Eight Hundred Grapes

“You want to take it? We could let someone take over the vineyard for a year.”

“We’d be back before then. I’d go next week. And we’d be back before the grapes finished coming in. You’d only miss part of it.”

“The quiet winter.”

She nodded. “The quiet winter.”

Though of course nothing was quiet these days. It was an exciting time to be in Sebastopol. It was the boom. Everyone was coming to Sebastopol. Winemakers were buying land, making Pinot Noir, people moving up from San Francisco to open restaurants, to open music stores. Sebastopol was getting a hotel. It was the community he’d always wanted. He didn’t want to leave it.

“You don’t want me to take it,” she said.

“I didn’t say that,” he said. Then he used the only ammunition he could think of. “But it will disrupt things for the kids.”

“They’re not kids anymore. They’re in high school. It won’t be the worst thing for them to experience school in New York. Your daughter will love it. She’ll never want to come back.”

He relented. “They’ll be fine. What are we really talking about?”

She shook her head. “You won’t like living in New York. You didn’t even like living in Burgundy. It made you queasy living away from here.”

What made him queasy was Jen bringing up the south of France, Marie standing in front of him. What he’d almost thrown away just to touch her. He had walked out of the room, though. Didn’t that count for something?

“Jen,” he said. “Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow? We can sit down and see how we can work it out. Because if you want to do this, we need you to do this. That’s important.”

“I have to tell them tonight.”

“Okay. So you do want this?”

She shook her head. “It is flattering that they want me still.”

“Of course they do.”

“There is a version in which I go alone. And you come and visit. We could do that too.”

He wasn’t going to separate again, not after what had happened last time. He didn’t think he was strong enough. Marie, standing before him.

“I’d rather go with you.”

She smiled, but it wasn’t loving.

“What?”

“That’s not the same thing as you saying you want to come, Dan.”

“I said I’ll go. I’ll go. What do you want from me, Jen?”

“What do you want from me?” she said.

She waited. It was clear that she wanted everything. She wanted the devotion that she gave to him. She wanted him to stop standing there, pretending he didn’t know these things.

He watched as she walked away from him. He should have stopped her. He should have insisted that they go because he knew how much she wanted it, even if she wasn’t saying it. She wanted to go back to New York if for no other reason than to remember how much she didn’t need to be in New York anymore. Having a taste of that life again would show her she had picked the one that mattered more to her.

What was there to debate? There was one thing for him to say. The details don’t matter, we’ll figure it out.

He was ready to say it, what she most needed to hear.

“Jen,” he said.

But when she didn’t hear him, he didn’t say her name louder. He said it softer, like that was the very same thing.