Everything She Never Wanted

1 Henry Wilson collapsed onto his couch with a beer and his remote. It’d been a long day, but then again, they all were. It was supposed to be his easy time of year with all the vines dormant for the winter, but Henry found he couldn’t just sit around and do nothing. It had been six months since his parents, aunts, and uncles retired from Amavita, the family vineyard, and handed everything over to Henry, his brother Ryan, and their seven cousins. At first, losing the seven people that ran most of the day to day operation of the vineyard was almost impossible. But after their first season, they’d all gotten into a routine that was working. Henry and Ryan had taken over managing the vines from their dad, Victor. At thirty-four, Henry knew he was prepared for the responsibility. He’d always imagined he’d take over the process and work there, but he still needed his dad’s guidance. Henry flipped channels before settling on a sports channel. His cousin and roommate, Zach Bennett, would be pissed when he found out he was missing the replay of a women’s volleyball game. Zach loved women, especially half n***d ones. Henry sipped his beer and got up to get his dinner from the oven when Zach stomped his way inside. “It’s cold as f**k out there.” “You’re doing it wrong if you think ‘f**k’ is cold,” Henry quipped. Zach flipped him off with one gloved hand. He whipped the same glove at Henry’s face, who ducked, letting the soaking wet fabric slap the fridge behind him, sticking for a second before falling to the floor in a mushy puddle. “Still snowing?” Zach nodded. “I should have driven today, but it’s hard to justify it.” “Yeah, well, the dinner you left is hot so at least I was nice enough to leave you some.” “I’d kick your a*s if you didn’t.” Henry laughed and carried his food to the couch while Zach stripped out of his many layers. In Bereton, New York, their winters were definitely cold and snowy. It gave Henry a break from work, but Zach was the chef at The Drunken Grape, the restaurant at the inn the family owned. He rarely got a day off work, but he insisted he loved what he did. Henry, on the other hand, enjoyed his days free of work. During the summer months, he was outside twelve hours a day, but when the snow started falling, he was content to have a chance to say no to work. Once in a while. “I saw you at the inn today,” Zach said as he took the seat next to Henry on the couch. His own hot plate of food was balanced on his knees while he sipped a beer. “Were you helping Andie again?” Henry nodded. Their cousin was redecorating the inn one room at a time. With the winter in full swing and their guest list at an annual low, Andie decided to tackle the common areas for the month of January. Her boyfriend was helping, but Henry volunteered his time as well since he didn’t have anything else to do. “Yeah. We’re tearing out the carpet in the hallway upstairs. She’s got someone coming in at the end of the week to replace it, but Cody and I are getting rid of it. Next week she wants to do the stairs.” “She’s nothing if not ambitious.” Henry smiled. “Aunt Pauline is finally on board so I think she’s trying to get as much done as possible before she changes her mind.” “Are Aunt Pauline and Uncle Michael going to meet your parents?” Henry nodded. “That’s what Mom said. In two weeks, I think.” Henry’s mom, Josephine or Jo as she preferred, was the youngest of the four Richliano sisters. She and his dad, Victor, were only fifty-eight when the aunts and uncles all decided to retire, but Henry knew they’d worked hard most of their lives. Jo was only 20 when her father was killed in a car accident. Victor was her boyfriend and best friend in college and was there for her when Nonna asked her four daughters to help out with the vineyard. Jo and Victor got married shortly after graduating college and were best friends for the 37 years since. Six months after turning over the business, Jo and Victor took off, ready to see the country. Jo told Henry before they left that they’d always talked about traveling but never had the chance when they were younger. He knew that was partly because he was born only three years after they were married. He was excited to see them finally enjoying life together, even though he missed them. The shrill ring of Henry’s phone drew his attention from the volleyball game on TV. He smiled when he saw his mom’s name and picture light up the screen. “Hey, Mom! How’s New York City?” Josephine hiccuped and sobbed at the same time, putting Henry on high alert. His mom was the most stable woman he’d ever met. She was hard to rattle, especially when she had Victor by her side. “You need to come here. Now. Find Ryan and come. Honey, it’s your dad. He’s had a stroke