Chapter 31 （Interlude） After We Said Goodbye
After We Said Goodbye
Red Mountain, Washington State
Otis set down his pen and wiped his eyes, knowing he had finished.
He’d told the story, no sense writing about the police showing up, his drive down to the morgue to identify the bodies, the days of terror that followed.
The funeral that flooded him with tears.
The spreading of Mike’s ashes in the same place where they’d spread Cam’s.
And yet there was more to say, wasn’t there? Perhaps there was another page to be written, perhaps another chapter.
“It can’t end here,” he said, his voice cracking. He could feel his family’s presence, as if they were in the room, and he looked up into the middle distance between him and the ceiling, wondering whether they were there.
And he knew.
Camden.
Michael.
Rebecca.
Together they had formed the keystone to his life. Without them, life never would have meant a thing.
There was something else, though. They were still here. Yes, they existed as memories, but it was more than that. They were in the air. They were in every breath he would ever take. They were in the wines and in the vines ... and in his heart.
Otis felt his chest and closed his eyes. He could almost touch them. They were here now and would be here forever, both in memory and in spirit.
Perhaps there was no place for regret. He couldn’t change the choices he’d made.
He couldn’t go back and polish those rough years, but he could see them in a different light.
He could accept that he’d had his own growing to do, and by God, he’d done his fair share of it.
Stepping out of the ashes of his demise, Otis had found his way back to his family.
Returning from Miami, he’d found a way to continue their love story.
He’d done what his father had never done.
It couldn’t end now.
If he was gone from this earth, who would say their names? Who would raise their glasses and call upon a fond memory?
By God, who would make sure they weren’t forgotten?
Amigo followed him as he reached for the urn on the mantel. He set his hands on the curve of it, sensing her even more.
“I am here, my love ... and I will forge ahead because it is what we have always done. I will not mar the memory of you and the boys by giving up now. But I need you. If you’re out there, if you can feel me, give me the strength I need to carry on.”
He pulled his hand from the urn. For a moment he thought that maybe he would take her ashes today and spread them in the vineyard, but he wasn’t ready. He kissed his fingers and touched the urn again. “I love you.”
Otis watched the vet work the saw to remove Amigo’s cast. As it broke free, Amigo went for his leg, licking it like a lollipop.
“There you go, little guy,” the nice vet said. He was half Otis’s age, wore a white coat with his name on it, and smelled of cologne. To Otis, he said, “Good as new.”
“Now what do I do? Is he ready?”
“As ready as he can be.”
“How do I do it?”
“Otis, you’re the first coyote rescuer in my career. I don’t know. So long as he’s not completely domesticated, you get him to his family and see what happens.”
Otis carried Amigo out to the truck and drove back to Red Mountain in a sharp silence.
Otis took the little desert dog inside, gave him milk, and then sat with him a long time, stroking his fur.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.
You’ve become a part of this farm, but it’s time. We can’t wait another night.”
Amigo looked at him curiously, tilting his head.
Otis touched his nose. “You must be brave tonight. I can’t go with you.”
The howls that night were wild, desperate calls, coming from all directions. Otis stepped out the front door, Amigo in hand. The moon wasn’t quite full, but it shone like a lantern in a cave, showing the way.
Otis followed his heart, deciding he’d return Amigo to the same place where he’d found him. He hiked up the hill to his oldest syrah block and could feel Rebecca’s presence as if she walked beside him. Off in the distance, the coyotes continued to howl.
Were they still looking for Amigo? Was it even the same pack?
All he could do was have faith.
They stepped down the row. Scents of desert sage filled the air. The vines had come alive and begun to push out leaves. Another vintage was upon them. No matter what happened, another vintage always came. A lot like those ferries that Carmine spoke about going to Ischia.
There was always another vintage.
How many did he have left?
“I hope to see you again, Amigo. You saved my life.” He kissed the coyote on the side of the nose and held him up to meet his eyes. Forever they would be connected.
Emptiness hollowed out his heart. How many more goodbyes could he handle?
But he had to get better at letting go.
He set Amigo down, and the wild dog perked up his ears when the coyotes howled again.
