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.