or something. I couldn’t wake him up. The doctors don’t know what’s going on. They’re doing tests. You guys need to be here.” Henry could feel his perfect world crashing down around him. He was on his feet, searching for his keys, with Zach on his heels. “We’ll be there, Mom. Just hold on.” Henry hung up the phone after getting the name of the hospital and a few more answers. He went to his room to pack a bag. “What happened?” “My dad. He collapsed or something. Mom thinks he had a stroke, but she didn’t sound sure.” “Do you need me to drive?” Henry shook his head. “No. I need to get Ryan. Will you let everyone know?” Zach nodded, pulling out his phone. “You know they’re going to want to come.” Henry sighed. “Give me a few hours. You remember how they all were when Nonna broke her hip a few years ago.” Zach cringed. “I need to get to my parents, without all of them for a few hours. If he’s still there in the morning, they can come down, but they don’t need to be driving at night.” “Neither do you,” Zach argued. Henry shook his head. “Ryan and I can switch off. It’s less than five hours to New York. We’ll be there by midnight.” “Be careful,” Zach said, his tone serious, something that sent a shiver down Henry’s spine. His cousin was not serious. He was goofy and wild and always playing pranks. If he was worried, it made Henry that much more uneasy. He hugged Zach quickly and thanked him for his help, then ran out the door. He called his brother on his way over to the house Ryan shared with Leo, another cousin, and told him to be ready when he got there. Ryan had the same tone as Zach, and Henry’s gut sunk further. The four and a half hour drive felt like it took forever. Henry broke every speed limit he possibly could and managed to shave off 30 minutes only to get stuck in traffic heading into the city. When they finally made it to the hospital, the brothers ran inside to find their mom. A nurse pointed them in the right direction, but Henry didn’t like the look she gave them when she looked up Victor’s information. Henry’s heart sunk. He knew, without being told, that his father had either died or he wasn’t likely to make it. “Mom!” Ryan yelled out. Jo stood up and rushed to the boys with her arms spread wide. She wrapped them in her embrace. Henry inhaled her deeply, always loving how his mom smelled like pizza dough and wine, even though she wasn’t near the vineyard. She held onto them and the three stood, hugging and crying without a word. Jo finally pulled back from the boys and nodded toward the chairs against the wall. The three sat, the boys both taking a seat next to their mom. She grasped one of each of their hands in hers and tried to compose herself. “Have they told you anything yet?” Henry finally managed to ask. Jo shook her head. “Not yet. The doctor came out before surgery and told me it would be a few hours. They didn’t know what they would be facing until they got in there to see. It could be an easy thing or it could be major. The good news is this is a great hospital, and I know they are going to do everything to help your dad.” “What happened?” Ryan asked. Henry hadn’t wanted to ask, not wanting Jo to think he blamed her in any way. Ryan was always the more forward of the two of them, saying what was on his mind instead of hiding from the truth. “I don’t know, sweetie. We were walking down the street and talking about what we were going to do. We had already gone to the Empire State Building and wanted to go to see the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero. Dad bought me tickets for a Broadway show for tomorrow night. He started saying he didn’t feel quite right, like he was sick, but it felt different. He got a headache. A bad one. He said he couldn’t even see straight his head hurt so bad. He thought maybe he ate something bad and was getting sick. He wanted to go back to the hotel and lay down, but I couldn’t wake him up after he napped for an hour. The desk called 911 for me and they got him here quickly, but they all looked worried when I told them what happened. When we got here they took him right back and the doctor came out a bit later to tell me they were running tests. That’s when I called you, Henry.” Henry listened carefully, grateful his mom didn’t sound like she blamed herself. She was upset but seemed to be okay. Her spirits were better than Henry expected, and he tried to tap into her strength. “Have they said anything to you since then?” Jo looked at the door across from them. The one marked Operating Room. “A doctor came out an hour or two ago. It’s all running together. He said initial tests showed an aneurysm that ruptured. They were going to do some more tests and then probably surgery once they were sure what they were looking at.” Her