Authors: Roberta Latow
Syrah felt Ethan squeeze her hand. She did know what he wanted!
Syrah woke with a start. She very nearly leaped out of the chair, would have but for the blanket that had been tucked around her. Her first thought was for her father. She looked over her shoulder towards the four-poster bed. It was all right, he was still with them. She knew that because Miss Sanchez was sitting on a chair next to the bed, holding his hand.
Syrah relaxed with a deep sigh of relief. Who had covered her with the cashmere blanket, moved her chair and all to the window? When had she dozed off? She could remember nothing except that she had been talking to Ethan, who had seemed less anxious, more relaxed by the sound of her voice, but she couldn’t remember what they were talking about. Yes,
they
, because he had managed an occasional word. It had been horribly difficult for him to speak but they had been conversing with each other in a fashion, she doing most of the talking. She was angry with herself. How could she have done that, just dropped off to sleep when he needed her? The whisky, the damned whisky! How stupid she had been to drink it.
She gazed out of the window at the sweeping view of row upon row of vines, green with leaves and heavy with fruit, climbing up the slopes facing the sun. There was movement going on: several pick-up trucks bumping along the unpaved tracks, people walking among the vines. Life was going on out there on the other side of the window pane. She had forgotten that life, normal living, was carrying on outside this room where everything had stopped for her and her father, mired by the coming of death and her distress.
She rose from the chair and went to her father. His eyes were closed. ‘He’s sleeping, he’s had a comfortable night,’ whispered Miss Sanchez.
Mrs Crumb approached Syrah from the nurse’s station behind the
screen and drew her aside, suggesting, ‘We need to tend to your father, bathe him, change his sheets, make him comfortable. Why don’t you take the time to bathe yourself and have breakfast and then come back? Let’s say in an hour’s time.’
‘If there’s a change …’
Mrs Crumb interrupted, ‘I will come for you at once, I promise.’
‘Please, you mustn’t let me fall asleep again. I lost those precious hours of being with him. Who moved me? You should have just woken me up.’
‘Your father wasn’t alone. After your brother and I carried you over to the window, he sat with your father for a while and then Miss Sanchez took over. Now, you hurry along and we’ll do what we must as fast as we can.’
Ethan was awake when Syrah returned. Incredibly he looked better and very handsome. She went directly to him and kissed him on the cheek and then the lips. He managed a slight smile or else she imagined it. For the first time it was he who managed to move his hand in an attempt to take hers. She grasped it and sat down.
‘For a man in your state, Ethan, you look marvellous,’ she told him.
‘A dying man,’ he told her in a slow and laboured drawl.
‘Always insistent that I face the truth, no matter how bad it is – and you’re still at it. You’ve always been that way with me: not wanting me to be afraid of the truth or the reality of what is. Accept it and get on with the life you want for yourself, that’s what you taught me. I won’t fail you, especially not in this the most terrible time of my life. Even now you’re thinking of me, trying to help me to get over my fear and sadness. I won’t say loss because I’ll never lose you, I’ll carry you in my heart always.’
Ethan squeezed her hand.
‘Ah, you’re telling me, “Right on”. And you want no tears but for Caleb and me to celebrate your life in the mourning of your death.’ And now Ethan squeezed her hand twice more.
A yes! Armed with the knowledge that she knew what her father wanted from her, Syrah asked herself, What do you do for someone you love who is dying? Just what we are doing: making his final journey from one world to another as pleasant and as easy as possible. Granting him his last wishes, surrounding him with love and all things beautiful.
Not bothering him with my pain but putting that aside, removing all the burdens of life and living from him, setting him free so that he may use all his energies to rise above life and follow the light.
There was a knock at the door. Miss Sanchez opened it and stepped aside. Mr Wang entered the room followed by Caleb and Paula carrying vases of flowers, exactly the ones Syrah had ordered. The room was immediately transformed and the scent was sweet. Instinctively she knew she was doing everything right. On first arriving at her father’s bedside she had walked into an alien place that had nothing to do with Ethan. What she had seen was a place of hospital technology, a room that had the stench of death about it. No more!
