All of Me (Inside Out #5.5)(37)

Katie lifts her glass. “This was your parents’ favorite wine, Chris, and the one that put us on the map after winning the Paris competition. It seems a perfect wedding choice.”

“Chris’s father had a diverse taste in wine,” Mike tells me. “That’s what made him such a good competition judge.”

Chris draws a deep, slow breath and sets his glass down. I know even before he stands that something is wrong. “I need to get some air,” he announces, and he grabs his jacket. In a flash, he’s out the door that leads to the back of the property and the gazebo.

Katie and Mike look stunned. “I—” Katie begins. “What just happened? He’s never done anything like that before. I’m confused.”

“We’ve had a lot of tragedy these past few weeks.” I grab my jacket. “We’ll be right back.”

I rush after Chris, exiting the chateau to find him waiting for me.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” he returns, lacing my fingers with his. “Let’s go to the gazebo.”

I nod. “Yes.” And I instinctively know this is when he’s going to tell me about that nightmare.

In silence, we travel across the wooden bridge covering a pond. The early evening is cool but not cold, the wind light. Once we reach the other side, and to my dismay I realize that the roses winding around the gazebo aren’t in bloom. We’ve forgotten the season.

We stop in the center of the gazebo and both of us look up. “They’ll bring in roses,” Chris says, as if reading my mind. “It’ll look like they are in bloom. I already talked to Katie about it.”

“That’s a relief,” I say, and we look at each other, our fingers still laced together. “You never told me the story of the roses.”

He smiles a bit sadly. “Ah, yes. The story of the roses. My mother truly personified the saying ‘she could sell ice to Eskimos.’ When she was seven years old, she lived in an apartment and she used to pick wildflowers and go door to door, telling them she was selling roses. She sold a lot of those fake roses. Eventually she decided she wanted to help women feel good about themselves, be it as a wildflower or a rose. And the rest was history. She became a cosmetics queen.”

“And now I know how you sat down with a paintbrush and ended up one of the most famous painters on the planet.”

“Every time I sit down to face that canvas, I think it’s going to be shit.”

“And yet you turn wildflowers into roses.”

He steps closer to me, his hands settling under my jacket, on my hips. “Triggers. We talked about triggers.”

“Yes,” I say. “And your father is a trigger.”

“Yes,” he confirms, releasing me and turning away, resting his hands on the gazebo railing. I move to stand beside him, and wait. “When I was growing up,” he finally says, “I convinced myself that my father started drinking excessively to forget the accident. But I kept having this nightmare about the accident.” He glances at me. “The one I had two nights ago. I’ve told myself over and over that it means nothing. I was five. How can I remember anything?”

“But you do, Chris. You’ve told me about that day.”

“I was five, Sara. I can’t remember.” His voice cracks, and there is a desperateness to his tone, like he doesn’t want to face something.

“I don’t know if I should encourage you to tell me right now, or urge you to put it behind you.”

“In thirty years, if I haven’t put it behind me, I’m not going to.”

“Then tell me.”

“Katie said we should have my father’s favorite wine at the wedding, and honor his love of the grape.” There’s bitterness in the way he exaggerates the word love. “That statement, innocent as it was, became my trigger.” He dips his chin, lowering his head a moment, and I can hear him take several breaths. “I remember him drinking. I remember him drinking all the time. And I remember, that night in the car”—he pauses—“I remember him leaning over her body, and grabbing a bottle that he threw as far as he could out of the window.” He looks at me, his eyes pained. “I think he was drunk that night—and he knew that I saw. I think he hated that I knew. He didn’t know if I remembered, but the idea that I might made him hate me as much as he hated himself. So he made both of our lives hell. I don’t want that f*cking wine at our wedding.”

For the second time tonight, tears well in my eyes. “Then we won’t have it at our wedding.” I look up at him. “Tell Katie and Mike.”

“No, baby. I’m not telling them.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know for sure. But my bitterness does nothing to help anyone. Just being able to finally say this to someone else I trust helps the most.”

“I’m going to tell Katie that we had a certain champagne the night you proposed, and that if it won’t offend her, I want to have it instead.”

He shakes his head. “They couldn’t have kids. They tried, then they adopted and lost that boy in a boating accident. I became their son. And that wine made this winery. It’s the connection that brought us together. I’m okay with the wine. It’s my father I have the problem with. And he’s gone, and they aren’t.”