14. Bas #2
Brylee reached her first since she was on the closest end. Gemma opened her arms, and the two women hugged.
“I’m so happy to meet you,” Gemma said.
Next was Arlow. I rolled my eyes and prayed Gem didn’t race to her cottage when my sister welcomed her to the family.
Huxley stepped in front of Ev and said something that made her laugh but that I couldn’t hear.
“So you’re the reason he doesn’t answer my calls anymore. And while that sounds like I might be complaining, I’m definitely not. Thank you for that.”
When Bry handed us each a glass of wine, Hux stepped forward. “To family.” He looked at Gemma first, then at each one of us. “And to being home.”
“About that…” Arlow, who was standing beside me, muttered.
“Leave him alone,” Ev scolded her. “Come on and help me finish dinner.”
“He’s a much better cook than I am,” I said.
Gem looked up at me. “There’s more to cooking than food. Sometimes, the preparation is the best part.”
I leaned down and kissed her. “Thanks for being such a good sport about this.”
“Thanks for including me. They’re lovely.”
Every ounce of nervous energy I felt before they arrived was long gone by the time we sat down to eat.
Everest made his signature balsamic chicken with farro, complemented by Brylee’s Mediterranean salad.
Hux sliced the bread he’d stopped and bought on their way up, and Arlow promised a surprise dessert.
Most of the stories they told were mild in comparison to what I’d anticipated. When Hux started in on one, I feared his intention was to embarrass me as much as possible.
“When I was a junior in high school, I sneaked out one night in our dad’s truck—”
“Not his truck, Hux, his prized possession,” said Ev.
“Yeah. That’s a better description. Anyway, I put it in a ditch.
I was scared shitless, as you can imagine, and couldn’t decide who to call for help.
I chose Bas. I swear he got to me in under five minutes, and I was at least fifteen from the house.
He pulled me out, we drove home, and when I woke in the morning, the truck looked exactly like it had before I took it out.
I have no idea when he washed it, but that wasn’t all he did. ”
All four of my siblings were watching me.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” I muttered.
“I heard him in my dad’s study, confessing to taking it out.
He told the entire story as if he was the one who put it in the ditch.
” Hux looked down and shook his head. “Dad didn’t say a single word about it, either then or later.
” My brother’s eyes met mine. “He knew you were lying, but he accepted it. It ate at me for years, and finally, maybe two or three years ago, we were out in the vineyards, working, when I decided to come clean. All he said then was, ‘I know.’ I asked if he knew all along, and he nodded.”
“Speaking of Dad,” Arlow began.
Ev and Huxley groaned. “Not now, please.”
“We need to talk about it, and when else will we have time?”
“Should I excuse myself?” Gemma asked.
“I’d like you to stay, and while it sounds ominous, it really isn’t,” Arlow responded.
“She thinks you should redecorate,” said Bry.
“Not only redecorate.”
My eyes met Everest’s. “Look, all we’re saying is we know damn well that you still sleep in the bed you’ve been too tall for since you were fifteen. Dad’s study looks exactly the same as it did the last time we were here.”
I raised a brow and glanced at Gemma. “Have you been in it?” I asked him.
“Not yet, but I’d be willing to bet I’m right.”
“You’d lose,” Gemma said quietly.
“She helped me clean out the files and organize everything. She even scanned everything because she knows how much I hate paper copies.”
“You did the scanning, Bas. All I did was hand things to you.”
Ev rested against his chair. “Well, bravo, Gemma. Are we wrong about you still sleeping in that bed?”
The truth was I hadn’t spent a single night in this house since the frost. However, that wasn’t any of their business.
“It’s time you lived here, brother,” said Hux. “Really lived here. Made it your own.”
“It isn’t mine. It belongs to all of us.” My shoulders tightened then released when Gemma reached under the table and wove our fingers together.
“The estate is ours,” said Arlow. “It belongs to the five of us, and until such time as one of us decides they want to give up their share, it will stay that way.”
