Is home a place or a person? A season or a time of day? A sound, a song, a feeling? For me, the memories are so woven together, it’s hard to separate them from one another—to pinpoint what I long for when I’m gone, or what I feel welcoming me when I return.
I sense it now—its unique gravity—at eleven minutes before midnight as I take the final right turn onto the dirt road that leads to The Perfect White Vineyard.
My home.
I snap off the radio in the little four-door rental car and sit up straighter in my seat. With a knee on the steering wheel, I twist the elastic out of my thick hair and shake it out in preparation for the greeting I’ve looked forward to all day, and for the five years since my last visit. Then, so I don’t disturb anyone, I switch off my headlights, drowning the car and the expansive property in darkness. The car continues to jostle down the long drive and I wait for the house to come into view. It’s been five years since I moved to New York but the scents, the sounds and the feeling that wash over me are the same. Home never changes.
I roll down the windows to let in the warm spring night as I drive beneath the arching sign that welcomes me and past the refurbished barn turned tasting room, the paint still as fresh as the day I helped roll it on. Then, up on the hill, there it is—the house I grew up in, a single light on in the kitchen like a beacon. I smile.
Farther up, the outbuildings come into view. The stables. The guesthouse. My breath hitches. Still.
I swallow back the memories of the last summer I spent here, not allowing them to steal this moment from me. I focus on the stables, where I know who will be waiting for me.
I creep my way up the parking lot, dust and gravel betraying my arrival, and park next to my dad’s old pickup. When I turn off the engine, it’s deathly silent. So silent I feel the pressure on my eardrums. I’d forgotten how quiet it is this far from the city. Silence doesn’t exist in New York City.
I tiptoe down the path to the stables. The barn door clicks as I lift the latch and pull it open. I leave the lights off. I can walk the path to Midnight’s stall with my eyes closed, but enough moonlight shines through the high windows that I don’t have to. A full moon. A sign, maybe.
“Midnight,” I call into the open space. There’s the rustle of live animals but no other sound.
I call again, and when her nose pokes into the breezeway, I let loose a laugh, no longer caring about waking anyone. I close the space between us and open my palm to her silky lips.
“Hey, girl,” I coo. “I’ve missed you so much.” I rub my fingers over the length of her nose and rest my cheek against hers. I’ve lived without her sweet comfort for far too long, and I can’t wait a second longer.
I grab Midnight’s halter from the wall and lift the stall door latch. With the quick motion of a practiced movement, I slide the halter on her and lead her out of the stall. Her dark color blends into the night, aside from her white haunches, which practically glow.
“Want to go for a run, girl?” I ask.
“Not even gonna say ‘hi’ first, are you?” a rough voice responds. I start, my hair whipping over my shoulder as I look behind me. The light in the stable office flicks on, and in the doorway stands my dad. He leans against the frame with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, holes in the knees. All his jeans have holes in the knees. But his jaw is smooth and his plaid button-down is one of the two he saves for holidays. He dressed up for my homecoming.
“Dad,” I say, breathless. I run to him and throw my arms around his neck, allow myself to be enveloped in his earthy scent, his subtle strength and his love.
“You are in big trouble, Mallory Victoria. You are not allowed to leave your room for the next twenty years. No, make that thirty.”
“I missed you, too,” I whisper in his ear, grinning.
“Could’ve fooled me,” he says with a gruff laugh and a nod toward Midnight.
I shrug. “She’s prettier than you.”
“Can’t argue with you there.”
Dad takes my shoulders and holds me back. He looks me over and shakes his head, tears brimming his eyes.
“How did you get so grown-up?” he asks. “You were still a little girl when you left.”
“I saw you last Christmas.”
“Is that what you call handing each other gifts over the salt and pepper shakers at a restaurant I can’t even remember the name of?”
I frown. “Sorry, Dad. But any apartment this girl can afford isn’t even big enough to hold the necklace you gave me, let alone houseguests. I appreciated you coming, though. And I love the necklace.”
I dig the pendant out from beneath my shirt—an abstract outline of a horse, its mane blowing in the wind of my breath.
Dad rubs his calloused thumb across the white gold surface and his smile saddens.
“Hey, none of that,” I say, nudging his shoulder. “Save that for when I leave.”
“You just got here and you’re already talking about leaving?” He groans and feigns stabbing himself in the heart.
“Dad.”
“Oh, go on,” he says, shooing me toward Midnight.
“Are you sure?” I ask, even as I’m stepping toward her.
“Go on.”
I smile, plant a kiss on Dad’s cheek, then grab hold of Midnight’s mane. I throw my leg over her bare back, send one last glance toward Dad and then, with the quick hitch of my heel, Midnight trots out of the stables into the night.
* * *
When I wake in the morning, the sun is high in the sky, lighting up my childhood room in a soft orange glow. I stare straight up at a poster taped to my ceiling that says, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” I snort a laugh. I was a lot more optimistic when I put that up there. These days, I call it naive.
My phone chimes on the nightstand next to me. I grab it and hold it over my face as I blink my eyes into focus. It’s a text from Denise, my boss from the marketing firm where I’ve interned for the last year. My ex-boss as of yesterday, unless I accept the permanent position she offered me a few weeks ago as my internship was coming to an end.
