The Vineyard (51 page)

“The timing would work,” Greg said, sounding more as though he was solving a puzzle than making an accusation. “If you were with Carl that way before he left, it would have been a month before you married Dad. You could have pulled it off.”

If you were with Carl that way.
It was the million-dollar question. Olivia hadn't had the courage to ask Natalie herself. She waited, wondered.

Susanne, too, seemed to be reasoning aloud. “Remember Barbie Apgar, my friend growing up? Her mother always said that her actual birth date was three weeks before the date on all the records. She claimed that record keeping was totally messed up during the war, because the offices were all shorthanded and everyone was focused on Europe. The Apgars never knew when to celebrate Barbie's birthday. It was a standing joke.”

“Brad looked just like you,” Greg told Natalie. “It's in all the pictures. Your face, your coloring. Who'd have known if his father wasn't Dad?”

“Jeremiah and Brida,” Susanne answered. “They were here. They would have known if there was a discrepancy in the dates, but according to what you wrote, they told you to marry Dad. They wanted Carl to marry someone from Ireland. And your father was ill, so he wouldn't have kept track of the dates, and besides, he wanted the Seebring shoe money. And your mother died before the war was over, which meant that she wasn't here to spill the beans.”

“No
one was around those first few years after Brad was born,” Greg said. “Dad was gone. Carl was gone. Who'd have
known?”

All eyes were on Natalie. Olivia's heart went out to her, but she wanted to hear the answer as much as the others.

Natalie didn't deny it. She wore a beseeching look, but she
didn't say a word. Olivia was reaching her own conclusions when a sound broke the silence. It came from the door to the hall.

There, in the shadows on the outer fringe of the light cast by the lamps, stood Carl. He was staring at Natalie, looking stunned. “Is it true?” he asked in a crusty voice, coming forward a single slow step.

Natalie put a hand to her mouth. She remained mute.

“You didn't know?” Susanne asked Carl, who shook his head, but the gesture went on longer than it would have for a simple negative reply. He seemed dazed. “You had to have known it was possible,” she pushed. “Didn't you
guess?”

Carl kept looking at Natalie. He started to speak, then stopped. He frowned, tipped his head, winced at whatever cut through his mind. It was so painful watching such a kind, gentle, good-hearted man suffer that Olivia would have called a time-out, had this been a game. She looked at Susanne, then Greg, thinking that one or the other would take pity on him. To their credit, at least, neither of them seemed angry with him. Carl had been kept in the dark about this, just as Alexander had been kept in the dark about so much else.

Carl ran a hand over his mouth. His eyes fell to the floor. Then, seeming puzzled still, he looked at Susanne. “I learned to distance myself,” he said, sounding faraway even then. “I had to. When I learned that your mother had married someone else, I—my whole world fell through. For a while, all I did was fight. Helped the country in the war effort, that's for sure,” he added, but without any hint of a smile. Rather, frowning again, he put a hand on the back of his head. “Then I came back here and had to see that ring on her finger every day. Had to see Brad and you every day. I learned to tell myself that that's just the way it was. Couldn't change it. All done.”

“How could you stay here?” Greg asked with what Olivia was relieved to call compassion.

Carl's eyes cleared. “How could I stay? you ask. How could I
leave?
She was alone. Her husband was still over there, and she had two children, a sick father, and a farm that needed tending. I told myself I'd stay until Alexander got home, but it was clear right from the start that farming wasn't his thing, and then I couldn't leave Natalie alone with the work any more than I could before.”

“How could you look my father in the eye?” Susanne asked.

Carl stood straighter, seeming challenged now. “Why would that have been a problem? I never compromised his wife. Any romantic
involvement I had with her ended with her marriage. I had nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of.” His gaze went to Natalie. “I had no idea Brad was mine. Maybe if I'd known it, I'd have done something. Maybe I'd have had trouble looking Al in the eye then, but I didn't know a damn thing. I was off in Europe fighting a war, catching what little sleep I could by dreaming about coming back here and marrying the love of my life. Then I was cut off cold. I was the last one to know about the marriage. And about Brad?” The pain was in his eyes again. He blew out a sharp puff of air.

It was followed by a sharper sound, though, when the outer door flew open and Simon came in from the storm. He was windblown and wet, but there was a look of relief on his face.

“The wind is down. Let's go.”

Twenty-nine
 

S
IMON WAS VAGUELY AWARE
that the tension in the kitchen was too intense to be caused by the storm alone, but that wasn't his worry just then. The grape leaves were. Every minute counted.

“Is anyone helping?” he asked in dismay when five pairs of eyes regarded him dumbly.

Natalie was the first to react, rising quickly from her seat. “Oh my God, yes. Where do you want us to start?”

“We'll work from top to bottom, starting with the Cabs. Donna's already out there. She'll set everyone up.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. It was damp and wrinkled, but ballpoint pen ink didn't smudge. He would rather Natalie stay inside making calls. It was gentler work. “These people are waiting to help. They need to be called.”

“Olivia will make the calls. I'm going outside.”

Carl was suddenly there with a gruff, “Let Olivia do the physical work.”

Natalie rounded on him. “I may have made other mistakes in my life, but giving the vineyard my all was never one of them. I'm going out there, Carl, and if I die washing those leaves, it's God's will.” She passed Simon and went out the door.

“What was that about?” Simon asked Carl.

Looking cross, Carl merely followed Natalie out. Greg left seconds later.

“I'll get Mark,” Susanne murmured and went in the other direction.

That left Simon and Olivia.

