The headache refused to abate, and the pain tablets would take a while to work. Margot wasn’t sure how safe she would be on the roads with her vision going vague at the corners, but the streets were wide and she didn’t want to linger in town any longer than she had to. She started the engine and eased back onto the path leading to the winery.
It will get better. Her legs were still unsteady, wavering on the accelerator and tapping the breaks too hard. People will stop staring once the novelty wears off. You’ll get comfortable here. Make friends. And that’s only if you decide to stay.
She wanted to, she thought. There was a slow kind of attachment growing inside of her. The house was melancholy, the tunnels claustrophobic—but they were hers.
And this was the first major significant thing in her life she could say that about. The first home she’d owned…even if, technically, probate was still being processed. The first business where she’d been more than an easily replaced employee.
She wanted to make it work.
The headache was grinding her down, draining her energy. She turned into the driveway, passing the sign advertising the Gallows Hill winery, and then slowed until the car was at a stop. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly as she tried to let some of the tension drain from the back of her neck.
Am I being a sentimental fool?
She couldn’t drink wine. She couldn’t stand the thought of the tunnels weaving beneath the ground, damp and cold and collapsing.
Was she trying to forge some kind of closure for herself by clinging to the home she’d been born in? Some kind of late-stage replacement for the years she couldn’t remember, a false closeness to the parents who were now gone?
Well, would that be so wrong? My life was directionless. A job with no prospects, an apartment I’d have to leave soon regardless. I may not have chosen this path, but now that I’ve been placed on it, why shouldn’t I try to follow it?
She opened her eyes. A car filled her rearview mirror, and Margot jolted. She swiveled to look behind herself. A jeep idled behind her, the out-of-town occupants watching her questioningly, apparently wondering why she’d stopped in the middle of the drive. Margot raised an apologetic hand, then eased onto the accelerator, climbing the hill and allowing the jeep to turn off at the winery store.
The headache was ebbing at least. The painkillers must have begun their work. She pulled onto the dirt patch ahead of the house, slightly closer than she’d dared the day before, and brought out her hard-won prizes from the general store.