse?” He shook his head. “I knew that things weren’t great between us. I’m not an idiot. But knowing things aren’t great and finding out your wife is in love with your brother? Those are two different things.”
“That isn’t what this is about, Bobby,” I said.
“You sure about that?”
He paused, biting his thumbnail. Bruised hand meeting bruised mouth.
“Do you know she’s been talking about having another kid? Why would she talk about having another kid if she was feeling as badly as this? Maybe she thought that would fill it, what she was missing with me . . .”
“I think that you and Margaret need to sit down and deal with this.”
He drilled me with a look. “I think you should have told me. That’s what I think.”
“Bobby, I didn’t know.”
“I’m not talking about Margaret. I’m talking about Ben. He has a kid?”
I nodded, unsure how to read my brother’s expression. “Does that make you hate him?”
He shook his head, surprising me. “No, not at all. It makes me sad for him.”
He started walking toward the door. Then he turned back.
“People screw up, you know. You shouldn’t hold it against them. You shouldn’t expect everyone to know everything you’re thinking about or not getting from them. It doesn’t mean they don’t love you. They screw up.”
I nodded, even though Bobby wasn’t talking about Ben—the kindest thing I could do for him was pretend that he was. I realized that was what was so hard for him. Bobby wanted to be the one who never screwed up, who we all looked up to, Margaret especially. He confused that with love. He confused how she saw him with how she needed him to see her.
Bobby sat back down. “I don’t want your sympathy,” he said.
“You don’t have it,” I said.
Then I took his hand.
High Yields After Bobby left for San Francisco—for work, for a -Margaret-and Finn-free day—I headed into Santa Rosa. I drove to the courthouse in the center of Santa Rosa—a small courthouse where the biggest business was traffic tickets. I had two enormous files in my hand, files I had found online that backed up my case. The case I was about to make to someone behind the small courthouse desk.
As it turned out, I knew the person I was making the case to. Kirby, from high school, was standing behind the desk.
Kirby Queen—Brian Queen’s daughter. We hadn’t known each other that well in high school despite our fathers’ desire for us to be friends. She had been the captain of the volleyball team. She looked ready to go to the gym now, standing there in a pantsuit that looked more like a jumpsuit, looking bored.
She perked up slightly when she saw me standing before her, but only slightly. Whatever she remembered about me from high school, it wasn’t really about me but about Bobby. The one meaningful interaction we’d ever had was when she’d confessed that she had a crush on him.
“Look what fell off the vine!” she said. “What brings you to Sonoma County?”
“Hi, Kirby.”
“I heard you were getting married, or maybe heard is the wrong word. I read you walked into town in your wedding dress. If it had been your wedding day that would have been news, but when everyone found out there was no wedding, it hit the Twitter feed.”
I felt my skin getting hot. “That’s embarrassing.”
“Sure is.”
I opened the files on Kirby’s desk. A legal case from the 1800s stared back at Kirby, Philbert v. Philbert, a small family case in which the grown children weren’t informed of a property’s sale. In that case, it had been a horse farm. Since their trust was linked with the land, the grown children had contested the horse farm’s sale, contending that they were losing out on future earnings.
My law firm had used this case once while representing a greedy billionaire whose father had built shopping malls all over Los Angeles. He was planning on selling one for one hundred million and the son was trying to stop him. Now I was using the case for something else.
“What can I do you for?” she said. “Because I’m not reading any of this.”
“I’m filing an injunction to stop the sale of my father’s vineyard.”
“Your father is selling his vineyard?” She looked shocked. “My father didn’t mention it.”
“Yep, to Murray Grant Wines.”
“Whoa. No way! Those corporate scumbags?”
I nodded, happy that Kirby was stuck on that, my desire to go up against a major corporation, and not the illegitimacy of what I wanted to do.
“Their grandson, the one who is taking over Murray Grant Wines, he sucks. He’s a major asshole.”
“You’ve met him?”
“No, I read about him. On Twitter. Give me your filing.”
She grabbed the appropriate paperwork, smiling, happy to be in the know about this. That was fine as long as she was willing to do her job here and get the lawsuit going. The reason corporations often won lawsuits was that they out-lawyered the small guy. Maybe I didn’t have a leg to stand on, but I had the manpower to see this thing through. And I was going to use it.
Kirby shrugged, apologetically. “You’re not going to be able to see the judge until next week. And it’s probably going to be Judge Riley, once he comes back from his fishing trip. He’s gonna be in a bad mood too, irritated he’s at work again.”
I nodded, knowing I’d lose in front of pretty much any judge. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was getting him to hear my argument for why my father couldn’t sell the vineyard without approval, to create work for Jacob’s lawyer, to create trepidation for Jacob’s board about getting involved. Why would they want to get involved with a small vineyard that was making waves? They could find another small winery with a good reputation. The upside wasn’t worth it.
I looked at Kirby, hoping she’d help with the second part of the plan, knowing it was critical that she did.
She smiled, thrilled to be on the inside of this secret. “I, of course, won’t tell anyone in the meantime,” she said.
“Thank you.”
She nodded seriously. “Of course. I would never.”
Which proved that the second she was on her own again, she would.
I felt pretty pleased with myself as I walked out of the courthouse.