“No Henry tonight?” I said.
She smiled, giving me a look that said it wasn’t okay and, also, that she forgave me. “No. Not tonight. He’s in rehearsals.”
“Good for him.”
“Good for San Francisco, actually,” she said. “Henry is one of the most beloved conductors in the world. He ran the New York Philharmonic, and was chief conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic before that. He has changed the template for what an American orchestra can be.”
“That sounds like an exaggeration.”
“It’s an understatement. He’s mentored scores of prominent musicians. And he’s brought contemporary American music back into vogue in this country. You should look up his bio on Wikipedia. Don’t take my word for it.”
I nodded in a way that said I’d get right on learning all I could about Henry. If get right on it meant never.
She paused, deciding how to shift gears. “Your fiancé called me,” she said.
I nodded. “That seems to be what he’s doing today,” I said.
“He’s very torn up.” She shook her head. “I told him it was between the two of you. That I loved him, but I love you more and I support whatever you decide together.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“I did tell him not to call your father, though.” She shrugged. “I doubt your father will think it’s between the two of you.”
I knew she was right. My father would be furious at Ben, not for keeping the kid from me, but for getting himself into that situation in the first place, for not being responsible enough to stop it.
“Dad tells me you paid a little visit to Jacob McCarthy today,” my mother said.
“He knows?”
“Of course he knows. Jacob called him as soon as you left there.”
Jacob was a tattletale—why did that surprise me? Of course he was. The man lived on licorice.
“He wanted to make sure Dad wasn’t having second thoughts,” she said.
I perked up, hopeful that my father was going to see the error of what he was doing, just by being asked. Maybe Jacob’s call would trigger a new conclusion. One where Jacob moved the hell away.
“He’s not having second thoughts. This is what he wants. What we both want.”
“Then why were you avoiding me today?”
“I had a feeling you weren’t in the mood to be pleasant,” she said.
“I don’t like Jacob, Mom. I have a bad feeling about what’s going to happen to our vineyard, to everything Dad worked so hard for, that you both have.”
“Fine, but do you actually think you’re going to change your father’s mind?”
“No. I’m just hoping he’ll at least wait until he’s in a position to make a better decision, one that he’s not making under duress.”
She laughed. “He’s not under duress.”
“Does he know about Henry?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Then he’s under duress.”
She sighed, but she didn’t look hurt. She looked like she wanted to hear me. She looked like she wanted to be on the same side, as opposed to opposite ones, so we could get to the conversation she wanted to have, the one about Ben.
“Darling, we’re supposed to sit down with the caterer . . .” she said. “Should I cancel that? It’s not about the deposit, though if we don’t sit down with her, she is going to take that. She needs a final head count. She needs a final decision on the entrée.”
“Mom, I can’t really deal with that right now.”
“I told her we’re going with the fish,” she said.
I looked at her, confused.
“I’m sorry, did you cancel the wedding and forget to tell me?” she asked.
“No.”
“Well, I think that means part of you doesn’t want to cancel.”
“What about the other part?”
My mother looked me right in the eye. “If you want to fix things, you have to start somewhere,” she said. “For you that somewhere is fish.”
I interrupted her. “Do you remember when Finn snuck out of the house on his fifteenth birthday and hitchhiked to Los Angeles to go to a Phish concert?”
“It was his sixteenth birthday. And of course.”
Her face went dark even remembering it. Finn ended up at a downtown Los Angeles police station, my parents driving five hundred miles in the middle of the night to pick him up. “Why are you bringing that up?”