Family Tree

by Susan Wiggs

  “Do you want to be engaged?”

  “No.” Annie’s reply came swiftly. “I mean, not anytime soon. It would be amazing to be in love again, though.”

  “And you will be.”

  “When?”

  “You and your burning youth. You don’t get to choose when. You just have to stay open to the possibility.”

  Annie thought about the guys she’d met in school. She went on dates. She let them get close. And then she let them go. Every time she met someone, her thoughts always circled back to Fletcher Wyndham, and the firestorm of emotions he stirred in her. No one she’d known since then measured up.

  She turned on her side and tucked her hand under her cheek. “I don’t want to have to be in the world without you, Gran.”

  “You don’t have a choice, my love. I know you’re going to be all right.”

  “I won’t. I’ll fall apart.”

  “If you do, then we both lose. Because it means I failed to teach you anything.”

  “You’ve taught me everything.”

  “No. You’re just getting started. Everything you need to know is right here.” Gran touched Annie’s forehead. “You simply have to know yourself and know what you need. And what you want. And how to get there.”

  “Simple,” Annie whispered. “Gran?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Is there anything you regret? Anything you wished you’d done?”

  “Not that I know of. If there was something I wanted, I did it. With your grandfather, in the kitchen, with the family. I have no regrets. That’s quite a blessing, isn’t it? To have no regrets.”

  Gran smiled, but it was a tired smile. Mom said she slept a lot. Last night after Annie’s arrival, the hospice nurse had met with the family, helping them prepare for the road ahead. Saskia Jensen was a wise, incredibly kind woman who listened more than she talked. One piece of advice she’d offered occurred to Annie now.

  “Saskia told us we shouldn’t leave anything unsaid,” she told her grandmother. “Have we said everything? How can that be possible?”

  “We’re very lucky, you and I, Annie. I know you love me,” Gran whispered. “I’ve felt that from you every day of your life. I know you’ve given me so much to be happy about, and so much to be proud of.”

  Annie shut her eyes, containing the tears. Then she opened them to gaze into her grandmother’s face. It was the most beautiful face in the world, her eyes the color of dark amber syrup, her lips bowed in a slight smile. The lines of her face were a road map of a life well lived.

  “Have I ever said thank you?” Annie whispered. “Maybe that’s what was unsaid. Thank you, Gran, for every little thing. When I think of you, I think of everything good in the world. And I can’t believe I never said thank you.”

  “Oh, sweet Annie. You just did.”

  Annie fixed food, all of Gran’s favorites, but Gran could barely eat. She tasted tiny samples of homemade butterhorn and crème brûlée, and she admired Annie’s creations, but Gran was content with her Pedialyte and the occasional soda cracker. Annie made smoothies for her to sip on—a sinful chocolate concoction made with real malt powder Annie had bought from a gourmet shop in New York, and another with maple syrup and nutmeg.

  They moved Gran’s bed downstairs to the keeping room, a small fireplace area adjacent to the kitchen. When the house was first built, Gran said, it was where people stayed when they were ill, or about to give birth. Or dying. The room had a picture window facing the back garden.

  A last blast of winter suddenly blanketed the yard with dreary snow, threatening the delicate buds on the apple trees. Thick, untimely snowflakes drifted down steadily through the night, erasing all traces of yesterday.

  Unfazed by the spring storm, the kids bundled up and played outside. Gran watched the fun through the window. Annie helped them build a snowman. They dressed him in Grandpa’s old plaid hunting cap with the earflaps, and he held a sign lettered with the lyrics to Gran’s most favorite song—You Are My Sunshine.

  Gran wouldn’t hear of Annie putting off the end of school. She had to finish the work she had started, Gran said, and could come for visits on the weekends. As the weeks rolled by, Annie watched her grandmother fading away, bit by bit.

  One Saturday in May, Annie took the utility vehicle into town, just to get out of the house and to meet her friend Pam Mitchell, to catch up. Pam had become, of all things, a master distiller of whiskey, following in the footsteps of her father. She worked for her family’s operation, a small-batch distillery, which shipped its specialty spirits to high-end bars downstate and in Boston.

