3. Roland
ROLAND
Stockton's tasting room was dark when I got there. I'd left the house before dawn and driven down with the lake just catching the first edge of light, the dashboard clock reading four-eighteen when I pulled in.
Hollis was at his desk when I came through the back hall. He looked up, nodded once. "Rain tomorrow."
"I'm fine. The Hendry thing's got more moving parts in it than they told us it had, that's all."
He blinked, went back to his screen.
Three nights that week I'd been awake at two and down at the cellars by four. It was the Hendry deal. Deals like that come apart twice in the last fortnight and this one had already done it once, so I'd stopped expecting to sleep until it closed.
I hadn't gone near the bedroom door that morning. The landing was dark and I'd pulled my things from the hall closet, dressed in the spare room instead.
The meeting started at eight. Six of us around the table in the south conference room — Hollis, myself, two from sales, Marcus from ops, and Jenny from planning who'd brought the spring schedules.
I was halfway through the Hendry timeline when Hollis slid a page across the table.
"Spring planning," he said.
I didn't look up. "After Monday."
"You need to see this one."
I looked. It was the disposal schedule. Twelve parcels in the left column, Ridge Road in the third line down. Ten acres. I knew the number before I read it.
Hollis waited.
"Has she seen this?" he asked.
The room went quiet.
"It's a planning document, Hollis. Nothing's been decided. After Monday. Hendry first."
He didn't move the page. "That isn't what I asked you."
I set it down beside the Hendry file. The two from sales were watching us now, pens still.
Hollis leaned forward. His voice didn't rise. "That's in her name. It came from her father and it's in her name, and it's sitting in a column with eleven parcels this company actually owns."
I looked at him. He looked back.
I turned to Marcus. "The Hendry people fly out Monday. We've got the Sunday dinner, and I need to know what we're putting in front of them."
The room cleared. I was still at the table with the Hendry file open in front of me, the disposal schedule beside it where I'd left it.
Margo came in with her tablet.
"I moved your nine-thirty to Tuesday," she said. "The Portland call's at two now instead of eleven, and I canceled your ten o'clock with Marcus. You're clear until two."
I nodded. "Good."
"The Sunday dinner's set for seven. I sent the Hendry people the restaurant address and the menu options yesterday. They've already replied with their selections."
I didn't remember her mentioning it. Probably she had.
She glanced at her tablet. "You've been in since four. Don't tell me you haven't."
I hadn't told anyone. I looked up at her.
"The Hendry deal's got more pieces than I thought."
"I know," she said. "That's why you've got a clear morning. You need the time for it."
She turned toward the door.
"Thank you, Margo."
They came back in an hour later to finish the rest of the week's business, Marcus and Jenny with Margo behind them.
Marcus had his laptop open across from me, scrolling through the spring equipment rotation for the north blocks.
Jenny sat beside him with her tablet, stylus moving as he walked through the timeline.
The disposal schedule sat where I'd left it earlier that morning, just past the edge of the Hendry file.
Margo had her tablet in front of her, screen lit.
I was half-listening to the equipment discussion. Most of my attention was still on Hendry, on the contract details we had to close by Monday.
Margo leaned back in her chair across the table and glanced down at the schedule.
"Somebody offered on the parcel next to hers in the spring," she said. "I saw what they paid for it. She could stop tomorrow."
She said it evenly. Not a proposal, just information. The kind of thing she'd mention once and leave alone.
I set down my pen and looked at her.
"She won't sell and I won't ask her to," I said. "That parcel of land is the last piece her father left her, and it's barely worth the money as is."
Sadie loved that orchard. Her father had left it to her four years ago, and she'd been running that place a long time before that. I wasn't going to pressure her to sell it, especially not for land that barely cleared its costs most years. The numbers didn't make sense anyway.
Margo nodded once and turned her attention back to her tablet. She didn't say anything else about it.
Marcus glanced at Jenny. "We're still short two tractors for the spring rotation. I can move one from the south, but that leaves us thin there too."
Jenny tapped her stylus against her tablet. "What if we lease?"
"I'll look at the numbers," Marcus said.
The conversation moved to equipment and logistics. I went back to Hendry.
There was a water bottle on the table in front of Marcus.
I thought about the bottle Sadie and I had kept back the year we married.
It was still down in the cellars two floors below, lying in the dark where we'd put it.
She used to ask about it every anniversary.
She'd bring it up in the kitchen after dinner, or in the evening when we were getting ready for bed.
"Is this the year?"
"It'll be better later."
The same exchange every time. She'd nod and go quiet, and I'd figure we'd put it to rest for another year.
Four years, five, six. She stopped asking somewhere after that, and I remember being glad we'd got past making a thing of it.
My phone buzzed on the table.
I glanced down. Sadie.
"What time do you think you'll be home?"
I set the phone face-down and looked back at Marcus. He was still walking us through the transport schedule, line by line through Friday's pickups.
The phone buzzed again.
I turned it over.
"Are we still on for Sunday? I'll take the morning and you can have the rest of it back if you need it."
I read both. Sunday. The morning.
Marcus stopped mid-sentence. "You need to take that?"
