Season of Change

by Melinda Curtis

  Slade pulled at his collar. “Mom wouldn’t have approved of what Dad did.”

  “S’pose not.” Takata lit the cigar with several quick puffs. “But she’d forgive him. That’s what this place is all about. Forgiveness.” He sat back on the bench. “My wife was very sick before she died. We tried everything—traditional treatments, new age medicine, prayer. But nothing I did could stop her from slipping away. In the end, she wanted relief from all the pain.”

  Takata took a big drag on his cigar. “For a long time, I had to live with my guilt. Why her and not me? I smoked. I drank. She’d done neither. One day, as I was sitting here, I realized the time of her passing wasn’t up to me. I’d been left behind, alone, for a reason.”

  An idea put forth by Will’s fiancée, Emma, last night. Too bad Slade wasn’t a believer in fate. He couldn’t see anything beyond proving to himself that he could atone for his father’s loss by making money.

  “I think the reason I’m still here is you.” Takata’s dark eyes drilled into Slade’s.

  It was Slade’s turn to scoff.

  “Laugh all you want. You’re not getting rid of me.” The old man gazed over the crosses and headstones marching down the hill.

  As threats went, this one made Slade smile. “I could move.”

  Takata blew a smoke ring. “You’d have to deal with all your father’s things.”

  A bird swooped to the grass nearby, hopping closer, as if to make sure they hadn’t brought any food to share. It took flight with a disapproving chirp.

  Slade wasn’t willing to let the old man win that easily. “I could shut the house up and leave town.”

  “You’d leave an old man alone?” Takata tried his best to look forlorn, but Slade knew him too well. “Who knows? I may write you into my will. I’ve got no heirs.”

  Slade laughed. “You barely know me.”

  “I watched you grow up. You’ve done your parents proud.”

  Slade didn’t know what to say. Takata’s praise meant more than any write-up he’d gotten in business magazines.

  “And now I want you to do me proud.” Takata gestured downhill. “I want you to head down that slope and say some words to your parents. I’ll wait here.”

  Slade’s stomach wound up tighter than a slugger protecting home plate. “No.”

  “It’s time to make your peace.” Takata handed him the flowers and an unlit cigar. “These are for them.”

  Daisies. His mother loved daisies. Slade rolled the cigar between his fingers. His gut unwound a smidgen.

  “You’re not alone in this world. You have a great many friends. A nontraditional family, if you will.” Takata put a hand on Slade’s shoulder and gave him a gentle push. “Your parents are here. And they’ve missed you.”

  Guilt, loneliness, and love propelled him to his feet. He made his way slowly down the hill to his parents’ resting place.

  There was no bench by their graves. There were just headstones.

  Slade took the flowers out of their wrapping and set them in the too-long-empty vase attached to the side of his mother’s headstone.

  Jean Marie Jennings. Beloved wife and mother.

  Slade laid the cigar at the base of his father’s headstone.

  Daniel Corbett Jennings. Beloved husband and father.

  Nothing original on their grave markers. Nothing profound. No testament to how much they loved the Harmony River or the outdoors or...their son.

  Slade knelt in the grass at their feet, feeling awkward and alone. But maybe not as alone as he had been.

  Takata watched from the hill.

  “It’s been a while,” Slade murmured, feeling like the inconsiderate son who hadn’t called home regularly, even for birthdays and holidays. “I really messed up.”

  * * *

  BRAD ALEXANDER CLIMBED the stairs to Christine’s office with powerful steps that shook the entire farmhouse. “What’s wrong with your phone?”

  Christine looked up from the column of figures she’d unsuccessfully added three times.

  Her dad stood at the head of the stairs, dusty, dirty, and obviously angry, as if he’d been busy and summoned out of the vineyards by an inconsiderate boss.

  “Hey, Dad.” She tucked the budget into a folder and introduced him to Ryan, who wisely mumbled something about taking sugar readings in the vineyard and escaped the office.

  “You haven’t answered me.” Her father put his hands on his hips.

  Christine had anticipated this conversation for a long time, possibly for years. She knew the only tactic to keep her dad from blowing up hinged on her remaining calm. Hard to do when she hadn’t gone against her father’s wishes since she was a spoiled, rebellious teenager.

  She phrased her answer in nonconfrontational tones. “My phone is fine.”

  “Then why haven’t you called me?” The volume of his demand was loud enough to shake Christine’s resolve. Instead, it seemed to shake the dormer windows.

  “Have a seat, Dad.” Christine gestured to the folding chair on the other side of her desk. When he didn’t move, she added, “Please sit down.”

  He reluctantly complied.

  Christine met her father’s gaze squarely, despite the nervous tic her leg seemed to have developed beneath her desk. “I haven’t returned your calls or answered your messages because I’m not leaving.”

  “The big corporations are going to swoop in and you’ll be obsolete. Alexanders don’t make box wine.” It was her father’s familiar argument, delivered like a fire-and-brimstone sermon with a finger pointed to heaven, as if predicting a lightning strike if she didn’t conform to his wishes. “The new owners will look at your salary and pink-slip you. I’m warning you now—”

  “And I appreciate it.” She cut him off, struggling to be gentle, but firm. “I couldn’t have advanced my career this far without your advice and guidance.”

