Eight Hundred Grapes

by Laura Dave

He leaned in and put his face up to my ear, whispering.

  “The important thing is what I decided. I decided to stay with you. It was the easiest decision I ever made.”

  I nodded and wrapped my arms around him, trying to trust his words. Still, something felt off in his explanation. It didn’t feel like the whole story. The whole story was that Michelle had left Ben. Now she wanted him back. That seemed to be the story.

  And here was the problem—it wasn’t about Ben messing with our master plan—with my idea of what our ordered and lovely life was going to look like. It wasn’t about knowing I was going to have to navigate Michelle.

  It was about the fact that when Ben said it was the easiest decision he ever made, staying with me, he shielded his eyes. He shielded his eyes and, even if he wasn’t saying it out loud, I knew he only wanted that to be true.

  I told Ben I needed a minute alone and walked to the bar, pouring myself sparkling wine, downing a glass. The bartender stared at my speed, not saying anything, but wanting to say something. I gave him a look, daring him.

  I took the bottle itself and moved away from the bar. I moved toward the corner, where I could watch Finn on his side of the party, Bobby on his. My mother looked back and forth between them as she stood there with Henry; Henry, who looked uncomfortable—not because he was there—I had learned enough about Henry to know there probably wasn’t any room in the world he felt uncomfortable in. No, he was uncomfortable because he saw how agitated my mother was and he thought he was causing it. He was uncomfortable because he cared.

  I poured more sparkling wine into my glass when Lee came up to me in the corner, like she belonged there too. “The bartender says you took the last of the good stuff. Care to hand some of it over?”

  She took my glass out of my hands, making it her own. “You okay?” she said.

  I nodded.

  She took a long sip, my heart racing. “You don’t seem it,” she said. She looked at me, debating whether she knew me well enough to say it. She turned away, apparently deciding against it. Then, thinking again, she turned back.

  “You shouldn’t feel badly about it,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  She motioned toward Michelle, back with her daughter and Ben. “It would be hard for anyone if Michelle Carter was their husband’s ex,” she said. “Even Michelle Carter.”

  Then she handed the glass back over. I smiled. “Thanks.”

  “You should feel badly about pretending not to know me when you met me yesterday. If you want to feel badly about something, feel badly about that. Why did you do that?”

  “What?”

  She took the bottle of champagne out of my hand, poured some more into our shared glass, taking another sip herself. “You heard me.”

  She shrugged, but she looked at me like she was playing way past that. I wasn’t incredibly uncomfortable that Lee, computer genius, spoon and glass sharer, was a step ahead.

  “Did Jacob tell you that I’m taking a job in Seattle?”

  That stopped me. “You did? When?”

  She nodded. “I just attended Foo Camp, which—do you know it from growing up here? Anyway, I was offered a job in Seattle at a start-up that deals with online privacy. I’ll make software for them. Really cutting-edge stuff.”

  I remembered Jacob’s suitcase in his trunk, the fight they must have had when Lee told him that was what she wanted.

  She looked around the party, up toward the West County sky. “It’s a little hard for Jacob to think about leaving here, but it’s what’s right for me. The job. Seattle.” She shrugged, looking down. “Jacob says he’s getting used to the idea . . . Murray Grant Wines has operation managers. More than they know what to do with. Jacob can oversee the production from Seattle.”

  “That’s great,” I said, trying to sound relaxed about it. Which was when it occurred to me how un-relaxed it made me feel: Jacob moving to Seattle, leaving here.

  “Is it?”

  Lee leaned in and motioned toward Jacob, where he was standing with my father toward the edge of the tent. And near them was Ben. So it was possible she was motioning toward him.

  “Good men don’t like to quit. Have you noticed that? I’ve noticed that. They don’t give up, even when they should.”

  I nodded, wanting to agree with her, though I wasn’t sure exactly what I was agreeing to, looking at Jacob, at Ben.

  She met my eyes. “I would like to think that if I were staying here we would become friends. Don’t you think so too?”

  It was a strange thing to say and yet it was sincere. It warmed me to her. “Maybe we’ll have another shot.”

  She smiled. “Maybe we will,” she said.

  Then she held up the champagne.

  “Anyway, I’m going to find Jacob and drink the rest of this bottle,” she said.

  She started to move toward him where he was standing with my father. This was when she turned back.

  “He is a good man,” she said. “Jacob. He is a very good man.”

  “Why are you telling me that?”

  “Because I know the reason that you didn’t introduce yourself to me yesterday.”

  The Defrosting

  Finn was hiding in the winemaker’s cottage, defrosting the last frozen lasagna. He was stabbing at the thick noodles with a wooden spoon, but he wasn’t making much headway.

  He looked up. “I didn’t do the best job defrosting this,” he said.

  “You can’t just hide in here eating that, anyway,” I said.

  “Why not? Should I be out there chatting it up with Mom’s new boyfriend? The guy walked over and introduced himself to me, said he’s heard a lot about me. I was like, really? Because I’ve heard very little about you. That was my first mistake. I got like an hour on his seminal interpretation of Beethoven’s Fifth. Reminded me of how much I’ve always hated classical music.”

