Sandcastles by Luanne Rice

Author:Luanne Rice
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780553902709
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2006-06-27T04:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

One thing about running a convent, school, and vineyard, Sister Bernadette was used to making lots of decisions and, to a large degree, running a lot of lives. She set the curriculum, holiday schedules, prayer times, fasting policy, dates of release for the new varietals.

Certainly, she couldn’t affect the weather—a dry spell made for sweet grapes, and that could wreak havoc with the chardonnay. Just as too much rain could cause root mold, and once an entire hillside of vines had been compromised. Still, she had gotten Tom to help her dig drainage trenches that year, and the crop was saved. As she always told the incoming freshmen, “God steers, but you row. And rowing is what will get you into the colleges of your choice.” And the grape harvest of your dreams…

Right now, with dust covering her habit and dirt under her fingernails, she stood on the highest hill in the vineyard, gazing down at her brother working on the beach below, and knew that he was rowing in the wrong direction. Just then she heard creaking, and turned to see Tom wheeling his wheelbarrow up the path. She tried to duck behind a leafed-out stretch of vines, but he’d already seen her.

“Morning, Sister,” Tom called.

“Hi, Tom,” she said.

“What are you up to?” he asked, letting his wheelbarrow clatter as he left the path to climb the rise.

“Just cutting back the vines,” she said. “I think we’re going to have a good yield this year.”

“Yep,” he said. “Looks that way. Is the irrigation system working better?”

“Seems to be. I wish we’d get some rain, though. I’m worried about the well running dry.”

“I’ve got my eye on it,” Tom said.

“When your great-grandfather had it dug, I don’t think he envisioned supplying water for a whole community of nuns running a school and a vineyard.”

“He would have thought it was far-out. Two of his favorite things: nuns and booze.”

“It’s not ‘booze,’ you philistine,” she said, smiling sharply. “It’s ‘fine wine.’”

“Who are you calling a philistine?” Tom asked, stepping closer.

Bernie stepped back, turned away. The sea wind swept up the hill, blew her veil into her face. She felt Tom standing beside her, following her gaze down the hill. She brushed the veil out of her eyes.

“Look at my brother,” she said. He stood on the beach by the broken rock. He had wrapped the biggest pieces in chains, hauled them above the tide line. Bernie had watched him go at it all day. Now he lifted one onto his shoulder, stumbling slightly as he heaved it onto the pile.

“He claims he’s building a new sculpture, but come on,” Tom said. “Isn’t there something you could tell him, get him to ‘lay his burden down’?”

“I wish I could. I wish I could talk sense into both him and Honor.”

“Really? What would you tell them?”

“I’d tell them to stop fighting what they know to be true. They love each other. They have three children…”

“You saying children should hold people together?” Tom asked.

She glared at him.

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