by Jane Porter
“Just a little out of breath.”
“Want to rest?”
“No. I’ll rest when I’m dead.”
His hand squeezes mine again. “No talk like that. I’m planning a big party for you on your centennial.”
“I don’t think I have six more years.”
“Good, because you don’t even need five and a half.”
I laugh shortly, shake my head. Everyone thinks Chad is the charmer but I have a soft spot for Craig. He’s a dear, sweet boy, and I don’t have a favorite great-nephew. They are as different as night and day, but I do enjoy them both. I don’t see Chad as often. He’s the social one, and always on the go, attending wine conferences and events, which is where he is now.
Craig likes traveling but he’s not as fond of all the conferences. He’s an introvert, and introspective. He likes his alone time. He makes the business decisions for the winery and Chad is the face of Dark Horse. People gravitate to Chad. But then, they always have.
I’ve always wondered why the boys chose wine making. It’s not as if it runs in the family. Farming and ranching does, not on their mother’s side, but their father’s. They turned their father’s ranch land into grapes and have done quite well for themselves.
Chad lives in the original farmhouse on the property. He fixed it up, a couple of years back, spending a small fortune on the remodel, but that’s where he entertains, so it needs to be nice.
Craig also has an old house, but his is on a separate property, a couple of miles from the winery. It’s an old house, a big Queen Anne with an equally large porch. It was falling down when he bought it. Everyone thought it should come down. But Craig had to restore it, and we’re not talking a fashionable remodel like Chad did on his farmhouse, but a serious restoration, making it period authentic.
It’s what he does on weekends. It’s how he fills his free time. Every now and then he takes me there to show me what he’s accomplished since my last visit. Victorian inspired wallpaper, brass kick plates and fixtures, and dark stain paneling and refinished wood trim.
In many ways the house reminds me of the home my parents bought in New Rochelle after we returned from Morocco. High ceilings, big windows, handsome proportions.
I waited years for him to marry a girl and bring her home and fill the upstairs bedrooms with babies. But he never found the right girl. And I’m worried now he might think that the McAdams girl is the one for him.
She isn’t.
I tell him, too, once we’re in my room. I’m not as tactful as I once was. I don’t know why I should mince words when there is so little time left.
“What do you think of that McAdams girl, the dentist?” I ask him once I’m settled in my favorite armchair in the living room.
He leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “She’s quite pretty, and intelligent, and I think she did a really good job today.”
“She doesn’t strike me as a very warm person.”
“I wouldn’t say that. She’s certainly not cold. And given her profession, I imagine she’s probably very analytical.”
“She’s been through a bad breakup, you know. It left her quite scarred.”
“And you’re telling me this because . . . ?”
“I know you like brainy girls.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Which is why I wanted to speak to you about her. She’s not the girl for you. She’s got . . . issues. And you certainly don’t need that, not if you’re serious about settling down.”
He lifts a brow. “Who said I was serious about settling down?”
“You have that big house and all those bedrooms—”
“I didn’t restore the house to fill it with babies, Aunt Edie. I bought the house because it was close to the winery, dirt cheap, and had historical value.”
“You’re almost forty.”
“This is true, but as men can father children into their sixties, I feel absolutely no sense of urgency on that front.” He pushed off the wall and approached her. “Besides, you’ve said many a time you are not fond of babies. Have you changed your mind? Are you suddenly longing to have a great-great-grandniece or nephew to shower with affection?”
“No,” I answer crossly, glaring up at him. “And I’m glad you don’t feel any urgency with starting a family because I don’t think Alison is the girl you’ve been waiting for. Especially as she doesn’t even live in the area.”
The corners of his mouth tug into a smile. “Especially.”
NINE
Ali
I’m really busy Monday, but I sneak away from Bloom to take lunch to Dad, thinking we can have a quick bite together and catch up, but he’s racing off to meet friends for cards.
“You don’t usually play until later,” I tell him. “It’s only noon. Don’t we have an hour?”
“The game’s at one, but we’re meeting up for lunch today.”
“But you told me we’d have lunch today.”
“I forgot to call and cancel. I should have remembered—”
“I picked up sandwiches for us. Your favorite. Hot pastrami and Swiss—”
“Throw it in my fridge. I’ll eat it later.”
I’m frustrated. Annoyed. And maybe a little bit hurt. He doesn’t seem to realize how hard I try to be close to him, or how much I need to be close to him.
He sees my expression and stops short. “What? You’re mad?”
“Not mad. Disappointed. You and I had a lunch date.”
“I don’t think it was a formal lunch date—”
“Fine. No worries. I’ll put it in the fridge.” I lean forward, kiss him, not wanting to quibble as it’ll just frustrate me more. “I probably won’t be back tonight though—”
“So you are mad.”
“No. Diana just has a lot of orders today and the delivery guy is having car troubles so it’s crazy in the shop.”
“Well, call me later if things change.”
“I will.”
