by Teddy Hester
“Yeah, something like that.” The banter is helping. She shivers. Damn. If she gets too cold, she’ll go back to her room. I’m not ready for her to leave me yet.
“You’re chilled. Here, wrap yourself in this.” I hand her the blanket folded over the footboard of the bed. The blanket that didn’t attack me.
She tucks it around her shoulders. “Can you sleep now?”
“In a minute,” I say, lying back down. She stands and straightens the sheet so it’s smooth over my body, then does the same with the blanket. When she reaches for the comforter, I stop her. “This is enough, thanks. Tell me about your life here. Something happy. How long have you known Dieter?”
“Oh, my,” she says, sitting back down. I clutch her hand in mine again, needing to feel her closeness here in the dark.
“Let’s see. Dieter and I kind of grew up together, even though, as he reminded me today, his ancestors were dukes, while mine were just barons.” She laughs, apparently unphased by her lover’s slight. “His estate is next to mine. He’s three years older than I am, but our parents were friends, so we were constantly thrown into the same events. But I think we bonded over a litter of Hovawart puppies. His family always had several of those dogs. Are you familiar with the breed? They look like your golden retrievers, but act more like your pit bulls—fiercely loyal, protective, and headstrong. They’re our version of the nanny dog. Revered in Germany because centuries ago, one dragged a baby prince to safety after his family had been slaughtered by invaders.”
Her voice is soft, the lilt of her accent soothing. It’s lulling me back to sleep. “Too much Viking blood in you Germans,” I mumble. “Dieter looks like Thor.”
She flips a strand of her hair that’s fallen over her shoulder as she ghosts a laugh. “A little, I guess.”
“Your hair. When I woke up in the hospital, it was the first thing I saw. Your blonde hair. Then the sunlight streamed in and streaked your hair with soft red, like peach skin. You glowed. I thought I was in heaven, and an angel was watching over me.”
Shut up, idiot. You’re ranting. She’ll think you’re crazy.
She reaches for the comforter. “I think you’re falling asleep.”
“Yes. But don’t leave. Tell me more about the hover puppies.” I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her to lie down beside me, on top of my bedclothes. She hesitates, countering, but then allows it, drawing the comforter over both of us. Her head tucks into the hollow of my shoulder, and I wrap my arm around her, finally feeling at peace.
“These particular Ho-vart puppies were pure black rather than golden. Little sweet things. Four of them. Their mother had whelped in Dieter’s stables, in a corner where hay was stored. She’d fashioned quite a nice nest. We heard the puppies’ squeaky snuffles as they lumbered around each other, blind, of course, for the first weeks. That’s how we found them. We heard them. Funny, even the horses seemed quieter, calmer, as if they knew there were babies about.”
It takes effort to speak. “They knew. Horses are smart.”
She pats my chest. “Yes, they are. But you’re supposed to be falling asleep.”
I snuggle my chin into her hair. “Yes, ma’am. Go on. Did you hold the cute little babies? You have magic in your hands.”
“Holding newborn pups is a form of magic, I agree. They’re warm and round and so helpless, clinging to any warm body they can find. Yes, we held the puppies. Whenever their mother let us. Protective, remember?”
“Mmm-hmm. That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. Now, Dieter began bringing food for the mother. She looked so tired and almost never left her babies, except to relieve herself and snatch a bite and drink a little water. In retrospect, I don’t know that we did her a favor by bringing her food and water. She probably needed to get up and stretch her legs, get away from the constant demands of her pups for a few minutes. Poor thing. Anyway, I got to see a side of Dieter others don’t often see. But then we went off to boarding schools, he in Switzerland, and I in England, and we only saw each other holidays, until I graduated and came home a few years ago.”
“Did you go to college in England?”
“I only attended two years. Then I came home to help Alfred and Birgitte. The girlfriends I had in school were more interested in parties and finding rich husbands than they were about studies, and I wasn’t much interested in either. So I came home. Did you finish college in the States?”
