Midnight at the Wandering Vineyard by Jamie Raintree

Author:Jamie Raintree
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Published: 2019-01-22T14:08:28+00:00

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My mom takes charge of the cremation arrangements, refusing to let Kelly handle anything, which is for the best. The day after her mother’s death, Kelly is fit to do nothing. She sits on the couch, face pink and swollen with a far-off stare, as we bring her coffee and tea and small amounts of food, all of which sit on the coffee table and turn cold.

When Tyler shows up to take care of the horses, I relay the news and he sits with her for a couple of hours while I muck the stalls, giving me a better way to release my anxious energy. After a tearful, sleepless night, it’s a wonder I have energy at all.

While I’m out there, Sam hears the news and appears in front of Midnight’s stall with a regretful expression. Though I’m covered in dust and hay, grief and desperation, he opens his arms to me and when he folds me in close to him, the embrace is unlike anything I’ve ever felt from him before. It’s not about lust or expectations. There are no walls. It’s pure selflessness and comfort.

On Tuesday, Mom takes Kelly to the crematorium to sign the final paperwork, and we decide to do a personal memorial service the following day, when the ashes will be returned to us. There’s no one to fly in, no one in town who even knew Shannon. The only people who will attend are under my parents’ roof.

As the reality of her death sinks in, that’s what weighs on me the most. The times I spoke with Shannon, she was one of the wittiest and kindest women I ever met, and other than Kelly, me, and her family members who disowned her, no one else in the world will ever know that.

Kelly spends each night in my bed, still too overcome with grief to face returning to her own home. I drive over on Wednesday morning to pick out something black for Kelly to wear. Midmorning, the six of us gather on the patio, Kelly holding the unceremonious plastic bag of ashes she and my mother picked up from the funeral home.

I picture how we must look from overhead and imagine we resemble a murder of crows as we take off from the porch, through the vines, and up to the top of the hill. The path is longer and more arduous on foot, but today, that seems right. It’s how we pay our respects for the hard road Shannon walked and the difficult journey Kelly has ahead of her.

We reach the top of the hill, where Kelly and I have shared so many heart-to-hearts, and look out on the property. When Kelly asked Dad if she could lay Shannon to rest here, where she would finally be able to see the world for the first time in twenty-plus years, he told her he’d be honored. Now, as we stand here, looking out at the great expanse, all of us seem to

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