This Place of Wonder (10)

“It’s your house.” She turns to Rory. “Can you stay a little while? I made lasagna.”

Rory bends down to hug her. “Not today. The girls have ballet at three.”

“Bring them afterward.”

“Not today,” Rory says firmly, and straightens, brushing a lock of her mother’s hair over her shoulder. “I think Maya needs a chance to get her bearings without two wild girls.”

“Fair enough.”

I offer my cheek and Rory kisses me, her keys still in her hands. She’s thinking of her own family; the dinner that’s no doubt in the Instant Pot or the oven or the fridge; and the long antique dinner table she found at a garage sale, one that her husband refinished and distressed; and a meal with just the four of them, mom and dad and two girls, talking about their days. All the things we didn’t grow up with. We ate plenty of spectacular food and sat around a table often, but never just as an ordinary family unit doing an ordinary, everyday supper. “Call me if you need anything at all,” she says.

“I will.”

She looks me hard in the eye. “Promise?”

I draw a cross over my heart and raise my hand, palm out. “I swear.”

“Okay. I’ll be back tomorrow.” In my ear, she says quietly, “Don’t let her bully you into anything.”

“I won’t,” I say, but I’m not one for making my wishes known, which is probably why I took an axe to thirty-six barrels of painstakingly handcrafted wine. As my therapist pointed out, maybe it would be better to speak up before things get so dire. The puppy wiggles against me and I kiss his face.

“Including this adorable creature,” Rory says.

When Rory leaves, Meadow swings around. Everything swings with her, lightweight skirt, hair, earrings. She’s over fifty, but you’d never know it unless you got close. “I made the beds, all of them. I wasn’t sure where you’d want to sleep.”

I think of my old bedroom with all the posters and high school tchotchkes. Anxiety rises, too many things I don’t want to deal with just now, not to mention the depressing aspects of returning to a childhood bedroom, even if it is because I inherited the house.

“How about the primary?” Meadow asks. “It’s cleared out completely. Or you can sleep in the old guest room. Or Rory’s room. Whatever you want.”

“I haven’t been here in so long,” I say instead of making a decision, and carry the puppy to the long line of french doors that look out toward the tiled pool and the ocean beyond. Puppies can drown, I think, and hold him a little closer. “I thought it might be creepy, but . . .” I look around. The round table in the breakfast nook is the same, and the floors, and the big kitchen. “It’s not.”

It feels like home. Something in my body lets go. I can’t afford to keep the house, but for now I can crash here. Get my life together.

“Let’s go look,” I say.



At 1:00 a.m., I’m lying in bed listening to the rise and fall of the waves. Cosmo sleeps next to me. I run my fingers through his fur, taking pleasure in the feel of his ear, his throat, the spiky hair along his shoulders. His belly is hot.

Outside, waves crash to shore. The sound comes in through the french doors, along with a cool breeze that whispers over my skin, brushing its fingers through my hair. The bed is deep and comfortable, a king that barely fits in the twenties-era room. The covers smell of fresh air. Meadow’s touch, no doubt. She has a gift for homemaking, all those little things that make life just that tiny bit better—line-dried sheets, ironed cup towels, really good scented candles, the best soap, homemade bread tucked into a basket with one of those ironed cup towels. I don’t have the gift, which women say now like a badge of honor, as if there is something suspect or maybe even laughable about homemaking, but I wish I did. I am just not domestically inclined, but I do appreciate it when someone else is. Rory has inherited it, of course. She likes to pick up antique linens when she finds them, and embroidered doilies, and old sheets and pillowcases that she sometimes dyes for the fun of it.

I just would never think of doing that. Or making all the beds for a returning child, like Meadow. Or inventing some fabulous dish like my dad.

I never had a passion until I discovered the alchemy of wine, that incredibly beautiful mix of soil and light and climate and grapes and time. It was the one thing that felt like it belonged to me. I have a palate and a nose, and from much too young an age, I could tell a great wine from a merely good one.

But I have to admit that being a vintner, especially the past few years, mainly gave me a great excuse to drink. Drink a lot. Drinking was my true passion, not the wonders of wine. From the very first sip when I was eleven years old, I felt that burst of relief. Oh. This.

The longing for it burns in my chest right now. I can close my eyes and imagine it, that sharp citrus flavor pouring down my esophagus, easing every nerve in my body, head to toe. Making everything go away. Stop. Making it all stop hurting, making my thoughts stop whirling around with such urgency.

I can’t believe I will never—

My sponsor’s voice nudges me. Stay where your feet are.

My feet are in this bed, in the room that belonged to my father until recently. It’s not as weird as I thought it might be, again thanks to Meadow, who scrubbed him out of the space with a thoroughness that surprises me. It feels like a hotel room, smelling of lemon verbena and peppermint, the wooden floors gleaming, the little bathroom tidy, even to small wrapped soaps on the sink. My father might never have lived here at all.