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Even diminished by the onset of Alzheimer’s, he’s a large, intimidating man with sharp blue eyes that look confused more and more of the time. I notice that his full head of salt-and-pepper hair is longer than usual, and his perpetually clean-shaven face has a couple weeks of growth on it.
It’s why my siblings and I have the sole interaction with him when it comes to all business aspects of the winery. When his dementia advanced to Alzheimer’s two months ago, he was deemed “non-compos mentis”—not legally responsible for the things he says or does. That’s when my siblings and I were awarded power of attorney to make all decisions for him and the business.
“Good morning to you, too.” Beatrix smiles at his gruffness because it’s a sign he’s having a good day. When he’s uncharacteristically kind, it generally means he doesn’t know who he’s talking to and is remembering the early days when he and our mom were still married.
“Hey, Dad.”
“To what do I owe the honor?” Dad sits up straighter at the large work table in the middle of his bedroom. The four-poster bed has already been made, and his nurse hovers in the corner of the room, failing to make herself as invisible as I’d prefer.
As he eagerly awaits the answer to why we’ve come, my heart deflates. He asked for me, and if he’s already forgotten why, I may have lost my window of lucidity.
His deep chuckle startles me. “I’m kidding, Jackson. Let’s get down to it. There’s going to be another big financial hit on next quarter’s books, so I need you to prepare.”
My heart, buoyed by my dad’s clear mental state, clenches even harder at the financial news. I glance at the nurse, making sure she looks capable of handling a heart attack because I may have one.
“What do you mean? We already did thatthisquarter.” Maybe he’s confused. Maybe he forgot.
My dad nods. “I know. And you handled it, so I know you’ll handle it again.”
I get a side-eye from Beatrix because I only sort of handled it, and she doesn’t know the details. I’m still working out what to tell shareholders. And I sure as hell won’t know what to tell them next quarter to keep our stock from tanking.
“Dad, I need some details. Why are we taking these losses? Nothing’s changed in our business model.”
He examines his hands before tucking them behind his head and tipping back in his chair. The nurse sprints over to him, and he casts her a look of disdain. “I’m not falling over.” He rights the chair and levels me with his blue eyes.
“I don’t want to get into that today,” he says.
“Dad, I think we have to.”
He looks down at the newspaper on his desk. “I’ve been at this a long time. Just do what I’m asking.”
The family-owned winery was started by our grandfather, who barely had four pennies to rub together. He was a seasonal worker for over a decade at vineyards that abutted his blue-collar suburb and saved every dollar until he could afford to buy a half acre of his own land.
The story is posted on a gold-lettered wooden plaque in the visitors’ sitting area of the tasting room, but most people have heard the story before they ever come in the door—how our grandfather talked one of the vineyard owners he worked for into selling him the tiny plot, how he talked a French relative into sharing a cutting from a heritage grape varietal not found in California.
And then the rest—how our father took a small boutique winery that only a few people cared about and built it into a behemoth with hundreds of employees onsite. How he grew it into a massive retailer of wine to every major grocery chain in the country. A lot of people have things to say about him selling out, but he never gave a damn, and by now, the operation is far too big to put any horses back in any barns.
My siblings and I are charged with keeping his legacy alive and profitable while he withers outside of the public eye. In fact, his Alzheimer’s diagnosis has been kept under wraps for the better part of a year, thanks to our youngest sister, PJ.
“Dad, I need information, or I can’t do my job.” I take a step closer, hoping there’s something visible on the desk that will explain things. There’s only yesterday’s New York Times and a stack of other unread papers.
“See? That’s going to be a problem.” His blue eyes slice through me like lasers.
“What?”
“You’re off your game. Find an assistant to handle the other distractions in your life, for the love of God. Work comes first.”
This again. By “distraction,” I know he’s talking about Fiona. My siblings and I were raised by nannies so we wouldn’t be similar distractions to him, and I don’t want that for my daughter. Once I get Fiona up and off to school, I’ll drink a gallon of coffee and make up for the missed hours of work.
“I don’t need help. We’re managing just fine.”
“You’re coming apart at the seams. Have you looked in a mirror lately? You look like shit—haggard and mopey.”
I nearly choke on the air entering my lungs. My father may have made a near-fatal error when it comes to our winery’s finances, but his chief concern is how I look. I take it as a sign that he’s doing okay, all things considered. Maybe he has more of his faculties than it seems.
“I’m fine, Dad. What would really help me is for you to stop telling me to expect new losses every quarter.”
He shrugs. “Cabernet harvest didn’t yield what we thought. It costs money to fix these things. It’s the business.”
