Eight Hundred Grapes

Some years Block 14 turned out well, some years not well. Biodynamics at its most pure. And, 2005, it turned out gorgeous. The fruit was present in every sip of the wine, a rich, dark berry explosion. It won my father two national awards, his distributor insisting he charge ninety dollars a bottle. He liked to joke that 2005 was the wine that paid for all the wines. Tonight, it was like drinking comfort. Ripe and simple.

“Not bad, huh?” he said.

I breathed into the wine, thick with chocolate and jamminess, the way only the best Pinot Noir was. “Beautiful.”

“Beautiful. I’ll take it.”

I motioned toward his spreadsheet. “How’s it looking?”

He smiled. “These last grapes came off lovely,” he said. “The whole southwest corner came off lovely. I’ll feel better when Block 14 is off the vines, but I’d like to give them a little longer to ripen fully.”

“Forecast clear?”

“Forecast clear, but they’ve been wrong before.”

He pointed to the last page of his spreadsheet, the weather services lining the top. He updated each of them daily, all five of them showing sunny skies.

“Jacob is getting into my head,” he said. “He thinks they should come down.”

“Why would you listen to him?”

He picked up his wine, considering the question. “He’s paying me plenty to.”

“Well, not enough, in my opinion.”

“Good thing it’s my opinion that matters.”

Then he tipped the glass in my direction, looking at me, and smiling a little sadly.

“Not that you asked, but it might help to separate out what’s going on with the vineyard and with our family from what’s going on for you and Ben. They are all separate things.”

It all felt like the same thing: the loss of the vineyard, the coming apart of our family. Finn and Bobby and Margaret. My parents. Ben and Maddie. Michelle. It all felt tied up, like the same thread was running through them. Where there had been trust—to keep each other safe, to make each other feel loved—there was none. Maybe it was tied up. Synchronized to come apart the moment my father turned his back on the vineyard and we were all too busy to stop him.

“Not that you asked, but it might help you to stop thinking of them as separate things. Everything is falling apart.”

“Not everything is falling apart,” my father said.

“Did you see your sons trying to kill each other tonight?”

He nodded, considering that. Then dismissing it.

“Finn and Bobby are fighting over the wrong thing. But at least they’re fighting.”

“And how is that good?”

“Because that’s the only way to get somewhere better.” He shrugged. “If you fight, you work it out. If you don’t fight, you move into your own corners, and nothing gets decided there.”

I looked up toward the house. All the lights were off. Everyone sleeping where they shouldn’t: my mother in my parents’ bedroom without my father, my father apparently resigned to that. The man who had built a vineyard from nothing, who had kept my family together in spite of everything. He was just giving up. That was suddenly the scariest part.

“It’s not like you,” I said.

He looked at me. “Not to fight?”

My father had fought hard for the vineyard his entire life—he fought for everyone in our family. “Yes.”

He poured more wine, pointing at my empty ring finger.

“You either,” he said.