Amy narrowed her eyes at him, then peered back at the doors. ‘Is that a cellar in there?’
‘Yep.’
‘Does it go underground?’
He nodded. ‘Best way to achieve the perfect temperatures, which is essential to storing wine for long periods. How good a cellar is, determines the quality of a winery.’
Tom unlocked the big metal padlocks, pushed the heavy doors open, and they went inside. The familiar scent of earth and must, a little like mushrooms, hit him.
The cellar was darker than black. He felt along the cold wall for the switch and turned the lights on. They flickered to life, dimly illuminating the giant space, which possessed more qualities of a cave than a room, though the floor and the walls were made of stone.
Amy followed closely by Tom’s side as he led her through the short maze of rooms connected by archways, passing rows of barrels and a tasting room.
Deep into the cellar, where the air grew still and cool, their surroundings dim, was an enormous room lined with big wire racks filled with bottle after bottle of wine, all sitting on their side. Black cellar mould coated the layers of bottles and walls. A wet-rock smell was thick in the air.
Amy narrowed her eyes at Tom, grinning sceptically. ‘What the …?’
Tom laughed. ‘That’s most peoples’ first reaction.’ He went to a rather thick mound of fungus and smelled it. Best scent in the world, like a bag of mushrooms. ‘Touch it,’ he said.
Amy pressed her finger to the spongy substance.
‘This cellar has its own climate. Eleven degrees in the summer or winter. The bottles of wine let out vapours and this mould forms keeping the air clean. We are so proud of it.’
Amy giggled. ‘I never could have believed this would be a source of pride.’
Tom chuckled. ‘I know. But it’s so very important. And it changes depending on the time of year. Sometimes it’s white like a cotton ball. If you’ve got a cellar with this,’ he said touching the black mould again, ‘you’ve got perfect conditions for storing wine.’
He went to a stack of bottles and pulled out a dusty one from on top, turning it upright and rubbing the muck from the label. A long slender mushroom grew out from the cork. ‘This was from the very first year at the vineyard. The year Mitch was born.’
‘And it tastes good?’
His grin was smug. ‘Unbelievable flavour profile. But this wine was intended to be aged. A dream my dad had over thirty years ago.’
‘This is all so incredible.’ She gestured to the rows of bottles. ‘Magical almost.’
Magical was the perfect description. When he was a child, he always volunteered to come here with Dad, and they’d spend hours turning each bottle a quarter of a turn. He’d never known why he’d loved it so much, but Amy was right.
He peered around at all the years of hard work. ‘Dad was so proud of this cellar. I am too. This is Dad’s legacy. This is where it all began. And it’s his gift to my brothers and me …’ he trailed off and stared at his feet as an unexpected lump of emotion formed in his throat.
‘What?’ she asked.
He shook his head, but sadness was brimming in his eyes. He could not believe how emotional this was making him. But the sentimentality in this place was overflowing, especially after a day like today.
‘What is it?’ she persisted.
‘Why would I ever want to distance myself from this legacy?’
Amy shook her head, almost imperceptibly.
‘What an idiot I’ve been. I was given the biggest gift, a gift people would kill for, and I’m throwing it away. God, how egotistical … selfish …’
Emotions brewed in his heart—for the decisions he’d made, for the time he wasted, and for being so damn complacent—painful as it worked through him and exposed him for the fool he’d been.
Just because he hadn’t birthed this dream, instead inherited it, didn’t make it any less special. It didn’t mean he couldn’t make this dream his own.
Amy came to him and lifted her hands to his face, her fingertips whispering compassion across his skin. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You can always change your mind. No-one can ever take that from you. We live and learn, Tom. That’s how it is.’
His eyes glossed with tears. He pulled away from her and turned away. His shoulders rose and fell with deep breaths, but nothing was forcing back the emotions bubbling up.
When he faced Amy again, she was frowning, compassion flaming in her blue gaze.