  He stood up, turned on the burner. Then he dumped his bowl of lasagna into the saucepan, started stirring it back and forth.

  “And I’m not just hiding,” he said. “I’m planning.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He shrugged. “I told you I was going to change things. However I can. So I am. I’m doing it. I’m moving to New York.”

  “This wasn’t what I meant.”

  “Well, beggars can’t be choosers.”

  I shook my head, heartbroken. Heartbroken that he was leaving, but mostly because I didn’t think that he was going to find what he was looking for there.

  “Would you feel better if I told you I had some great photography opportunities waiting for me there?”

  “A little.”

  “I have a great photography opportunity waiting for me there.”

  “Finn, you aren’t going to find what you’re looking for there. It doesn’t work like that. Besides, you love it here. You belong here. What do you think somewhere else is going to give you?”

  “Peace of mind. And joy.”

  I closed my eyes, unsure how to get through to him. He didn’t want to listen, anyway—he was too busy shoving the wooden spoon into the frozen lasagna and getting nowhere with it. I stood up and took the spoon away from him, turned the burner up higher.

  “Anyway, moving away worked out for you,” he said.

  “Less than you might think.”

  Finn sat down on the countertop. “Is a certain movie star slash ex-girlfriend ruining your night?”

  “I think she loves him.”

  Finn tilted his head. “Are you sure? She’s an actress. Isn’t she supposed to pretend she loves everyone?”

  I laughed.

  “I don’t want a lecture. And I don’t want to give one. Though, I do think we could each use one on fighting a fight that we’re not sure we want to win.”

  He paused.

 
“But I want other things more. Like hotter lasagna. Let’s just agree to sit here quietly. If we sit here quietly, maybe we can get through the rest of the night without talking to anyone,” he said.

  I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t argue—when Finn pulled the only card he had. When Finn reached over and took my hand.

  “You lifted the lasagna?”

  We turned to find our mother in the doorway, her arms crossed, looking pissed. Not just at Finn, but at me too. She looked pissed at me for not doing it, whatever she had come here to do.

  “Oh, jeez,” Finn said.

  “That’s right. Oh, jeez. Your father is looking for both of you. He wants to get started with the good-bye toast. He wants to introduce Jacob. And then he wants everyone to go home.”

  Finn stood, but she stood in front of him.

  “He’s your brother. Move on. However you can.”

  He nodded. “I am,” he said. “I’m moving to New York.”

  “That’s not moving on. That’s moving away.”

  She started moving toward the doorway, done with the conversation. But Finn wasn’t.

  “Couldn’t we say the same thing to you?” he said.

  My mother put her hands up. “You can say whatever you want to me later. And maybe you should. Right now, I suggest you go outside before I lose my mind.”

  Then my mother hustled us both out of the kitchen, and back to the party, where our father was waiting to give the last harvest toast.

  None of us stopping to do it. To take the lasagna from the stove.

  Synchronization

  My father held an unlabeled wine bottle in his hands. “Look at this crowd out here tonight,” he said. “People in Sebastopol will go anywhere for some free wine, won’t you?”

  Everyone applauded, my father moving to the center of the stage, a small podium to speak behind.

  The entire party was semicircled around him. My family stood together behind him but we weren’t together. My mother stood by me, Finn next to him, trying not to look at Margaret, Bobby off to the side. The twins held on to their parents’ legs. Exhausted. Exhausted from the party and maybe from taking care of their parents.

  Henry stood on the edge of the tent, his eyes focused on my mother.

  Ben was near him, Michelle and Maddie a few steps behind. He met my eyes and tried to give me a smile. I looked away.

  Then I saw Jacob, Lee standing by his side. He was looking at my father, my father, who was staring at this party of two hundred people, my father, who was the reason so many of them were standing there. And tonight, because he could, my father put on his baseball cap, Cork Dork embroidered on the lid.

  They laughed. My father turned the cap around, backward, and then he picked up the bottle of wine. “Jen is going to cork this, but I bet you guys are expecting a speech from me first.”

  “We are!” Gary called out.

  “You ain’t getting one,” he said. “I have nothing to say to any of you.”

  Then he turned to my mother again.

  “Except you.”

  He motioned for her to join him by the podium, which she did.

  My father turned the microphone off. Then he whispered to my mother what she most needed to hear.

  “What the hell are you saying, Dan?” Louise said. “Speak the fuck up, people.”

  But my father was looking only at my mother, waiting for her response.

  My mother reached for my father, the way she had done a thousand times before, the way I’d taken for granted that she would do a thousand times more. My mother reached for my father and held him to her, everyone applauding. It took just a minute to realize what they were doing, which at first looked like huddling. My father’s tapping foot giving it away, my mother’s shoulders swaying. They were dancing. Terribly and wonderfully. And together.

  Then Henry screamed from his place on the edge of the tent. Henry screamed loudly.

  “Fire,” he said.

  Over the applause, it sounded like liar. So we didn’t see it for a second, what was happening, where Henry was pointing.

