Page 62 of Before We Say Goodbye
Otis had stomped around the vineyard all morning, unable to stop thinking about how he’d embarrassed himself. Even now, he couldn’t stop wondering what they’d said about him after his humiliating retreat from Hamilton’s.
That was when the bell rang. That god-awful bell.
He could feel Bec rattling it with a big smile on her face, ready to see Otis come scurrying back to the house. She was sure that this recess thing had been his salvation, but you know what? Today he wouldn’t come running at the ding. He was fed up. Fed up with all the misfortune. Fed up with Bedwetter and Lloyd and all the plays being made behind his back, and with being called like a fucking dog by a dinner bell!
Otis took one last look at the house and then continued his work digging a hole to put in a new post. Each jab of the dirt was a stab into Bedwetter’s chest, not dissimilar to the stabs in his back from both the writer and Lloyd. He couldn’t believe—
“Your boys are waiting.”
Her voice came at him like his father’s.
“Not today. I’m not feeling well.” Another jab in the dirt.
Though she still walked around barefooted most of the time and still clung to her sixties and seventies mindset, Rebecca had started to shed some of the hippie attire of her youth. In her mid-thirties she wore skirts or pleated pants with button-down shirts, often accompanied by light wool sweaters—all in either stark white or pastels. Even her jewelry had changed. She didn’t have the time to make her own anymore and now wore a series of thin gold chains around her neck and a Cartier watch with a thin leather band around her wrist.
She crossed her arms. “Did you drink too much with Carmine?”
“No, I did not drink too much. We were just tastingand spittingsome of the new wines.”
“Since when do you and Carmine spit?”
He still hadn’t made eye contact. “Oh, I spit.”
“Uh-huh. Well, it’s time to take a break. Your boys want to throw the football.”
Otis set the shovel down. “Bec, I can’t help but feel a little exhausted by these games. I am not your child. I can’t keep running to you when you ring the bell.” He finally looked up. “Don’t you see how awful it even sounds, you ringing a bell for me to come, like an obedient dog?”
“I’m not belittling you,” she said, her face crinkling in insult. “Until you buy us a mobile phone, how do I get in touch with you? We both know you get lost in your work and lose time. I have to stick to a schedule, for the boys’ sake. We have math at eleven.”
“I’ll buy walkie-talkies.”
Bec saw right through him. “I hate to psychoanalyze, but the bell is a metaphor for your frustration.”
“Here we go. Want to go grab Sparrow so you guys can do a soul reading?”
“Hey, I wish you’d learn your lesson. You had a heart attack at thirty—”
“A mini heart attack.”
She ignored him; rightfully so. “Youstillhave a hard time slowing down. More than that, your boys are growing up right before your eyes, but you don’t see it.”
“That’s bullshit. I have played with them every day. Most fathers are at offices all day. I’m right here.”
“I know, and I appreciate it, but it’s because I’m making you. You’re not giving me a choice. I love you too much to lose you, and I’m worried.”
Otis swallowed.
“I don’t know how else to drive it home. You’re working too hard, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you brought on all this bad luck as of late, including the phylloxera, and the tax hike. Heck, even the press breaking down. I think you might be creating this reality for yourself.”
A sigh escaped him. “Here we go again. You’re right. I brought a disease down upon us. Because I am God, Bec. I have the ability to spread plagues in the vineyard.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it.”
He jabbed the shovel into the earth. “Then what are you saying?”
“That you’re not living with any joy. You’re sodamnedfocused, and you’re forgetting what you have. You’re marching around as if the whole world is coming after you.”
He looked around. Couldn’t she see it? “Well, it is.”