  “Show me around,” Annie insisted. “And can I film your operation?”

  “Of course. You’re going to love it.”

  “You know me well.”

  Pam showed her the container with the secret family recipe—corn, malted barley, and toasted flake rye. “Looks like birdseed now, but after we add the well water and whiskey yeast, we’ll strain out the solids and pipe the liquid into the still. The neighbor’s pigs get the leftover solids, and he claims the livestock have never been happier.”

  The shiny copper still was located in an old converted horse barn, now redolent of fermented mash. Annie inhaled the heady aroma while Pam drew off a sample of the clear liquid and gave her a taste. “This is the white dog whiskey—that’s the term for unaged spirits that used to be called moonshine.”

  Annie took a small taste and made a face. “Yikes, that’s lighter fluid.”

  “It’s awful until we age it.”

  The former horse stalls were crammed with white oak barrels, each toasted on the inside with a hard char to give the whiskey its flavor. There were fifty-five-gallon drums filled with the wash—grains and corn boiled to produce alcohol. “We’re only producing about twenty gallons a week. Then it goes into the barrels for wood aging,” Pam continued. “Here’s a shot of the same spirits, seven months later.” She gave Annie a snifter. The whiskey was the color of grade-A maple syrup. It tasted of smoke, sweet vanilla, and toasted pecans.

  “Wow,” Annie said. “It’s fantastic.”

  “Thanks. It’s an art, for sure. I’ve been working on the balance of flavors. I call this one our secret recipe—it tastes like bourbon, but smoother and more delicate.”

  “I’ll say.” Annie filmed and took still photos. She was inspired by her friend’s operation, and the alchemy of water and grain being transformed by the process.

  The bottling operation occupied another part of the building.

  “I like the mason jars,” Annie said.

  “Thanks. I’d love to create a fancier bottle, but we’re stretched too thin right now.

  “We get fifty bucks a bottle these days,” said Pam. “Sounds like a lot, but the overhead is steep. Dad’s hoping to find a silent partner. Each barrel alone costs eighty bucks.” She indicated a collection of worn oak barrels stacked by the loading dock. “Most of those are at least twenty years old. After a while, we don’t reuse them. I hope to give them a second life with folks who want to turn them into something else—furniture, carving, maybe even barrel aging something else. It’s kind of a thing these days.”

  An idea leaped, fully formed, into Annie’s mind. “Such as maple syrup.”

  Pam grinned. “I like the way you think.”

  “Let’s not think. I know it’s madness, but let’s do it. Suppose I send you a couple of drums of syrup. Would you barrel-age it for me?”

  “Sugar Rush? Absolutely. It’s a plan.” Pam poured them each another taste. “How cool are we? All grown up and doing something mad together.”

  “To being all grown up,” Annie said. “Even though it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “Well, we can drink,” Pam said with a twinkle in her eye. “That’s something.” They clinked glasses.

  They talked of their high school days and traced the journey their lives had taken them in the past three years.

  “We should play a drinking game,” Pam sai
d. “Every time one of us says ‘Do you remember . . .’ we have to take a drink.”

  “In that case, we wouldn’t last five minutes. And drinking your fifty-bucks-a-bottle hooch would probably tick off your dad. Fill me in on the gossip,” Annie begged. “I’ve been a million miles away.”

  “I got nothing,” Pam said. “I work all the time.”

  “Come on, give me something.”

  “Well, I’m seeing a guy. Not just seeing him. I’m falling in love with him.”

  “Pammy!” Annie’s heart soared for her friend.

  Pam blushed. “His name is Klaus and he’s a sommelier. He works in Boston. It’s hard, being apart. We’ve already talked about moving in together, though.”

  “Good for you. I hope it works out.”

  “Me, too. The trouble is, I can’t leave the distillery. We’re so small, I have to be here all the time. And much as I love Switchback, I’m not seeing a lot of opportunities for a sommelier here in town.”

  “Gran would tell you the heart will find a way.”