‘This was what Mitch and Sam saw all along, wasn’t it? This legacy. This amazing legacy left by the most incredible father. They knew that, and I wouldn’t listen. I was too stubborn to stop and see it.’ He wiped at his cheeks and gave a watery apologetic grin. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, hating himself for not being in control of his emotions.
She shook her head.
He sighed, then held out his hand to her.
Amy reached for him and let him thread his fingers with hers. The comfort in that small gesture worked through him like a balm.
‘By the sounds of it, you’ve got some decision making to do,’ she said.
He nodded, but he knew the decision had already been made. His mind was ablaze with the solution to all this. He had to resign out at the mine.
He would resume his full-time duties on the vineyard—be there for his brothers just as Dad had intended. And how Tom wanted it to be.
And he would be here with Amy. Now he just needed Amy to stay. For good.
Chapter 26
Amy sat at the kitchen bench with her laptop and paperwork spread out before her. Tonight was the only time, after such a busy weekend, to run through her budget.
This relationship with Tom was deepening, she could feel it scuttling ahead, barely in reach, as though she had no control.
Amy blew out a long breath as she smoothed her hair from face. Concentrate, Amy. You’ve got work to do. She needed to focus on this before an inevitable late-night weariness overcame her.
She spent the rest of the evening prioritising bills, paying all those pertaining to Sugar Cakes first. The lease payments on the shop were not too high. Utilities, on the other hand, were crippling but essential—she wasn’t going to be able to bake without electricity.
After dealing with her current pressing expenses, she paid the absolute minimum off her personal debts—the ones she could no longer ignore.
Scanning through her online everyday bank account, she groaned and slammed her fist on the bench when she noticed her car payment had bounced for the second month in a row.
‘God damn it,’ she hissed, certain she had transferred enough to cover it. On closer inspection, insurance had come out leaving her short by eighty dollars.
‘Damn it,’ she said again, hating that she now had to make the humiliating phone call to her finance company because of eighty dollars.
Settlement of her restaurant couldn’t come fast enough. The bond on her Melbourne rental was in the process of being refunded. At least that would cover the car payment, plus some other bills.
She was hanging from the edge of a cliff by a chipped fingernail at the moment, and it filled her with dread because she could crash, at any minute, into the turgid waves below and drown.
Enough for the night or she would go crazy. Amy shut her laptop lid and stood under the hot water in her shower for a long time before dressing into her pyjamas and climbing into bed.
At times like these, when she wanted to talk to someone who wouldn’t judge her, she missed Rachel the most.
Amy had a giddy sensation of living in two worlds, as though the veil had been lifted between this life and the life where Rachel still existed. And the sensation was only accessible when she was here in the silence of Sugar Cakes unburdening herself to the remnants of Rachel on her phone.
‘Mitch isn’t coping, Rach. Not at all. But you’d know that already. I just don’t know how to help him. Or if he is able to be helped. And me, well, I’m soldiering on as best I can. If it weren’t for
Tom … he’s my rock.’
She flicked through the photos of Rachel on the phone. A selfie of them both, the Christmas spread they had prepared—roast turkey and vegetables, sticky prawns and salads, plum pudding and custard—laid out behind them on a long table. A photo of Rachel wearing a white t-shirt that read ‘baby under construction’. Another of the two of them, arms around each other, smiling with the Melbourne city as a backdrop behind them.
Each photo was attached to a specific memory. Memories, once so happy, were now tainted with an intense melancholy.
Amy couldn’t stop flicking through them, wanting to stay in this world where Rachel was too until her eyelids were drooping with the need to sleep.
‘Good night, Rachel,’ she whispered as she turned her phone off.
As Amy was drifting off to sleep, a recipe for chocolate meringue pie and coffee ice-cream floated through her brain.
Over the next work week, the biggest seller at Sugar Cakes were the Cupid cupcakes. The town was rampant with the rumour that they possessed special matchmaking properties. Amy didn’t dispel the myth—a part of her believed it too.