“Howl back, my friend. I must leave you now.”
Amigo stared up into Otis’s eyes, lost and alone.
“You have to howl. Call to them. They’ll come for you.”
With those words, he nearly buckled to the ground. His family gone.
Gone for now, though. They were his forever family, out there in some cellular composition of their own, be it in heaven or scattered like dust in a celestial cloud. They were here in his heart and on this land that he would farm in their honor till the day the vines pulled him back into the earth.
Another howl, then a song from them, the wild dogs singing into the night. Ahwwoooo!
Amigo twisted his head, then walked a few feet toward the sound. His leg worked wonderfully, and should he find his family, he’d be okay.
At the next call, Amigo attempted to respond, but no sound came from his mouth.
Otis knelt next to him. “You must call them back, Amigo. Please. They will come to you. They will guide you home.”
Amigo looked like he might cry, if it were possible.
Fear of finding Amigo dead in the morning rose over him. Could he take care of himself through the night? Perhaps it was Otis’s job to shelter him, to raise him.
No.
Otis had to let go. He had to trust that the world always lined up in the end, that the grand design would lay out like a road hidden in the darkness.
“Let’s try together,” Otis said. On all fours, he made a soft sound, howling gently, easily, letting the coyote know that it was okay.
Amigo looked like he might start laughing at him.
“Okay, wise guy, show me how it’s done.”
Amigo kept watching Otis.
Otis tried again, this time slightly louder. “ Ahhhhwwoooooo! ”
The wild dog shuffled his feet and let out a meager bark.
“There you go.” Otis felt the night then, the power it had.
“Again, do it again.” Otis drew in a deep breath, and then: “ Ahwwwoooooo! ”
Amigo lit up, his eyes glowing in the darkness.
Then came the calls from the night back to them, a collective howl of the desert dogs. They were drawing closer.
This time, Otis didn’t hold back. “ Ahhhwwooooo! Ahhhwwoooooooo! ” He felt the power of the universe soar through him. “ Aaaahhhhhwwwwooooo! ”
The padding of paws sounded in the distance. He felt no fear, only the desperate hope that Amigo’s family was coming for him.
Then it happened.
Amigo let out his first howl. “ Ahhwwwwwoooo! ”
It came out like a baby speaking for the first time, testing the ability of the tongue.
He tried again and again. Otis joined in, two lost lonely souls out there calling to their loved ones.
Otis howled like he never had before, and he felt the call of the wild dogs and the presence of Rebecca and Cam and Mike, and he howled to them from his core, telling them that he wasn’t done with this life, that he would give it all that he had, that he would do it all for them, in their honor.
He would attempt to live this life with the grace that his family taught him, and when his time came, he would drift away from this body and find them in the hereafter.
A proud dog appeared at the end of a row, a beautiful beast of a coyote. The moon cast a shadow of him onto the ground.
“There he is,” Otis said, then noticed the other dogs behind him.
Otis slowly rose and backed away. Amigo stood between him and the others. The coyote pup let loose another howl, this time far bigger, one that cut through the mountain air, showing the world that he, this little guy, had found his family.
He took several steps toward them, sniffing the air. The other dogs made light calls, singing lullabies to him. Amigo grew braver by the minute, moving closer.
Ten feet away, five feet away, and then he leaped toward them, and they all buried their snouts into him, knocking him to the ground. Belly up, he cried with delight, and the other dogs surrounded him in a way only family could.
Though there would always be those pieces of his heart that belonged to those he lost, Otis had never felt fuller in his heart, and he knew that his family was out there too.
When the excitement of the reunion dissipated, the alpha coyote looked at Otis and stared for a long time, eyes on eyes, soul on soul. One alpha to another.
A million things were said between those two, none of them requiring words.
Otis finally gave a nod, and the coyote backed away. He turned his attention to Amigo, who seemed to be smiling beyond those eyes that glowed in the dark.
Otis touched his heart; tears pricked his eyes. “Goodbye, my friend. Don’t go too far.”
He couldn’t know what Amigo was thinking, but they shared something wonderful in that last moment before the alpha gently grabbed Amigo’s fur with his teeth and urged him to follow.
