Love Me Last

by Parker, Weston

  But there was nothing for it. Into the hospital, we went.

  Dr. Levine came in not long after we were led to one of the screening rooms. He carried the results from Mom’s latest tests in one hand. Immediately, Mom was all business. “So?” she asked him.

  The doctor sighed and shook his head. “Unfortunately, things are looking about like we would have expected,” he said.

  Mom nodded grimly, while I swallowed hard. About like we would have expected, I had come to learn, wasn’t good. I appreciated the fact that Dr. Levine didn’t sugarcoat the truth. But at the same time, it was hard to hear him sound so negative about Mom’s outlook for the future. I didn’t want to think that she had already reached the point where no treatment would help. I didn’t want to think of her case as terminal.

  Mom, though, didn’t have any trouble talking about that kind of thing. “So let me guess,” she said tartly, “there’s still no way to fix me, but you’d like to hem and haw over a half-dozen different experimental treatment options, each of which is going to make me feel worse than the one before it?”

  Dr. Levine cracked a small smile. “Something like that,” he said.

  Mom sighed and shook her head. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” she said. “I’m dying, that’s all there is to it. Whether that happens sooner or later, does it really matter?”

  Dr. Levine cleared his throat and looked sympathetically over at me. He had worked with Mom, and me by extension, for long enough now that he knew how these visits typically ended. “Why don’t I go get you a glass of water,” he tactfully suggested to Mom.

  Mom rolled her eyes as he walked out of the room, turning to face me. “Well?” she demanded. “I don’t think I’m being unreasonable, am I? This is just the way things are.” She paused and folded her arms across her chest, and in that small, defensive gesture, I saw just how scared she really was. “If I can admit to the fact that I’ll be dead within the year, I really wish the rest of you would as well,” she said. “And it’s not like I haven’t had a good life already. I’ve lived well and done everything that I wanted to do.”

  “But what about that bucket list of yours?” I asked, remembering those dreamy plans she’d originally had for after her recovery.

  Mom shook her head stubbornly. “Dreams change,” she said firmly. She paused, and finally, she seemed to realize that this was just as tough for me as it was for her. “Darling, I know I’m putting you through a lot with all of this. I still think it would be better if the nurse were the one to drive me here. But you’ve got to realize, after a certain point, when all the medicines just make me feel sicker and weaker and less like myself, maybe it would be a kindness for the end to just finally come.”

  She sounded so bleak that my first thought was to give her a hug. But she and I had never had that kind of a relationship. No, our relationship was business first and sentimentality last. That was just the way it had always been.

  She had raised me to take over the winery. And she had done a damned good job of it. But not for the first time, I wondered what our lives might have been like if she had been a mother first and a business owner second. But then again, that would probably only have made this more difficult to bear now.

  In light of the fact that we didn’t know how much time Mom had left, I couldn’t help but worry even more about the business. It had been a gnawing fear over the course of the past year—what if sales took a turn for the worse or something happened to the vines. What if one of the last things that Mom remembered about me was the fact that I had driven the family business into the ground?

  I knew that was a bit of an irrational fear, but it was a fear that I had all the same.

  And now, that fear almost seemed to have some basis in probability. What if the combined efforts of Hayden, Charlie and I couldn’t fix whatever was wrong with the books? What if we got audited by the IRS and there were serious consequences for the business? Hell, I knew what could happen to me if the IRS thought I’d been skimming profit off the top, without paying taxes on it or anything else.

  The business that Grandfather and Mom had worked so hard and long on could end up going under, this time for good. And I could end up in jail.

  I swallowed hard, trying to push those thoughts away. Instead, I squared my shoulders. Mom had taught me to never wear my emotions on my sleeve. If she wanted to be matter-of-fact about her illness, then I would play along.

  “Let’s get Dr. Levine back in here,” I suggested. “I, for one, am curious about those experimental therapies. Even if they don’t end up working in the end. There’s always the chance that one of them will.”

  Mom rolled her eyes. “And one of them might very well be the thing that finally kills me,” she said.

  “We’re all dying, Mom,” I said sharply. “Don’t martyr yourself just because you’re doing so a bit faster than normal.”

  It hurt to say those words. I wanted to say something sweeter about how she couldn’t possibly die and leave me behind. Or about how if she just kept her spirits up, it would make her recovery more likely. But I knew how Mom was dealing with her fear and her pain, and I would respond in kind.

  Sure enough, the corners of Mom’s mouth twitched into a smile, although she didn’t go as far as to tell me that I was right. “Go get the doctor,” she said graciously, and I knew that was as close to an apology as I would get for the way that she had been acting.

  As I was on my way to the door, she muttered under her breath, “You’d better not let me die before giving me any grandbabies.”

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes. She was sick, I reminded myself, and the last thing I wanted was for her to spend her final breath telling me over and over again about how ‘even a woman my size’ deserved to find someone to love her. If I pretended that I hadn’t heard her comment, then maybe there wouldn’t be a follow-up.

