Eight Hundred Grapes (16)

Finn puffed his cheeks out and tried to cool the lasagna already in his mouth. Then he shoveled more inside. “Mom didn’t want to be alone with you,” he said. “She called in reinforcements.”

“So she told you about her and Dad?”

He nodded. “She told me.”

Finn handed over a fork. I dug into the middle of the large pan. Finn’s look of sympathy turned to annoyance, always annoyance when I took lasagna from the middle of the pan, even though he liked the edges.

I stopped caring as soon as I took a bite. The gooey, cheesy mess, sweet and salty with the first taste. The tomatoes as sweet as strawberries, the whole-wheat noodles buttery tender. It reminded me how hungry I was. It reminded me that I had failed to eat anything all day. Licorice included.

“I already knew, really.”

I stopped chewing and looked at him. “How?”

He shrugged. “Mom has no poker face. And when I showed up unexpectedly for dinner last week, she panicked. She said Dad was at the Science Buzz Café. But it wasn’t Thursday. Then she made me chocolate cake.”

“Great. I get a naked man, and you get cake.”

“It was pretty good too,” Finn said.

Then he motioned toward the vineyard, where our parents were walking together. They were walking the way they normally did, except there was distance between them. My father’s hands were behind his back; my mother’s hands by her side.

It hurt to watch them. I went in for another bite, but he knocked my fork out of the way.

“Slow down on the lasagna,” he said. “Don’t you have a wedding dress to fit into?”

I knew he didn’t mean it. My mother’s lasagna made him do crazy things. To make amends, he cut a small square, moved it toward my side of the pan.

“Make it last,” he said.

“What are we going to do about Mom and Dad?”

“What can we do? I mean, it’s their life.”

“And ours.”

We each took a bite, quietly. Then I moved the contract over, so he could see it for himself.

“It’s been a great day for you, huh?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged. “It was Dad’s information to share.”

My head was spinning thinking about all the things people in this family knew. And the things that people were leaving out.

“He only told me to make sure I didn’t want the vineyard, which I assured him I didn’t.”

“Why did no one ask me? What if I had wanted the vineyard?”

“You don’t want the vineyard.”

I was moving to London in twenty days and joining the new London office of my law firm. London, a city I had been a little in love with since the first time I’d visited for a friend’s wedding after we’d graduated college. After the reception, I decided to walk the city, winding my way down the cobblestone streets outside Chelsea, heading toward Pimlico. I dreamed of walking those amazing streets late at night, lantern-lit streetlights leading the way toward a tiny bistro famous for their rosemary potatoes. I couldn’t believe that bistro was about to be my neighborhood bistro, those streets about to be my streets. Even if my relationship was in shambles, I was excited for those things.

Finn shook his head. “Honestly, Dad knew you don’t want the vineyard any more than I do,” he said.

“That’s not the point.”

“It should be,” Finn said. “Besides, you made me and Bobby sign a contract your second year in law school that said we’d never take over the vineyard. And we would stop each other from doing it. Remember that?”

I did remember. I remembered why I had wanted us to sign it. I’d been having a hard time in law school, and part of me had wanted to come home and quit. But that was what coming home felt like to me. Quitting. Giving up on my dreams to build a life away from here, a life that was more stable than a vineyard felt. And I hadn’t wanted to give up. I hadn’t wanted Finn and Bobby to give up either.

Finn shook his head. “Bobby still fucking has it, I’m sure . . .” he said.

I pointed my finger at him. “What was that? And what is this about you moving?”

He shook his head. “I think you should probably stay out of it,” he said.

“I’d like to, but you both keep dropping hints, and it’s making it pretty hard to ignore.”

He stuck his fork in the lasagna, like he was putting a stake into the ground, blocking off his portion.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you. But I don’t want your judgment.”

“Of course.”

“No, don’t say of course. You won’t mean it. Not when you hear the details. Because the details are going to make you think that you understand what I’m dealing with. And you don’t understand what I’m dealing with.”

“Why? What did you do?”

“Is that a good place to start?”

I put my fork down, moving the pan physically toward him like a peace offering.

“So I think it’s best, for impartiality, if we just talk about it like we’re talking about other people. People you don’t know. People who aren’t your brothers. A guy named Mark. And a guy named Jesse.”

Did Finn see himself more like a Jesse or more like a Mark? I’d guess Jesse.