Crushed (The Fredrickson Winery Novels)

by Barbara Ellen Brink

  “No,” she said, her throat tightening, “I don’t think he’s like Grandpa Sean. I just want to spend all the time I can with you before you grow up and leave for college.”

  “That’s silly. I’m only nine,” he said, grinning.

  “Yeah, but you’re really smart. One of those colleges might want to take you early.”

  He shook his head and threw the banana peel in the garbage. “Nope. I’m going to be a wine vintner and master wine maker. I don’t need to go to college for that. You didn’t.”

  “You might change your mind. Remember last week you wanted to be a professional soccer player, and about a month ago you wanted to be an astronaut.”

  “I guess. I’ll think about it.”

  “Glad to hear it. You’ve got eight years to mull it over. Now go outside and play till I call you for dinner.”

  He picked up his ball and opened the door.

  “Stay close to the house though, okay?” she added. “No running off to Billie’s tonight.”

  He grunted and pulled the door closed behind him.

  She went to the window and watched him kick the ball up and down the driveway, his tongue protruding between his lips whenever he tried to balance it on his knee or bounce it off his head. He was wearing that blasted cap again—the one from the racetrack that Agosto gave him on their little outing—probably why he was having such a hard time directing the ball with his head. She smiled when she realized he was wearing two different colors of socks. His jeans were getting too short. He must have grown an inch since school started. They would need to go shopping again soon. Otherwise everyone would think her son was colorblind.

  She wished she didn’t feel paranoid every time he played outside alone. Last year when her father ran loose in the neighborhood, terrorizing Billie and avoiding the authorities, she refused to let Davy play outside for weeks. After he was returned to prison, she’d felt immense relief and her sense of safety gradually returned. Now with Agosto threatening to take her son, she wanted to lock Davy in his room. But she knew he needed continuity. She didn’t want him living a life of fear.

  She moved away from the window. She couldn’t stand and watch him every minute. This was crazy. Agosto was going through the court system. She had no reason to think he would break the law by coming on her property again. Billie had filed a restraining order against him to keep him at bay. When the court system ruled against him…that’s when she would need to worry.

  In the family room, she picked up a magazine and stretched out on the couch to read. But all she saw was her father’s weathered, craggy face, the last time she saw him. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around the facts. She was shocked to learn her father was not just a drunk who had deserted his family, but a cold, calculated, child molester. It made her feel tainted as though his actions somehow corrupted her soul as well. She imagined some people saw her that way. She’d seen the looks, heard whispered remarks behind her back. They thought she was another one of her father’s victims. Thank God she had been spared. She’d only been four years old when he disappeared all those years ago, and before that, Handel protected her, a flesh and bone shield. She realized now that even as a boy he took beatings meant for their mother, tried to direct Sean Parker’s anger toward himself until the man was spent and passed out drunk. She owed her brother a lot.

  She threw the magazine down and sat up. She couldn’t concentrate. She had to stay busy. Keep her mind occupied with something other than the past.

  Adam’s guitar was still propped against the table. She leaned over and picked it up, held it in her lap and ran her fingers over the strings. How would it feel to play with that much passion? He had a gift. She set it gently on the couch beside her and reached out for the phone on the coffee table. She dialed the number and listened to it ring five times before he picked up.

  He was breathing hard like he’d run in from outside. “Hello?”

  “Hello,” she said, and then couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “Meg?”

  She smiled against the receiver. “Who said you could give me a nickname?” she asked.

  “You didn’t mind the other night. Just seeing if it stuck.”

  “Handel’s not even allowed to shorten my name.”

  “I’m not Handel,” he said, his voice deep and confident.

  “Well, I called to remind you that your guitar’s still here.” She smoothed a hand over the worn fabric of the couch, cringing inwardly at her feeble excuse.

  He laughed. “It better still be there. Cause I haven’t come to fetch it home yet.”

  “Sounds like a pet.”

  “Meg. I love my guitar. I don’t leave it behind at just anybodies house.”

  Margaret couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. She hadn’t flirted with a guy for the sake of flirting since she was a teenager. It made her feel young and carefree again. She heard the kitchen door slam shut and a ball bounce against the tile floor. Davy was back. She jumped up. Not as carefree as imagined.

  “I have to go. Come by this evening and I might let you have it back.” She didn’t wait for a response but pushed the end button and set the phone on the table.

  “Mom!” Davy yelled from the kitchen when she didn’t materialize immediately.

  “In here.”

  He followed the sound of her voice, gently kicking the ball down the hall and into the room. He tapped it with his toe and caught it in his arms, grinning. “Cool, huh?”

  “I thought I told you not to play with the ball in the house.”

  “I was careful.”

  “That’s not the point,” she said, taking it from him and holding it over her head. “Now it’s mine, soccer boy,” she teased.

  He tried to jump and knock it from her hand, but she managed to keep it just out of his reach. “Oh no you don’t!”

  “Hey, that’s not fair. You’re taller than me.” He slumped into an overstuffed chair and crossed his arms, his pout reminding her of Agosto.

  “Tell you what. You can have it back after you clean your room.”

