I thought of Ben and how he made me feel when I walked into a room, like I was the only one there. I derived meaning from that, Margaret deriving meaning from its absence. Though wasn’t that just a story we were telling ourselves? Synchronization: You look up just when someone is looking at you. Your eyes meet and you feel like he recognizes your beauty. You look up and he is looking the other way and you tell yourself he never wanted you in the first place.
Margaret shook her head, trying to fight her tears. “Finn looks at me like that. I’m not turning us into Dynasty. I’m not sleeping with my husband’s brother, as much as I may want to.”
“Margaret, this isn’t about Finn. You need to talk to Bobby.”
Margaret shook her head, wiping away her tears, composing herself. “I fucked everything up,” she said. “And if you want to judge me for that, then judge me.”
Which was when Bobby stormed into the bathroom. Holding it with his bitten-down fingers. The other side of the two-way baby monitor.
“I think I’ll judge you, Margaret,” he said.
Sebastopol, California. 1994
They were spending the season in Burgundy. Or Dan was.
He was in the south of France and the countryside looked a lot like Sebastopol: rolling hills, sky. He didn’t love it here the way he loved it in Sonoma County, though. He didn’t love anywhere like Sonoma.
He hadn’t been here since he was twenty-three years old, interning for the best Burgundy producer in the region. He hadn’t wanted to be here now, but he had no choice. Two devastating harvests in a row, no wine he was proud to distribute. They needed the money. It had seemed like a good opportunity to come back. This was a renowned vineyard: They had finished high at the Judgment of Paris, they had finished the highest in many competitions since. And he understood why. This land, this soil, was agreeable. It was made to do exactly what he needed it to do.
But Dan missed his vineyard. He missed his kids, their voices far away on the weekly calls, Jen even farther. And the days he didn’t miss them were worse than the days he did because they brought something else. Guilt.
Dan felt guilty for being apart from his family, and guilty for being away from his vineyard. He’d left Terry to harvest for the season, knowing of course that Terry wasn’t going to do it the way he would. He would do fine though, and the money Dan was making here would allow them to make up the difference they lost—not just for the bad harvests, but for a bad harvest to come.
That was all a million miles away from the south of France, from the quiet life he was living on the vineyard with Marie, the winemaker here. They would read books at night, have long dinners, talk occasionally of their other lives, of Jen, of Marie’s boyfriend in Spain. He was a chef, who opened a restaurant in San Sebastian, who wanted Marie to come and join him there. Marie had no intention of leaving her vineyard to join him there.
Marie didn’t want to follow the chef. Not anymore. She wanted Dan. He wanted her too, though not in the same way. He wasn’t harboring the illusions she was, that he could leave everything and stay here with her. People did such things for love, or what they named as love so they could justify doing what they wanted regardless of the people who needed them.
But their closeness was weighing on him, like a drum in his ear, in his heart. It was starting to feel like an answer to a question he didn’t know he had been asking. He hoped she didn’t notice. He brought up Jen twice to avoid her noticing. She nodded and smiled. Because it didn’t matter to her. This wife that lived on the other side of an ocean was as irrelevant as the chef. Marie was young. What mattered to her was what she wanted.
They were eating dinner, the way they did many nights together, no one else within twenty miles of this place, a fire in the fireplace, music, her bad French music, on the stereo.
Marie couldn’t cook like Jen could. Marie was an amazing winemaker, but in the kitchen she made two things well. She made a green garlic soup and toasted bread. They had that most nights. Tonight was no different.
Except for this. When Marie disappeared from the table, he cleaned the dishes. He cleaned the dishes and got ready to retire for the evening. Turning down the music, wiping off the table. Then she walked back in. Naked.
“Come here,” she said.
He smiled. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. What are you doing?”
They had spent days walking in the vineyard together. They had taken bike rides down the coast and slept on the beach. They had drunk too much wine one night and fallen asleep on the couch head to feet. When he woke up, he hadn’t moved. He had gone back to sleep.