  That mollified him. He nodded his agreement.

  “But it’s time I made my own decisions and took responsibility for my own career risks.”

  His nod did a 90-degree flip to a headshake. “You don’t understand what’s looming over you.”

  “I do, Dad.” And she told him, using her controlled, indoor voice. The one she used with investors and tour groups. The one a college professor had once told her made her more credible than her smile.

  She told him how the partnership had convinced her they weren’t going to sell. She told him how they had an aggressive five-year growth plan that would create a challenge unlike any she’d taken on before. She told him how no expense was being spared, even an unplanned makeshift wine cave.

  She didn’t tell him she’d fallen in love with her boss or that Slade had a less-than-pristine history. She’d let Nana torture him with that news.

  “But, honey, are you sure?” Her father scratched the back of his neck. “You could be stuck here without a place to jump to if you don’t make a move now.”

  Her leg had long since stopped shaking. Instead of falling into a shouting match with her dad, they’d had a very mature discussion. It would go down in Alexander history as a day to remember. “They’re not lying to me. They’re not selling.”

  He rubbed a hand over his sun-streaked hair, his eyes clouded with worry. “How do you know, honey? How do you know?”

  Christine took a deep breath, knowing her smile wasn’t confident enough to convince her father. “Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith.”

  * * *

  SLADE PULLED INTO his driveway and asked Takata, “Do you need me to come inside and make you some lunch?”

  “Don’t baby me,” Takata grumbled. “I’m a grown man. I’ll make my own lunch.”

  “You have leftover tuna casserole, don’t you?”

  “Dang straight. Thanks f
or the ride.”

  Slade walked Takata to his back door, promising to check up on him later, which got him another groused protest.

  Emotionally drained from his cemetery visit, Slade went into the house and sat in his father’s chair. It really wasn’t the right chair for someone his size. He wasn’t that much taller than his dad.

  Slade carried the chair out to the curb. If this was New York, that chair would be missing by morning, claimed by someone who’d appreciate it. As it was, Slade suspected the chair would be there a long time.

  The house was strangely silent. Slade washed out his travel mug, put away dishes, opened the refrigerator door, and looked at all the food he’d stocked up for the girls. There were Grace’s yogurts. There were Faith’s blueberries.

  The house was quiet. Empty. Sad.

  Slade headed out, walking toward the river. He cut through the park where Mayor Larry did his morning yoga and found himself on the path that followed the river upstream. He’d always liked this part of the Harmony River best. There were fewer houses, fewer people, fewer distractions. He could think.

  And he did. He thought about his daughters’ smiles, their laughter, their hugs. The first time Evy took them away his heart had dragged behind his heels for nearly a year. This time, his heart might never recover. But...he would grow a callus because that was for the best. Children needed to trust their parents wouldn’t let them down when life got rocky.

  The land on either side of the river rose until forty-foot cliffs framed the river’s progress instead of low, gentle banks. When he reached a bluff overlooking a bend in the river, he stopped. He could see a quarter mile each way. Empty pastures lined the river here, bordered by blackberry brambles, the fruit heavy on the vines. He sat beneath an oak tree and swung his legs over the edge of the rocky bluff. Below him, the river eased past several boulders, uncaring of Slade’s emotional burdens.

  The day was getting hotter. He rolled up his sleeves, grateful of the shade the oak provided. A breeze would be nice.

  A small lizard scurried close, tilting his head this way and that, as if trying to find the best way to look at him.

  Slade could relate. He was trying to find the best way to look at himself, too.

  His friends and Christine thought he could just wave off his horrendous mistake and move on with his life. They didn’t understand that he deserved to pay for his poor judgment every day for the rest of his life.

  He brought to mind Christine’s vivacious smile, the all-in approach she used to attack an overwhelming workload, the soft feel of her hands on his skin, the warmth of her lips on his scar.

  In another life, he would have given his heart to her completely. He would’ve been down on his knees every day trying to prove to her how much he valued and treasured her. He would’ve been that man she wanted—lending her strength when she needed it, loving her despite vineyard-torn T-shirts and wine-stained hands. He’d love her for the talented, strong, optimistic woman she was and the beautiful woman she was on the inside. He’d—

  The ground beneath him rumbled.

  Earthquake.

  The earth cracked and shifted without warning, crumbling his bird’s-eye perch. For one heartbeat, Slade seemed to hang in mid-air. He lunged for a tree root as the rocks and dirt he’d been sitting on rained through the air, showering the boulders forty feet below him.

  Christine.

  She’d think he committed suicide. She’d think he didn’t love her or the girls enough to live.

  He clung to the rough wood, trying to find purchase with his feet, trying to ignore the panic-induced rush of adrenaline and the mind-numbing spike of fear.

  The girls... Evy would win, tainting their memories of him.

  I don’t want to die.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  BY THE TIME Slade got home, he was dirty, tired, and thirsty.

