by Tracy Ewens
“Never shit where you eat, Ella Marie,” had been her father’s advice, which was delivered via speakerphone and always with a dash of reproach. “This is no one’s business. You are the head of their blood and guts department. Keep that position, do you hear me? It’s certainly not your fault you’re a silly woman. Roll of the birth dice, dear. No need to throw away your perfectly pricey degrees.”
She understood that most people would cower at his comments. Ella had certainly seen enough of her father’s associates recoil, but she was used to it, had been raised on it. For an instant, she thought to mention that her father hadn’t paid one cent for her education. That she’d earned a full ride and worked through college and medical school, but there was no point. The man was an unyielding wall, devoid of any warmth or shared experience. Before she succumbed to the same fate, she had resigned—to the utter disappointment of her department and much to her father’s fury.
The better part of the two weeks that followed had been a blur. Sleeping on her couch and then the floor, the still-fresh shock overshadowing the logistics of uprooting everything. By the time the last of her boxes were loaded onto the moving van, she had found enough footing to propel herself north and settle into the riverside town of Petaluma. That was over two years ago and while the sound of a helicopter overhead still made the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up in exhilaration, the human being in Ella, the woman, had no regrets.
Pulling up to her house, she realized she thought more about the past when she was tired. She had taken a scalding hot mental shower years ago that should have erased the parts and pieces of a life she no longer wanted to miss, but the mind was fascinating in its capacity to hold on to memories. Fortunately, the heart was resilient. Through pain and scars, it kept beating. Ella had seen it firsthand. A seemingly dead heart could spring to life in an instant under the proper care.
She clicked the button to lock her car and tossed her breakfast trash into the green can she’d left on the curb before work. It was empty now and she should have left it there and gone straight to bed, but Ella liked a tidy home, so she mustered the strength to pull the can to the side of her carport. Enjoying the sound of the chirping birds overhead and the smells of early spring, she pulled open her black mailbox, grabbed the stack of what felt like mostly catalogues, and shuffled up the small walk to her “little cottage,” as her mother, another thoughtless soul, had put it when she’d viewed Ella’s home online.
It was quiet on her street. She valued the extras in her life now, the stability of being alone. She dropped her bag by the front door, tossed her mail on the table, turned the lock, and barely made it into the pajamas hanging on the hook in her bathroom. After brushing her teeth, she ignored the urge to floss as she climbed under the covers and buried her face in the relief and isolation of her down pillows. There was no way of knowing her last thought because before her mental list of what she’d done right and wrong in the last twenty-four hours had a chance to take hold, Ella was asleep.
Chapter Three
Boyd dropped Mason off at school thirty minutes early the next morning to make up a test he’d missed the week before when they’d taken off Friday to go camping. They’d given up on hopes of the perfect attendance award by the fifth grade. Boyd believed in a few mental health days a year. It was as important that a kid knew how to tie a fly onto his line as it was that he understood things that happened hundreds of years ago. Education was essential, but so was living. It helped that Mason was a good student and could afford to miss a day here and there.
The early drop-off meant Boyd could get into the brewery early, clean up, and hopefully start his new and final batch before everyone else had their first cup of coffee. When he arrived at work, it was as though nothing had happened the day before. There was a note from their housekeeping service that they’d done an “extra cleaning and sterilization” on his brew room. One of his other brothers, Cade, had spent a few hours taking apart some of the equipment and cleaning. He’d left a note too.
Boyd was grateful he could get started even earlier and glad Patrick had not helped with the cleanup. That meant Boyd could still be annoyed with him for at least a few more hours.
His mood a bit lighter because his hand had stopped aching and he had what he hoped was an answer to the overaggressive lemon in his brew, Boyd milled the grain and decided to create a real batch. He’d had enough fun with the keggle for a while and he was feeling confident. While he waited for the grain, he glanced up at the back wall of the closest thing he’d ever had to an office. It was more like a warehouse, with one exposed brick wall that was older than Boyd, hell, older than their father. His eyes combed over what he and his brothers termed the “journey wall.”
There were line sketch drawings from their dad, who helped redesign the new space, and a couple of their first beer recipes pinned to a board. All the fancy finished stuff hung in Patrick’s office. Boyd preferred the scraps of paper colored with smudged jottings of original ideas. They showed the work in progress. Among the sketches were photographs, mostly black and white, of him and his brothers, often with Mason on one or the other’s shoulders, at various points along the way. He even had an early head shot of their youngest brother, West, before he made it big. Boyd loved every image. Not only because it showed their bond and their business, but because it showed his son growing up around men who loved him.
Foghorn Brewery was the best thing the three oldest McNaughton brothers had ever done save the truly kick-ass two-story tree house they’d built the summer before Boyd went into high school. The thing had electricity, thanks to their father. While Boyd had hoped to share it with his own children someday, he had no way of knowing back then that he would be a father before he left college.
Not that he was complaining. Mason was an unbelievable kid. He’d changed Boyd’s life in every way for the better, and the adoration Boyd felt when his son was born nudged him to be a better man. He’d also grown up faster than most guys his age.