He pushed both hands through his hair, then wiped them on his shorts—but shorts, hands, hair were all as salty and wet as the vines. “Did I miss something?”

“Nothing you can't hear about later,” Olivia said. “Are you okay?”

He felt a tiny pang in his chest. It had been awhile since anyone had asked him that. “Just tired,” he said, managing a slight smile. “I didn't sleep much last night.”

“How long will it take tonight?”

“Can't take more than a few hours, or the damage is done. Adrenaline will keep me going that long.” He handed her the list. “Start with the fire department. They'll bring lights. Where's Tess?”

“In the den. I'll wake her when I go out, so she won't panic if she finds no one here.”

“Bring her,” Simon said, and suddenly, it was as important as the vines. The vineyard was his baby, but Tess was Olivia's, and Olivia mattered. They both mattered.

The doubt on Olivia's face reminded him what a bastard he'd been when they had first arrived. He still needed to absolve himself for that.

“She can help,” he said. “It isn't dangerous, just tedious, but she's smart and she's strong. Every helping hand gives the grapes a better chance.” When Olivia remained unsure, he said, “I'll keep her close.”

Close to the house? Close to the others? Close to me?
The words were vague, even to Simon.

Whichever Olivia chose, it was apparently enough to convince her. When she nodded, he smiled, feeling pleased for the first time that night.

“I'll get her,” Olivia said.

But Simon wanted to do it himself. He remembered what it was to give to a child and see glee in return. Tess wasn't six, and it wasn't Christmas morning, but if he had learned anything about her this
summer, he suspected she would be pleased to be asked. He wanted to be there to see.

“I will,” he said, heading for the den. “You start on that list.”

N
ATURALLY
, O
LIVIA FOLLOWED HIM
to the den. If she hadn't already been in love with him, she would have fallen the rest of the way when she saw how gently he freed Tess's head from the afghan and brought her awake. Thinking that, realizing it,
admitting
it for the very first time, she felt hard palpitations in her chest. Well, she did love him. There was no point in denying it. Everything about him appealed to her—body, mind, and manner. And now there was Tess. That was a vital part of it. Tess was the center of her life. Olivia could never love a man who didn't understand that, or agree, or feel the same, and it looked from where she stood at the door to the den that Simon did. She couldn't make out distinct words in the low murmur of his voice, but she could have sworn she heard an element of excitement. She certainly saw it on Tess's face when the girl pushed the afghan aside and came to her feet—wide awake in an instant, looking more enthused than she had for anything in months.

Actually, that wasn't so. She had been just as eager to go sailing with Simon, but this was a more realistic activity. If the vines were saved, Olivia wanted Tess to know she had helped. It would bring closure to the summer.

The danger, of course, was that Tess would grow more attached to Simon. Olivia's heart was already lost, but she would have liked to spare Tess that. How to do it, though, with Simon taking Tess's hand and leading her back to the kitchen, snatching a dry dish towel from the drawer and making her tuck it in the waistband of her shorts?
For your glasses,
he said.
I know how this is.
If Olivia might have custom-ordered a father for Tess, it would have been Simon.

Clutching the phone list, she watched them together. Her heart followed them right out the door, leaving a hole in her chest that would take a long time healing, she knew. But she could handle it. She would have to. She had no choice.

And Tess? If the connection with Simon strengthened after this, what then?

Reasoning as only a mother could who wanted her child to aim
high, Olivia decided that given the choices, she would rather Tess know that men like Simon did exist than not.

S
USANNE'S NATURAL INSTINCT
was to stay in the kitchen perking pot after pot of coffee on the gas stove, since the big electric urn wouldn't work. Her instinct was to make sandwiches and other goodies, and put out a spread for the people who would be coming to help.

But she had to get out of the house, for a little while at least. She had to breathe fresh air, had to stretch her arms and legs. Once Donna had set her up on a row of vines with a hose attached to the irrigation pipes, little concentration was required beyond keeping the wind at her back. More than anything else, she needed time to air out her mind.

Mark worked on the next row. She couldn't see him at first in the dark, not until the fire trucks arrived and set up huge floodlights, and then there was more to see than just Mark. The vineyard was suddenly a world of sparkle that could give Fifth Avenue at Christmas a run for its money. Spray from gently pressed nozzles arced softly over the uppermost leaves, shimmering and refracting in the light. The wind was gentle now, more a breeze than anything. With so much spray around, she inevitably grew wet, but the air wasn't cool enough to chill her, and the sight of the vineyard was compensation enough.

Working this way, fighting to save something that mattered more to her than she wanted to admit, she felt energized. It struck her, though, that much of the energy came from the thought of her mother working out there in the mist. Something had happened back in the kitchen. Susanne had read Natalie's book and managed not to be touched, but seeing Natalie in pain, with Carl angry and the spectre of Brad hovering and Greg needing answers as much as Susanne did—something had opened up inside her. For the first time in her life, she saw that Natalie was human. She was human, and she was flawed. That realization diffused Susanne's anger, allowing her to look back over the story of Natalie's life with the same honesty they had demanded of her, and acknowledge that the woman had been quite remarkable, faults and all.

Susanne wanted to reread that book. She wanted to get to know
this other woman her mother had been, wanted to get to know the person who had made her share of mistakes but had surely built something of value.

Asquonset really was a beautiful place. Susanne had forgotten just how much so. Standing here now, smelling the wet earth and the fresh river water that came through the pipes and washed the leaves, thinking about her mother, who was seventy-six and vital in ways Susanne wanted to be when she was that age, she felt inspired.