Page 94 of Before We Say Goodbye
“Nearly killed myself in the process.”
“But you’re alive.” His words came out with smoke. “You’re alive, Otis. Start again. Shake Lloyd loose. He’s been eating at you way too long.”
Otis reached for a cigarette. “You mind?”
“You smoke now?”
“No, but it seems like a good time to pick it up.” He didn’t wait for approval. Popped one into his mouth and lit it. “I hate letting him get the best of me.”
Carmine leaned forward. “You’re still doing it, letting that ego sneak in. If I’m being honest, I still taste it in your wines. They’re good, Otis. Miles ahead of most out there, but I still taste you trying to make something of yourself. Even after all you’ve done, you’ve still got something to prove. I know it’s coming off as you being a martyr, but all this rebellion. Warring with Lloyd. What aboutlove? This thing we’re doing, communicating with the earth, breaking bread with the divine, it can’t be done while we’re at war. What do I know? I’m shriveling up like a forgotten cluster on the ground, but the recipe for that celestial sauce, the holy muck we bottle ... the best is always done when we’re at peace with ourselves and others.”
The man’s words fell heavy in Otis’s heart. “If it were only that easy, Carmine. I guess you’re right. I still do have something to prove.”
“You got nothing left to prove, which means you can go make the wine you’re meant to make now.”
“With the farm I’m about to lose.”
“The place I grew up in Italy, an island off of Naples called Ischia. Only reached by boat. There was a saying.C’è sempre un altro traghetto. There’s always another ferry. Same goes for wine; there’s always another piece of land.”
What could better sum up the wonder and beauty of the wine business than a long lunch on the farm? Otis had dined in some of the finest restaurants in the world, but there was nothing like joining Bec in the kitchen, putting together a meal amid the sounds of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, then spreading it out on a long table and throwing anchor for an hour or three.
Otis wore his shades and looked at his bride across the table. “Tell me about you.”
Her eyes grew wide. She cupped her glass in two hands, the way only she did, and she sniffed into it, and he wished he could slip into her mind and see what she was thinking.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m with Carmine. I’m tired of the fight. I feel like we have our heads in the guillotine, waiting for the blade to drop.”
Otis breathed in his chardonnay. The citrusy spine rose gracefully into the floral overtones. Notes of guava and mango danced on the tongue. Only the slightest hint of vanilla smoothed out the tremendously wonderful acidity. He fell back through the years, landing squarely in the time when they were celebrating how they’d come upon this land, this ranch that had changed their lives.
He clinked her glass. “Ah, my love. So long as I’m always close to you, nothing else matters.”
“Do you mean that?”
“You know I do.”
The phone rang inside.
“Let it ring,” Otis said, soaking in the beauty of Rebecca Till. “I think I could let it go, too, Bec. Perhaps we buy a simple place, a three-bedroom, two-bath, in a neighborhood. Take a break from farming. Maybe it would be better for Mike, to have some other kids around. You have a little garden with a few tomatoes and carrots. We don’t need any more kale. In fact, I’d be good if I never had kale the rest of my life.”
“Oh, I am perfectly aware that you’d be fine on the bacon-only diet.”
He laughed. “If only there were bacon plants; that would be heaven.” He took a long sip, thinking how he’d nailed the picking date that year, how the balance of this wine could be studied at Davis.
“I think we go travel for a while after Mike goes to school,” Otis continued. “Let’s go live in Beaune for a year, or Alba. Or take a Viking cruise through the canals or the Norwegian fjords.”
Bec suppressed an I’m-trying-not-to-get-too-excited look. “Could you really give up making wine?”
“I nearly have,” Otis proclaimed.
She looked marvelously happy. “I guess so. The grand overcorrection of Otis Till. That’s the name of your book. You went from absolute obsession to redefining minimalism.”
Otis spread his lips wide. “It’s been nice.”
“Only you could get away with it.”
He cast a glance up the hill to the trellised vines. “It breaks my heart, Bec, to think of saying goodbye, but we can’t keep going on like this. Do we really let go of the dream we carved out twenty years ago? Just when the new vines are starting to sing?”
Bec stabbed a marinatedgigantébean with her fork. “Like Carmine said, there’s always another piece of land. Let’s talk to a Realtor, get them looking. We could find something better.”