Are you bored yet? she asks. Don’t forget that I need an answer by next Friday!
The smile on my face is involuntary. Denise is New York, born and raised, and she never misses the opportunity to remind me of how different our personalities are. When I told her I was coming home for a couple of weeks after my internship ended, she curled her lip and asked, But what will you do?
I text her back.
Slept til 7 am. Jealous?
I return my phone to the nightstand and as I stare back up at the poster on my ceiling, the smile slides off my face. Underneath the humor, I recognize her message for what it is: a reminder that I have a big decision to make and very little time to make it in.
Downstairs half an hour later, Mom is humming in the kitchen, flipping pancakes and frying bacon. She’s in sweatpants and a tank, her dark hair messy down her back, no bra. This is her small rebellion against the nine-to-five life. Dad’s rebellion was to give up a job in manufacturing, move us halfway across the country and deplete my parents’ entire savings to follow his dream of opening a vineyard. My mom forgoes bras on the weekend.
“Hey, Mom,” I say. She squeals when she sees me and pads barefoot across the Mexican tile to wrap me in a hug. She kisses me all over my face like I’m still four years old and I laugh, allowing her this indulgence. In the time I’ve been gone, we’ve only seen each other a handful of times and it’s been as painful for me as it has, no doubt, been for her.
“I just sort of made...everything,” she says and motions toward the breakfast bar on the kitchen island. I pull my hair back into a ponytail and pull up a stool.
“Dad out loving on the vines?” I ask, finger quotes on the “loving on.” Mom’s smirk says it all. She sets a plate in front of me, stacked high with pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, half a grapefruit and some strawberries.
“Of course he is. He loves on those grapes more than he loves on me.”
“TMI, Mom.”
She waves my comment away but her cheeks turn pink beneath her glowing olive skin and her dark brown freckles. My dad says those freckles are the only thing keeping us from looking like twins. He leaves out the twenty-three-year age difference and she loves him more for it.
“I missed you,” I say, suddenly overwhelmed by the emotion. In New York, my life is so busy, there are no cracks for reflection or emotions to creep into. But already, after a single morning here, I feel them sneaking up on me.
Mom pinches the bridge of my nose and says, “I missed you, too, kiddo.”
I clear my throat and sit up straighter. I pretend for her, and for myself, that it’s in preparation to tackle my breakfast. “So you’re going to put me to work, right?”
“I don’t have much of a choice,” she teases. “You probably picked the wrong time to make an extended visit.”
She pulls up the stool next to me and takes a bite of her bacon. We both know this is the first time since I left that I have no commitments holding me in the city, between getting my degree from Columbia, the job I worked to pay for it and my internship this last year. When my parents came to visit for Christmas, Dad casually mentioned he was thinking of having a planting party this spring—assuming, of course, that I wouldn’t be able to make it, but ever hoping anyway. I was grateful that, to his surprise, I could finally give him the answer he was looking for. The guilt of being away from my family had long since been weighing on my shoulders and, if I was being honest with myself, I’d been thinking about home more and more often in the few minutes before I fell asleep alone each night.
“I wouldn’t have missed this for anything,” I say with the luxurious confidence of already being here.
Mom takes my hand and squeezes it, looking me purposefully in the eye. “It means everything to your dad that you’re here.”
This planting party means much more than a few acres of new grapes. Most people romanticize the life of a vintner as all affluence and glamour, but in reality, my dad is a farmer through and through. He has struggled to make the vineyard a success for nearly two decades and for the first time in the history of The Perfect White Vineyard, the business is profiting. The planting party is an expansion and a celebration. It’s an affirmation that my parents’ hard work over the years has finally paid off.
I squeeze her hand in return. “It means everything to me to be here,” I say.
After breakfast, I return to my room and rummage through my suitcase for more running clothes. They’re the only outfits I own that aren’t tailored for the office. I settle on a pair of black capri yoga pants and a loose white T-shirt. I catch a glimpse of my riding boots sitting in the corner of my room where I left them five years ago, worn in and dusty. I pause, frown and then lace up my tennis shoes.
Outside, the weather is cool but with the undercurrent of warmth that seeps up from the dry ground, promising that spring is finally here. There’s a hint of moisture in the air, too, which we only get in Paso Robles when the heavens are smiling down on us. I send a prayer to the sky—the new vines will need a healthy amount of water to acclimate to the new soil.
When I reach the stables, Tiramisu’s stall is open and I hear the clanking of a bucket on the horse feeder. I already know who it is. I stop in my tracks, put my hands on my hips and say, “Hey, cowboy.”
The bucket clatters to the ground and I cover my ears with my hands, laughing. When Tyler peers around the corner, his eyes light up and his jaw hangs open.
“No way,” he says. I laugh as he jogs to me, wraps his arms around my waist and spins me around. “Your dad told me you were coming back but I didn’t believe him. But shit, you’re actually here.”
