Ben and I walked through the vineyard, Maddie a few paces ahead of us. She was quiet, focused, staring at the grapes—at certain shoots—as if she was trying to figure out which were the good shoots, which ones should get to stay.
Ben touched my wrist. “So I have a plan if you’re ready to hear it,” he said.
“For what?”
He slowed to a stop, smiled. “Us, of course,” he said. “Making this okay for us.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re not going to talk about what happened,” he said.
“That’s your plan?”
“That’s my plan,” he said, proud of himself.
Then he started walking again, keeping Maddie in his view. I tried to understand what he was doing.
He shrugged. “Talking about Michelle. Maddie. It’s just going to make it worse. We’re better off talking about the weather.”
“Are you serious right now?”
He nodded. “Bobby says it’s been an ideal harvest. And it looks like it’s going to finish out that way, don’t you think?”
I looked up at the sky. It looked blue and bright. I didn’t know what I thought, but I didn’t want to talk about it, not with him. He held my cheek in the palm of his hand, forced me to look at him.
“Please try it this way,” he said.
“Until when?”
“Until you remember that this isn’t what defines us.”
He looked at me, challenging: Did I want to try and make this okay? I took a deep breath. I did want this to be okay—and maybe he was right. Maybe this only had to be as big as I let it be. So why was I letting it be everything?
“I know you’ll fall in love with Maddie. You’re already falling in love with her.”
“This isn’t about Maddie.”
“It is, a little. If for no other reason, you’ll forgive me for keeping her from you even if you don’t accept why I did it. You’ll forgive me because of her.”
Then he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, the softness of his lips jarring me, reminding me of something I had almost forgotten.
He smiled and motioned toward Maddie, who was bending down in the gardens. The tea gardens. Her chubby fingers were touching the top of the leaves tentatively. Aside from the stinging nettles, which were far in the back, she was safe. So I didn’t make a move to stop her, letting her explore the leaves for herself.
“Is it just me or do I have a future farmer on my hands?” Ben said.
“She does seem to love it here.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” he said.
Then he looked at me out of the corner of his eyes, taking in how Maddie was having an impact on me. How could she not? This adorable little girl studying the gardens, thrilled at the idea of what she was going to find next. And yet, if I was falling for Maddie, the reverse was certainly not true. She was avoiding any kind of contact. She was pretending it was just her and Ben.
She looked up when we got close, smiling up at her father. Ben bent down beside her, cupping his hands over the flower next to hers. “Hi,” she said. “What are these, Dad?”
Dad.
Ben smiled at her, pointed toward the sign behind them. “It says they’re dandelion leaves,” he said.
“For what?” she said.
“I think they help to feed the land. What’s the fancy word for that, Georgia? For the land?”
Maddie met my eyes and looked like she didn’t want any information from me, even about this. Ben ignored this. He motioned for me to bend down between them, explain it to her.
“What’s it called, Georgia?” Ben said.
I wanted to throttle him. “The terroir.”
Maddie nodded. Serious. “The terroir,” she repeated.
I started to explain that terroir wasn’t just about the land. It was also about the winemaker, how he interacted with that land, bringing out different things in the geography and climate than someone else might. But Maddie looked up at me and smiled—her smile just like Ben’s. It stopped me from saying anything. It stopped me from doing anything except smiling at her too.
Then she stared at the plants, considering, the same way Ben would do. This stopped me even more.
I bent down so I was by Maddie’s side, Ben moving out of the way.
“The teas are put into the soil to help take care of it. They all do different things for the soil in the vineyard and for the compost.”
“What’s compost?”
I smiled. “You don’t want to know.”