No Secrets
I drove back to the house, the sun fading out as I wound down the driveway. The SUV was gone, taking the Wicked Witch of the West Coast with it. And taking her lovely daughter. I expected Ben to be gone too, but he wasn’t. Ben was lying in my childhood bed, surrounded by papers and notecards. It took a second to realize they were the seating charts for our wedding.
“I didn’t leave,” he said.
I lay down next to him. “I noticed that. Why not?”
He touched the seating charts. “These charts needed completing.”
He held out the charts for me to see—the big, beautiful charts that were hanging over us, one of the reasons that coming back for harvest had felt unreasonable. We had no idea where everyone was sitting, what they were eating when they got there.
I looked down in grateful disbelief. They were done. The charts were done. Everyone was in a seat. Everyone was next to someone that would make them happy.
“I’ve been working on them since you kicked me out. You can look through and see that they are pretty much perfect. I even put my uncle Merle downwind. You know, because of his halitosis.”
“Ben, that’s sweet of you . . .”
“I also called the caterer. And she can come up here tomorrow. Though I figured with the harvest party we should wait until the day after tomorrow. But we can get it done then. One day and the rest of the planning is done. And I’ll take care of it. I hope you won’t think this is unmanly, but I seem to have a knack for this wedding stuff.”
I couldn’t believe it. It was a small thing and yet it was the kindest thing he could have done—taking care of the charts, taking care of the caterer. So all that was left for me to consider was what it would feel like to walk down the aisle. Toward him. So that was something I could enjoy thinking about again, being in my dress again, moving toward our future.
“Here’s the thing. We are good together. We belong together. And it’s easy to look at Michelle and decide she means more than she does, but it’s also easy to look away from Michelle. For me, it is. That’s what I’m trying to say. I love you. And that is my choice.”
He was looking at me, his eyes unshielded, his heart open.
“And I know you think it’s out of some loyalty, but it has nothing to do with loyalty. It’s about love.” He smiled. “From the second we met, I knew that nothing could pull us apart.”
I tried fighting what popped into my head—except, perhaps, the mother of your child.
He held up the seating charts, his form of truth. “And what I want more than anything is to walk down the aisle in your favorite place in the world and get through this together. That is what I’m going to do for you if you let me do it. I’m going to keep us strong.”
Ben always got there a minute before I did. This time was no exception. I could forgive him or not. We could move forward or not. But if I stayed with him, he would make me happy I stayed. He would spend his life making me happy.
And then he proved it.
“What if we stayed here after the wedding?” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“What if we stayed in Sebastopol? We could stay and figure out the vineyard together. We could figure out a solution so that your family wasn’t just giving everything away that they’ve worked so hard for.”
“What about London?”
“We don’t have to be there immediately. London can wait.”
“You’ll help me fight? To get the vineyard back?”
He nodded, serious. “I’ll help you fight to get the vineyard back,” he said. “We’ll find a winemaker to take it over, one who does things your father’s way. We won’t let him give this place to Jacob, just because your father is struggling. Just because he stopped believing in this place.”
Ben moved toward me slowly, pulling my hair back from my face, smiling. “I don’t deserve a second chance, but sometimes when someone doesn’t, that’s exactly when you need to give them one.”
I thought of all the second chances around here that weren’t being handed out. Between my brothers. Between my mother and father. I thought about how much happier they would be if they could hand them to each other. To themselves.
“No more secrets?” I said.
“No more secrets,” he said.
Like that, I forgave him.
Part 3
The Union
An Invitation My father once said watching wine age was like listening to music. He said it was the strangest mix of music and chemistry, in which you listened to every note to know what the grapes needed: when they should come off the vines, how long they should be given to ferment into the wine they wanted to be, how the wine should be racked, transferred, blended.