His mouth is still slack as he looks me over, gauging how much I’ve changed. I haven’t seen him since my last summer here when, according to Dad, he also went in search of greener pastures. And yet, here we both are again.
“Look at you,” he says. “You’re, like, a woman.” He stumbles on the last word like it’s explicit. Tyler and I have always had a sibling-type relationship, especially since I don’t have any of my own. But we haven’t seen each other since I was eighteen and he was twenty-one. I am a woman now.
“Look at you,” I counter. He’s changed, too. His face isn’t as soft as it used to be, having grown into its angles. His cheeks are scruffy with strawberry stubble where it was once as smooth as a freshly polished saddle. I swipe his baseball cap and run my fingers through his cropped red hair. It’s darkened over the years. “You’ve grown up quite a bit yourself.”
“And still no cowboy hat,” he says, snatching his cap back from me and pulling it onto his head.
“I’ll get you one for your birthday.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
I shrug. “Part of being a woman. I’m more stubborn than ever.”
“As if that’s possible.”
I smack him on the arm playfully and he laughs. Gratitude for the intimacy of a true friendship stirs inside me and I’m surprised at the stinging I feel at the corners of my eyes.
Tyler doesn’t seem to notice.
“Want to go for a ride?” he asks. “I was just about to saddle up Rocket.”
I blink a few times and nod. “I thought you’d never ask.”
* * *
“Five years. Geez, Mal.” Tyler draws out the words as he sits atop Rocket, a large American Warmblood—Dad’s horse—who stands two hands above Midnight and me. His coat is a splotched dark brown and white, like chocolate milk, not fully mixed together. The horses saunter side by side through the rows of my dad’s grapevines that spread as far as the eye can see. Dad moved us here seventeen years ago when the Paso Robles wine country was just up, not so much coming. Having been gone for so long, I appreciate its growth anew. Looking out to the east, I see the plot of land that has been prepared for the new vines, the trellises currently standing empty, waiting.
“Has it gotten quieter since I was here last?” I ask.
Tyler laughs. “No. Your tolerance has just lessened.”
“I couldn’t even sleep last night. I swear, I could feel it pressing in on me.”
“You went and turned into a city girl on us, didn’t you?”
I narrow my eyes at him, assaulting him with a long pause. “Never.”
“When was the last time you even rode a horse?”
I hesitate. “Yesterday?”
He laughs.
“Well, how many stables do you think there are in New York City?”
“Fair enough.”
Tyler and I point the horses up the trail that leads to the top of the hill overlooking the vineyard. Tyler lets me lead, and I close my eyes, tilting my head toward the sun. It thaws the northeastern winter from my bones. Midnight rocks back and forth beneath me with every step, and the sensation is so familiar, I could be a teenager again, full of possibilities and confusion...love and a broken heart.
“So, your boss finally let you take a vacation?” he asks.
I come back to the present. “Something like that,” I say.
“What’s it actually like?”
I laugh. Leave it to Tyler to not let me off the hook. He hasn’t changed at all.
“Actually...” I twist my fingers into Midnight’s mane. “I don’t really have a job at the moment.”
I look over my shoulder at him. His brow is furrowed. He urges me on with his eyes.
“My paid internship ended yesterday. I have to decide whether or not I’m going to take a permanent position there. Or, I guess, somewhere else. Or something else.”
“That’s a lot of decisions to make,” he notes.
A humorless laugh escapes my lips. “Yeah, it is.”
We’re quiet as we finish climbing the hill, instead focusing on avoiding the sharp, dry tree limbs overhead. I used to be able to avoid every branch that jutted out, thirsty for blood. Now they’re everywhere, the path less trodden.
We reach the top and Tyler brings Rocket to a trot next to me. We lead the horses to the break in the trees, stopping at the edge where we can see the entire property. I could sit here and memorize the horizon for hours.
“So what’s it going to be?” Tyler asks, not missing a step. It’s the question I’ve asked myself a thousand times over the last few weeks.
“I don’t know. I was kind of hoping coming home would help me decide.”
Tyler looks at me but doesn’t respond right away. His expression is studious as he tries to apply this new information to the Mallory he used to know. That Mallory didn’t think through decisions like this. She made one and let the cards fall where they may.
“What?” I finally ask.
“I don’t know. It’s just...you usually run headlong into any opportunity that presents itself. That’s kind of your thing.”
I find a tear in the leather on Midnight’s saddle and pick at it. “Well, I’m not a teenager anymore. Everyone is a little reckless when they’re teenagers.”
“Some things don’t change.”
“Some things do.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He winks, taking some of the pressure off the conversation. I grin.
“You talk a lot for a cowboy.”
“I’m not a cowboy.”
Tyler moves Rocket sideways until he can hook his arm around my neck, pulling me into a rough hug.
“It’s good to have you back,” he says.
I slip my arm around his waist. The way his T-shirt sticks to his back hints at the sheen of sweat beneath that reminds me of many summer days spent washing horses and polishing saddles with him.
“It’s good to be here,” I say.
“You see Kelly yet?” he asks.
I purse my lips and let my arm fall away from him.
“No. I haven’t.”
Copyright © 2017 by Jamie Raintree