  “Ahh, Mom. Do I got to? I like it just the way it is.”

  She laughed and pulled him up. “The funny thing about that is, your room never stays just the way it is. It continues to get worse and worse. So, let’s nip that in the bud, shall we?”

  “All right, ” he said, but his tone implied it was totally against everything he stood for. Mostly—freedom to have a messy room. He trudged off, making it look like he was headed for the guillotine. He stopped and looked back, a puzzled frown on his face. “When did Grandpa Sean get out of jail?” he asked.

  She dropped the ball. It rolled under the coffee table and over to the piano. “What do you mean?” she asked, trepidation pulling at her like a rip current.

  “I saw him out in the vineyard,” Davy stated matter-of-factly. “I think he came out of your storage shed.”

  “Storage shed?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. He was over by it.”

  “Did you speak to him?” she asked, hoping it was only boyhood imagination.

  He shook his head. “You told me not to.”

  Margaret gestured for him to get a move on. “Good. Now get your room clean.”

  When he was out of sight, she sat down on the edge of the couch and dropped her head in her hands. Was it possible that he’d been released from prison without any notification for the family? Handel would have called. He certainly would have let Billie know. What was going on?

  She hurried to the kitchen and checked that the garage door was down and the inside door locked. Then did the same for the front door. Her father was not supposed to get out of prison for years. They had all hoped parole would be denied him, many times over. He was a dangerous man and she didn’t want Davy anywhere near him.

  She peered out the kitchen window toward the vineyard, squinting against the afternoon sun. What was he doing here? Was he looking for something, or just returning to the scene of
his many crimes?

  *****

  Handel called back later that afternoon. He was in San Francisco, going through jury selection for an upcoming trial. He expected to drive home in the morning after rush hour traffic. He couldn’t get back any sooner, but he’d made some calls in advance.

  “The parole board actually stated that they believe he’s on his way to complete rehabilitation and should be given a chance to prove his worth to society.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “Apparently, he’s been an exemplary prisoner, and it didn’t hurt his case that the prison is full to overflowing. But most surprisingly, he had two upstanding citizens speak out on his behalf. I don’t know who they were, but I’m going to find out.”

  Her brother was naturally concerned for Billie. He would be calling her after he got off the phone. He urged her to be careful and keep Davy inside after dark. As if she had any intention of letting him out of her sight. “Don’t worry about us. Tell Billie to be careful. She’s the one he threatened.”

  The phone rang right after she hung up. She picked up immediately, assuming he’d forgotten to tell her something. “Handel?”

  “No,” a gruff voice answered, “This is your father.” He coughed and it sounded like he was going to hack up a lung. “Don’t hang up. I need to talk to you.”

  “You don’t have anything to say that I want to hear,” she said, her voice tight with anger. How dare he call after all he put them through? Last time he showed up she begged Handel to give him a chance, and she’d lived with regret ever since.

  “Maggie. You don’t mean that.”

  She tensed at the childhood name. Her mother had called her, Maggie. When she died, no one was allowed to use that name again. Especially not the man who made her mother’s life miserable to the end. “I do mean that. Don’t call here again,” she said and slammed the phone down.

  Tears slid down her cheeks and she brushed them away with angry movements, unwilling to acknowledge the reason she cried. Not for herself. Her father had never been a dad. She was used to it.

  Seconds later, the phone rang again. And rang and rang. Then she disconnected it from the wall.

  *****

  Adam knocked on the door again. Margaret must be home. Handel said he’d talked to her earlier. He knocked harder and pressed the doorbell three times for good measure. “Meg!” he called out, stepping back to look up at the windows, all suspiciously shut against the cool of the evening. “Meg, are you there? Answer me!”

  He heard movement behind the door and then the deadbolt clicked back and the door was pulled open. “Hey, Adam. What are you yelling about?” Davy asked, rubbing his eyes. “You woke me up.”

  “Sorry, pal. Where’s your mom?” he asked, more worried now than before. Margaret would never leave Davy alone with Sean Parker running loose in the neighborhood.

  He yawned widely, his eyes watering with the effort. “Don’t know. Maybe she’s in the cellar.”

  “You have a cellar?”

  “Sure. I’ll show you.” He stood back and waited for Adam to enter before carefully closing the door and flipping the deadbolt. Then he looked up, his expression pensive. “Mom said to always lock the door. Grandpa Sean got out of jail.”

  Adam patted him on the back. “Good job. Show me where the cellar is and you can get back to bed.”

  Davy trudged in bare feet down the hall, through the kitchen, and out the service door to the garage. He pointed to the far corner. A slanting wooden door was propped open over a descending flight of stone steps. Yellow tinged light gleamed from the opening. “She’s down there,” he said. He yawned again. “Can I go back to bed now?”

  Adam ruffled the boy’s hair. “Yeah, sure. Sorry for waking you up.”

  Davy shuffled sleepily off to his room and Adam moved toward the cellar door. He heard music floating up the stairs, faint and crackily from a radio station with bad reception. An oldies station was playing Please Mr. Postman—Karen Carpenter’s voice smooth and creamy as new butter. Then Meg sang along, so far off key it was practically a different song. He covered his laugh with a fake coughing fit and she jerked around with an empty bottle raised over her head.

