Chapter 26
The landscape surrounding Broken Hart Vineyards swept out before Red in the evening light like a painting, the house and outbuildings as much a part of the hillside as if they had grown out of the soil, just like the towering Douglas firs and the white oaks hung with mistletoe. Fertile vines dripped with fat, purple clusters. Everything was settled and orderly.
The bucolic sight should have calmed Red. Instead, it only served as a reminder of what she was missing. What her life had always missed.
A movement in the distance caught her eye, and she saw Junie putt putting along a row of vines atop her little orange tractor.
Red parked and found Manolo on the patio of the tasting room, sweeping beneath the tables and chairs.
“Junie’s out spraying. Probably be out there till dark.”
“She waved to me on my way in.”
“Beautiful evening. You’re welcome to wait. Something to drink?”
“No thanks. I came to see you, actually.”
“Me?” Manolo leaned on his broom handle and grinned. “Sorry, but I’m taken.”
“It’s about Sam.”
“Ah.” He went back to work. “Sounds serious.”
“You know that house I’ve been talking about?”
“The one you call the saltbox.”
“Did you know that’s the same house that Sam grew up in?”
He picked up a windblown branch too big for the dustpan and tossed it into a pile. “I’m from back east. Didn’t meet Sam till the service.”
She peered across the vineyard at the tractor. “I wonder if Junie knew,” she murmured.
“She didn’t say anything to me.”
She sighed. So she couldn’t find out anything about the house. There must be something Manny could tell her. “What was Sam like when you met him? What was his job?”
Manolo dumped the contents of the dustpan into a trashcan and propped the broom in a corner.
“Let’s go in.” He held the tasting room door open and followed her inside. “You know you’re the best thing that ever happened to Sam.”
Hearing that only worsened her growing guilt.
“Why do I have to hear that from you? Why doesn’t he tell me himself?”
“Sure you don’t want something to drink?”
“No, thanks.”
“You won’t mind if I do.”
Red expected Manolo to reach for a wine bottle. But instead, he poured himself a whisky, neat. He took a sip and set his glass on the bar with a tick. “What’s Sam told you about his time overseas?”
“Not much. That’s why I’m here. I was hoping maybe you could fill me in.”
“Not really my place.”
“Manny,” pleaded Red, leaning over the live edge slab of oak that was the centerpiece of the bar. “I’m at my wit’s end. I thought Sam and I were finally going somewhere. He was starting to open up to me. And then, this afternoon, I found out he lied to me about something so basic as the house he grew up in.”
She filled Manolo in about consulting with Sam’s dad. “Why would he do that? He knew how much that house means to me.”
“Tell me something,” said Manolo. “What makes someone decide to be a psychologist?”
Red shrugged and took a breath. “No one survives childhood without some bruises, do they? In my case, my parents loved me, but they had issues. They couldn’t keep it together enough to raise a child,” she said matter-of-factly. “My dad left early on. Mom brought home so many men I started losing track of them all. Finally, my grandmother intervened. I’ve been with her since I was nine.”
“And studying psychology helped you come to terms with that?”
“When I was little, I took all the blame on myself. I thought if I could just get better grades, help more around the house, I could make my parents happier, keep them together. A teacher noticed I was struggling and referred me to the school psychologist. That was my introduction to talk therapy. I got some more help after I went to college. Saw a series of therapists. From them I learned it’s better to be honest and open. It’s not what happened that causes people grief so much as how they process it.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“I never said it was easy. I said it was healthy.”
“You knew you were loved. And you had your grandmother. There are some people whose wounds have been buried for so long they don’t even remember where to find them.”
“Who are we talking about here?” Red said.
“I got a wedding coming up, and I don’t know if my own father is going to come.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He’s still hung up on me not following him into the family business.”
“That must be hard for you. Is that why you didn’t go back to New Jersey after the Army?”
Manolo folded his arms on the bar. “Like I said, sometimes talking just doesn’t cut it.”
“Did you try talking about it?”
Manolo huffed. “Trust me. I got three sisters. All they do is talk, talk, talk. Growing up, they took my side with my old man time and time again. All it did was make him dig in his heels.”
“So you distanced yourself,” she said without judging. “Put a whole continent between you and your problem.”
“Well,” he said with a grin, “there was Junie. I’d have gone to the moon for her.”
“But from what Junie told me, you’d already been living like a nomad for some time before you met her.”
“Alls I’m saying is, sometimes talk’s not enough. Sometimes a person’s got to take action.” He lifted a case of wine from beneath the counter and started unloading it, lining up the bottles on the counter.
“Like that list of songs you came up with the other night.”
“I might have over-stepped. I was only trying to be helpful.”
“I’m just saying. Years of talk therapy and you still can’t get over wanting to make everything all right.”
Red’s face began to burn all over again. Her lips thinned.
“Isn’t there anything you can tell me that would help me understand where Sam’s coming from?”
Manolo’s hand paused on a bottle of Junie’s pinot noir. He thought for a moment, then spoke in measured words. “You’re a shrink. You know there’s a limit to how much a man can take. Sam had the kind of assignment that can mess with a man’s head even when it’s short-term. Problem with war is, you can’t clock out at five PM. You got to stay as long as it takes. That’s what Sam did, because that’s the kind of soldier he was, the kind of individual he still is: fully committed to the people and principles he cares about.”
“I still feel like if I could just get him to open up...”
“The way you opened up just now when I brought up your need to fix everything from my play list to Sam’s psyche?”
A bud of realization unfurled.
Manolo let it sink in for a moment before going on.
“You want my advice? Here it is.” He leaned on the bar and met her eyes straight on. “Hang in. Sam’ll open up when he’s ready.”
Humbled, she looked away.
“Or—”
She looked up again.
“—he won’t. Only you can decide if that’s a gamble you’re willing to take. For both of your sakes, I hope you are.”