• • •
Back at Bloom, Diana hands me a half-dozen new orders that have come in during the past hour and while we make the arrangements we discuss the week ahead. It’s going to be another stressful week, with not one wedding, but two, on Saturday. Both weddings are smaller than last Saturday’s wedding, but they’re also more involved in terms of the flowers, as one has requested flower garlands for the church, along with bouquets and centerpieces, and the other wants the reception tent’s chandeliers decorated with floral wreaths and the tent’s support poles covered in flowers as well.
Later in the afternoon, while Diana remains at the store to fulfill new orders and put together a shopping list for the flower market, I head out to deliver orders, since the delivery guy’s van isn’t going to run before the end of the day.
My phone’s GPS makes the deliveries relatively easy and it was nice driving around the valley. The rolling hills and oak trees, interspersed with patches of farmland and old barns is certainly picturesque.
I can see why people like to visit. There is a great deal of rural charm. But I must have spent too many years growing up close to Seattle because I can’t imagine living in such a quiet little place.
One of my stops is a little town nine miles north of Napa named Yountville. You can’t miss it, it’s on Highway 29. I’m taking flowers to a woman for her eighty-eighth birthday and I carry them into the entrance, proud of the arrangement I made. I filled in the card, too, as the order was called in this morning. It’s from the woman’s grandchildren. She’ll be so happy to get the flowers, I think.
The sliding glass doors open and I enter a stark white lobby. The front desk is set back from the sliding doors and elderly men and women line the entrance, sitting in wooden chairs and wheel chairs, most still in pajamas and hospital-looking dressing gowns.
I suddenly feel like a little girl going to sing Christmas carols with my Girl Scout troop.
It smells here, just as it did back then, the scent of sweat and age and urine clinging
to the air.
I wait at the front desk for the woman to get off the phone. I’m eager to hand the flowers over and go. And all the while I’m standing, waiting for the woman’s attention, I keep thinking, Napa Estates doesn’t smell.
And no, it shouldn’t. It’s not just a boardinghouse for the aged and infirm. It’s relatively affluent and either the seniors are financially secure or someone in the family is—but here, this, this is exactly the kind of place I don’t want to end up in when I’m old. This is the kind of place that haunts children when they’re small.
Every year as a Brownie and Cadette, we’d go to the local convalescent homes during the holidays and sing carols to earn our merit badges, and I’ve never forgotten standing in doorway after doorway of rooms where gaunt old women with unseeing eyes lay in hospital beds, mouths open, smelling of old pee.
“Can I help you?” the woman asks from behind the counter.
“A delivery for Florence Steadman.” I smile to hide how much I dislike this place. I am so very glad Dad doesn’t have to be here. “Birthday flowers.”
The woman doesn’t smile back. She sighs, irritated, as if I’ve brought her a set of problems she’s not equipped to handle. “Just put them down.”
I think about the call from her granddaughter this morning, a woman who’d phoned from Charleston and was most adamant that we send her nanna not just any flowers but really beautiful ones, and the flowers are beautiful. Dark pink roses, delicate pink peonies, and tufts of fragrant white freesias. “Would you like me to take the flowers to her room?” I offer, angry at all of this. This aging and life-and-death stuff.
The woman shrugs. “Fine. Great. She’s down the hall, on the right, near the end. Her name is on the door.”
I carry the flowers down, passing a dozen rooms with the doors all open, and just like when I was a little girl, the hospital beds are filled with gaunt-looking men and women, and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been spending more time with Dad lately, or if it’s just because I’m thirty and not nine, but today I feel like they watch me curiously, hopefully, wondering if something good and interesting might happen.
I reach Florence Steadman’s room, and yes, her name is on the door. I knock lightly and step in. A tiny lady in a pale aqua bed jacket sits propped up in bed, her long white hair hanging over her shoulder. Her eyes are closed. Her mouth is slightly open. I can hear her snoring faintly.
I don’t want to wake her. Quietly I go to the side of her bed, and even more quietly roll her hospital table close to her side and put the flowers there, next to her water container with the straw, so she’ll see them when she wakes up.
This is Lindsey’s nanna. Lindsey used to love Saturday afternoons at her nanna’s. They’d bake together, cookies and cakes, and Nanna would also make Lindsey special matching dresses for her and her favorite doll.
I take a moment to look around the room. A balloon bouquet with a miniature teddy bear is on the windowsill. There’s another floral arrangement, too, by the balloons, a small cluster of yellow and white daisies in a yellow teacup with a happy face.
The flowers are so far away I don’t know how Florence is supposed to see them.
I’m turning to leave when Florence’s eyes open. She looks at me. I’m suddenly not sure what to do, or say. “Hello.”
She looks at me carefully. “Are you an aide?”
“No, I’m from Bloom Florist. I’m delivering flowers from your granddaughter Lindsey.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” The woman looks at the flowers. “Those are very pretty.”
“Are you having a nice birthday?”
“I am. Thank you.”
“I’m glad.”
And then I’m leaving, hurrying out to walk quickly back down the long sterile white hall and through the sliding glass doors to the parking lot.
Life is hard, I think.
And then it’s over.
• • •
I go see Dad immediately after. He’s in his room, having had an early dinner, and he’s got his feet up in his favorite recliner.
He’s surprised to see me. “I didn’t think you were coming by again today.”
“I wondered how your game went this afternoon.”
