“Ignore all that for an hour,” she said. “We’re drinking this one because we made it. Remember that barrel I told you we didn’t think had aged well? Turns out, it aged perfectly.”
Remi accepted the glass, and Paloma poured wine into it. She gave it a gentle swirl and inhaled. “Mmm. Smells nice.” She took a sip and closed her eyes. It was tart, crisp, and laced with sunshine.
“Good, huh?”
“So good.”
Paloma hopped up onto the neighboring barrel, settling beside her. The two women shared laughter and the bottle. Amid all the hustle, they hadn’t made time for the talk that needed to be had between mothers.
Paloma had survived the death of a husband, for much longer than Remi had. Her husband, Pedro, had passed on when Bas was three. She had raised her son on her own. She was a single mother, who worked hard and who had insisted her son grow into a man of integrity. And he had. Her values ran deep in him.
“I assume Bas talked to you about …” Remi began.
“He did,” Paloma said softly, exhaling. “I’m so sorry they had to go through that, experiencing grown-up things neither of them was prepared for.”
“I wish I had known. I could’ve at least been there.”
“Same.”
“I didn’t even know they were involved like that. I thought they were just friends—summer friends.”
“Mi amiga,” Paloma chuckled gently. “You missed all the signs. I suspected it a couple of summers ago. I saw the way he looked at her—with real love, real care. He was infatuated even then.”
“Really?”
“Yes. She breathes life into him,” Paloma said. “He doesn’t look at Sage that way.”
“She seemed to come out of nowhere. And Zoe wasn’t exactly thrilled. Not at first.”
“I don’t think Sage is anything serious. More of a pastime than anything else. I guess that’s why she left a couple of days ago.”
“Oh, she did?”
“She didn’t fit. Cut from a different cloth, that one.”
The women laughed.
Remi swirled the last of the rosé in her glass, watching the pale pink liquid catch the fading light. “It scares me a little,” she admitted. “Zoe and Bas. Everything between them—it wasn’t just teenage love. It was real. And real things leave marks.”
Paloma nodded. “They carry each other, though. Even now.”
“She was never quite the same after she lost the baby,” Remi said. “I knew something was happening because she was quiet in a way that made me nervous.”
Paloma leaned back on her hands, sighing. “I knew Bas was heartbroken about something, too. Something deep and serious. I remember walking into his room when he was home for Thanksgiving and finding him staring at the ceiling, not even pretending to study. And Bas is always doing something. That stillness—I know now that it was grief.”
“I never knew,” Remi whispered.
“They tried to do the right thing,” Paloma said. “They were young, but so sure of each other. And when things got too hard, they didn’t ask for help. Those kids just tried to handle it on their own.”
“We did the same thing as kids.” Remi’s voice turned gentle. “Do you think they still love each other?”
Paloma didn’t answer right away. She gazed outside at the vineyard, where the rows of vines stretched like a quilt across the earth. “Love like that? It doesn’t disappear. It might quiet down, change shape, but it doesn’t vanish. I think they’re both still trying to figure out how to carry it.”
Remi nodded slowly, her chest heavy with the weight of what happened between her and Bianca. “Maybe this place,” she said, gesturing around them, “can be healing for all of us.”
Paloma reached out for Remi’s hand. She took it—held tightly. “Then let’s make it a place where healing can happen.”
They sat in silence—sipped rosé, the evening wrapping around them. Somewhere beyond the fields, the sun shone brightly, and then a breeze swept gently through the open window and brought with it a certain freshness that was full of possibility.