  Because I swear, if we returned to the conversation from the car, or if she even hinted about me finding a sexy doctor to date while we were hanging out around the hospital, I was probably going to strangle her.

  Mom wanted the best for me. She always had. But sometimes, I just wondered why my best never seemed to be what she wanted.

  Chapter 13

  Hayden

  When I got to the vineyard on Monday morning, I was surprised to see quite a bit of activity out in the field. I tried to remember what Charlie had told me about the wine-making process and what sorts of things happened at different times of the year, but I couldn’t remember enough to make sense of what was going on right now. It looked like some sort of trimming or something. Did the vines need to be trimmed? I remembered something about not letting them get above a certain height so it would be easier to pick the grapes when it was harvest season. But none of the vines seemed to have grown too much lately anyway. As far as I could tell, they were pretty much dormant through the winter.

  Curious, I headed towards Charlie’s office, sure that he could explain things to me.

  I was kind of surprised to find that I was as curious about the place as I was. What did I care, after all? It wasn’t like I was some chintzy wine drinker. Hell, I didn’t even go for the cheap stuff anymore. But there was something about this place, or about the way Mallory ran this place, that made me want to know what exactly it was that I was somehow a part of now.

  Maybe it had to do with the fact that this was the first mom-and-pop business I had ever worked for that actually felt like one. I could tell from everyone I had met here so far, and from the comment Mallory had made about a lack of corruption in her ranks, that this place was more like a family all coming together to produce great wine than anything else. Already, I felt like I was part of the story of the vineyard.

  I’d better get to work fixing those books, then. The last thing I wanted was a place like this to go under when it got audited. But first, a chat with Charlie.

  “Pruning,” he agreed, nodding his head and glancing out the window. He had a great view of the sloping vin
eyard, and I bet it was especially beautiful around sunset. I wondered if that had more to do with his years with the company or with how much Mallory valued his work. Probably a bit of both, I decided.

  “Every year, we need to prune the vines,” Charlie was explaining. “But deciding when to do that can be a little tricky. See, we want to prune them to keep them low to the ground, but it’s also because the less vine there is, the fewer grapes the vine will produce, because there just won’t be space for too many of them.”

  I frowned. “But don’t you want there to be lots of grapes, to make lots of wine?” I asked. “Or is this some sort of exclusivity thing where you only want to make a certain number of bottles?”

  “Not quite,” Charlie said, shaking his head. “That’s a pretty common misconception. The thing is, the more grapes there are, the more the vine has to spread out its love. Or, the more grapes there are, the less flavor in each individual grape. It’s the same thing with the older vines versus the newer vines. The older vines tend to yield fewer but better-quality grapes, whereas, the newer vines tend to yield a lot of grapes, but if we only used the newer vines when we were making wine, it would be the equivalent of box wine at best.”

  “Sounds like there must be a lot of factors going into deciding the right mixture of old and new grapes when you actually get to the fermentation and all of that,” I mused.

  “There is,” Charlie agreed seriously. “Actually, Mallory is the only person who can say, at the end of the day, what we’re looking for in each batch. She’s been trained into this since she was young.”

  I felt my esteem for Mallory go up another couple notches. She clearly didn’t like me, and I considered her to be a pretty difficult person to get along with. But maybe some of that had to do with the fact that she just didn’t have the time to sit around waiting for people to show up. She seemed to have her hand in nearly everything that went on here at the vineyard. There was certainly something to be said for how hard she worked.

  Charlie cleared his throat, drawing me back to the present and out of my thoughts about Mallory. “Oh, and I meant to mention one other thing,” he began. “Aside from Mallory and I, no one here at the company knows that there’s any sort of trouble, or that the IRS is planning to audit us. We’re trying to keep things as quiet as we can at the moment.”

  I frowned, thinking about that. Maybe this place wasn’t such a family after all.

  But Charlie clearly read my misgivings on my face. “It’s not that we want to hide anything from anyone. But at the same time, we don’t want everyone to panic. I’m confident that you’re going to be able to figure out what’s wrong with the books and we’ll be back on track soon enough. Until then, it’s just easier this way.” He paused. “And more importantly, if no one else knows about this, then if the IRS does come asking questions, they can maintain their innocence.”

  “That makes sense,” I admitted. The fewer people who knew there was any sort of issue, the fewer people the IRS could link to whatever the problem was. Not only that, but it might eventually help us figure out just who had been cooking the books if it had been done maliciously. Anyone who knew that there was any sort of problem would be a suspect.

  But I would leave that up to Charlie and Mallory to determine. My only job here was to figure out just what was wrong with the books and try to fix them.

  “As small a place as this is, though, won’t someone notice me and wonder what’s up?” I asked. “It’s not like I can just hide out the whole time I’m here.”

  “Someone may notice you,” Charlie agreed. “If anyone asks, we’ll say that you’re a consultant and that Mallory hired you on. That much is true. But the more you can stay out of sight, the more you’ll be out of mind for the rest of them.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, nodding. “Well, I guess I’d better get to work. Those books aren’t going to sort themselves out.”