It was comforting to think that Rachel might still be here on some unseeable plane, handling the townsfolks’ love-lives.
To satisfy the new demand, Amy baked an additional three dozen Cupid cupcakes each day, using her new triple chocolate chip recipe—the recipe she’d tested under the most intimate conditions with Tom—in addition to the twelve dozen of Rachel’s tried and true varieties. Each day, she sold out of everything.
The extra business was doing wonders for her cash flow and peace of mind. If this continued, she might just gain a modicum of control over her debt. Provided nothing unexpected happened, because there was no cushion.
The ground beneath her feet was not soft and fluffy at all, rather rocky terrain filled with sharp, cutting rocks and lakes swarming with hungry crocodiles.
On Saturday morning, Amy woke early. The recipe she had dreamt about last Sunday had been on replay in her mind all week. She was overflowing with a new intuition that she had been going about breaking through Mitch’s near comatose state of grief the wrong way.
All in all, he had married a pastry chef. The man must have a sweet tooth. And all this time, Amy had been feeding him with savoury dishes.
No, to get Mitch’s attention and navigate him away from the self-destructive hole he was buried in, she had to feed him sugar.
‘You’d better be leading me in the right direction,’ she whispered to Rachel.
Amy grabbed out everything she needed and prepped all her ingredients, taking notes on quantities as she went. This was her own recipe and, if it worked, she wanted a record.
Though the recipe was new, it would have the indulgence and charm of a rustic dessert handed down through generations. Nothing pretentious like she’d attempted at her restaurant, but rich and sweet and delicious. The good old-fashioned food she’d found in the cookbooks Pop owned.
Memories flooded her mind of all the days she’d spent perched on a chair next to Pop as she helped him sift flour and crack eggs. He’d allow her to lick the sweet, silky batter off the spatula. Or give her a slice of a rich chocolate brownie while it was still steaming hot from the oven.
Even after she’d moved to Australia, they emailed recipes back and forth and would bake each other’s suggestions. But when she’d opened her restaurant, she had stopped sending him emails. His had dwindled too until he’d stopped sending any at all.
Amy felt sick to her stomach. That damn restaurant had made her push away what was important in her life. Made her forget why she enjoyed cooking.
She was always so desperate to be innovative, pushing ingredients and combinations to the limits. But cooking didn’t have to be about taking ingredients and twisting and altering them until they barely resembled their original form. It didn’t have to be about seeking approval or praise from critics or her parents.
Cooking was about love. And sharing. Making simple yet delicious food from fresh ingredients was just as rewarding and creative.
How right Rachel had got it by opening this shop. Love was bouncing from wall to wall. The cupcakes here had love as an ingredient, helping the customers who bought them find love for themselves.
Amy’s own passion for cooking came from a place of love. Her grandfather.
But Amy had grown up in a family surrounded by over-achievers. She’d been sent to a prestigious boarding school, renowned for turning out superstars. Her parents were only ever proud if she was winning.
The joy of running a shop like Sugar Cakes in a town as quaint as Alpine Ridge had been hidden from her because she always strove to prove to her parents, and to herself, that she was good enough, always chased the bright lights while failing to see that they also blinded her.
Amy smiled to herself, amazed to realise that in this little shop, this simple kitchen, cooking delicious cakes for the honest townsfolk, she was happy. She shook her head as she giggled and stared up at the ceiling. ‘How did you know all this so easily?’
For the next couple of hours, she prepared satiny coffee ice-cream and baked two calorific chocolate meringue pies; she couldn’t take one over for Mitch and not give Tom and Sam one too.
When finished, she snapped a photo of the end results, typed out the recipe and emailed it to her grandfather.
It was time to reconnect that splintered thread.
Hi Pop
Check this recipe out. I think you’ll love it.
Love
Amy
P.S. I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch. But I promise, from now on, things are going to be different.
P.P.S. Thank you for introducing me to my passion. I am forever grateful.