  “Ah, that’s nice. How’s she doing? I mean, is she comfortable?”

  “I think so.” Annie drank the rest of her whiskey, the liquor trickling through the thickness of tears in her throat. “She drifts in and out. It’s terrible, losing her, but she seems to be at peace. We’ve had lots of good talks.” Annie took a deep breath. “And she wouldn’t want me mooning about her. More gossip, please.”

  “Let’s see. The health department shut down Sly’s Burgers and Fries for code violations.”

  “Oh my gosh, I love their burgers and fries.”

  “Sly promises to clean up his act and reopen. His new slant will be local ingredients, grass-fed beef, organic produce.”

  “Good for him. It’s good for all of us.”

  “Ginnie Watson caught her husband cheating on her with a woman from his twelve-step group. I think it’s known as the thirteenth step.”

  “Whoa.” Annie remembered Ginnie from high school—quiet, well behaved, devoted to her boyfriend, whom she’d married the week after graduation. “I feel bad for her.”

  “She’ll be all right after she gets over the shock. There ought to be a rule that no one gets married until they’re at least old enough to drink.”

  “Hear, hear.”

  “Oh, and Celia Swank was engaged to this rich guy—he’s a partner from the resort at Stowe—and then he dumped her.”

  “I bet she didn’t take that well.” Celia had never been quiet or well behaved, just wildly beautiful and obsessed with money and shopping. Her notorious moment in high school came about senior year, when she made out with a student teacher from the U, thus ending his career before it began.

  “My guess is, she misses the money more than the guy,” Pam said.

  Everyone had a friend like that, Annie reflected. Even in this day and age, there were women who didn’t trust themselves to be their own support. They looked to a man to take care of them. Annie was glad she came from a long line of strong women who knew how to navigate the world on their own.

  “We always hear money doesn’t buy happiness, but we keep thinking that it will,” she observed. “The richest guy in town, old Mr. Baron, is one of the most miserable people I’ve ever known.”

  The kids in Switchback had all been scared of him, she recalled. The lumber millionaire was angry and stingy, waving people off his porch when they came to raise money for 4-H or the school band. He lived in a historic mansion filled with art and treasures, but his wife had left him long ago and his kids never went to see him.

  Annie thought now of the steady stream of family and friends who came to see Gran, and she knew one thing for sure. Money was never the key ingredient.

  “I agree,” Pam said. “If money was important to me, I wouldn’t be making artisanal whiskey. And by the way,” she added, “just so you know, Mr. Baron is not the richest man in town.”

  “No? Who is it, then?”

  “Sanford Wyndham—your old flame’s father.”

  Annie’s gut lurched. Just the name roused a flurry of emotion. “How’s that?”

  “That lawsuit, remember? Over that horrible accident? Apparently, it’s finally been settled, and he was awarded a fortune. Still runs his garage, though.”

  “Wow. No kidding.” She thought of how driven and obsessed Fletcher had been about the case. For a long time, she had assumed that was the reason they’d parted ways. Now she knew better. Like poor Ginnie and her cheating twelve-stepper, they’d simply been too young.

  “You should look Fletcher up,” Pam said.

  Annie smiled. “Sure. I’ll tell him now that he’s from a rich family, I want him for my boyfriend again.”

  When Annie got home, a car she didn’t recognize was parked in the driveway. She headed inside, where Kyle was helping the kids with homework.

  “Dad’s here,” Kyle said, looking up from the kitchen table. “He’s in with Gran.”

  Annie felt a buzz of nervousness in her gut. The whiskey samples she’d had with Pam had worn off, and she wished they hadn’t. Dad was here. She slipped into the room. It was dim and quiet, with music softly playing on the radio. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey, yourself.” He looked tan and fit in khaki trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled back. He stood up and held out his arms.

  She leaned briefly in for a hug. No matter how much time had passed, he still had the dad-smell, the one she’d snuggled up to when she was little and he read her stories in bed. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “I wanted to see her.”

  Annie took a seat on the opposite side of the bed. Gran seemed to be deeply asleep.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Dad said. “You and your gran have such a special bond.”