  His friends were waiting for him on his front porch. The same usual suspects from the night before, minus Christine.

  He hadn’t thought her absence would hurt nearly as much as Grace’s and Faith’s. He felt as empty and sad as the house.

  “There was an earthquake,” Becca said.

  Flynn came down the steps. “We couldn’t get you on the phone.”

  They didn’t fool Slade. They’d noticed he was missing and thought the worst. “Is everyone else in town okay?” Slade spun on Nate. “Or are you just checking up on me?”

  “Everyone else is fine.” Nate chewed on the inside of his cheek before adding, “We checked them first.”

  The anger and fight he should have felt last night finally made an appearance. “And then did you run upstairs to my dad’s room to make sure I wasn’t hanging there?”

  No one spoke, a sure sign that they had.

  “I’m not going to do anything stupid like that ever again.” Not after inching to safety and staring down death. “You don’t have to worry.”

  They looked at each other and then back at him.

  “You haven’t been in your dad’s room,” Will said.

  “You have to face your demons,” Emma said.

  “Everyone seems to think my demons have been hanging out upstairs.” Slade heaved a sigh. “And maybe they have, but that’s not the only place to face them.”

  “You look like you’ve been rolling around the vineyard.” Flynn grinned, perhaps sensing his friend was going to be okay, even if he hadn’t opened the bedroom door upstairs.

  Slade told them the condensed version of what happened. “All I could think about as I walked back here was what you would have thought if I’d fallen. You’d have assumed I jumped, right?”

  No one said a word.

  Indignation sent him charging up the porch steps. “I need a shower.” He left them outside and went upstairs. At the landing, curiosity got the better of him. He opened the door to his dad’s room, took a deep breath, and turned his head to look at the closet.

  His dad’s body wasn’t hanging there. The specter of Slade wasn’t hanging there.

  His father’s clothes were still shoved to either side of the closet, untouched since that fateful day, but there was a pile of stuff on the floor. A pile that hadn’t been there all those years ago.

  Slade entered the room. It didn’t feel as if it rejected him. He didn’t feel anything from the room but sadness.

  He knelt before the pile. Flynn’s baseball cap, the one his grandfather wore before he died, was upside down, cradled between the sandals Christine had been wearing last night—classy, expensive sandals as beautiful as the woman herself. Inside Flynn’s ball cap was Emma’s diamond-and-pink sapphire engagement ring, a wallet-size picture of Will’s sister who’d almost died in a car crash, Becca’s first husband’s Purple Heart, Nate’s handcuffs.

  An odd collection of things. Each item carried special meaning to each of his friends about love. Their good karma to replace his bad.

  Although... Slade fingered Nate’s handcuffs. He wasn’t sure the new sheriff was sending the same message as the rest of them. Did he think Slade needed to be locked up? Or that Slade was acting as if he was handcuffed to this house? This room? His memories?

  Something glittered beneath Christine’s shoes. He moved them aside and sucked in a breath. Beneath the pile were the girls’ golden baby bracelets.

  They’d come in here. Alone. Before they left.

  Slade had to remind himself to breathe. He was incredibly lucky. His young daughters were so very brave. Even when their mother left them with him—practically a stranger, a man Evy had painted as unstable, dangerous—his little girls had been strong. They’d watched him. They’d been careful. They’d learned to love him.

  And he’d let them go.

  Knife blades couldn’t have driven more pain into his chest.

  He’d let his
babies go.

  He’d let fear and guilt and shame win.

  Slade left the mementos on the floor and looked around the room, stopping at different items his parents had been fond of—the lilac afghan his mother had crocheted, the baseball his dad had caught from a homer at a Giants game, his grandmother’s small crystal bowl filled with quartz, his father’s smile as he held up a huge rainbow trout. There was love in this room.

  There were no ghosts. No demons. No shadows of his past.

  It was just a room where something terrible had happened.

  It had no hold on him anymore.

  No hold.

  Slade hurried out of the room, searching for his cell phone.

  * * *

  SLADE FOUND HIS friends later that afternoon on Flynn’s back porch. He heard their voices before he saw them and hesitated only a moment. These people had changed his life. He didn’t know how to thank them.

  It was time to try.

  He clutched a large cardboard box and ascended the porch steps.

  He rounded the corner of the wraparound porch to find his friends in their usual spots—Becca in Flynn’s lap on a chair, Will and Emma sitting close together on a bench, Nate leaning against the porch railing across from Will, and a new addition to their group—Christine. She leaned on the porch railing across from Flynn, much too close to Nate, who was not the right man for her.

  There were gasps and exclamations when they saw him.

  Slade walked into their midst, staking out a place against the railing between Nate and Christine.

  No one spoke. They all stared at him.

  Slade kept his head high. He wore khakis and a blue button-down without a tie. The shirt placket was open so that the sickle curve of his scar was clearly visible on his neck. He let them look their fill.

  Only Christine didn’t look. Her snub chilled him. Had she given up on him? Was he too late?

  It seemed like a school year before Flynn spoke. “What took you so long?”