Page 33 of Wild Abandon

He hands me a glass, so I take a sip and offer him my opinion. The wine tastes dry, making my mouth actually quench with thirst, something I learned is odd for a white wine. Placing the glass down on the stone, I look back at Ed and make an ugly face at the glass. I’ve learned it’s best to be completely honest with him because he’s usually testing me in some way.

Big Ed holds up the plate and offers me a piece of chocolate. I oblige and pop a sinfully delicious piece of, what I’m now tasting to be, white chocolate hinted with flavors of strawberry.

“Now, that’s good!” I say, nearly salivating.

“Try this.” Big Ed holds up a second glass.

I take it and swallow a drink. Then, I hold the glass up while I speak, “It’s not great, but it’s far more drinkable than the other one.”

Big Ed gives a hardy chuckle. “One bottle, two glasses, kid. They’re the same exact wine.”

I look down at the bottle and feel like an idiot for not realizing I was drinking the same wine from two different glasses.

“This bottle of crap is from Yellow Stockbridge Winery.”

“Why do you buy it if it’s so awful?”

Big Ed takes the bottle and holds it upside down over the edge of the veranda, letting the liquid pour into the soil. “I’ve got cases of it. Bill sends it down here. I think he tries to piss me off on purpose.”

“When are you going to start making wine again?”

“My harvesting days are over.” He huffs. “I’ll renew the lease on the lands in a few months.”

“Is that how you keep this place going? By leasing out the land?”

“Would you believe they’re worth one hundred fifty grand an acre? Thirty years ago, there was half the amount of wineries. Now, there’s no land to buy.”

“How did you end up here? I’ve heard you mention Old Man Russet. Who was he?”

Big Ed looks down and smiles. “Ah, he was a good man. Me and my Rosemary were newlyweds when we met him at a festival. That was thirty-five years ago. Rosemary and I were vagabonds, traveling around, picking up odd jobs where we could. We were young, in love, and thought the world was our playground. I blame the seventies.”

He chuckles and continues, “You know, I was madly in love with the woman because she’d stop at every single booth and talk. That was Rosemary. She talked to everyone. She had this way about her. It was like she genuinely cared about what everyone had to say. I’d have been jealous if she didn’t always reach out and grab my hand.” He looks down at his palms and stretches his stout fingers, worn and rough from years of work. “She’d make these little circles inside my palm. That was her way.

“We were just about to leave when she saw one last booth. I don’t know if you could even call it that. All the way in the back, in a secluded corner, where no one was walking, were a lone table and an old man. Everyone else had posters and all this other crap around it to entice people to come over. But not this one. This was just a folding table and a few bottles.

“The wine blew me away. I remember thinking, This is the best thing I have ever tasted in my life. Old Man Russet was happy someone came over to visit his booth, so he pulled up a chair for Rosemary and a crate for me, and we started to talk. He took one look at Rosie, and I knew he was in love. It was the hair.” He looks over at me with a slight twinkle in his nostalgic eyes.

“Well, by the time the festival gates closed, I had a new job, and Rosemary and I had a place to settle down. We’ve been here ever since.” His last words are said with a tinge of melancholy. “That man treated me like a son. Taught me everything he knew, and together, we made some great wine. He’s been gone for seventeen years now.”

“And Rosemary?”

“Ten years ago. Cancer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He clears his throat and adjusts his hat. “These were her roses. We tried for years to have a baby. Every time she lost one, she’d plant more roses in their honor. The color of them, the deep crimson, means mourning.”

“I like your Rosemary. She made something beautiful out of a tragedy. She must have been the type to never give up.”

Big Ed thinks on that for a moment. A revelation appears in his eyes. I must have triggered a thought.

He packs the thought away and continues, “She was out here every day. Said they were her love roses. Even when we realized how many vines we could plant here and the amount of money we could make off of them, we kept the roses. Planted more. Her love for them was greater than any dollar I could make.”

This man. This rough and grumbly man—who, on the outside, appears to be cranky and decrepit—is really far more fortunate than I ever gave him credit for.

I almost envy him. Not because he owns a winery—although abandoned. And not because he is sitting on millions of dollars of real estate. But because he has known a love more precious than any material belonging or sheer possession.

As if Rosemary were calling from heaven, the roses nearby appear to be opening wider, spreading their admiration for the man who tends to them.