  He pointed toward a blast of smoke. It was coming from the winemaker’s cottage, smoke and rising flames. A fire.

  “Oh, shit,” Bobby said.

  We all started moving as fast as we could down the hill, toward the cottage. I was up front with Finn and Bobby and my parents, sheer terror driving us. Ben and Jacob were close behind, Jacob dialing 911 as he ran. The rest of the party—all two hundred of them—making their way down the hill to try and help. Lee and Henry, Margaret carrying the twins, Michelle holding Maddie.

  “The fire department is on its way!” Jacob called out just as we reached the wine cottage, the smoke and heat from the fire hitting us, pushing us all back.

  Ben put his arm in front of me, put his body in front.

  “Jesus!” my mother called out, my father holding her back. She turned and saw Margaret and the twins, Michelle and Maddie, higher on the hill. It wasn’t high enough for her.

  “Get the kids out of here!” she said.

  There was no arguing with that voice. They didn’t want to argue. Margaret and Michelle were already steering the children away.

  “Stand back,” Finn said.

  Bobby and Finn each triggered a fire extinguisher. Ben ran forward to stand by their sides.

  My heart threatened to pound right out of my chest. In weather this dry, the cottage was like kindling—the wind blowing strong, the fire threatening to spread to the vineyard around it, if we didn’t do something. Fast.

  Finn aimed the fire extinguisher, high, getting as close to the porch as possible. But the fire extinguisher looked like it wasn’t going to be able to take the fire down. It looked like it was flaming it.

  Finn started coughing, still pushing forward.

  My father moved forward. “It’s enough.”

  I could hear the sirens, still far away.

  Bobby stepped forward. “Get back, Dad,” he said.

  Then he aimed the fire extinguisher even higher, the wind catching the fire, pulling it toward the vineyard.

  The wine cottage porch started to collapse.

  “Let it go,” my father called out.

  Ben turned and looked at me, deep sorrow in his eyes.

  I looked straight ahead at the wine cottage, the smoke wafting over it, moving toward the vineyard. I started to move forward, toward the fire, as if I could do what no one else had been able to do. As if I could stop it before it got to the vineyard.

  I could feel a hand on my arm, stopping me. Jacob. I met his eyes.

  “No,” he said.

  Then a bolt of thunder exploded in the sky. It came quickly: the rain following, splashing down, a waterfall. The thunder crashing onto the edge of the vineyard.

  I looked up at the pouring rain, hard, deep pellets hitting my skin.

  The rain heaped down, pushing through the cottage, the fire engines’ sirens getting closer.

  The water was taking care of the fire, the flames receding beneath the downpour. Relief seeped through me.

  Synchronization. Wasn’t this the definition? A fire hits a vineyard. And then, like a miracle, it starts to pour. It was overdue to pour but it starts then, pressing down at the fire.

  And then I looked toward the vineyard and I realized. The rain. The rain that was saving the vineyard. It would ruin the grapes that were still on the vine—Block 14, my father’s most valuable grapes. We had to get to them first. All of us realized it at once.

  “Move!” Bobby said. “Move.”

  We took flight, me and Finn and Bobby, Jacob and Ben not far behind us, my mother and father not far behind them. The entire family ran through the vineyard to get to the rest of the grapes. The messy, wonderful business of getting the job done for each other when you most needed to.

&nb
sp; We arrived at Block 14 and started pulling at the soaking grapes. We pulled at the clusters even without clippers, grabbing the available buckets from beneath the vines.

  The fire trucks’ sirens were loud and close, the firemen arriving to help with the fight.

  It was why I didn’t hear it at first, none of us heard it, through the rain, through the running.

  My father was down on the ground.

  Holding on to my mother.

  Limp, listless. In her arms.

  Part 4

  The Last Harvest

  The Waiting Room

  There was a moment before we were in the car racing to the hospital. There was a moment before we all stopped what we were doing and started moving toward our father. But that moment was blurred. By the rain, by the sound of my mother. What was clear was what came next. We were racing to the hospital, almost as soon as we saw my father there. Finn driving, me in the passenger seat, my mother holding my father in the back, Bobby and Margaret and Ben in the car behind. All of us were too scared to wait for the ambulance, needing to do something, leaving the kids behind with Michelle, all the kids staying with the movie star.

  There was a moment before we were in the waiting room at Sonoma County Hospital, full of Fords, the mishmash of people they loved. All of them currently afraid of losing the person they loved the most: Margaret held on to Bobby, Finn stood with my mother, I was sitting with Ben on a bench. And Jacob. Jacob was standing off to the side.

  Bobby started pacing. “We have been sitting here for hours, someone has to do something.”

  Finn shook his head. “What do you want us to do, Bobby?”

  “Something.”

  I leaned in to Ben, Finn holding my mother. It was something when you lose your center. My father, in a way that we weren’t willing to acknowledge, was that. And in the moment I saw him lying in the vineyard, I realized it wasn’t the vineyard I feared losing. It was him. As long as he was working the land, I got to imagine it. That the day without him would never come.

  My mother stood up. “That’s him.”