The Vineyard (40 page)
Authors: Barbara Delinsky
Natalie sat back, looking mystified. “Funny. I haven't thought about that in a long time. It wasn't ever something I dwelled on, wasn't something I discussed with Alexander, even so many years later.”
“Because of his ego?” Olivia asked.
“Because it was
irrelevant
. I could have poured
ten
times what I did into the vineyard, but if we hadn't put backbreaking hours into planting and nursing those vines, into researching new methods of trellising and testing new pesticide programs, they wouldn't have amounted to much more than weeds.” She fell silent.
Silence was part of their routine. Olivia had learned to use it to gather her thoughts. Doing so now, she felt something was missing. She flipped back through her notes, but couldn't put her finger on it. So she said, “Describe an average day.”
Natalie smiled. “There was no average day, not when you were raising children and grapes, not when you were feeling your way along, building a business when you really knew nothing about building a business.”
“And you were the one who did it, not Alexander.”
Natalie thought for a minute. “I suppose that if you have to label things, you could say that I was the what-to-do person and Carl was the how-to-do-it one. Alexander was our front man. He traveled. He spread the word. By the time we were bottling wine in great enough quantity to market it, we knew just where to go. Alexander was wonderful that way. He wasn't good with money, and he wasn't good with plowing or plucking or grafting, but he was a powerful publicity tool.”
“Was he good with children?” Olivia asked and suddenly realized that that was it. Natalie's story lacked that personal element.
“He was
wonderful
with children,” Natalie said, but her smile quickly faded. “Oh, it was hard at first. I told you that. When he came home from the war, he was a stranger to them and they to him. After a year or two, as the children grew a little older and more familiar,
that changed. I guess he found that they weren't any different from adults. If he played with them, they liked him. Mind you, he wanted the house rules followed, but I was the enforcer. I was the bad guy, he was the good guy. It probably helped that he traveled, because it was more of a novelty when he was home. He never took a trip without returning with some little toy or memento for them.” She sighed, smiling again. “They adored him, which made him happy, and Alexander happy made my life easier.”
“Was it a hard life?”
“Hard?
Physically
hard?”
“Living on a small farm on the coast.”
“It got easier in the fifties. Suddenly we had washers and dryers. We had dishwashers. We had vacuum cleaners. We had oil heat and a thermostat. We had two cars. We had three televisions. It wasn't a bad life at all.”
“Were you happy?”
“I was very happy.”
“Were you
happy?”
“I ⦠was,” Natalie replied, but more reflectively. “You're wondering what I was feeling about Carl all this time.”
“About Carl. About Alexander. About the children. You've given me facts about the vineyard's growth. I want to hear the emotional side.”
The older woman remained thoughtful. “I was thrilled about the vineyard. That was always a source of joy for me. To this day, I get a lift just walking among the vines.”
“With Carl?”
“With or without,” she said, then amended that. “With is better. He loves the place like I do. He put in the work and feels the pride.”
“And you love him.”
“Yes.”
“What about Alexander? What was your marriage like?”
Natalie considered that for a moment, and when she began, she spoke slowly. “Hard work. Al and I had very different outlooks. I accepted that most of the time. On occasion, it bothered me. I sometimes grew frustrated with him. I wanted him to be ⦠to be ⦔
“More like Carl?”
Her sigh was confirmation of it. “He wasn't, of course. Couldn't ever be. And if it suddenly happened, it would have thrown
me for a loop. I had structured our lives in a way that made accommodation for his needs and mine.” She paused, frowned, pressed her lips together. “There were times of strain. But they always passed. In the overall scheme of things, we had a good working marriage.” She raised earnest eyes. “And I was happy, Olivia. Alexander wasn't Carl, but Carl was in my life. I had the best of both worlds. Yes, I was dutiful when it came to doing things Alexander liked, but I enjoyed many of them, too. I liked going to parties. I liked going out to dinner. I liked taking theater trips to New York. I am not making myself out to be a martyr in this book.”
“Were you happy as a mother?” Olivia asked, because it struck her that Natalie hadn't once said that.
She didn't now either. She studied her lap for the longest time before finally raising her eyes. They held dismay. “I love my children. I suffer when they do.” Her voice quivered. With a breath, she gathered her composure. “As the years went by, we drifted.”
“Why?”
Natalie's eyes returned to her lap. Her brows rose. “Probably because I was doing so many other things. Our social life was more active in the fifties and sixties. We joined the yacht club and started giving parties. I was active with community groups. All that took time, on top of what I did at the vineyard. As the children grew older, there was less custodial work, so I focused on those other things.”
“But you were here with them every morning and every night,” Olivia argued. She would have given anything to have her mother do that. “You were physically present.”
Natalie didn't let herself off the hook. “Physically present, mentally afield. I ⦠I don't think I gave them the time or attention they needed. I think they resent that to this day.”
Olivia agreed with her there. Susanne had actually talked about special treatment given to one child and not the rest. “What about Brad?”
Natalie shifted in the wing-back chair. When she settled again, she looked as though she had braced herself. “Brad was my oldest.”
“I know.”
“He was the first son.”
“Yes.”
“Greg was born eighteen years later. Our lives were very different then. We were more prosperous.”
“Was Greg a surprise?”
“No. We wanted another child.”
But there was something in the way she said it, a small hesitancy.
