“You, Zoe Brennan,you!I’m doing your family this huge favor, and you treat me like I don’t understand what the hell I’m doing!”
“Well, do you?” I fold my arms over my chest protectively, still staring out into downtown Blue Ridge, quiet now as the minutes tick toward closing. “You treat my vineyard like it’s nothing, but don’t you understand it’severythingto me?”
“I don’t—I mean—can you just look at me?” Laine grips my shoulder and turns me around, forcing me to meet her eyes. But when she sees my tear-streaked face, her anger melts into confusion. Her tight grip releases, her hand sliding slowly down my arm, until it stops where it circles around my wrist. “God, Zoe,” she says softly, frowning in dismay as her eyes track across my face and the misery collected there. “Do you really hate me so much?”
I force myself to lift my chin, my breath catching in my throat. Because that’s the problem, isn’t it? After all the mean things she’s said, the way she belittles the place I love most, after she casually moved from fucking me to loathing me and expects me to be fine with it?
“No. I don’t.” The truth of it barrels between us, along with all the words I don’t have to say. Laine breathes sharply inward, and her hand tightens around my wrist. She pulls me toward her, the furrow between her brows deepening, and me? I’ve stopped breathing. Her other hand lifts tentatively, like she’s either going to brush away my tears or pushmeaway, unclear. Either way, I wish it would happen. Some kind of period to punctuate this standoff, cut it off and make the agony end. We’re staring at each other so hard, she doesn’t notice the red Chevrolet that pulls up alongside us, its passenger window rolled down.
“Zoe Brennan? Your Lyft’s here.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The hangover from the worst Queer Mountaineers gathering in history lasts a full two weeks. Tristan claims that’s impossible, but how else to explain the headache that’s gripped me ever since I drunk-sobbed all the way home in the one ride-share car in town? The driver blared heavy metal to give me some privacy, and maybe all that excessive guitar soloing helped, because eventually my tears transformed into righteous anger at all the many ways Laine sucks. The only way I’ve gotten through these last two weeks is that she literally turns and walks in the other direction as soon as she sees me. Which, good. Great.
The fact is this arrangement with Laine isn’t working out. While she hasn’t made any more rookie errors since she started meeting with Jamal, having her help isn’t worth the physicalillnessI feel knowing she thinks my vineyard isn’t good enough for her. The threesome just makes everything more complicated, leading to weird moments like outside the wine bar where her hate and my hurt mix with leftover lust, and I’m so tired of feeling broken and confused in the one place that’s always given me strength. The day after the Queer Mountaineers gathering, I finally put out discreet feelers for someone to take her place. She can’t wait to leave, so why make her stay?
I’m stepping out of the shower when my phone buzzes on the bathroom counter.
Gloria
U HOME 2DAY
Then, an instant later:
Gloria
I STG, ZOE, I SWEAR. TO. GOD.
Zoe
Yeah, I’m home. What’s wrong?
Gloria
SEE U SOON
Huh. I try asking Gloria, then Maeve, what’s going on a few more times, but they both leave me on read. I’m still puzzling down at my phone when it rings in my hand, right on time. It’s Wednesday at nine here, but three p.m. Dad’s time in Montepulciano, and we have a standing date to chat.
“Hey, Dad.” I pull my wet hair out of the way and cradle the phone to my ear. “How are you? How’s Nonna?”
“Zoe Nicoletta! It is so good to hear your voice,” he says, just like he does every week, his words a warm, lingering hug. “I am doing well, and your Nonna is having one of her better days.” He says that every week, too, which makes me wonder about all the bad days he doesn’t tell me about. I want an honest report, for him to finally give me some details about what’s going on over there, but just likeIdo every week, I bite the questions down, too scared to ask. I never know how far I can push Dad before he’ll topple over and shut down completely.
Once, a few days before the first anniversary of Mom’s death, I asked him if we could do something special for her. I had this idea that we’d take her ashes and sit beneath her favorite tree. From dawn until dusk, we’d tell our favorite stories about her, and then maybe, after the moonrose, her ghost would come and visit with us. Mom believed in ghosts, after all, and I thought maybe the strength of our memories would pull her back to us, if only for one night. I was twelve, incredibly maudlin, and I’d just lost my mother. It seemed like the best idea I’d ever had. Life took her away, but what if magic could bring her back? Then Dad would be better, and I would be better, and after a long, wretched year, everything would finallybe better.
It took me all day to summon the courage to share my idea. Maybe some part of me knew he couldn’t handle it. When I finally did, he just … left. It was like the person inside his eyes slammed a door, shutting me out and locking himself in. He didn’t speak for two whole months after that, andIbecame the ghost in our house. He didn’t look at me, or talk to me, or anything. I could be standing right in front of him, but he didn’t evenseeme.
It was terrifying.
I wasn’t sure what scared me more—losing Dad, too, or being lost from him myself. When the anniversary came, I took Mom’s ashes and sat beneath her tree alone. I told story after story about her to our vineyard and the birds singing in the trees, until my voice was hoarse, and I had to whisper the memories into the night. I sat there late, waiting for the moon to rise and for Mom to come back and finally make us whole again. But the moon never rose, and of course, Mom never came. Her urn was warm in my arms, but the heat was frommyflesh and blood. Not hers.
I’ve walked lightly around Dad’s grief ever since.
“So, how is the vineyard? Is Laine enjoying the work?” Dad prompts, and I let him change the subject away from the harder things. Like always.
“Honestly? It’s going terribly.”
“What?No, I can’t believe it! Laine is such a lovely person, so qualified!”