  “I’ll keep working on things as I can,” Charlie promised me. “And of course, if you need any specific help, just let me know. You know where to find me.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said.

  This wasn’t my first position like this, and it wasn’t even the most difficult one I’d had either. But as I stared at the stacks of files I would need to go through, I started to feel a little trepidation. This was going to be a tough case to close before the month was up. And as I glanced out the window and started thinking about all those people out there pruning, I couldn’t help thinking about all that was at stake here.

  Generations of love and care had gone into this winery, from carefully deciding how and when to trim those vines, to creating great wines, and to finding distributors around the world. Wine-making was an investment for the future—either in the coming years when the wine produced this year was mature or for the coming generations in terms of which vines were kept and which were trimmed back.

  I could only imagine what it would feel like to be Mallory and have all of that riding on your shoulders.

  Or the kind of panic the workers might feel if they knew there was a chance the winery might go under due to some error in the record-keeping.

  For a moment, I wondered what really could happen. Would these people all be able to find jobs at other vineyards in the area? I had to assume that their jobs were pretty highly sought-after, and there wasn’t a ton of turnover. Besides, there might be some sort of non-compete clause in their contracts to keep them from spreading the secrets of this winery to others. It had to be a difficult business to be in.

  I shook my head, though. No use dwelling on that now. I was here to fix the problem, and fix it, I would. For the sake of my own job and reputation, I told myself.

  But as Mallory appeared in the doorway of the room that Charlie had set me up in, I knew that I wasn’t just doing this because it was a job. No, there was something about Mallory that made me want to get this solved—for her. No matter how difficult it might prove to be.

  “How’s it going?” Mallory asked, looking around at the stacks of files I had made.

  I shrugged one shoulder, wondering if she planned to micromanage me the whole time. I had a feeling she didn’t trust me; but then again, why should she? Most of the other people she had working here had been here for years, and I was an outsider. Besides, I had already thought about how important this project really was. Mallory no doubt felt the same way, but since the winery was her responsibility, her worry was tenfold.

  “Just getting organized and ready to dive into things,” I told her. Maybe I shouldn’t have said it. She had told me to get there by nine that morning, and I definitely hadn’t. I should have already been well into my work by now.

  But Mallory didn’t tell me off, even though I could see in her face there was definitely a part of her that wanted to. Instead, she nodded smoothly. “Do you want to get lunch before you dive in off the deep end?” she asked.

  I blinked at her in surprise and nodded slowly. “Sounds like a plan,” I said. I wondered if she had more that she wanted to discuss with me. If maybe she wanted to reiterate what Charlie had said that morning about not panicking the other workers by letting them know why I was really here. But if that was all she wanted to say, she could have just said it here and now, in the privacy of this room. She didn’t need to invite me to have lunch with her.

  No, I realized as we headed to get lunch that she had invited me because she was forcing herself to be nice to me. The thought made me grin a little in response. She probably thought that the nicer she was, the more likely I was to solve her troubles. The more I would apply myself. What she didn’t realize was that I was just as much of a hard worker as she was, and I was going to do my job either way.

  But as we settled in to chat at a local bistro, I had to admit that I liked spending time with her. She was easy and confident, and when I got her chatting about the winery, she really opened up, the passion she felt was evident in her face.

  She might be forcing herself to be nice to me, but it wasn’
t very difficult for me to spend time with her. I was surprised, when I finally got back to the files, to see how late in the day it already was. I sighed as I sat down, resigning myself to a long night pouring over papers back at home rather than spending time with Booker like I really wanted to.

  Chapter 14

  Mallory

  Hayden didn’t show up on time on Monday morning, but then again, I guess I’d never really expected him to. And honestly, at this point, I was just relieved that he had shown up at all. There had been a part of me that worried he would decide he didn’t want to work here after all. That it wasn’t worth his time and effort for the amount that we could pay him.

  Maybe he would decide he didn’t want to work for me, after I had been so terrible to him on the date, and again when he first showed up here at the winery.

  Or something. I don’t know what I expected, but it was a relief when Charlie let me know that Hayden had arrived and was getting started. Maybe there was a chance of salvaging the business after all.

  I just had to show Hayden how much I appreciated him being here. I had apologized for my actions before, and I had no intention of doing so again. But at the same time, I wanted to make sure that he kept coming back until this problem was solved.

  Not only that, but it was normal for me to take new hires at the winery to lunch on their first day. You know, as a way of bringing them into the family and making them comfortable. The key to running a successful business, Mom had always said, was making sure that people were comfortable speaking their mind to the boss.

  Of course, Hayden wasn’t really like a new hire. Charlie and I had decided it would be best if he laid low while he was here, rather than integrating into the family like we normally wanted. It was just easier for everyone that way. And safer, if Hayden wasn’t able to fix the books before the IRS started sniffing around.