  He dodged to the right. “Hey! It’s me. Careful with that thing. I have a soft skull.”

  She blew out a relieved breath and set the bottle down on a low table. “Do you have to keep sneaking up on me all the time? I’m too young for a heart attack.”

  “Sorry.” He grinned at the picture she made. With a white lab coat buttoned up over her clothes, and her blonde hair pulled into two ponytails high on the sides of her head, she looked like Chrissy on Three’s Company doing a parody of The Nutty Professor.

  “How’d you get in anyway?” she asked, moving toward the stairs.

  “Don’t worry. The front door is locked. Davy let me in and went back to bed.”

  She was obviously relieved. “Good. Not that you woke him up, but that he went back to bed. I was worried he wouldn’t sleep after this afternoon.” She moved to the table where she had bunches of grapes and some testing equipment spread out. Behind her, a press and another machine he didn’t recognize, filled half the room. Four small oak barrels, two on each side of a narrow doorway, were most likely last year’s wine still going through fermentation.

  “What are you up to?” he asked, stepping closer to watch.

  “I’m testing the level of acidity. Ripe grapes should be between 0.58 and 0.64. These are showing 0.59,” she said looking up with a pleased expression. “This is going to be one busy week. Thankfully, I’ve talked Billie into a joint venture, now that I’m her chief winemaker. I’d never have time to harvest my own vineyard, otherwise. We’re going to add a new wine to Fredrickson’s list. A field blend. I found a very old wineblending recipe that belonged to my grandfather. The Parker vineyard was planted with half a dozen different kinds of grapes back in the forty’s. It was once actually part of Fredrickson’s. I think with a couple added varietals from Fredrickson’s newer vines, we will have something uniquely special.” She moved away from the table and disappeared through the narrow stone doorway, but soon returned with a bottle of wine in hand, and continued. “Field blending is an art form that’s nearly disappeared around here. Most wine made in Napa is from single grape dedicated, homogenous vineyards. But we are going retro!”

  “Cool.” He reached out, plucked a grape, and popped it in his mouth. “Do you get top billing too?” he asked.

  “She did say I could name it. But I suppose I’ll have to come up with something new.” She set the dusty bottle down, and wiped it off with a nearby towel. The label said, Margaret’s Wine.

  He took it from her hand to get a better look. “Hmm. I would have called it, Meg’s Brew.”

  “Wine isn’t brewed—beer is,” she said, unbuttoning her lab coat. “With your lack of knowledge for this business, you may not even last as the accountant.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  “Let’s get out of here.” She clicked off the radio.

  He carried the wine, and she closed and locked the wine cellar door behind them. The house was quiet when they slipped in. “I just want to check on Davy,” she said, leaving him in the kitchen while she climbed the stairs to her son’s room.

  He rummaged around for a corkscrew and glasses. Managed to find both before she returned. “Is he sleeping?” he asked, smoothly pulling the cork from the bottle.

  “Yeah. He’s fine. I’m the one who seems to have a problem sleeping nights. First, Agosto comes back and rips a hole in my little world with his demand for joint custody of Davy, and now my father returns. I may never sleep again.” She took the glass of wine he held out, her hand shaking slightly.

  “You want to sit outside?” he asked. “It’s a beautiful night.”

  The patio was awash with the glow of the full moon. He pulled another chair close to hers and set the bottle on the table within reach. Crickets chirped somewhere behind the grill and a light breeze ruffled leaves on nearby oaks. The
whine of a small bi-plane sounded overhead, tiny lights twinkling against the black velvet expanse.

  He was quiet, letting her unwind while they sipped wine and listened to the sounds of the night. Slowly he reached out and laced her fingers with his and let them rest on the arm of her chair. She turned her face toward him and smiled.

  “I’m sorry about giving you a hard time about being too young,” she said. “It’s just that sometimes I feel like someone borrowed years of my life and never returned them. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

  “Are you talking about Davy?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I regret my affair with Agosto ten years ago. I don’t regret having Davy. Well,” she shrugged, “sometimes when he’s driving me crazy, but all Mother’s feel that—don’t they?”

  “You’re a great mom and Davy’s a great kid. Things will work out. I have total confidence in my sister’s attorney skills. When it comes to fighting for the underdog, she is in there tooth and nail.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” she said, but there was a lack of confidence in her voice.

  “By the way, I heard through the grapevine that your old flame actually suggested he was willing to start over. I’m glad you didn’t jump at the chance.”

  She breathed out a faint laugh and shook her head. “Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. He was only trying to manipulate me. I find it very hard to believe he could ever learn to love anyone but himself.”

  “The first time I saw him I thought—Hollywood.”

  “What?”

  “You know—the perfect leading man in a chick flick. Handsome, well-groomed, knows how to speak Italian.”

  She took a sip of wine, her eyes sparkling with laughter.

  “You two would never work out. You need someone down to earth, with an ego that doesn’t overpower the relationship. Someone like me. An average, hard-working guy with open arms and a heart as big as Yankee Stadium. I’m your Joe Demaggio.”