Page 116 of The Difference Between

He looks around the tasting room and gives a disbelieving laugh. “Don’t look like it.”

“I work with vineyards.” Today. “Just here a few months.”

The conversation pivots, but they keep me in it. We talk about books and travels and good wines and bad wines. We talk about nothing. One guy talks too loud and one woman keeps clearing her throat, but somehow, I’m not annoyed. On the contrary, I pour wine and volunteer information.

About myself.

As they sip their last tasting, the Incalmo Port, Addie rushes through the door and climbs onto a stool.

“You got ID?” I tease.

She laughs and pushes the bridge of her glasses. “Andrew, I’d like a beer,” she says in her rounded-off voice.

I know this game. “A beer?”

“Mm,” she says with a serious face. “Good stuff.”

I smile before she does.

It’s from Overboard.

My gaze flicks down the bar. Nearly everyone is smiling at her—it’s impossible not to—but there’s some reservation there too. Recognition. They see her Down syndrome.

Gavin told me that first day she’s just another person, and every minute I’m with her I know she is. The difference between her and us is one chromosome that I’ve nearly forgotten because it’s the least important thing about her.

He was wrong the other night when he said I’d done something for her—I haven’t—but she’s done something for me that I never knew I needed. She accepts me—fully—everything my sisters tease me relentlessly about and Trish sent me away for, Addie appreciates. Without me working for it. I’ll be damned if I won’t give her that same acceptance and appreciation in return.

“Addie here helped with the menu,” I explain as I crouch down to a small refrigerator and retrieve four bottles of grape juice. “Didn’t think it was fair the grown-ups got to have all the fun.”

They chuckle at this.

Addie was sitting right next to me when I was looking through American Restaurant magazine and landed on an article about a place in Key Largo. It’s a bar and grill with designated activities for kids so the adults can enjoy a drink in peace. Crow’s Nest, it was called.

“Do that,” Addie said, pointing at a group of kids Hula-Hooping under palm trees.

And while I couldn’t manage it for today—maybe not even this season—I loved the idea. A place kids could run wild and parents relax. The kind of place I’ll want to take my kid someday.

Addie collects the bottles in her arms and says, “Miss Reese said drunk kids are bad for profit margins.”

A man raises his wine. “Miss Reese is a smart lady!”

“That’s what Uncle Gav says.”

Then she’s gone, shouting thank you as she runs straight to Gavin who’s waiting for her outside. His eyes meet mine as he unscrews the lid of her juice, and for a split second, I think I could do this every single day for the rest of my life. I could give Addie juice and pour wine for tourists and look for Gavin across rooms and crowds and rows of vines. I could do it despite his job or his age or any other one of the differences between us.

“I’ll take two bottles of the Gather,” the man from Chicago says.

I grab the bottles, pausing at the scene out the windows.

Banyan is holding the weird instrument in his hands while the older woman blows into it before laughing. The rolling hills of grapes lead to trees then the hazy promise of mountains that lie just beyond. A blur of motion cuts the scene as the kids race by. It’s . . . perfect.

The man waiting clears his throat, reminding me he’s there.

I give him the wine and he thanks me, gesturing with his chin to the view. “Sure as shit beats the hell outta Canal, eh?”

He doesn’t wait for me to answer before crossing the room to meet his wife at the register.

“It’s a damn good view,” Trish had said that day as we looked out over the city from her office. “But it isn’t the best one you’ll see in a lifetime. Not by a long shot.”