Page 82 of Before We Say Goodbye
“I have nothing left to give.”
Brooks crossed his arms defiantly. “Do you really believe that? You talk like you’re in your eighties. You’re not even sixty.”
Otis raised a hand. “While I appreciate the pep talk, I need the time I need. Right now I don’t want to taste the goddamn wines that mark the end of what I had left.”
“What would Bec say?”
Fury shot up Otis’s back. “Don’t bring her into it.”
Brooks nodded. “I apologize, but someone has to say it. She wouldn’t want this. It’s time you finished what you started. Get out there and show these people what you’re made of. Red Mountain’s not done with you, not by a long shot. This vintage in barrel now needs you. The vines need you.”
Otis studied his apprentice. “I don’t know what to tell you, Brooks.”
“Consider this notice then. Clean yourself up. I’m coming for you. The only way out is through.”
Oh, there was more than one way out, but he didn’t say that to Brooks. What he saw reflected in Brooks’s eyes was a man too ashamed to walk out that door and try to pretend the world would keep spinning.
Because no.
It would not.
Chapter 19
Welcome to the Nineties
Otis had something to prove in the year after the 49ers won the Super Bowl. He had to show his family that they mattered, and he had to prove to himself that he could take a step back and recalibrate. What was all this for if he lost the ones he loved?
He’d been slipping for a long time, and that had to stop.
Now.
For the first time since he’d jumped on this terroir merry-go-round, he didn’t help Scooter and the team prune. Instead, he made the family breakfast, including masterful cappuccinos for the adults, then dressed in casual, unflashy clothes with Birkenstocks and took the boys to school. He ran or lifted weights for an hour afterward. Then he’d devote much of his day to Bec, sometimes sharing a late-morning second-round coffee, or taking her out to lunch, or simply a long wander through the hills. He committed to meditation in the afternoons, but mostly it led to napping.
He also took her into the city to see music: David Crosby, Paul McCartney, REO Speedwagon, the Grateful Dead. Otis thought that the Grateful Dead were a lot like Carmine, making art that took a moment to understand, but if you gave them the time, then you’d find a world of wonder between the notes. As a family of four, they went tosee the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Radiohead and Green Day, and Otis hadn’t even used earplugs.
While leading this improved life, which included working his way through a few of the spiritual books on Rebecca’s shelf, an idea started to form in his mind. He wanted to be as minimalist as possible with the wines. Hands off. If he was meant to work less, then, oh, he’d do that. They had money, so now he could simply play around, see what the vines and wines did when set free. He committed to doing as little as possible, an experiment of postmodern philosophy.
It was his family who needed him now.
Mike had grown into a lanky thirteen-year-old with cropped black hair, rather pronounced ears, and angular features all around. Tall for his age, despite Bec’s height, he excelled as a forward in basketball and had a mean three-pointer. He also had an innate gift for engineering and mechanics. What had started as a love of building blocks had turned into him taking apart anything he could get his hands on.
But he still often went to a dark place. He would get lost in his head and spend chunks of time in his room, cranking loud music. He’d often skip dinner, saying he wasn’t hungry. Sometimes he’d beg to call in sick to school. Rebecca would worry over him constantly, endlessly comparing him to Uncle Jed, worrying that her son might follow a similar path.
Otis gave Mike as much time as he could, attending Mike’s basketball games, grabbing him after school and taking him for a sundae, going for hikes, and even working together on the farm and in the cellar. While Cam had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with the wine business, Mike seemed to be gearing up for it. He could and often did change the oil and brakes on the tractors and farm trucks, and he was nearly as adept as Otis and Scooter at fixing the bottling line, the press, the irrigation equipment, or anything else on the property.
As far as Cam, he had only one more year of high school before setting off to college. Otis tried to feel grateful that he still had sometime to connect with his son before he set off into the world. He looked far more like his mother, with sandy-blond shaggy hair and a rounded handsome face with electric eyes that had turned him into a magnet for the girls. Somewhere during tenth grade, he’d decided he’d rather chase them than running backs, so he no longer played organized sports.
Cam had chosen CU Boulder, the campus tucked up against a vast wilderness. He was still far happier out in the woods, a long way from everyone. He and his friends loved camping and would take off after school on Fridays to go backpacking and fly-fishing. Otis’s idea of camping was spending the weekend at an expensive resort along the coast that had a lovely wine list and an adults-only pool, but he sacrificed his comfort to join Camden on a trip up to the South Fork Eel River to fish for steelhead trout, or, as Camden called them, “steelies.” Otis slept exactly zero minutes on the first night but bit his lip as he hovered near the fire the next morning and didn’t complain at all. Thank goodness Cam had learned how to make a wonderful cup of coffee over the fire.
Otis didn’t know the first thing about fly-fishing, but Camden taught him with admirable patience. They stayed for three nights, hunting steelies by day and sitting around the fire by night. Though Otis far preferred roughing it in the L’Auberge de Sedona as opposed to a few meager hours of interrupted sleep followed by ridding his bowels in the woods, he wouldn’t have traded anything for that trip. He even caught a fish, which delivered him unexpected delight.
“Dad, do you think Mike’s going to be okay?” Cam asked on the way back home. Otis was proud of himself for not even mentioning the fish smell currently permeating his BMW.
It was a damned good question, and Otis wondered whether this was a time to be honest, or to skate the truth. Instead, he spoke from his heart. “He’s a fighter, Cam. We all have our struggles. Some more than others.”
“What do you think’s wrong?”
Otis decided not to tell him that the depression could be genetic, passed down on Bec’s side of the family. Michael and Jed were both chased by dark clouds.