  Annie nodded, at a loss for words.

  “I’m staying with my folks,” he said. “They sent their love, and this.” He produced a wicker gift basket overflowing with gourmet food.

  “That’s nice,” said Annie. “I’ll give them a call tomorrow.”

  They sat in silence, one on one side of the bed, one on the other, Gran in between, eyes closed, scarcely breathing. Annie studied the beloved face, now pale and gaunt. She wondered what Gran was dreaming about. The past and the people she’d loved? Or had she moved on to some other place, the next place you didn’t get to see until it was your time?

  “I loved your grandmother,” Dad told Annie. “I like to think she loved me, too.”

  “She never said,” Annie bluntly replied.

  “I hope it means she held me in her regard.” He smoothed the blanket over Gran’s shoulder. “I don’t blame you for being hard on me. I wish we were closer.”

  She watched his hand, stroking so gently over the soft blanket. “I wish that, too.”

  Annie didn’t say anything more. She was thinking about the fact that men left. She knew it wasn’t a hard-and-fast rule, but that was what happened in Annie’s world. Her grandfather had left one day, had an accident in the woods, and never came back. Her father had left, and he returned twice a year to see his kids. People asked Annie’s mother why she almost never went out with guys, but Annie knew the reason. Mom didn’t want to get tangled up with a man only to watch him leave. It seemed like a good enough plan to Annie. She didn’t plan on getting involved, or if she did because she couldn’t help it, she intended to leave before the guy left.

  She stood up, feeling oppressed by the atmosphere in the room and by her own dark thoughts. “I’ll see you later, okay? Send me a text if you want to go for coffee or something while you’re here.”

  “Sure. See you around.”

  She left, leaving the door slightly ajar and feeling awkward.

  Turning back, she saw her father bow his head and let loose with great, gusting sobs that racked his tall, slim body. Annie froze, trying to decide whether to go back into the room and comfort him, or to give him his privacy. Maybe if she knew him better, she’d know what to do.

/>   But she didn’t. She didn’t know him. And she didn’t know what to do.

  The next day, Annie went to see her father and his parents in a town twenty miles away. The visit was predictably stiff, with long gaps of silence broken by the smallest of small talk. That was what happened, she realized, when you lost touch with someone.

  Afterward, she decided to stop in Switchback for a bite to eat before heading back up the mountain. She parked near the Starlight Café and stepped out of the car, catching her breath at the sudden drop in the temperature. It was early evening by then, the cold a brutal sluice of air from the north. As the wind skirled down from the heights, she felt a light stinging sensation on her face. Tilting back her head, she glared at the purple sky. “Oh, no way,” she said aloud. “No freaking way.”

  But this was Vermont, and the weather didn’t care that it was May. The snow flurries quickly turned to flakes, blanketing the emerging crocuses and tulips in the flower beds of the courthouse park.

  She shoved her hands in her pockets and walked on, thinking about what Gran had said. No regrets.

  Annie suddenly forgot she was hungry. The GreenTree Garage was two blocks away. As she passed the town’s familiar shops and businesses and restaurants, she tried to figure out whether this was a good idea, or an ill-considered impulse, the kind that seemed brilliant until she thought it through.

  No regrets, she reminded herself. If she didn’t look Fletcher up, she would never know.

  Know what?

  She spotted him in the main bay of the shop, working next to his father on a car with its hood propped open. Watching the two of them working in tandem reminded her of how close they had always been. Two against the world, Fletcher had once said. Even doing mundane tasks, they were a team, passing tools back and forth, chatting together. The intimacy of their bond was a palpable thing. Fletcher had seen his father through one of life’s most horrific ordeals, and Annie suspected they had grown even closer than ever because of it.

  Her filmmaker’s eye framed the shot of the two men silhouetted against the glowing shop light. It gave them the look of an Edward Hopper painting, an ordinary moment, frozen in time. Fletcher and Sanford would have made an interesting topic for her documentary. Maybe she should have . . . no. Just no.