“We won.”
“Which should make you happy.”
“It does.”
I lean over and kiss him. “Mom hated that chair,” I say, flopping down on the couch.
“I don’t know why, as she bought it for me.”
“It’s such a guy chair. Men love their La-Z-Boys.”
“Your mother secretly wanted one, too, but she wouldn’t ever admit it.”
“How do you know she wanted one?”
“Because every time I came home, I’d find her in mine.”
I smile, because I can picture her in his chair, reading and doing paperwork. She did spend a lot of time in that chair, now that I think about it.
As if aware of my thoughts, Dad says, “I talk to her all the time.”
My heart falls. “Do you?”
He nods, his gaze still glued to the TV.
“So how is she?” I ask, trying to be funny, but failing. I miss her, and Andrew. I miss how life used to be. I’d once felt so stable and confident. I knew where I was going and what I was supposed to do.
Now I’m just lucky if I can put one foot in front of the other.
“It makes me feel close to her, talking to her.”
“I’m glad you talk to her.”
“Do you?” he asks, after a moment. “Talk to her?”
My gut churns. I feel guilty. I talk to her a little bit, probably about the same amount I talk to Andrew.
Not that I always talk to Andrew. Sometimes I yell at him.
Or ignore him.
I’m still so mad at him. He had no right leaving the way he did.
You don’t just get to quit. You don’t get to opt out. Life isn’t a survey.
My eyes burn and I tilt my head back, press a hand to my eyes, covering them. Not going to cry. It won’t help to cry. “Do you think she can hear you?” I ask, my voice suddenly husky.
“Yes.”
“Good.” I wait, fighting tears, fighting hard. “Then will you tell her I love her?”
• • •
I arrive back home to 33 Poppy Lane just after sunset, the house swallowed in lavender shadows. Twilight is bittersweet. Neither here nor there.
I sit in the car and just look at it, knowing it’s just a matter of time before Dad does sell it. There is no point in him hanging on to it. California real estate has bounced back following the recession. Dad should put it on the market while he can make a nice return on his investment.
Should he sell it, he’ll want to spruce up the entrance . . . add flowers to the plain green hedges, pretty colorful perennials to add some curb appeal.
During Dad and Mom’s first year here, Mom planted dozens of dahlia bulbs with zinnias and gerbera daisies in the front. Her summer garden was spectacular. Her only regret was that it was such a quiet street, no one would ever see the summer color show.
One day I’ll plant a garden like that. A garden full of orange, red, and purple flowers.
• • •
Diana wasn’t exaggerating. It is a busy, stressful week, and now on Thursday she’s driven to San Francisco’s flower market to purchase all the flowers for this weekend’s weddings, since she can get a much better deal there than in Napa.
She’s left me in charge of Bloom for the day. I told her I didn’t think it was a great idea. She said it was me or close the shop since the other part-time girl she hired is flakey and can’t be trusted to open, take money, or close. So here I am at Bloom, making sure the part-time girl is making up the right arrangement while I schedule the deliveries with the driver and his unreliable vehicle.
Diana is back by four and she begs me to run a box of candles, glass hurricane vases, and a huge urn filled with freshly cut branches of blooming lilacs out to Dark Horse Winery,
to the caterer who has just placed a desperate call for flowers because the other florist failed to deliver.
“I’d go myself,” Diana says, “but my car is filled with thousands of dollars of flowers for Saturday’s weddings and I’ve got to get them into fresh water in the refrigerator.”
I call Dad to tell him I’ll be late for dinner and he says not to worry, he’ll just see me tomorrow but I should know that Edie is looking for me. Ruth has a dentist appointment tomorrow and Edie would like me to take Ruth to it.
“I can’t, Dad. Diana’s desperately short on help and we’re going to be working late as it is tomorrow, getting everything ready for the two weddings on Saturday.”
“Ruth’s scared,” Dad answers. “Edie thinks she’d be calmer if you accompanied her. Ruth likes you.”
“I would if it were another day, but tomorrow is impossible.”
“Would you at least come by in the morning and tell Edie? She never asks for anything, Alison, and maybe if you talk to her, she can reschedule?”
“I promise I’ll come by early and talk to Edie.”
• • •
I arrive at Dark Horse Winery and am met by a frazzled-looking caterer. “Thank God,” she says, wiping her hands on her white apron. “We had no centerpieces, no flowers, nothing.”
“Where do you want everything?”
“Three hurricanes with candles on the main buffet table, another one on each of the small rounds. If there are any extras, I’ll find a home for them.”
“And the flowers?”
“I’m going to leave them as they are, in that silver urn, and put it on the table at the entrance for wow factor.”
She rushes off, back to her food prep, and I’m putting the candles where she wanted them when I spot Craig Hallahan heading my way.
“When did you become the deliveryman?” he asks.
“When the deliveryman couldn’t deliver.” I smile. “How are you?”
“Good. Need a hand?”
“I’ve got an enormous urn of lilacs in the back of my car. If you want to put them on that table at the entrance to the patio, that would be great.”
He does, and then helps me carry the empty cardboard boxes back to the car. “Have a lot more deliveries?” he asks.