“Mmm-hmm. I only wanted to fly, but my parents insisted I earn a marketable degree along with my flight certification. As it turned out, I needed it to get into the kind of flying I wanted to do, so it worked out.”
“Must be nice.”
“What must be nice, angel?”
“Having parents to help you make those decisions.”
She sounds so sad. “Where are your parents?”
“They died. Ten years ago, when I was twelve.”
“Both of them? How?”
“An accident. A boating accident.”
Fuck. No wonder she understands my nightmares, my emotions. She’s been through it. “Did you see it?”
“No, thank God. I can’t imagine what my nightmares would be like if I had.”
“Yeah.” I turn on my side toward her so I can wrap both arms around her. “You found Moon, didn’t you.”
She stills and says nothing.
“That’s okay. I don’t want to know. Don’t ever tell me. I need to remember him the way he was. And when Nina asks, I want to be able to tell her truthfully that I don’t know what happened to him.”
I feel her nod in my embrace.
*****
Light begins to change my walls from indigo to gray. Blue won’t be far behind, and my angel is still in my arms. We fell asleep wrapped in each other and didn’t move the rest of the night. She can’t be caught here—Dieter would never understand—but I hate the idea of waking her. She feels so right in my arms. In my bed.
But she deserves better. She deserves the descendant of dukes.
I give her a little hug and let my lips linger on her forehead until she stirs. Then I loosen my embrace and wait for her to waken. Her eyes open, then widen, as she realizes where she is.
“Shh, it’s all right. I don’t think anyone’s up yet.”
She rolls away from me and crawls out from under the comforter. “Birgitte will be, and she often comes upstairs to check on me.” Standing, she adjusts the blanket thrown across her shoulders last night. Her brow is furrowed, her movements jerky. “We eat breakfast at seven, though you may have it later, whenever you’re up and ready. Would you like to go riding today?”
“Maybe. I’d like to see if I can help Alfred first.”
Her eyes widen for the second time this morning, and her demeanor relaxes. “I’d love to watch that interaction.” She grins and heads for the door. When she’s sure it’s safe, she darts across the hall into her room.
It’s like I’m back in junior high at summer camp.
I throw back the covers and chuckle on my way to the bathroom.
*****
Voices lure me to the kitchen when I come downstairs. A square table’s set with four places, and Birgitte’s taking something from the oven. “Guten morgen, Mick!”
“Good morning to you, Birgitte. My mouth’s already watering for your cooking.”
“Breakfast is Alfred’s favorite meal. Will you have coffee?”
“Yes, please. Is there something I can do?”
Menuett enters and at first avoids my eyes, but straightens her shoulders and looks at me full-on. “Good morning, Mick. You look well today.”
“Ja, you must have had a good sleep,” Birgitte offers.
Menuett’s gaze slides away from me again, and she nibbles on the inside of her cheek. I must teach her about the subtle art of dissembling. “I slept very well and feel stronger every day. I’m sorry I left the table so abruptly last night.”
Birgitte waves a spatula. “No worries. It was a tiring day—new
places, new people, new customs. It would tire anyone, much less someone just out of the hospital. Sit, sit. Menuett, will you pour his coffee while I finish here?”
“Certainly. Mick, why don’t you sit here, where you can see the fire?” Menuett nods in the direction of the chair she suggests I take, fetches a mug, and waits for me to sit before pouring my coffee. “Do you take it black?”
I nod, cupping the stoneware. “This smells wonderful. In fact, the whole house smells wonderful. How do you do that?”
“Oh, don’t bother to ask. It’s one of Birgitte’s carefully guarded secrets.”
The woman beams with pride as she spoons food on a platter. “My aroma therapy keeps us all healthy.”
Menuett, standing next to me with the coffee pot in her hand, shakes her head. “And that’s all you’ll ever get out of her, no matter how you wheedle her for details. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
Alfred enters silently during this exchange and sits down. “Coffee?”
Birgitte swoops the pot from Menuett. “Ready, my love. Guten morgen. I missed you last night.” She pours her husband’s coffee.