“Being a dad will keep you out of trouble.” That’s what his parents said the Christmas he came home, less than a year shy of graduation, to deliver the news.
Boyd was the oldest of four boys, so it was no surprise he was the first to foray into fatherhood, but he grew up in a somewhat traditional home. His dad cursed like a sailor when he was talking to his foremen or some “incompetent moron of an electrician” anytime one of his jobs was late. Still, in the McNaughton world, people got married, bought a house, decorated a nursery, then had a baby.
Things didn’t work out that way for Boyd, but it made no difference to him or his family once Claire, his college girlfriend, became pregnant. Most of the time, he felt like the luckiest guy in the world. And now that the brewery was seven years and running, he was glad he’d been smart with his money because it ensured Mason would want for nothing.
It could be said that the arrival of Mason McNaughton was the reason Boyd and his brothers sat down at Flips, the local bar at the time, one early summer evening and planned what would become Foghorn Brewery. Boyd had been putting his degree to use as a freelance engineer, but projects were inconsistent and he didn’t want to touch his savings for day-to-day expenses. His brother Patrick was due to graduate the following May and already had a job lined up with an ad firm in San Francisco. Cade was fresh out of junior college and working as the bartender for some hipster hotel in the city too. But that afternoon, they allowed themselves to dream. This time, instead of a tree house with a skate ramp on the ground floor, they were figuring out money and making adult plans well outside of their comfort zone.
It would take three more years before what they’d scribbled out even remotely resembled a legitimate business, let alone a brewery. Two weeks after Mason started kindergarten, Patrick decided he’d had enough as an ad man and joined Cade, who had already moved home to manage Flips after the owner, a high school friend of their dad’s, fired his existing manager for skimming the till.
Patrick a
nd Cade rented a house less than five minutes from where Boyd and Mason lived. It was as if the stars had aligned and it was finally time. Foghorn Brewery started making beer that year.
The mill stopped grinding with a familiar hollow scrape and Boyd turned off his memories. It was time to get back to work, time to make the wort. He’d add the Citra once everything was in the tank, and that would take care of the lemon. The missing ingredient that had cost him almost a week of trial and failure was going to make his best damn beer to date. Fitting that it would be their anniversary brew, and right on time for the opening of the Tap House. Boyd felt like he was back in his groove; the rhythm of his work and all the steps were falling into place. He remembered what the doctor had said. “There are steps to follow whether we like them or not.”
Maybe it was the blood loss or that he’d still been thinking about meeting Dr. Walters, but after he’d relayed the whole story to Mason, save the part about her eyes looking like Golden Polish, Boyd couldn’t sleep. Around two in the morning, he gave up trying and climbed into the shower. There, under the beating water, he knew Citra was the answer. He’d thanked God, or whatever was up there, and gotten dressed.
Making beer had never been complicated for Boyd, but as each year went by, he felt the pressure to top himself, stretch what he knew, and pursue more exciting combinations. It was good work and kept him on his toes, but when his mind drew a blank, it could be grueling.
“How’s the hand?” Cade asked, standing outside the bay door and covered in sawdust. He looked like a troublemaker who had blown up the wood shop. Boyd noticed the expanse of his brother’s chest, which appeared to grow larger every time he saw him.
Did the guy live at the gym?
“Don’t bring that crap in here,” Boyd said.
“Aww. What was that you said? Thank you, little brother, for cleaning my equipment after I slashed the crap out of my hand because I got all jumpy about the lemon and a big bad deadline.” Cade shook his head, thankfully outside the door, and the sawdust flew off the long center patch of his hair before he flipped it back off his face.
His brother’s hair was buzzed on the sides now, but in deference to the long hair he used to sport, he left the center strip untouched. Boyd thought it resembled a limp Mohawk and made his observation known often, as was the McNaughton way.
“Thanks for the cleanup.” Boyd met Cade’s eyes with an expression of sincerity. That was all he was getting. “I figured out the lemon. Spontaneous brew day happening right now.”
“I can smell that. Trick was worried about you.”
“I’ll bet. The hand is fine. Go away.” Boyd held up his bandaged hand and turned to his computer to monitor the temperature.
“How many stitches?”
“Seventeen.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”
Everything was on track. In twenty minutes, he’d have wort. That would cool and he’d have beer a few hours after that. If all went well, he might even make the tail end of Mason’s baseball practice.
Cade cleared his throat. Still there.
“What the hell? I’m good. Go… cut some more wood. What are you doing over there anyway?”
His brother smiled that same grin he’d flashed when he was a little boy. It was more dangerous now and sort of antihero, to use one of Mason’s comic book terms. Cade was the tatted up, rarely-on-the-right-side-of-sane McNaughton brother. He was a good guy, but sometimes his glinting green eyes spoke to high school detentions and missed curfews. Their mother called it trouble, their youngest brother, West, who was an actor called it his “hell, yeah” face, and on more occasions than any of them could count, women at Flips called the look “wicked.” But they usually said it in a way that meant they’d been in Cade’s bed. Boyd hated the look because it meant his brother was gearing up to be an even bigger smart-ass than usual.
“I’m showing concern. And if you must know, I’m making a frame for the dartboards.”
