* * *
Melinda’s hand fell away from Jack’s arm.
The second his truck was out of sight, she went looking for the one person she could always count on.
She found him in the vineyard, pruning and tying up trellises.
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” drawled Alfred when she told him about the elopement. “Most men Jack’s age don’t live with their mothers. About time for him to remarry.”
But despite Jack’s admissions, her opinions were stubbornly fixed. She couldn’t just turn on a dime. “Our family isn’t like most families,” Melinda snapped, blotting her eyes with a tissue.
Alfred dropped his shears. Singling out a vine, he slowly, gently bent it toward the trellis wire and, holding it in place, wrapped a length of twine around it, securing it with a knot.
“What’s it going to take, Melinda?”
She stared down at his serviceable boots. “What do you mean?”
“When are you going to learn to accept people at face value?”
She didn’t respond.
“I might not fit in with your country club crowd. But I care for you, even if I don’t meet your standards. Standards you can’t seem to let go of, even when they thwart your own happiness and that of your son.”
“I—I care for you.”
“You’re only saying that because I put you on the spot. I’ve given you the last seventeen years of my life. Everyone thinks my loyalty is to the winery, but they’re wrong. It’s you that’s kept me here, year after year. But all I am to you is someone to run to when things need fixed.”
“That’s not true!”
“The only things you want from me are help with business and the occasional roll in the hay. Whenever I ask you to go out in public or to my place, you close up like a liquor store in Salt Lake City on a Sunday.”
A sob escaped from her. “I’ve thought about going out in the open with what we have. But every time I think I’m ready, I panic.”
Mascara ran down her red cheeks.
Alfred pulled off his gloves and put his arms around her. “Stop crying,” he said, slowly stroking her hair. “It pains me to see you like this.”
When she had calmed a little, she pressed her palm to his chest, flirtatiously fingering his shirt collar.
But Alfred was determined not to fall back into their stale pattern. Jack had taken a risk. It was time for him to take one, too.
“If you care for me like you say you do, come with me now.”
“Where? I only came out here for a minute. I have things to do . . .”
“Suit yourself.” Alfred picked up his gloves again.
Melinda watched him put them on and pick up his shears.
“All right.”
He looked at her, standing there contritely.
“All right, then.” He reached for her hand. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Neither Alfred nor Melinda said much in the truck.
Twenty minutes later, they drove down a long lane to an unpretentious ranch house with stone and natural wood siding and a green metal roof.
Melinda followed Alfred down the walk. It was still winter, but a few hyacinths were nosing out from the soil.
Alfred unlocked the door to his house and stood aside. “Ladies first.”
She entered a spare yet tastefully decorated room with a slate-tile floor. The opposite wall was composed entirely of windows, allowing for a lot of light. She wanted to curl up on the masculine beige couch beneath one of those globe lights and never get up.
In all the years she had known Alfred, after all the times he’d hinted at bringing her here, this was the first time she had come.
“Want to see the rest?”
She nodded.
Everything was as tidy as if he’d known he’d be bringing home a guest, though, of course, he hadn’t.
When they circled back to the living room, he grabbed two apples from a wooden trencher on the dining table and said, “I’ll take you to meet Dave and Petey.”
Outside, Alfred’s half-dozen fruit trees had been meticulously pruned. Up against one stable wall was a neat stack of firewood.
A horse, hearing them coming, clopped over and hung his head over the opening in the half door. “This is Dave,” said Alfred. Producing a pocketknife, he cut the apples into slices, gave Melinda some, and fed Dave a piece.
“Hee haw.”
Melinda looked at Alfred wide-eyed, a smile growing on her face.
“I didn’t forget you,” Alfred said, reaching through the opening.
“It’s a donkey,” she said, peering around him.
“Dave and Petey were brought up in the same stable. I didn’t have to buy Petey when I bought Dave, but horses are herd animals. I didn’t want Dave to be lonesome while I was at work.”
Melinda thought of Alfred’s long, long workdays. “Sometimes I forget you have a life outside work.” A very peaceful, satisfying life, from the looks of it.
“I’m a simple man. I never wanted for much. Not much I need.”
The apples gone, he offered Melinda first dibs to wipe her hands with his bandanna.
“Though it’d be nice if Dave and Petey’d hold up their end of the conversation a little better.”
“I’ve been a fool, Alfred,” she said stoically, blotting the corner of her eye.
Alfred tossed an arm around her shoulder companionably and they began to walk slowly back to the cabin. “Heh-heh. Show me the man—or woman—who hasn’t made a mistake and I’ll show you a man who’s done nothing with his life.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing, protecting my son. But in doing it, I wronged him. And I don’t know how I can ever make it right.”
Chapter Forty-six
“Careful! Don’t get too close!” Jack tried to be cool about standing atop a thousand-foot sandstone monolith, but he couldn’t help startling when Frankie and Freddie, holding hands, wandered toward the sheer drop-off to look out at the three hundred sixty-degree view of the desert.