My eyes met hers, then went from her to Ev to Hux to Bry. I moved my plate, leaned forward, and rested one arm on the table. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
Everest spoke first. “No, Bas. What Arlow is saying is that, under the terms of the trust, any one of us can give up their share of the estate, and it will be divided among the rest of us in the same way it would if one of us passed away. The Whitmore holdings will remain in this family until there is no heir to leave it to, and then there are provisions for what would happen in that case. You know this as well as the rest of us do.”
When Gemma tried to move her hand, I held on tighter. “Don’t go,” I whispered.
She nodded once and didn’t move.
“Dad picked you,” Arlow continued.
“He didn’t have a lot of options. I was here.”
“Wrong,” Ev said. “He talked to every one of us about it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The year before he announced he was retiring,” Arlow added, “he sat each of us down, one at a time, and asked us what we wanted. What we saw ourselves doing. Where we saw ourselves and Whitmore five years from now, ten years, and so on.”
“He didn’t have that conversation with me.”
“Yeah, he did, Bas,” said Brylee. “He had that conversation with you every single day when the two of you worked side by side.”
Ev held my gaze. “The only thing he asked was that we didn’t talk about it with anyone else until he’d had the chance to speak with each of us, and you know what the outcome was?”
I shook my head, too emotional to speak.
“We all told him the same thing. We each saw you continuing the legacy. You. Because you are the right person to do it.”
“It isn’t by default, Bas,” said Hux. “Say we had to hire someone to take over, did a worldwide search, interviewed the top people in the industry—there wouldn’t be anyone more qualified than you.
There wouldn’t be a better winemaker, a better viticulturist, a better estate manager, or a better person. ”
“What about you? You don’t want to take it over someday? Or you, Arlow?”
“You know what I want? Zeke’s job,” said Hux.
“I want to be out in the vineyard every day, working by his side until I learn every single ounce of what he knows. And you too. I want to work with you, Bas. Not for you, with you, because I know, at the end of every day, I’ll learn as much from you as you learned from Dad. ”
“Arlow?” I turned to her.
“You know what I want; I’ve told you time and again. I want to create a second label.”
She was right. She had.
“I want to experiment, see what I can make that’s my own. And, Bas, I know you want that too, and I’ll support you in that all the way.”
She’d been in the cellar that afternoon. I’d watched her go in and hadn’t followed. Until now, she hadn’t asked about the blank barrels, but she’d just let me know she’d seen them.
“You know medicine has always been my passion,” said Ev.
Brylee spoke next. “And mine is being in front of and behind the camera you made me promise not to pick up tonight.”
My eyes were brimming with tears, and getting words out seemed impossible. Even knowing what to say. “Thank you,” I finally managed. “All of you.”
“So the house,” Arlow said. “That’s what I was getting at, and I’m not going to be delicate about it, because we’re all gone by the end of the weekend.
Nobody’s asking you to gut the place. Mom’s photographs stay on that wall until they take me out of here.
But you’ve been living in it like you’re watching it for somebody, and nobody’s coming back for it. It’s yours.”
“And a bed you fit in,” teased Bry.
“In the room you belong in,” added Hux.
I looked at the doorframe by the kitchen, with our heights penciled on it in Mom’s handwriting. Then down the table at my brother and my sisters, all of them waiting on me. I still had no idea what to say.
Gemma put her napkin on the table. “Arlow, you mentioned something about a surprise dessert,” she said.
“I did.” My two sisters got up and went into the kitchen. Hux asked if everyone was ready for a glass of port, then left to pour it before anyone answered.
Ev stood and wiped away his own tears. “We’re so proud of you, brother.”
Once we were alone, I turned to Gemma. Her eyes were glistening, but she was smiling. “Thank you for letting me be a part of this.”
We both leaned forward and rested our foreheads together. “I couldn’t have gotten through it without you by my side.”