"No," I said. "Keep going."
He nodded and went back to the schedule. I was listening for the gap in Friday's run, the place where we'd need another truck or lose an hour we couldn't get back.
The phone stayed face-up on the table in front of me. I could see both messages on the screen.
Marcus found the gap at eleven-thirty and flagged it. I made a note and moved us on.
Marcus kept talking. I was watching the numbers, tracking where we'd need coverage or lose time we couldn't afford.
The phone was still face-up on the table. Both messages sat there where I could see them.
I hadn't answered. Sunday was already gone — had been since the party, since Margo had said the words out loud with Sadie standing right there. The Hendry dinner was locked for Sunday night. The deal closed Monday. I'd tell her tonight, properly. You don't put a thing like that in a message.
I looked back at Marcus. He was still walking through Friday's schedule, methodical.
The Hendry people could still walk. They'd done it once already. This deal could genuinely fail.
The marriage couldn't.
It was the soundest thing in my life. Nine years, and we'd built something that didn't need constant attention. I didn't check the furnace every morning. I didn't walk down to the cellars every week to see if the racks were standing.
"You don't go down and check on a wine that's aging well."
I said it quietly. Marcus didn't look up.
Something turned over in my chest, small and sharp, and I set it aside.
The transport schedule was in front of me. I pulled it closer and found the line he'd been waiting for me to see.
We worked through the rest of it. The Hendry people would need Friday locked down tight if they were signing Monday.
Marcus left at seven. I stayed another hour, clearing what couldn't wait.
The phone was still sitting on the desk when I finally stood up to leave.
I picked it up and typed the message standing there.
*Sunday's gone, I'm afraid. It'll be better later in the month anyway — you don't want me the week before the harvest.*
I sent it and put the phone in my pocket.
The house was dark when I got home, except for the porch light. Sadie always left it on. I could see the ridge rising behind the house, a dark line against the sky.
Gravel crunched under my feet as I walked up the drive.
She was in the kitchen when I came through. The stove light was the only thing on. She had her back to me at the sink.
"Hey."
She glanced over her shoulder. "Hi."
I was glad to see her. The day had been brutal and the house felt solid around me after fifteen hours of Marcus and spreadsheets and Hendry people who could still walk away.
"Long one," I said.
"Yeah."
She dried her hands and turned toward the stairs. I locked the front door and followed a minute later.
The fourth step creaked under my weight.
At the top of the stairs, I reached for the bedroom door. The brass knob turned but the door didn't open.
Locked.
I stood there a second. I was tired clean through and the deal was still sitting on a knife edge and the door was stuck.
I pulled my keys from my pocket and found the one for the mortise lock. Old brass, older than the marriage. It turned smooth and the latch gave.
I pushed the door open and went in.
Sadie was already in bed, turned toward the far wall. I couldn't tell if she was asleep.
I got undressed without turning on the light and slid under the covers on my side.
I was tired enough that sleep should have come straight away, but it didn't.
I stared at the ceiling. The house was quiet except for the faint creak of settling timber.
Something from earlier in the day turned over in my chest again — the same thing I'd felt at my desk and set aside. I'd been doing that all week.
This time I didn't push it down.
She'd asked for a Sunday morning. One morning, and I'd cancelled it with a text message hours late.
I turned onto my side.
The harvest was almost here. She'd be up at five every day once it started, and I'd be dealing with Hendry and Marcus and everything that came after the close. It would be October before either of us could breathe.
But after that.
After that, I could take her away. Properly. Two weeks somewhere with nothing in the diary, the kind of trip we hadn't done in years.
I felt something ease in my chest.
She wanted a morning. What she needed was two weeks somewhere with nothing in it, and I could do something about one of those.
I'd have Margo look at dates in the morning.
The ceiling was dark above me. I could hear the faint sound of the wind outside, nothing else.
I should've been asleep already.
I ran the numbers again. Three nights that week awake past two, one of them all the way through. Tonight made four. I'd been running on coffee and the kind of focus that came from knowing a thing could collapse if I looked away.
It was the deal. The whole thing had more moving parts than I'd planned for, and Hendry's team kept pulling clauses apart at the last minute to check what was underneath them. Marcus said that was normal for something this size, and maybe it was, but it didn't make the work any lighter.
I shifted onto my back. The house was quiet.
I'd been awake at four three mornings running. Down at the cellars before the sun was up, going through contracts and call schedules and making sure nothing slipped.
But it was almost over.
Monday. The deal closed Monday, and after that I could put the whole thing down. Sleep past dawn. Spend a weekend at home without my phone going off every twenty minutes.
Take Sadie somewhere that wasn't here.
I felt the weight ease off my chest again, the same way it had a few minutes ago when I'd landed on the idea of the trip. Two weeks. Somewhere she'd actually want to go, not a wine conference with her sitting through dinners while I talked to distributors.
I could do that. I'd get it sorted once Hendry was done.
The wind picked up outside, rattling something against the side of the house.
I closed my eyes.
Two hours, maybe. It was the deal. Two more days and it would be closed and I'd have the whole thing back.