The Vineyard

by Barbara Delinsky

  “The shed’s something else,” Carl explained, keeping his eyes on the path. “Like the Great House, it was started way back when, then added to and added to. If we’d been starting from scratch, she might’ve given it more of its own space. But she says she likes seeing it. She says it’s such a vital part of the vineyard that it has a right to be closer to the Great House.”

  He paused.

  Olivia was admiring his profile, thinking how remarkable it was at eighty and what a delight to watch, when he said, “Speaking of the shed, I want to apologize.”

  “Apologize?”

  “For Simon. He hasn’t been particularly welcoming.”

  Olivia smiled and shook her head, gesturing that there was no problem at all. “He’s worried about the grapes, and here we are with another damp day.” The trees shielded them now, but above the leaves were clouds aplenty. “Besides, he’s been fine.”

  “He’s been barely civil,” Carl remarked, holding the wheel now with both hands. “He could have joined us for dinner at least once since you’ve come. He could have been the one to take you through the vineyards. He should have done that, since he’s in charge there now. I want you to know that it isn’t anything about you. It’s about him.”

  Olivia suspected that, yes, it was about her, too. Simon knew she was there. He looked up at her each morning now. Had she been more professional, more successful, more interesting—he might have sought her out.

  Not that she was interested. She was definitely not interested.

  But then there was the other. “He told me about his wife.”

  Carl looked at her in surprise. The cart slowed. “When’d he do that?”

  “My first morning here. We were both outside. No one else was up.” She hurried on, grateful for the chance to get it out in the open. “He said he was worried that Natalie had brought me here to be with him, and he wanted me to know that wouldn’t happen.”

  The cart came to a stop. Carl looked appalled. “Did he really say that?”

  “I told him that I didn’t want it either, and I’d like to tell you that, too.” She wanted it on the record, just in case anyone else had weird ideas. “I’m not Simon’s type. I’m not what he needs. I’m not looking for a man at all. I’m doing just fine on my own. Between Tess and my work, I have plenty to keep me busy.” Mindful that Carl was Simon’s father, she added, “This has nothing to do with Simon, you understand, and everything to do with me.”

  Carl returned his eyes to the path. He set the cart moving ahead again, but his brows remained knit.

  Olivia tried to soothe him. “I’m sure Simon’s a wonderful man. He’s smart. He works hard. I look out my window every morning at dawn, and there he is with his coffee at the end of the patio. He deserves the best after what he’s been through. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like losing two people you love like that.”

  “Three,” Carl said.

  The word hung in the air.

  “Three?”

  Carl took his eyes from the path only long enough for her to see their sad blue cast. “Simon lost three people he loved in that accident—Laura, Liana, and Ana.”

  “Ana.” Olivia repeated the name as Carl had said it—Uh-na, with each syllable distinct. It was an incredibly simple, incredibly beautiful sound. “Ana. Who was she?”

  “My wife. Simon’s mother.”

  Olivia pressed a hand to her heart. It had stopped cold for a second, then begun to pound. After a minute, she blew out a breath. “Your wife was on the boat, too?”

  Carl nodded. The movement was heavy with sorrow, a testament to the fact that Simon wasn’t the only one who had suffered a loss—and suddenly a whole other chapter of Asquonset history opened up, one that Olivia hadn’t given much thought to before. Her focus had been on Natalie, but Carl had to have had a life all those years as well. And Simon had to have had a mother.

  “How horrible,” she said softly. “The memories must be just as painful for you as they are for Simon.”

  The golf cart continued slowly on. “I’m older. I can be more philosophical than my son. Ana and I had many good years together. She was a kind woman. She was an understanding woman. But she wasn’t well. She had been diagnosed with cancer the year before the accident. She was having treatments. They were difficult. The doctors didn’t give her much time. But she loved to sail. We all did.” With a gentle smile, he grew silent.

  “Simon, too?”

  “Simon, especially. He taught Laura how to sail—and she was good at it. She knew how to handle that boat. She did everything right.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Carl drove on for another minute before he spoke. “She knew how poorly Ana was feeling and thought that a ride on the bay in the sun would give her a boost. So she zipped the three of them into life jackets, raised the sail, and left the dock. Ana was happy. People who watched them leave said they could see that. She was propped up against the gunwale, with little Liana nestled in under her arm. It was a perfect day for a sail, just enough wind without much of a chop.”

  Olivia was looking at him, waiting for the next installment, when the cart emerged from the woods. The world around them brightened, a cruel irony in view of his tale.

  Carl brought the cart to a stop. His hands fell to his lap. Eyes Straight ahead, he took a deep breath. “The sailing was so good that Laura went out farther than she might have done on another day, and there was nothing wrong with that. She wasn’t the only one to do it. There were other boats around. They were taking advantage of ideal conditions, too.” He looked at Olivia. “There was a speedboat—one of those big, long, powerful ones. Two men were on it, hopped up on something. Didn’t even realize they were heading for our boat until they were nearly on top of it. They tried to veer off, but their judgment was so impaired that it had the reverse effect.”

  “My God,” Olivia breathed.

  “They cut the sailboat right in half, then sped off. Never did catch them.”