Harley didn’t appear a bit worried. She shielded her eyes as she peered into the sky, her long skirt blowing sideways as if there was a string tied to her hem and an invisible force was pulling on it.
“What are we waiting for?” Jack yelled nervously. The orange helicopter had set them and the officiant down ten minutes before.
“Just a little longer,” said Harley.
And then Jack heard the sound of another chopper.
“That’s them!” said Harley.
“Who?”
“You’ll see.”
A few minutes later, the chopper landed, and a couple emerged from beneath the rotors.
“Mom! Dad!” Harley ran across the butte in her cowgirl boots, holding up her kimono.
Cindy threw out her arms. “We made it, baby girl!”
Jack jogged over and caught up with Harley. “You invited your parents to our wedding?” he asked, incredulous.
“We’re not guests—we’re getting hitched right alongside of you,” said Tucker.
“When I told Mom we were getting married overlooking the Navajo Nation, she thought she and Dad should get married, too.”
“It was a sign,” said Cindy, showing Jack her turquoise ring.
“How was Spain?” asked Harley.
But before she could answer, the officiant came up to them. “Are we all here now?”
“I’ll tell you all about it later,” replied her mother.
Jack lifted an inquiring brow at Harley. “Any more surprises?”
“Always,” she laughed, brushing an untamed lock of hair from her eyes.
Chapter Forty-seven
Six months later
Jack walked through the vineyards, Alfred at his side, nibbling grapes picked here and there as he had been doing for weeks.
“Something I wanted to run past you. What’s in that little barn next to the goat pen?”
“A mower and some odds and ends of tools. That�
��s about it.”
“I’m not ready to sell my bottomland yet, but because I’ve been spending more time with your mother, I’m looking for a closer place to keep my horse and donkey.”
“The twins would go nuts. I can talk to Harley.”
“That Freddie’s something else on the soccer field,” said Alfred. Now that he and Mother had become an acknowledged couple, he was getting to really know the twins for the first time. Alfred’s easy chair and lamp had come out of the supply closet and into what had once been Don Friestatt’s den.
“You got plans for Thanksgiving?” asked Alfred offhandedly.
“Not yet.”
Jack didn’t want to think about the upcoming holidays.
When Mother had realized the twins were able to choose where they wanted to spend their time, she had made some adjustments. She quietly researched other locations for the tourist center, finding space to lease in an existing building that would be more economically feasible in the long run.
And she had quit the country club.
But despite all the adults behaving cordially for the sake of the girls, relations between Jack and his mother were far from healed.
“It’s still early,” said Alfred.
“Why?” asked Jack, not meeting his eyes. “Did Mother say something?”
“Not in so many words. But I can read her mind. I can tell she’s already fretting over it.”
Jack held the refractometer up to his eye like a spyglass. “I think this is it. I think we’ve got Brix.”
But when it came to deciding when to pick, Alfred had always had the last say. Jack handed Alfred a grape to try. “What do you think?”
Alfred crushed the grape in his mouth. “Don’t go by what the book says. What’s your gut tell you?”
Jack thought. “I feel this anticipation in the pit of my stomach. Like I’m ready to skydive.”
“Or jump off the Berryessa Bridge?” asked Alfred.
“What?”
“Never mind. You’ve waited for this. The time has come. It’s your decision.”
“Let’s do it,” said Jack.
Alfred nodded his approval, making it official.
* * *
In October, Jack and Harley took Frankie to a modern dance performance in Portland and bought her a costume she wore for Halloween. Freddie was Wonder Woman.
In early November, Harley and the twins sat on the floor in her studio, the old comics Harley had given Freddie scattered around them.
“The whole philosophy behind altered books is to take something that already exists and change it into something new,” said Harley, cutting a shape into a book.
“I can’t find the one I want to use,” Freddie complained. “Hey. What’s this?”
Harley reached for the creased and yellowed paper printed with childish lettering. “Where did you find that?”
“Here, tucked inside this Wonder Woman comic.”
A smile split Harley’s face. “Wait till your dad sees this!”
“What is it?”
“I know where to find him,” said Harley. “Let’s go.”
She rose and, extending one hand to each of the twins, pulled them up.
* * *
Jack and Alfred were checking the lot of grapes left unpicked during the crush. Jack saw Harley and the girls wading through the tall grass long before they reached him.
“Thought you guys were working on an art project.”
“We found something,” Freddie panted, handing Jack the paper.
“It’s a buried treasure map!” exclaimed Frankie.
Jack’s eyes met Harley’s. “Where on earth’d you—”
“Stuck in one of Harley’s old comics,” said Freddie.
“That explains the spades,” said Alfred, nodding to the shovels the girls carried.
“We’re going to try to find the treasure,” said Freddie. “Want to help?”
Jack looked at the map and then at their surroundings.
“If I remember right, this tree, here,” he said, pointing at the map, “could be that old sycamore, over there.”