After that, she packaged the pie and ice-cream and headed to the vineyard. She found Mitch in Sophie’s nursery deep in the middle of changing a wet nappy.
‘Good morning,’ she said kissing his cheek. An undertone of alcohol floated around him.
He managed a tight smile back, though he could never quite produce one that broke through the ever-present sadness. ‘Hi.’
She leaned over the change table and kissed Sophie’s head. Her baby powder scent was one smell she’d never tire of. ‘Good morning, gorgeous girl. You’re growing bigger every time I see you.’
Mitch nodded. ‘The home nurse said she’s doing great. Seems being born premmie is not going to hold her back in any way.’
‘Of course not,’ Amy said, squeezing Sophie’s foot lightly. ‘She got a head-start advantage.’ She looked at Mitch again. ‘And how are you going?’
He shrugged, finished wrapping Sophie in a fresh nappy. ‘I’m here.’
Amy nodded. ‘I’ve got a treat for you in the kitchen.’
‘You don’t have to do this for me, Amy,’ he said impatiently.
A mixture of exasperation and sorrow filled her chest. ‘I’m not. I’m doing it for Rachel.’ Though that wasn’t entirely true. She cared for Mitch and patience was required until he pushed through whatever hell he was in. But she wasn’t about to admit that to him, not while he was so salty.
Mitch sighed and picked Sophie up. Amy held her arms out for her and snavelled her up. Hand supporting the back of her head, she pressed Sophie over her shoulder.
‘Shall we have a coffee?’ she asked.
Mitch nodded. ‘I’ll put the jug on.’
Coffee in hand, and a slice of chocolate pie with a scoop of ice-cream, they went out onto the pergola to eat it. Amy placed Sophie in her bouncinette beside her, out of the sun.
The weather was starting to cool as winter drew closer. Amy was looking forward to winter in the country. The colours of autumn were already thick throughout the countryside, shades of russet and ochre. The vineyard was bursting with big brown and orange leaves, always changing.
‘Gorgeous time of year on the vineyard,’ she said, staring out at the splendour.
‘It was Rachel’s favourite season,’ he said with a frow
n.
‘I see why.’
Amy waited while Mitch cut into his pie. As of yet, everything she had cooked for him, he’d eaten like he was a zombie munching on cardboard.
He shovelled a big spoonful into his mouth. She glanced sidelong as his eyes closed for a brief second in pleasure. She thought she heard a very soft sigh. Mitch studied the slice on the plate in front of him, and he pressed his spoon into it again, taking another big mouthful. She had to give it to the Mathews brothers, they weren’t afraid of ladling food into their mouths.
After he’d finished chewing, she asked, mustering as much nonchalance as she could, ‘How is it?’
‘Fucking incredible,’ he said, diving in for another spoonful.
She smiled. ‘Glad to hear it.’ Got you, Mitch Mathews, hook, line, and sinker.
‘Is there any more?’ he asked fingering the crumbs on his plate and pressing his finger to his tongue.
‘There’s nearly an entire pie left. Want me to go grab it?’
‘Yes, please.’
When Amy arrived home that night and walked through the door, she said, ‘Well, Rachel, you’ve proven that a wife knows her husband’s heart and stomach more than he does himself. The chocolate pie worked a treat.’
And it had. Today with Mitch, he had been the most receptive she’d seen him. They’d had quite a pleasant morning together. She might whip something else up to take over later on in the week to try and gain some momentum.
Amy grinned as she plonked her handbag down on the bench. She was eager to see if the ping she heard earlier on her phone was an email from Pop. Taking a seat, she rummaged for her phone and opened her emails.
Pop’s name appeared next to an unopen message in her inbox. She opened it and read:
Hi Amy
Great to hear from you!
Thank you for the marvellous recipe. I gave it a go and both Nan and I declare it to be the best chocolate meringue pie we’ve ever tasted.
Hope you’re keeping well.
And, you’re welcome. Couldn’t have asked for a more precious girl to mentor.
Love
Pop
Bittersweet Page 21
