Chapter 17 Built on the Back of White Zin
Built on the Back of White Zin
They held the funeral at Saint Philips in Bozeman. No one mentioned the sparse attendance, though Otis knew it weighed as heavily on his mother as it did him.
Afterward at the ranch, people gathered in the kitchen of Otis’s parents’ house—one of the two houses on Aunt Morgan’s ranch—to celebrate Addison’s life. Wide-brimmed hats hung on the outside railing and coatrack; cowboy boots clicked on the hardwoods.
Aunt Morgan held court in the living room, making people laugh amid the sadness.
“Did I ever tell you about the time my husband drank a case of Budweiser and decided he was a matador? I didn’t find Jim till I came out the next morning to feed the cows.
He was laid flat in the bullpen with a welt the size of a cantaloupe on his head.
” She’d lost Jim—Otis’s uncle—years earlier and had found her way through it with remarkable grace.
Cam and Mike played football with several other kids.
Rebecca had gotten pulled into a conversation with Otis’s one and only girlfriend from all those years ago.
Mortifying wasn’t a strong enough word to capture Otis’s cringey feeling.
He made chitchat with many of the people he’d come to know in his five or six years living here.
When Otis told them of his wine adventures, most of them had looked at him like he spoke an alien language.
A few literary types showed up, fellow journalists who had worked with Addison. They shared their sweet stories of Addison, and the theme Otis picked up was that his father had always been the first in and the last out. Never had they seen a man with a stronger work ethic.
Otis wasn’t sure what to make of it, but his mouth was dry, and he was worn out on conversation when he saw his mother disappearing up the stairs. He followed and found her pushing open the door to her bedroom.
“Mom?”
“I need a break, that’s all.” Her voice was brittle.
“Yeah, you and me both.”
“Come in.”
Stepping inside, he breathed in the familiar scent of his parents.
Eloise sat on the end of the unmade bed and kicked off her heels, digging her toes into the rug.
She’d aged so much, and Otis wondered where the time had gone.
It seemed only yesterday that she’d squeezed him goodbye as he departed for California years ago.
Addison’s bedside table hosted a stack of books, all nonfiction, including his own. His Rolex rested on a small porcelain plate along with his gold wedding band. On his mother’s side, a Bible rested under the soft glow of a petite lamp.
Eloise patted the bed. “Sit with me.”
Otis sank into the soft mattress only inches from his mother. She attempted to say something, then let out a long sigh. “I hope you know how much he loved you.”
Of all the things she could have said, that was what she chose. “I suppose so. He had to, really.”
“He wasn’t good at showing it, dear.”
Otis chuckled at that, feeling his belly kick with the absolute truth of the statement.
She shook her head for a while, her mind clearly ablaze with .
.. what was it? Grief? Regret? Or perhaps simply the bewilderment of what the hell we were doing on this planet for this finite amount of time.
That would be more in line with how Otis felt.
What was the purpose of it all? His father had lived such an extraordinary life, had done so much, and had died at his desk doing what he loved.
For what, though? All that was left of him was a long trail of words and a closet full of suits and a Rolex and ring that no longer had a home.
“He wasn’t happy, Otis. That’s the truth of it. He wasn’t able to express how he felt for you, because he didn’t love himself.”
“I think he gave himself a hard time. Held himself to a high standard.”
“More like an impossible standard,” she corrected.
A need to defend his father came over him.
“Yeah, well, he gave up a lot moving here. He gave up so much of his career to help Aunt Morgan after Jim passed.” Otis recalled the day they’d closed the door to their London apartment and climbed into a taxi to the airport. “He was a good man for doing that.”
“I made him do it.”
Otis’s head jolted. “What?”
Eloise paused, clearly wondering whether she wanted to say more.
“I was about to leave your father, honey. I don’t know if I should tell you this or not, but a lesson could be learned.
There’s something in the Till blood. He had it; his father had it.
His grandfather. And you have it. This desperate love of—or is it a need for?
—work. He couldn’t shake it, and it was tearing us up.
He was barely home, and even when he was, he wasn’t.
You’d beg him to play, to take you out to Hyde Park to kick the football.
I’d suggest that he take me on a date. Maybe do something special for an anniversary.
