Chapter 16 Ring the Bell
Ring the Bell
Ten o’clock the next day came and went, but neither Rebecca nor the boys hammered the bell.
Absolute silence penetrated the farm. Otis and Scooter and two other men had been pruning canes all morning.
The guys had figured out pretty quickly that Otis wasn’t in the talking mood, so there’d barely been any chatter, only the snap of snipping shears.
Otis kept reliving the look on his father’s and the boys’ faces.
He understood the way Bec felt now, all those years of standing by him, allowing him space to grow, hoping he’d come around, only to realize that Otis was Otis, and perhaps she’d made a mistake in marrying him.
His fear and disgrace weighed him down like armor. He’d finally screwed up beyond repair.
At eleven o’clock, Otis couldn’t take it any longer.
He marched back to the house. Bec’s car was gone. He wound through the rooms, calling, “Hello?” She’d taken Cam and Mike. He looked into the primary bedroom, wondering whether she’d packed a bag. Who could blame her? Her bag was still under the bed, though.
Back downstairs, he went to the terrace and looked up at the bell, that shiny stupid fucking bell that had rung every day since he’d returned from his stint at the hospital. The bell that had called him back to his family reminded him what mattered. The bell that had connected him with his boys.
The bell that hadn’t rung today.
A hollowness spread through his core. Tears falling down his cheeks, he reached up for the chain and began to ring it himself.
Clang, clang, clang. Each chime shot out over the ranch and up and around the hills, filling the air with his failures, all the shit he hadn’t said, all the shit he hadn’t done.
It sang of how his father would never be happy with him, and how Otis had failed his children, and how he’d failed himself, and Rebecca.
The runt that he was had been given a chance.
No, endless chances. This perfect being had come into his life, and he hadn’t been and still wasn’t the man she deserved.
Ringing the bell harder and harder, he shook the pergola, his head shaking with it, tears spraying and splattering to the floor. His own curses shot out into the daylight along with the clang, a madman who’d finally cracked.
Otis swung that chain till the hook that held the bell ripped out of the ceiling and crashed to the floor. He was full-on crying as he picked it up and flung it down, then again, screaming obscenities and wishing he weren’t here, wishing the heart attack had taken him away.
When he finally collapsed, he looked up and saw them—his family. He hadn’t heard them pull up. Now all six of their eyes watched him from inside the car.
Right then he knew exactly what it felt like to be a failure.
Strolling next to his mentor through the vines, Otis glanced over. “I don’t know where to go from here, how to get back.”
Carmine didn’t respond. He’d been silent for a while, listening to Otis speak about how they’d lost so much with the phylloxera infestation and how Bec and Lloyd were willing to compromise everything by making white zinfandel to climb back on top.
A wet chill bit the clean air. Carmine and his crew hadn’t even started pruning yet. The sheep, ripe with wool, stood quiet in a fenced area ahead.
Carmine wore a weary sweater that had been torn apart by moths. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in weeks. “Take it easy, ragazzo .” He grabbed Otis’s neck and pinched his trapezius muscles, strong hard hands digging into the tissue. “You take yourself too seriously. You take it all too seriously.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Otis tried to pull away, but Carmine pinched him harder, not letting him go. Otis stopped fighting and let the man’s fingers dig in deep. Soreness rose through his arms.
“You know what I see?” Carmine asked. “A man who feels like he’s in control. A man under the illusion that he’s steering. Where’s your faith?”
“Faith? Far as I know, faith never fermented grape juice. It never built an empire.”
“Without faith, what’s the point in building anything?”
Otis couldn’t answer the question. Now into his sixties, Carmine had perhaps strayed too deeply into the ethereal.
The old man let go of him, and they started strolling again. “You see all this? I didn’t do it. I’m just along for the ride. The best thing is, it all exists without me. I’m simply a passenger. Soon as you realize and accept that, the ride gets so much smoother.”
“I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“The best wines are made when you know enough to control everything but are wise enough to control nothing. Balance comes from guidance of a natural process, not forcing an outcome. Come here.” Carmine lowered to his knees at the base of a vine and wrapped his hands around the trunk. “Down here, Otis. Now.”
Otis reluctantly obeyed.
“Closer, closer, what are you afraid of? Hold the trunk like it’s a ... no, not what you’re thinking. Hold the trunk like it’s the metal rod on a carousel. There you go.”