  “My God.”

  “The coast guard says the force of the crash just tore everything apart. Even with life jackets on, they didn’t have a chance. It was like they were on bicycles on a train track when a huge locomotive sped past.” He let out a breath, then inhaled slowly and straightened. “Now why did I tell you all that?”

  “Because I asked.”

  “It’s not something we talk much about. Doesn’t seem to be a point.”

  “But talking makes you feel better. Don’t you think?”

  He considered her point, then sighed. “What I think doesn’t matter as much as what my Natalie thinks. She thinks it’s important, which is why she hired you. You know about the situation with her family?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve known Susanne and Greg since they were born. I always liked them. And they always liked me. They weren’t snotty little rich kids, if you know what I mean.”

  Olivia nodded.

  “They’re feeling unsettled,” he went on. “They weren’t prepared. I’ve agonized over that.”

  “Did you and Natalie discuss how to break it to them?”

  “For weeks. Natalie kept trying to broach it with them, but she never quite got the whole thing out. She was worried that they would react exactly the way they have. So we went back and forth, she and I. A personal visit. A phone call. Nat doing it. Me doing it. We finally took the way that was easiest for us. They can criticize us for it, but I’m not sure they would have taken the news well in any form. They’re still dealing with Alexander’s death.”

  Olivia sensed that he was right. “Natalie seems philosophical about their reaction.”

  “That’s Natalie for you. She isn’t one to bitch and moan. She accepts and moves on. She’s a survivor. She’s a doer. That’s why she hired you.” Looking at Olivia, he grew purposeful. “I want Susanne and Greg back in the fold, but I understand the problem. It’ll be hard for them to see me one way after so many years seeing me another. You’ll have to help them do that
.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I’m not trying to take Alexander’s place,” he went on. “He was their father. I don’t want to be that. All I want is to make their mother happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  “Did you love her, way back when you were kids?”

  “Sure, I did.”

  “Why didn’t you marry her then?”

  “Because she married Alexander.”

  “But why didn’t she marry you?”

  “Hasn’t she told you?”

  “No.”

  “She will.”

  Olivia smiled. “You tell me now.”

  But he drew himself up and smiled. “Nope. That’s not my job. Natalie’s the storyteller. I’m just the guy who runs the winery.” He hitched his chin forward. “Here we are.”

  Olivia looked up at a large gristmill. “Oh my,” she said in surprise. “This is the winery?” She had imagined something quite different.

  Carl started up the cart. “It is,” he said with pride and drove on until the dirt path ended in a paved lot. A road approached it from the other direction. He pulled up beside two parked cars, killed the switch, and stepped out. “I’d like to say that I run this end of the operation, but that’d be taking too much credit. I’m an old guy. I need my afternoon nap.”

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t run things,” Olivia said, because Carl was as vibrant a man as she’d ever seen at his age. “You run this. Natalie runs marketing and sales. Simon runs the vineyard.” With mention of his name, she pictured the man. The image was enhanced now by what Carl had said. “Do you think Simon works the kinds of hours he does so that he doesn’t have to think about the accident?” From what Olivia had seen, he worked sunup to sundown, seven days a week.

  Carl was at her side of the cart when she stepped out. He touched her elbow just lightly enough to get her walking beside him. “Maybe. But being vineyard manager is that kind of job. It’s like parenting. Grapes need coddling ‘round the clock.”

  They crossed the parking lot and started up the short stone path that led to the winery door. The name and logo were on a plaque, a smaller version of the sign off the main road, but Olivia only gave it a passing glance. “He must take vacations.”

  “Not in four years. What’s he going to do—go to the Caribbean alone?”

  “Doesn’t he date at all?”

  “He hasn’t so far.”

  “But what does he do for fun?”

  The older man thought about that. “He tends the grapes.” He pulled the screen door open.

  Olivia found herself in a semicircular foyer whose stone walls made it feel like a cave. The corridors that branched left and right were narrow but tall—a full three stories’ worth of windows. As Carl guided her to a large wooden door in the center, he said, “Tending the grapes isn’t a bad thing. It got me through many a hard time.”

  Olivia was about to ask what hard times he meant when, feeling a sudden drop in the temperature, she looked around and forgot the thought. They were in a cavernous room filled with huge stainless steel tanks. Each tank had dials and gauges on the front. Long ladders stood against several, stretching the twelve or so feet from the floor to the top of the tank. The floor was hard concrete.

  Carl was a tour guide with an agenda. He led her past the tanks to the far end of the room, where he showed her the machine that crushed and stemmed the grapes. He explained that red wine was made by fermenting the grapes skin and all, while white wine was made from the fermented juice alone. He showed her the tubing that carried juice from the crusher to the stainless steel tanks, where the fermentation took place.

  He led her into a second room, this one nearly as cavernous but filled with multiple tiers of oak barrels. In contrast to the harsh stainless steel and concrete of the fermentation room, this room was mellow. The light was dim. The barrels were neatly lined up and soft edged. The smell was of wood.

  “We age the wine here,” Carl explained. “The barrel, itself—how it’s made, where it’s from, how many seasons it’s been used—plays a large part in the process. All those things affect the taste of the wine. The length of time the wine sits here is another variable.”