“Well, look at you, Martha Stewart. And don’t show concern. I’m fine. Had a shot and everything. Now get out. I’ve got work to do.”
“Holy crap, a shot?” Cade practically squealed like a toddler and turned to leave.
“Nice shirt, by the way.”
“Right?” He whipped back around. “It’s one of my new favorites.”
Boyd shook his head as his brother stood with an expression of pride most grown men wouldn’t share over a T-shirt that read Namaste at the Brewery. It was one of Cade’s tamer choices. Foghorn restored and moved into the historic chicken hatchery in the center of town close to two years ago. Petaluma’s history was rooted in chickens and farming, so it seemed natural when they started a brewery to name their beers after chicken breeds. There were some crazy names. When the hatchery came up for sale, they jumped on it to complete their whole chicken theme. It had cost them a fortune, but with the help of two second mortgages and their brother the movie star, they’d made it work. Now, the brewery was “hopping,” as Patrick liked to joke.
“Hopping. Get it? Hops for beer,” he’d said the day he showed them the grand opening artwork.
Christ, Boyd had no idea how he put up with all of them. That wasn’t exactly true. He loved them deep in his bones and from the time they were little, he’d taken the job of big brother seriously. The fact that they’d all worked together and helped him raise a son was never lost on Boyd. They loved him back tenfold, even Patrick. Even though that little shit was getting the silent treatment for at least the rest of the day.
“I’ll let you go,” Cade said, still standing there, arms splayed, admiring his shirt.
Boyd laughed. No matter the day, the fight, or the number of stitches, Cade had a way.
“Okay, yeah. Good talk. See you around, Stitch,” Cade said.
“Don’t.”
There was the look again. “Too soon?” He turned and walked back to the Tap House. “Glad you’re okay,” he called out, hand raised.
“Me too,” Boyd said, returning to his work, still smiling.
Following one glorious day of doing nothing but sleeping and binge watching Sherlock, Ella decided her second day off needed to be productive. So, she showered, dressed, and even put on a little lip gloss. She had grocery shopping to do and needed to catch up on the reading assignment for her continuing education credits. Every three months, no matter how brilliant a doctor was, they were required to teach something and learn something. “Give and Grow” was the term after she graduated. It seemed every physician she knew whined about the time it took and the inconvenience. Ella enjoyed learning but would admit it was difficult to switch gears and return to books after spending time in the real practice of patient care, especially trauma. A lecture on pain management seemed removed compared to a gunshot victim screaming at the top of his lungs.
Ella preferred practice and procedure to theory. But, she hadn’t seen a gunshot wound in over two years and while it was morbid to want that kind of violence, she wouldn’t mind something more than a hand laceration every now and then. Looking to the table where she threw her mail, she noticed her phone vibrating. It was Vienna, Ella’s “tied for best friend” as she put it when she and Bri were together, texting to ask if she wanted to join her at Knitterly.
Two people bailed on the 11 a.m. Cricket Loom Weaving class. Sistine asked if we wanted in. Yes?
That sounded like more fun than the grocery store or “Pain Management and Appropriate Treatment for the Terminally Ill.” Her stomach growled as she slid her glasses on and she texted back that she’d pick her up at the bakery. She needed food and Vienna owned Sift, the most amazing bakery, even trumping the ones Ella had left behind in San Francisco.
Throwing a book into her bag, she decided to go to the grocery store after class. That should assuage some of the guilt, at least the simple kind brought on by skipping out on chores for time with her friend and baked goods.
When Ella arrived at Sift, Vienna was behind the counter observing Pam, her firs
t official employee, ring up a customer. Ella slipped past the line and into the black, white, and bright yellow dining space of Sift. She took a seat at her favorite round lacquered table in the corner next to an abstract painting that reminded her of dancing tulips. Sift was not only a joy to look at, it was a feast for the senses even before anyone took a bite. Butter, cinnamon, and even banana. Waiting for the crowd to die down, Ella found herself wrapped up in her book and was startled by Vienna’s voice.
“I didn’t know you read Stephen King. How did I miss that?” she said, setting a French press of coffee and a warm chocolate croissant in the center of one of Vienna’s delicate mismatched plates on the table in front of Ella.
Ella flipped the book jacket to hold her place and noticed her friend decked out in a black-and-white apron, her hair back off her soft features in what Ella now knew was a goddess braid. Honestly, Vienna’s hair was an accessory all its own. “I used to read him all the time. He’s wonderful and this is his new one. Hardback. Don’t you love real books?”
“The only hardbacks I read are the book club selections because Mrs. McNaughton likes the pages.”
“Me too.”
“That does it. You should be in the book club.”
Ella loved the idea but wondered if there was something strange about being in a club with Boyd McNaughton’s mother. She was overthinking—she’d promised herself to cut down on that.
“He’s scary though, right?”
“Twisted and intelligent. There’s a difference.”
Vienna pressed the plunger in the coffee, poured them both a cup, dusted off a smear of flour from her apron, and sat down.
“How’s Pam working out?” Ella asked.
“Good. I can rest for a few minutes and have coffee with you. I get to go to a loom class in the middle of a Sunday. She’s perfect.”