Sometimes he’d find the time, but mostly he worked.
Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s.
The news always came first. He was a good man, your father, but he wasn’t a good father or husband, and he’d stopped taking care of himself that last year in London.
He was down to one hundred and thirty pounds when we left. ”
Otis swallowed back an eruption of confusion, not recalling such frailty on the trip to Montana. “He was a pretty good dad.”
“No, honey, he wasn’t. Not then. He tried, but he wasn’t.
I was leaving him. I drew a line in the sand.
Your uncle was sick, and I wanted to go back home.
To get you away from what your dad was doing to himself.
He relented, because he did love us. He wanted to be a better man than he was, but he held the move over my head till his last breath. ”
His mother had obviously gotten some of this wrong. “Oh, c’mon, he was ... he did it for the family.”
The pitch of her voice rose. “Because I forced him. Always in the back of his mind, he wondered what could have been, what he might have accomplished back in London. Always in his head, he was living that alternate reality.”
“Thinking that maybe he shouldn’t have gotten married or had me?”
She stretched her feet out. “Or wondering why I couldn’t have just let him do his thing.”
Otis let go of his mother’s hand and stood. “I think you’re grieving, Mom, and seeing things in an uglier way than they were.”
Eloise locked eyes with her son. “He let whatever it was that was hanging over his head defeat him. He didn’t like himself.
He was never happy or satisfied. It was always on to the next thing.
It was never ever enough. He died lonely and sad .
.. his fingers on his typewriter, halfway through an article about how Interstate 90 needed repairs.
I asked him to take me out to lunch; he said he was too under the gun with a deadline.
Now I’m left wondering the point of all those words he left.
That’s all he talked about, his words and his deadlines. ”
Otis stared into the middle space, lost in thought.
“His only interactions with you were his desperate attempts to steer you toward the success he never realized for himself.”
Otis sifted through her meaning, a miner looking for flakes of gold.
“All the while,” she continued, “he was getting it wrong.”
Otis pulled back the curtains of the window and looked out over the ranch. Cattle grazed in high grass. Snowcapped mountains shot up with jagged edges on the horizon.
“What do I know, Otis? I try not to give you advice. Your father had enough for both of us, but I don’t want you thinking of him as your hero any longer. I don’t need Rebecca to tell me how hard you’ve been going.”
“He’s not my hero. Hasn’t been in a long time.”
“I don’t want you to end up like him. That’s all.”
On the plane back, Otis sat between the two boys.
Bec had the seat across the aisle. Mike wore headphones, and Otis had asked him to turn down the music several times.
Whatever it was, it was heavy. Metallica or something like that.
Otis and Rebecca had talked endlessly about letting him listen to such intense music, and after multiple conversations with Mike, they’d realized it seemed to pacify his mind. How could they take that away?
In the last year or so, he’d been quite down about himself and his lack of friends.
Whenever Otis spoke to Rebecca on the phone from the road, Mike was the first topic she’d bring up.
She’d say while sobbing that Mike was exhibiting a lot of the same behavior Jed had as a kid.
“I’m worried about him,” she’d say. “He’s not happy.
” When Otis was back home, he would try to talk to him, but Mike was too closed off to share his feelings.
Otis sipped on a virgin Bloody Mary and was making conversation with Cam, who was pretty good about connecting with his dad for a teenager.
He wouldn’t let his parents hug him in public, but he seemed to understand that he needed to try because Otis was trying.
In that way, they were able to have some often-lovely chats about life.
“Dad, can I tell you something?”
“Oh, boy. Don’t tell me you’re getting married.”
“Worse.” He pushed up the drink tray and locked it in place. Then he peered over at his dad. “I don’t want to go into the wine business. I don’t want to take over the farm.”
Otis nearly spilled his drink, but he collected himself quickly. “That’s ... you don’t need to make that decision now.”
Camden lowered the tray back down. “I know it’s what you want. That it’s your dream for Mike and me to take over the farm. It’s not my thing, though.”
It took everything Otis had to hide his sadness. He recalled Cam’s enthusiasm as they worked together to build his own little winery on their property in Sonoma. Where had Otis gone wrong? Had he pushed too hard?