Eight Hundred Grapes

“My father says people either love Sonoma or they feel trapped here.”

“They should put that on the brochure,” he said.

Jacob looked back in the direction of his house, then kept moving.

“So why did you leave? Sonoma, I mean?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Too complicated?” he said.

I tried not to laugh. “No, it’s just, our family saw a bunch of really tough harvests. I wanted a life that felt more stable.”

He nodded, considering. “It’s kind of ironic though, don’t you think?”

“What?”

“Well, you still ended up in a bar, in your wedding dress.”

I looked at him, disconcerted. Why did Jacob think he knew me well enough to say that? Why did it bug me if he wasn’t right?

I sped up, Jacob hurrying to keep up.

“What happened with Ben?” Jacob said. “Tell me. I have a gift for it.”

“For what?”

“For telling people the reasons they shouldn’t be as mad as they are.”

“You talk too much. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have trouble answering questions?”

“Just yours, and that’s probably because they go on and on!”

He smiled, but he stood there waiting for an answer. “So . . . what happened?”

I tilted my head, considering what to say. Which was when I realized why I was so hurt that Ben hadn’t told me about Maddie. It wasn’t just that he’d kept his daughter from me—it was the explanation as to why. “I think Ben doubted me.”

He was quiet. “We all doubt each other,” he said.

“My parents didn’t. My father saw my mom in a car and that was the end of the story.”

“Was it the end of the story?” Jacob said.

“No. What does that say?”

Jacob paused, and I could see him deciding to tell me that he knew there was something going on with my father and my mother.

“That there is no one way,” he said.

We headed down the long driveway, quietly, Jacob looking up at the sky, the clear blue of it.

“It’s been dry,” he said. “All harvest. Not sure your father told you that.”

My father rarely gave me details about the harvest when I wasn’t home, or maybe I shouldn’t be letting myself off the hook like that. I rarely asked him the specifics about his work and he had stopped offering them. Which was starting to feel like a fitting punishment for the fact that soon I wouldn’t be able to ask him anymore.

“It makes me nervous,” he said. “I think we’re going to get soaked, and your father’s most valuable grapes are still on the vines.”