He set out for a row of virgin woods that had been left standing a hundred years before, when the land had been cleared for planting filbert orchards, followed closely by the girls and, farther back, Harley and Alfred.
When they got to the tangle of trees choked with vines and thorny shrubbery, Jack scratched his head. He kicked at the newly fallen leaves, revealing layer upon layer of rich duff. “There’s more than twenty years’ worth of detritus here. It’s going to be hard to find anything.”
“Just read the map,” cried Frankie. “See? Right here, where this X is.”
“It’s not that easy,” said Harley. “But there’s something about this spot that calls to me.” She got down on her hands and knees, sunlight shining through the half-bare tree branches dappling her shoulders, and brushed away the litter until she reached bare soil. Then she stood, and with her boot, pushed her spade into the ground. Everyone watched as she dug spadeful after spadeful of dirt.
“That’s not it,” said Jack. “It can’t be deeper than that.”
“Let us try,” said the girls, digging randomly.
They dug experimental, shallow holes until the ground was pockmarked. Meantime, Jack kept studying the map, turning this way and that, trying to find his bearings.
“Freddie,” he called. “Try here.”
Everyone gathered round as Freddie dug until she was grunting with effort.
“Here. Let me try,” said Frankie. With fresh energy she shoved in her spade. Immediately, they heard a dull, metallic clink.
“Hear that? I hit something!”
“Keep digging!” shouted Freddie, joining in.
“Careful, now,” said Jack. “Whatever it is, you don’t want to damage it.”
“I see something!” shouted Frankie.
When the curved shapes became apparent in the dark soil, the girls threw their tools aside and dug faster, using their bare hands.
“I found the treasure!” Freddie cried, holding up a spoon covered with tarnish.
“Well I’ll be,” said Alfred. He frowned. “Where have I seen that before?”
“I found another one!” shouted Frankie, brushing dirt off hers.
They found two more.
“You can stop now,” said Jack, throwing his arm around Harley. “There were only four.”
“How do you know?”
“Let me see one,” said Harley. She rubbed the handle with her thumb. The dirt embedded in the engraving revealed the scrolled initial, F.
But the girls were on a roll. If they could find one treasure, maybe they could find another.
Their search took them farther and farther from the grown-ups.
“The jig is up, you two.” Alfred grinned. “I remember where I’ve seen that pattern before. Just this morning, sticking out of my cereal bowl. Your mother must’ve given up getting those spoons back years ago. Can’t wait to see her face when you hand ’em to her.”
“Who says I’m going to give them back?” asked Jack.
“It’s going on a year now,” said Alfred, referring to their rift. “You can afford to meet her halfway.”
“She might have made some conciliatory gestures.” He and Mother still worked together, but they hadn’t all sat down to a meal together since the elopement. “But there’s no sign she’s willing to take a step back and let me take my rightful place in the company.”
He felt a light touch on his sleeve.
“Jack,” said Harley, with a nod toward where the girls sat in the dirt. “Not so loud.”
But though he’d managed to tamp it down, deep inside his anger still smoldered. His head whipped around to her. “How can I forgive my mother for coming this close to ruining my life?”
“Nothing’s all bad,” said Alfred. “You got your twins, don’t you?”
“That doesn’t fix Mother’s need to control everyone and everything around her.�
�
“How much do you know about your mother’s childhood?”
Jack shrugged. “She never talked much about it. Mother was always more about looking ahead than behind.”
“Did you know her parents?”
He shook his head impatiently. “She didn’t have anything to do with her father. She said he abandoned the family. Her mom died right after she and Dad got married.”
“They were your grandparents. Didn’t you ever wonder about them?”
“That was a long time ago. What do two people I never knew have to do with what’s going on now?”
“I’m about to tell you if you’ll just give me a chance.”
“Go ahead. I’m listening.”
“Your mother grew up scrimping and scraping for everything she ever had, while all the time hearing stories of how well-off her grandparents had been.”
Jack looked at Alfred blankly.
“By the look on your face, she never burdened you with that information.”
“Mother has always thought she was better than everyone else.”
“The truth is, it’s just the opposite. Your mother grew up feeling inferior, not superior.”
Alfred explained what Mother had told him about living without knowing if she would have enough food to eat from day to day. “She never told you that?”
Jack shook his head. “I still find it hard to believe.”
“She developed an obsession about never being poor again, and especially, never letting what happened to her happen to you.”
“That explains so much,” said Harley. “The music lessons to make you well-rounded, the golf to forge connections. A business degree on top of your apprenticeship under Alfred and her.”
“Don’t forget her idea of the right kind of woman,” said Jack.
“I know what it feels like to be an outlier,” said Harley. “Here come the girls. They must have fizzled out. I’ll take them home now. See you two later.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Two of the twins’ chores included bringing the mail up from the mailbox down on the road and taking care of the animals.
Right All Along Page 25