Chapter 4
It took longer to get up the stairs than she would’ve liked. She had never considered her grandmother frail, but since the fall, the word had been floating around and threatening to pop into her mind. Natalie refused to let it.
Sarah was not frail. Her confidence had taken a hit; that was all, Natalie mused as they settled into their respective seats in the upstairs office. Her grandmother was a strong-willed, aggressively determined, and overall healthy woman. The fact that she was nearly eighty was irrelevant.
“I’m going to die,” Sarah said abruptly.
The world seemed to stop spinning for a beat, but then it started again too quickly, and Natalie’s stomach contracted so tightly that she thought she would be sick.
“What?” she yelped.
“Not like that!” Sarah scolded. “But eventually, you know.”
She was still trying to get her bearings, but the world hadn’t stopped lurching around. “Gran, that was not funny.”
Sarah shrugged. “Eh, it was a little funny. My dying is not the most terrible thing in the world—”
“Yes, it is!” Natalie interrupted, causing Sarah to stare.
“Don’t interrupt your elders,” her grandmother said.
“When my elders are talking about the demise of my most beloved grandmother, I think you’ll find I’ll interrupt at will,” Natalie replied haughtily. “Can you stop messing around, please?”
That small smile was on Sarah’s face again, and as Natalie noticed it, a flicker of hope sparked in her chest that her grandmother was joking.
“I’m not messing around,” Sarah said. “This ridiculous hip fiasco has put a lot of things into perspective for me. I have always wondered how your mother would put it to someone when I’m not in the room.
A borderline obsessive and vice-like grip on the Fitzgerald Hills business and finances. Am I close?”
Pressing her lips together tightly enough to sting was the only reason Natalie avoided laughing at the not-quite-direct quote from her mother.
Sarah smiled and continued. “That daughter of mine is not as quiet as she thinks she is. She’s also not entirely incorrect, and I’m starting to wonder if I was wrong to hold on so tightly.” Her gaze drifted around the room, and her face took on a wistful glaze.
Natalie followed her line of sight and spotted a cluster of photographs on the bookshelf on the opposite wall.
“My life has been one thing after another,” Sarah said, pausing and refocusing on Natalie. “As is everyone’s, of course. I’m not stupid, but after losing my sister so young, it did feel like it all fell on me to make sure everything turned out all right in the end.”
The knot that had not quite untied in Natalie’s stomach tightened again. “Please don’t say ‘the end’ like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s in italic font, floating across a TV screen showing two silhouettes walking down a beach at sunset with harp music in the background.”
“Ha!” Sarah’s bark of laughter startled Natalie. “Well played, and I’ll attempt to rein in my evocative tone.”
Natalie couldn’t help but smile at how she modulated her voice to make the whole sentence sound like a joke. This was the side of Sarah very few people saw but Natalie had always been privy to.
“Good,” she said. “Because my grandmother is immortal. Or, perhaps more realistically, she’s thirty-five at most, so we don’t have to worry about death for another—oh, let’s say seventy years?”
She had intentionally kept her tone light, but an unnerving waver had elbowed its way in at the end, and suddenly, she was afraid she would cry. She disliked what was happening—her grandmother had never talked this way.
Sarah hummed to herself. “Well, one hundred and five sounds like a good age. Perhaps we will aim for that?”
Even as her grandmother winked at her and she allowed herself to laugh and nod, Natalie’s mind was racing. “I’m glad that’s settled,” she said.
“That is settled,” Sarah agreed. “But what I asked you here today is not.” Her serious expression was softer now. The laugh lines around her eyes crinkled, and her voice was warm.
“Gran…”
“Don’t ‘Gran’ me,” Sarah said. “I’m serious.”
“I know, but—”
“No buts. Sit and listen,” Sarah continued. “Despite all appearances, I am not twenty-one anymore. Fitzgerald Hills has been this family’s legacy for over a century, and I cannot let my stubbornness and perfectionism let me die before ensuring it will continue in good hands—the right hands.”
The words seemed to settle on the desk between them while Natalie worked through what she meant. “The right hands?” she asked.
“Yes,” Sarah replied. “Both you and your mother are highly capable women, but I’m worried that neither of you has the whole package, so to speak.
You are dedicated to your studies and enjoy giving the tours, but I’m not convinced you could fight your way through a problem.
I’m afraid you would worry yourself to pieces about this or that and never come to a decision and trust yourself.
Your mother is extremely fiscally minded and could run the books with her eyes closed—but she may not know how to move forward without risking the heart and soul of the place. Do you see my problem?”
“No,” Natalie said. “I always assumed the business would go to Mom, and I would take over at some point when she wanted me to.”
“That’s the problem with assumptions, young lady.”
“So what? It’s a fight now. Between me and Mom?”
Sarah shook her head. “No, nothing so dramatic. You watch too much television. But with that said…if neither you nor your mother can convince me that you can take care of the vineyard, I’m not opposed to bringing in a ringer until you’re ready.”
Her mind raced with a thousand thoughts; there was no way her grandmother was saying what she thought she was saying. “A what?”
“You know, a ringer—like in baseball.”
“I know what a ringer is,” Natalie replied. “But like what? A CEO? And what do you mean, until I’m ready?”
“If it were in the best interests of the vineyard, I would be open to selecting a CEO or whatever the right corporate acronym fits best to make sure the place is taken care of until one of you is ready to take over.”
“You’d bring in a stranger? To run the family business until you were convinced I wouldn’t run it into the ground?”
Sarah met her granddaughter’s eyes with such a strong glare that Natalie nearly flinched.
“Not a stranger. I’d make sure it was the right person, and it’s not about stopping you from running it into the ground.
It’s about ensuring you have the time to become what this place needs.
I say you because, let’s be honest, by the time your mother is ready to take it all on, she’ll probably want to retire, go traveling, or whatever people do on cruises.
I just want to be sure that our family legacy will be cared for after I die. ”
“Stop saying you’re dying,” Natalie interjected.
Her grandmother’s face softened. “My dear, we’re all dying—I’ve been doing it longer than you. We have both spent our whole lives here. I was born here, your mother was born here, your mother refused to let you be born here, so you were born in a hospital.”
There was a playful smile on the older woman’s face, and Natalie could sense that the truly serious portion of the conversation was over. But her grandmother wasn’t kidding around, either.
“I know, she went into labor in Section Seven,” Natalie said. “And she had to be carried to the house because no one could get their car up there.”
“Section Seven is one of the original stock crops,” Sarah said. “My grandparents chose it, brought it back, and it has been one of the most robust varietals. Most of my private collection comes from Sections Five, Six, and Seven.”
Natalie smiled at her grandmother. “You mean your not-so-secret hoard? How long have you had your secret stash?”
Sarah shrugged. “Oh, let me think. Probably since I was about eight—uh, twenty-one.”
Seeing her grandmother sheepish was a rare occasion—and one of Natalie’s favorites. It never failed to make her laugh, even though she knew laughing only made her grandmother irate.
“Oh, stop it; I misspoke,” she said. “Because, as you know, I never misbehave.”
“Mmhm, of course, never,” Natalie agreed, smiling and nodding.
“It’s dwindling, you know?” Sarah said, suddenly serious again as she turned to look Natalie in the eye. “I stopped adding to it years ago. Something changed in our wines; the yields just haven’t been the same.”
A cold draft made the hairs on the back of Natalie’s neck stand up, and she felt a wash of sadness as she considered what her grandmother had said.
“I know,” she replied. “And I want to fix it.”
With a wink, Sarah stood. “Good, let’s go and have our coffee.”