Seeming to sense it, too, she said quickly, “I love Greg. I loved him from the minute he was born. I've followed his career in ways he doesn't know about.”
Olivia tried to read between the lines. “But you were conflicted about having a third child?”
It was a minute before Natalie continued. Nodding, she said, “I was thirty-six. My days were already full.”
“Then why?”
“Alexander and I were going through one of those periods of strain that I mentioned.”
“You had a baby to save the marriage?”
She came alive. “I know, I know. Folks your age think that's the worst reason to have a child, but it is not, Olivia. It is not. Alexander wanted another child. He said that he'd missed the early years with the others. He was happy when I got pregnant, which made me happy. And I did get Greg in the deal.”
Greg, who never knew his older brother.
Olivia came forward. Quietly, she asked, “What
happened
to Brad?”
For a minute, Natalie was perfectly still. Then her mouth moved, lips pursing and releasing. She moistened one corner and the other, and raised her eyes to Olivia. The sadness there was breathtaking.
Brad was born during those early dark days after the men went off to war. Given the circumstances, the maternity ward was surprisingly upbeat. There were many of us in the same situation, young and a little frightened, giving birth to our babies with no daddies in sight. We were a sorority of sorts, actually kept in touch for years afterward.
I was in labor for nearly a day before Brad was born, but from that moment on, he was a delight. He was quiet and sweet. He smiled from the time he was a month oldâand no, it was not gas. Those smiles were real. I swear he knew how badly I needed them during those days with so much worry and fear.
It was always like thatâBrad being attuned to my moods and my needs. When I was feeling lonely, he was at his most cuddly.
when I was feeling blue, he would just grin with a mouth full of rice cereal. How not to laugh with him? How not to think that something was indeed right in the world? This child was a gift. Many a Sunday I sat in church giving thanks for him.
Susanne was born two years later. It was a much easier delivery, and I knew the routine of caring for an infant, so she just kind of fit into the family, and Brad was good. There were no jealous outbursts, no temper tantrums in a bid for attention. Of course, he got his share of that anyway.
Susanne would say he got more than his share. Perhaps she's right. Perhaps I did take her for granted. She wasn't demanding. She did what she had to do without a fussâate, slept, grew. I always saw her as being like me. I assumed she would grow up to do the same things I did.
Brad was something else. He was male. He had a world of opportunities. I wanted every option open to himâand he showed the promise of all that. He learned to read when he was four and excelled in school, but he knew how to handle it. He had an innate modesty and an outward gentleness, which made him popular. He was the captain of whatever team was on the playground. He had friends, friends, and more friends. He was kind. Other children gravitated toward him.
I have to say one thing here. I don't think Susanne looked at the whole picture. I may have favored Brad. I may have taken her for granted. But once their initial strangeness with each other disappeared, she was the apple of her father's eye. Alexander was far stricter with Brad than he ever was with her. If Brad were here today, he would vouch for that.
But he isn't here, and you want to know why.
Give me a minute. Losing a child has to be the most painful thing a parent can possibly experience. It's always difficult for me to discuss.
So unexpected. Brad was the picture of health. Always. He never had colic. He never had colds. He was strapping and strong, tall and confident for his age at nine and ten. Then he turned eleven, and barely a month later he developed a fever.
The fear was instant. All around us, polio had reached epidemic proportions. We sent Susanne to stay with friends who had no children. We prayed that we were wrong.
The fever went on for six days before we saw another symptom, and then it was terrifying, because we knew. We knew. Our healthy boyâour strong boy couldn't raise his head from the bed or lift his legs. It was a classic case. I was with him all hours of the day, putting warm towels on his legs when the muscles spasmed, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. When he began to have trouble breathing, we brought him to the hospital.
I will never forget the sight of my child in an iron lung. I will never forget the helplessness I felt when he looked at me, silently begging me to make him better. He knew what was wrong with him. He knew what could happen. He was old enough for that.
Do you remember the horrible plane crash not long ago, the one in which the plane started to plunge for no apparent reason? All those people killed, after a death spiral during which they must have known, must have realized, what was happening? Consider what the families of those victims must endure thinking about their loved onesâknowing they were going to die, unable to help themselves.
I lived that with Brad. He grew weaker and weaker. He struggled to breathe, struggled to open his eyes, but the knowing was there right up to the end. His body gave out before his brain did. It was ⦠the worst experience of my life.
Natalie finished speaking. She sat for several minutes, wearing the pain of that experience on her face. Then, without another word, she rose and left the office.
Olivia didn't move for a long time, and when she did, it wasn't to write down what she had heard. Leaving her paper and pencil on the computer desk, she went off in search of Tess.
Â
N
ATALIE LOSING
B
RAD
was like Simon losing Liana, all the more tragic with a child, such potential lost. No one went through life without knowing death. But a childâa child was all innocence and hope.
Olivia felt a compelling need to hug Tess. It wasn't until she was out beside the flagpole that she realized Tess was sailingâand even then, the need remained strong enough for her to consider driving to the yacht club to wait at the dock. She might have done just that if Susanne hadn't opened the screen door and called, “Phone, Olivia!”
Given her frame of mind, Olivia's first thought was that there had been a sailing accident. Rushing back to the house and up the stone steps, she must have looked terrified, because Susanne said a calming, “It's just Anne Marie.”