Page 97 of Before We Say Goodbye
“Are you making fun of me?”
Mike shook his head, a smirk playing on his face. “I’m okay with your delusions.”
“You really don’t hear that?”
They listened intently for a while.
“Maybe.”
“You’ll get there. It’s like any language; you must immerse yourself.”
Mike lay back against the mustards, clover, and buckwheat and put his arms behind his head. “What if we went somewhere else?”
Otis lay back as well, cushioned by the earth. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, like if I changed schools. We could go move somewhere, start over. Somewhere with vines, of course. I really don’t want to see you living in a neighborhood. We all know how badly that would go.”
Otis was so blindsided, he couldn’t even smile at Mike’s humor. “Did your mother put you up to this?”
“No, I’ve just been thinking. I don’t love my school. I mean, I don’t hate it, but I just ... I wouldn’t mind starting over somewhere. Now that I’m feeling better. I do hate seeing Annette. I don’t really have any serious friends. I’d be fine if we left. Where else can you grow vines in the US?”
It was true: Mike was feeling better. The medicine had breathed new life into him. For a father, what could be better than knowing that your child is turning a corner, figuring things out, breaking through.
To Mike’s question, Otis felt the flurries of youth in his chest. “Well, there are a few places on the East Coast. Charlottesville, Virginia. The Finger Lakes in New York. Not that this is even an idea.”
“Where else?”
“Plenty of spots in California. Oregon. Washington State.”
Mike perked up. “Washington State?”
“That’s right, home to all your musical heroes.”
“What do they grow?”
Otis kept his excitement at bay. “I’ve never actually been up there, but I’ve tried some of the wines. It’s a hot climate. High desert.”
“I thought it was wet.”
Otis shook his head. “Seattle is. Not wine country. The Cascades run to the east of Seattle, turning the other half of the state into a rain shadow. It’s a different world, on the east side. Hot days and cold nights, a diurnal shift that swings even more than here. The cold nights extend the growing season and allow the berries to develop more flavonoids and other compounds while still retaining ...” Otis realized he was rambling.
“Listen to you go.”
“It is what I do for a living.” Mike encouraged him to keep going. “Back in the Ice Age,” Otis said, “ice dams not too far from Bozeman, actually, would burst and release these massive floods that poured over the land, carving it out, tearing up whatever was there. In its place, the floods left all this alluvial silt.” Otis scratched his head, thinking of some of the wines he’d tried at trade shows over the years. “Quite nice Bordeaux-style wines. Wonderful syrah too.”
“You do talk about syrah a lot. What about Oregon?”
It was true. He’d fallen in love with syrah lately, with its versatility and its way of adapting to every nuance of the vintage. You didn’t have to fight with syrah; it was an easygoing conversation all the way through harvest.
Even if this was only conversation, Otis found nothing more invigorating than talking wine with one of his boys.
“Oregon vineyards are near the ocean, so it’s closer to a Seattle climate. Wet and cool, slow to ripen. It’s pinot noir country. And some nice chardonnay and pinot gris. You could think of Oregon as Burgundy and Washington as Bordeaux. People would fry me for saying so, but I’m speaking from a climate perspective.”
“Do you hear yourself? Going on and on ... it’s funny to imagine you quitting the wine business. You’d be a wreck.”
“You might be right.” Otis wondered what Bec might say about relocating. They’d not even considered the possibility of pulling Mike from his school.
That night, as they sat outside and shared a meal, Mike brought it up again. “Seriously, Mom. I know you don’t want to go move into some suburb in Santa Rosa. You guys are farmers. Quit kidding yourselves.”
