Chapter 7

The week that followed was the longest of Amos's life.

He worked the vineyard the way he had always worked it — the hours were the same, the work was the same, the blisters and the sunburn and the long dusty rows were the same. But the world around him had changed, and he felt it in the pauses, in the moments when he stood up from the sorting table and looked across the pad and thought: this is mine.

He could not quite feel it. Not yet. He had been the vine tender for so long that the word owner did not yet fit in his mouth, did not yet fit on his shoulders. He would walk past the tasting room and see the license on the wall — his name in print — and it would be like reading the label on a bottle he had never opened.

Grove did not talk about it. Grove talked about the crush, about the sugar levels and the fermentation temperatures and the tank pressures, the way they always talked. But there was a new ease between them, a silence that said: I was here before, and I'll be here after.

The club members came back on Thursday, a smaller group — Priscilla Vance and four others, the ones who had been at the Monday meeting. They did not say much. They did not ask questions. They sat at the barrel heads, tasted the new wine, and talked about the crush the way they had always talked about the crush.

But Priscilla caught Amos's eye at one point, and she raised her glass — not to the wine, but to him — and she nodded once, the way you nod to someone who has passed a gate you were not sure they would clear.