  That decision, it seemed, was made by the wine maker. His name was David Sperling, and his office was an enclosed laboratory-like loft high above the barrels. Olivia was introduced to him and to his assistant, either of whom she might have liked to talk with a while, but Carl moved her along to the bottling room. Here was state-of-the-art machinery, installed just the year before. Proudly, he explained how the sterilized bottles were moved in and out, up and down, down and around in the process of being filled, corked, and labeled.

  Olivia was fascinated. By the time they reached the outside air again, she was ready to start over and go through the whole thing a second time. Carl looked pleased when she told him that, but he had afternoon plans that began with rescuing his intended from her advertising meeting.

  “Another time,” he promised.

  It was just as well. The golf cart puttered back through the woods and had no sooner emerged from the dark and rounded the side of the Great House when Olivia saw Tess. She was sitting on the bottommost of those five broad stone steps, her body hunched into a knot.

  Twelve

  OLIVIA SAT DOWN on the step beside Tess. “Hi, sweetie. How was your morning?”

  Tess answered with the quiver of her chin, quite a feat with her chin on her knees. Glasses halfway down her nose, she stared glumly out at the vineyard.

  Olivia tucked a long brown curl back toward the French braid that was supposed to have held it in place. She wondered if Tess was discouraged by something specific, or if it was just more of the same. “How was Mrs. Adelson?”

  “She’s fine, but I’m not. I’m not getting this, Mom.”

  Ach. More of the same. Harder to take, perhaps, with a new strategy and such high hopes. “You will. It just takes time.”

  “She says totally different things from the tutors at school.”

  “I know that. She and I have discussed it.” Olivia tried to catch Sandy alone whenever she could. She was feeling guilty for letting the past tutors do so little and wanted to be—to use Sandy’s word—proactive. “But everything she says makes sense, Tess. Mrs. Adelson may be just what you need.”

  Tess lifted her head, turned it, and stared at her like she’d lost her mind. “Do you know what visual mapping means? First there’s a story map. Then there’s a character map. I mean, I could spend a year doing each one, Mom. It takes forever to map things out.”

  “Now it does. That’s because it’s new. Once you get the knack of it, it’ll be easy and quick. It’ll become second nature. You like the book, don’t you?” They were reading A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle. It was on three of the five book lists that they had checked, and Sandy was thrilled. She had worked with it many times before and said that it was perfect for visualization training.

  Tess murmured a begrudging, “Yes.”

  “And just think about the head start you’re getting on the other fifth-graders.”

  “But then I have to read the book a second time when school starts. I hate reading.”

  “That’s only because it’s a struggle. Once you’re done with Mrs. Adelson, it won’t be such a struggle. You may even enjoy it.”

  Tess looked up through her glasses in a way that rendered her eyes all the more woeful. “But what if I go to a different school? What if I go to one that doesn’t even read this book?”

  Sandy Adelson’s school read it. Olivia was starting to think about applying for Tess to be admitted there. Cambridge Heath hadn’t yet made a decision, they had told her when she called the day before. Nor were there any job nibbles … anywhere. She could easily turn her focus to Providence, could prod the places she had already contacted and send résumés to others. She could map out a thirty-mile radius of the city and send letters to everything within that distance.

  “If that happens,�
� she reasoned, “you’ll have learned how to do visual mapping, so you can apply it to the books that you do read.” Wrapping an arm around the child’s shoulders, she gave a squeeze. “Come on, Tess. Anything that’s good is hard. But in time it gets easier and easier. Mrs. Adelson says you’re one of the smartest kids she’s ever worked with—and she’s been working with dyslexics for twenty years.”

  “Yeah, well, she can’t help me with sailing. I looked at the book they gave us, Mom. I can’t figure that stuff out.”

  Of course, she couldn’t. That stuff included things like “head stay,” “bowsprit,” and “traveler,” all of which fell under the title “nomenclature.” Tess couldn’t get past the title to the others.

  “Did you try to visualize it?” Olivia asked. “Did you try to see ‘nomenclature’ as names, like ‘shirt,’ ‘shorts,’ ‘shoes’?” She pointed to each as she said it.

  Tess gave an aggrieved sigh. “Parts of the boat. That’s what you said. But I can’t visualize them if I don’t know what they are.”

  “We went over the diagram.”

  “It’s just a picture.”

  “You’re upset. Getting upset doesn’t help.”

  “Those things don’t mean anything to me.”

  “That’s only because you’re not familiar with sailboats, Tess. Once you put the name with the part in real life, you’ll know what it is. They said they’d be working on that this afternoon, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, but most of the other kids already know it.”

  Olivia guessed that was because the other kids either were from families that belonged to the yacht club or had grandparents who had been taking them sailing since they’d been old enough to talk. “O-kay. Then this is what I think you should do.” Here it was—a basic lesson in socialization. “Let the teacher talk. Let the other kids talk. Ask questions. Learn from what they say.”

  Tess looked doubtful. “What if they ask me something? What do I say?”

  “If it has to do with the parts of the boat, just say that this is the first time you’ve ever been on a boat.”