It now looked a more beautiful and hospitable place, brightened by his nurses in their pretty patterned dresses. A window had been opened and a soft warm breeze with the scent of the earth and growing vines on it wafted faintly into the room.
While Caleb and Paula stood around the bed, Syrah busied herself in the library, moving the vase from the table there in the hope that Ethan might see flowers in it by his bed. Rubenstein playing Chopin was the music she chose for his room; she ignored the look of disapproval on Paula’s face and adjusted the volume. It was lower but most definitely there. Caleb and Paula did not stay long. They most cordially suggested to Syrah that she send word when she wanted them to release her from her vigil.
Paula looking round the room from the doorway could not resist a final barb. ‘Syrah – always the partygirl. One would think you were getting ready to receive guests here.’
‘Sadly I’m not, Paula. But it’s a great compliment to my father that it looks that way. You see, I’m only interpreting his wishes.’ And she walked to take her seat by his side.
‘It’s one of those late-summer days, Ethan, the kind you love so much. The sun on the vines is really warm. What happy times we’ve had together on days like this! You’ve always given me so much, never failed me. Even now I can remember running through the rows of vines as a child. How you took pains to teach me about the grapes and wine, how to cut and trim the vines, harvest alongside the pickers. Those marvellous long tables of food and drink for the workers. I was always so proud to sit down with them and you to eat and drink.
‘It was so easy to adore you, first as a father and then when I was older as a man and a friend. I’ve always respected you for your accomplishments, the love you’ve had for the vineyard and the pride you take in your wine. Those high and low points in my life … you saw me through them, shared them with me, made certain that I never had to face them alone. Thank you, thank you for all of that.’
Ethan raised her hand ever so slowly and placed it briefly to his lips. Then he told her, ‘I always loved your spirit. When you love something it’s easy to be there for it. I saw myself in you.’
That much talking seemed to exhaust him. He closed his eyes and squeezed her hand. She was learning to understand his signals, this new form of communication between them. The closing of the eyes meant, Time to rest, over to you. The pressure on her hand meant, Yes, or, I love you, or, That’s right, what I want.
She had had her own pattern of communication going with Ethan: holding his hand and stroking it so as to let him know the warmth of life and love, a reminder that it was still there for him. Her endless stream of a nearly one-sided conversation to keep him alert and comforted by the sound of her voice. Syrah and her father had always shown their affection for each other not in words but in deeds. She was therefore deeply affected by his struggle to express his feeling for her in words so she might remember them always and forever.
Suddenly she saw more clearly those years of pure joy she had lived as a child and an adolescent when she ran free and grew up in the vineyards. Syrah realised not only how much she loved her father but Richebourg-Conti too. It had occurred to her only briefly on the flight here that when Ethan was gone from her life so would the vineyard be, her family home, and even the income she derived from it. That thought returned. She felt sick. It was all too terrifying to contemplate. Like a drowning woman, her own life flashed before her.
When she had turned twenty, Syrah had carved a fast life in a bigger, wider world than the Valley afforded her. She had the looks, temperament, intelligence, and an adventurous spirit, a great passion to live. Her father had not been disapproving of how she wanted to live, more disappointed that her love for Richebourg-Conti was not enough to keep her there to work with him in the wine industry. Ethan therefore had given her the option: her share of the vineyard in
monetary terms to fund the fast life she hungered for, but with the understanding that on Ethan’s death, Caleb alone would inherit Richebourg-Conti. Syrah had made her decision: money over work. She had no regrets, was making no excuses for the choice she had made, but did reflect that youth rarely thinks about legacy above its own lust for life.
She felt the slightest pressure on her hand: Ethan signalling that he wanted her to talk to him. She stroked his hand and told him, ‘It has quite suddenly hit me how much I love Richebourg-Conti. Oh, over the years I sometimes yearned, but always briefly, to be more a part of the Valley, closer to the earth, this place where I was born, but it never occurred to me that I love Richebourg-Conti in the same passionate way that you do. Not until now.
