The place captured me instantly the first time he showed it to me. I saw the promise shining below the dust and mess.
We were young enough to tackle the renovations, doing them a few at a time as we could afford them. As our success grew, the farm and restaurant and my book, then our shared guest appearances on everything from Good Morning America to Top Chef and guest spots all over cable and the Food Network as that world exploded, brought in money by the fistfuls. We poured much of it into our businesses and the rest into the house, making it into the showpiece it deserved to be.
In the dark, I walk downstairs to the salon, turning on the lamp I always liked, a Van Briggle blue ceramic shaped like a nymph. Soft light falls over the sofa, a sturdy oversize velvet that I chose myself, not caring if it lasted or not, but it did. The turquoise fabric is still cozy as I sink into it, the color so extravagant. Opposite is a fireplace, cold and dark just now, but split logs are nestled into their spot alongside.
It’s quiet. I tuck my feet under me and pull an ultrasoft blanket around me. Through the windows comes the sound of the sea, and the furnace kicks on, blowing with gusto through the cast-iron vents.
How I loved this house! I never felt I belonged anywhere so much as this, with Augustus and the girls and my glorious kitchen, and work that made me happy. It was the best part of my life, from the second time Augustus and I got together through the end of our marriage, more than twenty years later.
Oh, Augustus, I think, wishing he could materialize for just a few moments and sit with me here in this place we built together. I would build a fire and hold his ghostly hand one more time.
Foolishness. I close my eyes and settle more deeply in the couch, and imagine instead that I am back there, long ago, when the girls were small.
In the late nineties, the girls were still in school, the farm was exploding in popularity, allowing me to pay off my benefactor, the widow who carried my loan, in record time, and Augustus worked all the time. Peaches and Pork was not yet at its zenith, but it was very busy. Both his ambition and his need to build something monumental kept him within the restaurant’s walls for fifteen hours a day or more, and he rarely made it home to bed before midnight. I heard him come in, quietly, his keys clinking in the dish on our old colonial-style dresser, his belt rattling as he stripped off his jeans. I barely stirred most of the time, weary myself after long days at the farm, at work on my own empire, tending the girls, herding goats, and making meals for my family and myself.
I just liked hearing him go through the motions of leaving work behind and coming home to us. Whatever consumed him out there was left on the floor with his clothes, and he crawled in beside me, his big body sinking the bed. His feet touched mine, our toes greeting, before he plumped up his pillow and fell asleep, snoring gently through an open mouth.
Often, he slid his palms over my body, over a breast or hip, and teased me awake. His mouth fell on my shoulder or my neck, kisses warm and slow. He stroked my hair, slid my nightgown up and found my flesh and nestled his in it. It seems I remember the moon shining in through the french doors, painting us white. I remember the sound of the ocean, restless and crashing, nearly drowning the soft groans and murmurs of our lovemaking.
And then he would sleep, his face buried against my shoulder blades, one heavy arm over my hip. In the darkness, I listened to his breath, and mine, and the sound of dogs snoring on the floor, and a cat creeping back up to her place on the bed, draped over my ankle, and the girls safely asleep in the rooms down the hall, and the fields stretching out in abundance, and all was well. So very well.
Chapter Nine
Maya
Since there were legal charges over my winery debacle, one of the requirements of release from rehab was that I had to have a job lined up. Obviously my previous careers as sommelier, then vintner, were out. I couldn’t face the restaurant business with all the attendant alcohol, and although Meadow offered me work at the farm, I declined. The work would break my heart, close as it was to the vines I’d lost.
But my family has long tentacles through the communities along the coast. Rory’s husband knows the owner of the coffee shop on the edge of Santa Barbara. More than a shop, actually. They roast their own artisan blends and serve light meals, salads, and pastries baked down the block by the owner’s sisters.
The day after I arrive home, I’m scheduled to start training at the café at 1:00 p.m. I need to make a meeting, in accordance with the rules of my early release. To do either, I will need to pick up my car at the restaurant, where it’s been living since Meadow fetched it after I went to rehab.