They don’t sleep together? That’s odd. I glance at Menuett. Her face is blanched as she stares at Alfred.
He drinks his first cup down immediately, and after Birgitte refills his mug, he takes a couple of swallows, then sets it to the side. The pot goes back over the fire, and the women sit. Alfred fills our plates, serving the women first, and then the two of us men. I watch Menuett as he performs the ritual. It staggers me. Her head is low, and her cheeks are flushed. The look in her eyes is…shame?
“Alfred, I’d like to do something to help, if you could use me,” I say.
Menuett glances back and forth between her guardians. Alfred continues to chew.
“I thought I’d take him riding, show him the estate,” she says.
Why does she sound nervous, tentative?
Alfred looks up at her, sitting on his right, her inner light dimmed. Something has obviously happened.
“He’ll come with me,” Alfred says.
Menuett just nods and avoids my eyes.
CHAPTER 8
Menuett
I struggle to focus on what I need to get done today. The winery needs my attention. I’m meeting with vendors who want to stock cheeses and specialty crackers and breads to go with customers’ wine tasting. It’s an activity I enjoy—one of my favorites. Yet my mind keeps straying to last night.
Alfred knows.
I slept with a man.
Maybe not in the strictest sense, but we did sleep together. And I slept well. Not a hint of a nightmare. Is that because Mick came to me, like the creature in The Dream promised? I haven’t had The Dream since the crash.
But he has. Several. I hate that he’s going through this. It brings up memories I’d thought long buried: feeling lost and alone, rambling around in a house filled with my parents everywhere I turned, new hurts every day as I went through routines wanting to share a thought or a find, only to remember my family was gone. You feel the burning bleed, over and over and over again. And it never gets better. You just learn the new routine of existing without them.
It’s no wonder heart attacks cause the most deaths. A heart can only withstand so much trauma before it’s worn out, damaged beyond repair, kaputt.
Last night’s sleep was healing, though. It felt good to be held through the darkest hours of night. To feel Mick’s arms around me and be pressed against his long, strong body. Daily cares faded. If it’s this way between two people who barely know each other and are fully clothed, what must it be like between lovers? Or old marrieds like Birgitte and Alfred? The depth of emotion they must share boggles my mind. When one of them dies, I can’t imagine what the other will go through.
My parents’ accident. A tragic loss for me, but was it sort of a blessing for them?
Maybe if I think of it like that, it will hurt less.
But that won’t help Mick. Or the wife and children of Mick’s dead friend. At least they still have each other, though. I had Birgitte and Alfred. Who does Mick have? Why did he push his family away?
He reacted to the family dinner last night, too. It’s what drove him upstairs early. Something about it reminded him of Moon. But at least he didn’t shut me out. In fact, he wouldn’t let me leave after his nightmare had passed. I’m glad I brought him some relief.
Dieter would have an apoplectic fit if he knew. As many times as he’s tried to bed me, he would be as deeply hurt as Alfred to know I’d actually spent the night in another man’s bed, wrapped up in the warmth of his body. No matter that it wasn’t sexual.
But I am amazed to discover that I felt closer to Mick in those stolen hours than I’ve ever felt to Dieter. Is it because of our shared emotion? The emotion of catastrophic loss?
I shake my head to clear it. Doesn’t matter. I’m building a life with Dieter. We share memories and years of experiences. He knew my parents. We were raised similarly. Our properties share a boundary line. Dieter is who I should focus on. Anyone else is a distraction. Mick will be gone soon. If I can help him until then, fine. Otherwise, it’s best not to dwell on him. The fact that I’m filled with shame every time I think of Alfred’s knowing tells me what I did was wrong. Wrong for me and wrong for an emotional wreck of a pilot.
Yes, I’m an adult. Yes, I’m entitled to make my own decisions and live my own life. But Birgitte and Alfred are like parents to me. I don’t want to let them down. I don’t want their faith in me to be shaken. To have them think I make poor decisions, or that I’m too immature to be trusted with handling the estate.