They sat on their knees, facing each other, the vine between them, their hands wrapped around the trunk.
“You feel that?”
Otis focused on his fingers and felt the tingle, a surge of electricity—a life force—traveling from the vine to him. It had been a long time since he’d connected in such a way.
“This vine and every other vine in this vineyard will go on with or without you. All you can do is arm yourself with faith and hold tight. Let them carry you; let life carry you.”
Otis offered a slight nod.
Carmine wrapped his hands around Otis’s. “This spaceship we’re on ... there’s something else steering. It doesn’t need you. You don’t matter.” He laughed to himself. “In not mattering, you will find your reason.”
Carmine retracted his hands, and Otis let go of the trunk.
“The world is sprouting before our eyes, vines growing from the ground, trees, humans, bugs.” He tickled the air with his fingers.
“If you fight it, if you for a moment think you have any control over it, you’ll be swallowed whole.
Find the balance, Otis. Find that space where you’re a passenger who trusts in where he’s going.
We’re so unimportant to this wondrous world .
.. and yet, vital, but you have to quit white knuckling the wheel. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“I suppose so.”
Carmine waited till Otis looked at him. “What I’m really saying is ... loosen up. Take it easy on yourself.” He jammed his fingers into the soil and brought up a handful of clay. “No matter what, we all fold back into the earth.”
“Are you saying that you’d compromise everything you’ve worked for to make white zin? That you’d sell yourself to rebuild?”
Carmine’s cheeks swelled with a kind and gentle smile.
“I’m glad I’m not faced with the decision, as I’m not sure.
But I do know, mio amico , that if you shake off the fear, that if you quit trying to prove yourself and simply climb aboard this ride, the answer will land on you like a butterfly on your shoulder. ”
Otis understood what his mentor was saying, but it was too much. He felt far away from faith and connection, so very far from finding his way back.
Though the butterfly did not land, and the bell no longer sounded, Otis returned to the house at 10:00 a.m. every day to play with his boys.
In early April, he hiked up the hill eager to join Cam and Mike for an hour of play, only to find several cars in the drive.
Paul and Sparrow and Carmine stood from a circle of chairs to say hello. Above their heads hung the bell.
“What’s this?”
Rebecca stood and took his hand. She wore a silk blouse half tucked into jeans. Worry showed in her eyes. “Will you sit down, honey?”
He looked at his friends, then back to Bec. “Where are the boys?”
“With my parents.”
“What is this?”
“We want to talk to you.”
“About?”
“Sit down.”
Otis reluctantly sat and rested his hands on his knees. How dare they ambush him.
“Honey,” Bec started, “we’re worried about you.”
“Right.” He felt a smirk rise on his face; he was the only one who knew the truth: His hard work was the reason they’d made it this far.
“We’re here because we love you, and we’re here to tell you that you need to slow down.” He could see that she’d been pondering what to say for a long time.
“This again? Shall we double recess time?”
“This isn’t about recess, and I’m sorry if my idea belittled you. Can’t you see that hour of recess is the best thing that’s ever happened to you?”
He didn’t answer, because he would have had to agree, and he didn’t want her to be right.
“We can’t tie you down. All we can do, as the people who love you most in this world, is tell you that we think you’ve lost your way, and we want to help you rediscover it.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Paul spoke up. “We love you so much, Otis, and that’s the only reason we’re here. We’re worried. You’re a tractor running without oil, grinding your gears into oblivion. You freaking punched Lloyd in front of everyone.”
“Because he’s a thief, stealing everything from me. My wife, my vineyard, my kids.”
“We’re still here, Otis,” Bec said calmly.
“No one is stealing anything from you. It’s time you take a big step back.
No more travel for a while. Period. Our distributors will be fine.
The new vines are in the ground and doing well.
Reconnect with what got you here. Reconnect with what Carmine and Paul taught you.
Find that joy again. Because I don’t see you having fun right now. ”
“Oh, I’m having the time of my life.”
Otis looked at Carmine, who rocked silently in his chair. They held eye contact for a while; then he finally spoke. “It’s like we talked about, Otis. The only thing getting in the way of your dreams is you. You’re a passenger trying to take the pilot’s seat.”
“What pilot, Carmine?” Otis asked, unable to stay calm.