Syrah felt a very light pressure on her hand and looked at her father. Ethan opened his eyes. Father and daughter gazed at each other.
‘You knew! You have always known, that’s what you’re telling me!’ she said, astonished.
‘Yes, banked on it,’ he answered.
Syrah could see what an effort it was for him to speak those few words. She was terribly moved that he should know her better than she knew herself. That even now, in his last hours of life, he could manage to let her know her realisation of how much Richebourg-Conti meant to her pleased him, was important to him. It moved her deeply, so much so that she felt compelled to turn her face away from him for a few minutes so that she might compose herself and not show that she was near to tears.
She rose from the chair, telling him, ‘Don’t exhaust yourself, Ethan, let me do the talking.’
He closed his eyes and Syrah kissed his hand and placed it on the coverlet. ‘I’m going to leave you just long enough to put on another CD. That lovely ethereal music of Rameau you love so much. French court music, why not?’
While searching for the CD, Syrah pondered on what she had just said to him. It was true, she did love Richebourg-Conti in the same way he did – very differently from the way Caleb and Paula felt about it. They had always been blatant about their lust for power, money, prestige. For more than a decade she had known they viewed
Richebourg-Conti as a vehicle they could use to diversify and build their own empire upon. But always Ethan had been there to thwart such schemes. With him gone, what would there be to curb their ambition? For the first time Syrah felt tremendous anxiety at the idea she would never be a part of Richebourg-Conti again. To lose father and heritage at the same time – she wondered how she was going to cope with this double blow.
When she returned to sit at her father’s side and take his hand in hers, she could not be sure but thought she saw a more relaxed expression on his face. It held a certain contentment that had always been a part of Ethan before he’d had this terrible stroke.
She sensed he was drifting away from her, leaving behind the world and his children, his wine and his beloved vines, and he was all right about it. How cruel it would be when he was already so far on his final journey to try and pull him back in order to persuade him to change his will, make her an equal shareholder in the vineyard and winery so that she could become a part of Richebourg-Conti, protect it as he had during his entire working life. It was asking too much too late of a man who was way past dealing with worldly affairs: a wayward daughter, a greedy, weak son and an ambitious daughter-in-law.
Instead she chose to read to him from a first edition of Proust’s
Remembrance Of Things Past
, one of several books on the table next to his bed. The book fell open where he had placed a marker. Syrah removed it and began to read aloud. When Miss Turtle approached her to whisper that she would relieve her, Syrah politely refused the offer and continued reading.
The nurse checked her patient’s pulse then reported to Miss Crumb that she could not find one. From the library Mrs Crumb made a discreet call to the doctor.
Paula, Caleb and their children made a brief visit. Syrah acknowledged them with a nod of the head but continued reading. She somehow felt she mustn’t stop. Nor did she when a few minutes later Diana brought Keoki in. He kissed his mother on the cheek, she smiled at him and the boy went round the other side of the bed with Diana. First she kissed Ethan on the cheek and then Keoki kissed his grandfather.
When they closed Ethan’s bedroom door behind them, Keoki
remarked to Diana, ‘I wasn’t frightened at all. The music and Mama reading, Grandfather dozing so peacefully … do you think he felt my kiss? I hope so. If it’s true what Aunt Paula has told us, that he’ll be leaving us soon, I’d like him to have my kiss to take with him.
Several hours later brought a glorious sunset, one that turned the room into a soft golden colour. It was then that the doctor finally arrived. Flanked by the nurses he went directly to his patient and, after examining him, round the bedside to Syrah who never looked up from her book or stopped reading. The doctor removed the book from her hand and closed it. At last Syrah fell silent. Then he unwound her fingers from Ethan’s hand. She had never let it go, not even when hours before she had sensed there was no life left in it. She placed a hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming and gazed at her father for the first time since she had opened the book.
Syrah felt an uncomfortable tightness in her chest, a pounding in her head and her heart. Tears poured down her cheeks for several minutes. She took several deep breaths and regained her composure. Only then did she allow the doctor and Miss Turtle to help her from her chair.