Otis watched as the pack of dogs, Amigo’s pack, meandered off into the night, the moon casting their shadows down as they went. He raised a hand in one last wave, bidding them farewell.
Returning to the house, Otis grabbed a beer from the fridge, because it takes a lot of good beer to make great wine, and he walked into his office and thumbed through his CDs. Finding Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s first album, he set it onto the player and skipped to the song he needed to hear.
“Guinevere,” the song they’d sung at Woodstock when Otis had knelt down into the mud and proposed to his forever girl, filled the air.
Otis sat in the chair he’d been sleeping in since they’d left him, and he wept big tears of loss and finding. He peered up at the urn, hoping and praying that there was more left to life than the ashes that we all became.
A purple bus. Two lovers making a promise in a sea of people. A life spent among the vines, raising two fine boys who lived boldly and beautifully and became damn fine men before they were taken away far too early.
That couldn’t be the end, though. Not even close.
Otis pressed up from the recliner and went to the desk. He took the journal and closed it, its work completed. The rest of what he’d write wouldn’t require a pen. He’d finish this journey out there in the vines, out there making something with what he had left.
Carrying the journal and a pack of matches, he walked to the fireplace and set it down on the grate, splayed open.
This was the way it should be, memories captured in ink but burned into the heart.
Otis struck the match; the flame came to life.
He held the flame under the words that had saved him, the words that Rebecca had urged him to write, the words that only barely scraped the surface of their love story.
As the flame drew near the page, a gust of wind pushed through, blowing out the match.
“What in the ...?” He held it in his hand, watching it smoke with a curious puzzlement.
He drew out another match and dragged it along the side of the box, bringing a second flame to life.
As he held it underneath the journal, another gust of wind, perhaps sucked from the flue, came rushing through and extinguished it.
“Are you there?” Otis asked. “Rebecca?”
Only stillness responded. But it was not a lonely stillness. It was the kind that allowed all the room in the world for faith and hope. Perhaps even more, perhaps knowingness.
Yes, indeed, she was there.
I know that it’s time to go.
What is it like to say goodbye to your love, your best friend, your keystone, as he called me? What is it like to let go of this life? What is it like to hold on to hope that I might see him again one day?
It’s a warm sensation that engulfs me.
I watch my Otis sleep, wishing I could stroke his hair. I watch him rise in the morning one last time. With NPR playing in the background, he makes fresh coffee and bacon and eggs.
Thoughts of him finding someone new come over me.
We didn’t talk about it, but I wish we had.
I don’t want him to be alone. Otis is not a man who should be alone.
So I watch him eat his breakfast in solitude and hope that he might find someone one day.
He has so much more life to live, so much more love to give.
After he shaves and dresses, I follow him up to the winery. Brooks is already there, perusing the newspaper in the tasting room.
He nearly spits his coffee out at the sight of my Otis stepping through the door. “Good morning,” Brooks says, joy washing over him. His mentor is back.
Otis waves him off. “Now don’t get all excited. I know it’s been a while. Let’s not make a big deal about it. How are our wines?”
He’s back, and he’s the same Otis he always was.
Brooks plays it calm, returns his eyes to the newspaper. “They’re hanging in there. Could use some help from the Grapefather?”
“I’ll do what I can.” Otis takes a seat, looks around, likely taking inventory of everything that needs to be done.
Brooks peers over the paper. “Just like that, you’re back?”
Otis crosses his arms. “Unless you want to have a parade.”
I laugh, because this is exactly why I love him. I’m going to miss the ol’ grump with every last bit of me.
Brooks folds the paper and extends his hand across the table. “Welcome back, maestro.”
Otis shakes his hand and locks eyes with him, two lost and found souls amid a sea of lost and found souls, all fighting to carve out a life worth living.
Ours wasn’t a perfect story, but I doubt many of them are. What I know now is that this life we shared, it’s only a small chapter in a vast volume of books. It’s time for me to see what lies ahead, to continue my own story. To reunite with my boys.
Without even thinking it, without even turning away from my forever man, a lightness washes over me ...
. . . and off I go.