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“No, Tom. It’s something.” She stepped towards me and patted my arm, her eyes soft. “Thank you,” she whispered, each squeeze of her fingers telling me she meant it. “Thank you.”
I nodded and Mama Z moved past me to get cereal bowls and storage containers for breakfast. I placed the last baking tray on the shelf above their woodfired oven and hung up the tea towel. “Well, that’s the last of it so—”
“You go. Sleep. And, Tom, you be careful with my girl.”
I nodded again.
Mama Z dismissed me with a wave of her hand. The moment was over. I walked out the back door to my ute as a chorus of birds welcomed the new day.
I turned the key, and the engine roared to life. I sat for a moment, looking towards the east, watching the glow of dawn light up the sky.
Mama Z’s words played over in my head—You be careful with my girl.
I scrubbed my face. Ugh, still covered in lipstick and now soot and whatever else.
I just couldn’t figure out if Mama Z meant it as a warning or a threat.
Probably both.
* * *
Rosie
The smell of scorched earth lingered in my nose, my mouth, leaving a bitter aftertaste at the back of my throat. Grey vines were twisting out of the black soil. There was no green—not even weeds. Just ash and black.
I screamed and instantly regretted it, and held my throbbing head.
Dealing with the aftermath of not one but two fires—which I’d slept soundly through—with a hangover was the shittiest Friday I’d had in a long while. Almost as shitty as finding out your fiancé had been fucking undergraduate students behind your back.
Actually, it was even shittier than that.
I loved these grapes, then, now and in the future, more than I ever loved Richard.
God, and now I am finally free of him.
I looked about to see if anyone was around. Satisfied I was alone, I swished some bottled water in my mouth and then spat it out.
Had I puked last night? Or was the thought of my ex enough to make bile rise up the back of my throat? Probably the latter.
But still … I frowned, thinking about last night. Flashbacks of asking every and any man in the Town and Country Pub to kiss me, being in Tom’s strong arms, his lips on mine, the heat of his body, how hard his body was.
Focus, Rosie.
I sighed and scrubbed my face to clear my thoughts. Tom’s ripped body, my cheating bastard of an ex and thoughts of ‘did I or did I not puke?’ were not helping me right now.
I cleared my throat.
We make wine.
To make wine, I was counting on these vines growing the most succulent of grapes. The tempranillo was at its prime, and now all that was left was charred vines.
Maybe some would survive, but I doubted it.
These were some of our best grapes and we were expecting great quality fruit based on the long weather forecast for rain and the age of the vines, but now, they were all lost.
I unclipped my pruning shears from my belt hook and cut one of the tendrils and it crumbled into ash.
“This is no good. Not good at all.” Dad hobbled up the row of blackened vines, using his cane for support, in obvious pain.