It's wrong to dwell on Mick’s chest and how much I liked the way its light dusting of hair tickled my palm. Wrong to dwell on the breadth of his shoulders when he sat up and the dim light caught its planes and ridges, or how much I wanted to explore them with my fingers.
Stop!
Dieter! Think about Dieter’s chest! His shoulders are even broader than Mick’s. We haven’t swum since we were kids, but the last time I saw his bare chest, it had hair. I bet he has ridges and planes to explore, too. Never mind that thinking about them isn’t making me quiver like I do when I think of Mick’s planes and ridges in the moonlight. It’s just because I actually saw Mick’s. Someday I’ll see Dieter’s in the moonlight, and they’ll glow. It’ll feel the same. Better. And it won’t disappoint Alfred.
“Menuett?”
I jerk out of my argument with myself. “Erich, guten morgen!”
A dapper man with a ruddy face and thick body, no doubt from all the beer and wine he consumes while selling his cheeses, wheels his sample case over to where I’m sitting at a table in front of the picture window overlooking our vineyard. “I hope you’re hungry, because I’ve brought some new samples for you to try.”
I grin at the familiar opening and for its equally-familiar response. “I had a big breakfast, sorry. So you’re going to have to work that much harder for a sale.”
“Well, then, pour me a big glass of your Trocken Spätlese, so I can drown my sorrow.”
A tray of Sternau wine glasses sits on one corner of the table. I pick up two and pour a little white wine in each. With all the stops he makes in a day, he can’t afford to swallow much alcohol, so pouring a glass for him is mostly a courtesy.
“I’ve been trying to get you to feature a Bruder Basil.”
“Its smokiness is too heavy for our wines.”
He nods his understanding. “Well, I want you to try this one with your Trocken. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
I eye with skepticism the cheese he’s slicing for me. “But will my tourists agree?”
He spears a small slice with his knife and uses a paper napkin to pull it off the blade. “You tell me.”
Bruder Basil is an excellent cheese, but I usually eat it with Alfred’s dark beer. Rieslings are so soft and fruity, the combination of it and the beech smoke used in Bruder Basil preparation turns the mouth chalky. Not the
best way to sell a bottle of wine.
But I’m willing to try something new. I taste the cheese. It reminds me of a smoked Gouda, only more distinct. “Nice.”
Erich smiles and hands me my glass.
I sniff and sip, then swish and swallow. No chalk. I take another sip. “The cheese mellows the acidity in the Spätlese’s nicely, Erich.”
He sits back in his seat. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“You did, indeed. All right, I’m interested. How much are you going to charge me for it?”
“Depends,” he says, opening his digital notebook. “Still want your usual Butterkäse and Cambozola order, too?”
“Of course.”
Let the haggling begin!
*****
Whew, that man exhausts me. But he’s fun. I thought I had him until an American couple came into the shop, and Erich hosted an impromptu tasting. The cracker vendor arrived soon after we began. I opened a box of his lime straws that go so well with our Auslese, and Erich threw in a few bites of several cheeses, including a Tilsiter he’d been trying to push on me. When the couple got to the Trocken with Erich’s Bruder Basil smeared on a rye cracker, they raved and bought a case of everything they tried—wine, cheese, and crackers. At that point, Erich knew he could push his price for that Bruder Basil, the skunk.
I hope the Americans will continue to be customers when they are more sober and back in the States.
By the time all the sales are made, Erich has left, and I’ve cleaned up the mess, I’m ready for a nap. I settle for finishing off the dregs of the bottles we almost drained and the rest of the box of lime straws.
The sun is high overhead, the sky brilliant, clear blue, and the vineyard bright yellow-green. The patio looks inviting, and even though the temperature might be brisk, I want to sit outside with my bounty.
The metal chairs are cold, so I go back inside for a tablecloth to use as padding. When I get back and settled, I sip my wine and survey the beauty of the Sternau vineyard. Planted diagonally from the winery, it’s an ancient field with clean, straight rows, where they get both morning and afternoon sun on their march toward the Mosel.
