Page 30 of Before We Say Goodbye
March 2011
Lloyd Bramhall. He always came back into our lives like one of those pesky spiders that never failed to appear on our windowsills in Red Mountain with the warmth of spring. Lloyd was kind, handsome, funny, charming, well traveled, andrich—not that his wealth drew me in. I could look past his ego, because how could he not have one? Otis didn’t like him one bit, and I could understand why. Though I often denied it or attempted to dull the potency, Otis was right, Lloyd had a desperate crush on me. More than once, Otis had compared Lloyd’s cravings for me to how Eric Clapton had felt for George Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd. Indeed, I was Lloyd’s Layla, and if only we could have known what sort of trouble he would cause.
As I look at Otis now, his glasses resting on the tip of his nose, his pen resting on the page, this adorable coyote pup curled up against his feet, his head resting on Otis’s ankle, I hope he won’t linger on too much of the bad. Lloyd brought out the worst in him, a jealous and often angry teenager, but when all was right in the world, Otis was soft and cuddly. When it came to wine, though, he had an obsessive focus.He became relentless in his pursuit to capture terroir, relentless in his vision and in making sure no one stood in his way.
I delight in what this journaling is doing to him, the way a spark of joy rises amid the ashes of his grief. We really do have a story.
Perhaps a stir will force him to pick up his pen again. I certainly don’t want him stopping with Lloyd on his mind. Yes, Lloyd nearly destroyed our lives in so many ways, but we forged through. Enough about him, though. For now, anyway. I’m sure Otis will reveal all eventually.
Otis felt for Amigo, giving him a rub on his head. “I think we’ve done enough for a while.” Amigo stirred but continued sleeping. Since Otis found him a week earlier, the pup hadn’t left his side, following him everywhere, even into the bathroom. Little did he know, he was about the only reason Otis hadn’t put a gun to his head.
Perhaps the journaling hadn’t hurt, either, though Otis hated to admit it. Bec was always right, and it often drove him mad. There was a magic in getting it all out, in revisiting all the wonderful things that had carried them through, even amid the turmoil of damaged families and assholes like Lloyd Bramhall.
Otis was about to stand when his pen moved, rolling over as if it were a dog itself. He rubbed his eyes, thinking he’d been staring at these pages far too long, a week of reliving memories. He pushed back, pulling his leg away from Amigo. “Sorry, little guy, it’s time I step away from this thing. The memories are sweet, but they cut too.”
The pen moved again, this time toward him, taking several rotations as if rolling on a sudden incline. He lowered down to see if he’d just changed the angle of his desk while pressing against it. Nope. The pen had moved on its own.
“What’d you put in my coffee, Amigo?”
His eyes went back to the last page he’d written, and he recalled the Chinese lanterns hanging over the tables at their wedding, the sparkle of the evening, despite Lloyd attempting to steal his girl. She’d moved into the cottage with him that night, but they had to forgo a honeymoon, even though Addison offered to pay for one (a kind gesture likely instigated by Eloise), as harvest was all-consuming, and there was no way in the shiny spit of Adam that Otis was going to miss his first harvest. The Murphy team worked countless hours, barely sleeping, and who cared because there was nothing like harvest, nothing like bringing in the fruits they’d labored over all year.
Bec and Otis were mostly happy in the following year. Poor, but happy. Turned out they were lucky too. On August 5, Rebecca and Otis held each other on the couch with barely a breath between them as they watched men in black suits draw numbers to determine the fate of American men born in 1952. Only did they breathe a sigh of relief after two hundred blue plastic balls had been pulled. His number ended up being closer to three hundred. Unless the war took a massively awful turn, he’d never be called up.
Rebecca was going into debt attending school, but Otis tried not to harp on it. They’d simply pay it off making wines harvested from the vineyard theydidn’thave. Perhaps even more worrisome was how much energy she was devoting to her family: cooking meals, food shopping, cleaning the house, attempting to help Jed find sobriety and a path forward. Despite the school debt, she was still giving her parents money on a weekly basis.
Though it was a full-time job not to lose his mind over how depleted Bec was, Otis took side jobs when he could, helping acquaintances with various construction projects, running errands for the owner of the café where Bec still worked when she wasn’t studying, reluctantly doing jobs for Lloyd, who paid well despite his ass-holiness. Mostly, though, Otis set his sights on making good wine. When he wasn’t at Murphy Vineyards, he hunted down other winemakers, offering to buy them adrink if he could ask them questions. With all the money he didn’t have, he bought and tasted countless wines from around the world.
Thinking about that unwavering spirit that possessed the younger him, Otis chuckled to himself and picked up the pen.
As long as she didn’t get pregnant, everything would be fine.
Chapter 9
A Nobody Wants to Be Somebody
Nineteen seventy-two came down with a shower of heartache. The Bloody Sunday Massacre reminded them that it wasn’t only Southeast Asia and the United States that were in trouble. Humankind had reached a tipping point.
Much closer to home, Jed was struggling and becoming more like his father with each depressing day. Still living at home and propped up by his VA disability compensation, he showed no interest in finding his way toward a career. Instead, he spent time with a crew of Vietnam veterans who drank and drugged their troubles away.
When Rebecca and Otis saw him, he’d knock back straight whiskey and rant about the war and Nixon and how he’d been spat on by a protester, how “the whole damn world” was on fire and burning its way to the ground. With each visit, Bec would die a little inside, and Otis wished Jed would stay away from home until he cleaned up his act—if he ever cleaned up his act.
In early February, as Otis was sharpening his clippers and about to join the crew to start pruning and prepping for a new vintage, Paul clapped him on the back. “You know that block of zinfandel on the north side, up past the tractor shed?”
“The one you keep neglecting?”
“That’s the one. I was thinking you could take care of it this year. If you can get some fruit out of it, it’s all yours. I’ll give you a corner in the winery to make some juice. You gotta buy your own barrels, though.”
A smile leaped to Otis’s face. He’d hoped to buy some fruit during harvest, but this opportunity would allow him to make a wine from scratch. “I don’t need barrels. Just lend me a stainless tank.”
“Suit yourself.”
When he first walked up the hill to assess his block, he hadn’t quite realized what he was getting into. It was a half acre of mostly zinfandel, perched on a steep slant that made it hard to farm—he certainly couldn’t use a tractor—which was one of the reasons Paul hadn’t bothered with it. Having never been trellised, the vines lay curled on the ground like snakes. Paul didn’t have irrigation up there, so they’d eked out their existence on what little rain had come the last few years.
Otis didn’t see a hopeless cause. What he saw was an opportunity to bring these orphaned vines back to life.
A life is built with moments. Ever since the day he met Rebecca, Otis had been collecting moments that were becoming a foundation for a life worth living. Moments that were building his confidence and turning him into the man he sought to be. Twenty years old, and he’d found what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
Twenty years old, and he’d made his first wine.
