Season of Change. Melinda Curtis
of living.” From high school to his last job on Wall Street. He’d worked until he’d lost sight of what was important.
The old man scoffed and tilted closer, as if sharing a secret. “You’re not living now.”
Slade couldn’t move more than his lips. “I live.”
“You exist.” Takata sat back, watching Grace stay just close enough to Truman, Becca, and Flynn that she could hear what they were saying, but far enough back that she wasn’t part of their family unit.
Slade struggled to draw in air. He knew how it felt to be on the perimeter of relationships, to feel as if you’d never quite belong. He didn’t expect to recognize the same thing in his daughter.
“Grace is an old soul,” Takata was saying.
Lucky guess.
“And Faith looks before she leaps.” Takata gestured to Faith, who was skipping by the Jimtown table, as if contemplating buying another sweet.
“You don’t know that,” Slade said gruffly.
The Jimtown clerk pointed at a plate of frosted cookies. Faith stopped and nodded enthusiastically, digging in her pocket for money.
Takata hammered his cane into the grass again. “As a funeral-home director and mortician, I’ve looked at a lot of faces and listened to a lot of stories. I think I know what someone’s about when I look at them.” He glared at Slade. “Your soul is wounded and trapped. Looks like it should be set free.”
“Are you telling fortunes now?” Slade stood, tugging at his tie, feeling it tighten like a noose. The last thing he wanted was to rehash the past with the old man.
Takata caught his sleeve above the cuff. “I’m telling truths. You need to forgive, if not your father, then yourself.”
Slade couldn’t move. Not from the sudden unbridling of grief and guilt, or from the spot where his feet seemed to have taken root.
“Now,” Takata stood unsteadily, “I’m ready to go home. If you let me lean on you, it’ll go much quicker.” When Slade didn’t move, he raised his voice. “Are you deaf? Lend me your arm.”
The twins ran by, heading for home with their purchases. He could almost feel the air move as they passed, feel grief and guilt recede. They were his hope.
Slade stepped closer to the old man and held out his arm.
“’Bout time.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CHRISTINE HAD THE vineyards to walk and the morning sun was already hot, the air dry, her T-shirt damp with sweat.
Slade and his partners had bought forty acres, which wasn’t even half a square mile. It was Christine’s job to familiarize herself with the soil, vines, and fruit. The property wasn’t large enough to justify hiring a full-time vineyard manager, full-time cellar manager, or full-time winemaker. She’d have to wear many hats and hire staff who could do the same.
Christine used a notebook and a stubby pencil to record the slope of each row, how it drained toward the river, the angle of the sun and where it was blocked by trees in the early morning or late afternoon. She recorded which blocks and rows of vines were lusher, which seemed almost scrabbling to survive. She sifted dirt through her fingers and checked that the vines had the proper support.
Grape clusters were developing nicely. She tried a bit of each fruit at different places in the vineyard. Most were tannic and promising in their complexity. The arid soil and growing conditions in Harmony Valley were influencing the taste of the grapes and would also influence the taste of the wine. Substance in the glass. Something Christine would be proud of. Something to finally prove without a doubt to her father and the world that she knew what she was doing.
She snapped pictures of a few grape clusters with her cell phone. The grapes on the Cabernet Sauvignon vines were still green, but soon the heat would begin veraison, when the sugars increased during ripening, reducing the acidity in the fruit and turning them a deep purple.
The vines were terribly overgrown. There was too much fruit, which meant as it ripened it wouldn’t be as flavorful. And the fruit was becoming heavy, dragging tendrils down to the ground, which made the grapes available for any passing snail to take a nibble. Tomorrow she’d need to get out here with hand clippers and twist ties and sunscreen. It’d be nice to have helpers. Maybe she could put together a crew like the one she’d seen in the sheriff’s office.
Christine paused, staring out over the vineyard. Why not exactly like the one she’d seen in the sheriff’s office?
She returned to the tasting room, where she’d left her laptop bag.
The partners had installed a communications tower on Parish Hill, a granite-faced mountain to the east. The tower provided Harmony Valley with free Wi-Fi and cell-phone service. Otherwise, they’d be too far out, in too deep a valley to receive any signal.
She called a few friends, putting feelers out for someone with diverse skill sets willing to relocate. She called some equipment suppliers on her cell phone and emailed a few more for bids. Slade had only collected ballpark estimates for equipment. They’d need companies to come out and measure their space, and provide a more detailed and precise bid, as well as timelines for installation. At this point, twelve or fewer weeks until harvest, she’d only approve purchases if they could guarantee delivery and setup.
She also got in touch with someone she knew who built wine caves to ask some initial questions. She was willing to make compromises to find wine-storage solutions locally, but long-term, she wanted a state-of-the-art facility in Harmony Valley.
She texted Slade: Who did you arrange to harvest the grapes?
If this heat wave lasted through July and into August, as it was projected to, they’d need to harvest earlier, rather than later.
His reply: Make arrangements with whoever you want.
“Are you kidding me?” Wineries arranged for harvesters up to a year in advance.
Christine made another round of calls and sent off more emails looking for a company available to harvest in their remote location. Initial response wasn’t good. No one wanted to talk to her after learning where they were based.
For the second time that morning, Christine wondered if she’d strayed too far from traditional wine country.
She texted Slade again: Will need a work crew tomorrow at the vineyard.
His reply was predictably prompt: Hire however many bodies you need.
She laughed the kind of evil laugh that Slade would have known, had he been here, meant trouble for him: I choose you and Flynn and Nate and Grace and Faith and Truman and whoever else you can find. Bring pruning shears, hats, and sunblock. 6 a.m.
He didn’t answer right away. And when he did, it was an anticlimactic Okay.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING Slade and his crew reported for work, as Christine requested.
Slade knew the heat would make him miserable, but he still wore black slacks, a blue long-sleeved shirt, and tie.
Slade sought out his girls. At least the twins were dressed appropriately for the temperature in cutoffs and matching royal-blue tank tops. Each had her hair in a ponytail that swung through the hole in the back of a royal-blue baseball hat.
Christine was prepared for them with thermoses of coffee and hot chocolate, as well as a cooler full of water bottles, and her grandmother’s banana-nut bread. She also had a box of old work gloves and pruning shears. She, too, was dressed for the heat in canvas shorts and a canary-yellow T-shirt featuring another rock band. Her hair was braided tightly so that only pigtails peeked out from either side of her floppy white hat.
Standing next to her, Slade felt more overdressed than he had in years. His tie felt too tight and heavy. Before