I nodded, pulling a container of lemonade from the fridge. “Yes. Week after next. That was the soonest she could get them in.”

“Good.” She paused a moment. “Have you talked to Henry?”

Guilt tightened my stomach. “Not yet. I needed some time.”

“No pressure. I was just asking.” She zipped up her coat and pulled her keys from her pocket. “Thanks for having the girls tonight. See you tomorrow.”

That night I sat with the kids and watched a movie, but my mind wasn’t on the action onscreen. It was on Henry and how much I missed him. How badly I wished things could be different. How heartsick I was that when I saw him next, I wouldn’t get to touch him or kiss him or hear him say any of the things that always made me feel so good.

But it was for the best, I kept telling myself. My mother might have raised me to follow my heart, but right now that was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

21. Henry

Twenty-One

Henry

I spent the first few days of the new year in the vineyard, brooding in the cold as I hand-selected the buds to start the next season’s growth with. Normally, I loved the work—the first steps in the creative journey of the next vintage—but this year I was surly, gruff, and short-tempered. Mariela eventually stopped asking me how things were going, and the few hired hands I trusted to assist with pruning got the hint pretty fast that something was off with me this year. They took orders from me but kept to themselves, and they didn’t invite me to go for beers after work like they had in the past.

Every day I hoped Sylvia might show up or even just send me a text telling me how she was doing, but she never did. Whenever Chloe stopped by the winery, I resisted the urge to ask about her, but the questions in my head were making me crazy.

Was she okay? Were the kids okay? Did they hate me? Did she still think I was a good man? Had we ruined everything, or was there any chance for us? I thought about her constantly and missed her with pangs like hunger.

And then five days into January, on a snowy Sunday afternoon, she came to find me in the vineyard.

I saw her coming up the row, bundled up in her winter jacket, hat pulled low over her head, hands tucked into her pockets. She walked toward me slowly, but she smiled when she got close, like she couldn’t help it. “Hi.”

“Hi.” I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t know what to do with my arms. They hung inert at my sides, shears clutched in one hand.

“Cold out here.”

“Yeah.” I scrambled for words. All I could think was, She’s so damn beautiful. “How are you?”