voice wavered as she relayed the doctor’s words. Henry knew there was more to it than just what she was saying. “What else, Mom?” he asked gently. She squeezed his hand and looked up at him with watery eyes. “The doctor said we should have come straight here when your father’s headache started. Said that was when the aneurysm likely ruptured.” “You can’t blame yourself for that, Mom,” Ryan said. “That doctor is a d**k for making you feel like it was your fault. He needs to get his head out of his a*s and save Dad. If he says something else to you, let us deal with him. I’ll make sure he knows exactly how much we appreciate him making it sound like you did something wrong.” “It’s fine, Ry,” Jo assured him. “I’m sure he’s just one of those doctors with a poor bedside manner.” “Yeah, well, they should teach that in medical school.” Henry chuckled with his mom and brother, but he couldn’t shake the unease that filled him. “Maybe Dad will be treated by a different doctor after he’s out of surgery. I wish they’d tell us something else. If he talked to you an hour or two ago, they should have some new answers soon.” Jo pulled Henry and Ryan’s hands onto her lap and nodded in agreement. They all sat together, not watching the TV in the corner of the waiting room, not drinking the coffee available, not voicing their worst fears. They just sat together. An hour later the doctor finally emerged. He called Jo’s name and the three of them stood as one, the men flanking their mom as they approached the doctor. “I’m Dr. Howard. I know you met Dr. Lee earlier. I’ve been working with him on your husband, your father,” he said with a nod to each of them. “Victor had a lot of bleeding by the time he got here, more than we expected. He was very weak when we finally got in. I’m sorry, but we did everything we could. He didn’t make it.” Jo collapsed onto the floor. Ryan dragged her over to a chair and held her while they both cried. Henry stood there, not hearing the doctor tell him everything else he didn’t want to hear. The only thing he wanted to hear was that his dad was fine. That he was going to wake up and smile at him again. That he could pick up the phone and call his father whenever he wanted. But he wasn’t going to get any of that. Cynthia Hill spooned cereal into her mouth and tried to pretend there wasn’t anywhere else she’d rather be. If she hadn’t gotten fired from her job as a lifestyle reporter for the Philadelphia Post, she’d be in a staff meeting. Not that she loved those, but it was better than accepting defeat and living back in Bereton with her mother. “Hey sweetie,” her mom, Vivian, said, walking into the kitchen with the paper. Rub it in. “Hi Mom.” “I’m going to run to the store after work today. Do you want me to grab anything for you?” Just another knife. Cynthia hated mooching off her mother. After she was let go, she searched for another job, but Annie got to the other papers first. She made sure Cynthia had no choice but to leave the city if she wanted to stay in journalism. Of course, Annie said she was letting her go because there were others with more experience and the paper chose to pick up more stories from freelance writers instead. So they could avoid salary and benefits, they told her. Yeah, because no one needed those. “Whatever you get will be fine, Mom,” Cynthia said. She would have loved to request some of her favorites, but she needed to learn to live on a much smaller budget again. Her mom was nothing if not frugal. Cynthia was smart with her money, but after three months without an income, she admitted defeat and moved home before she was completely broke. She insisted on paying her mom something, but she knew it wasn’t nearly enough. Vivian opened the paper and passed the lifestyle section to Cynthia. It was her own personal form of t*****e disguised as keeping in touch with the market. She’d always wanted to write for one of the major publications, and she jumped on the first job she was offered out of school. Part of her wished she’d waited, but she knew the road to publication was much longer for the bigger papers. She’d have suffered for years as a grunt instead of getting bylines her first year. Philadelphia wasn’t a tiny city, but the paper she worked for was one of the smaller ones. It worked for her. She loved it. That was what she told herself. “Oh, wow,” Vivian gasped. Cynthia looked up at her mom’s stricken face and her heart kicked up. “What’s wrong?” “Do you remember your friend, Henry?” Fear rushed in, jacking her heart up another few notches as Cynthia waited for her mother to explain what happened to Henry. “His father passed away.” “Mr. Wilson?” Vivian nodded. “Making good wine was one of the most important things to Victor Wilson, 58, of Bereton. A dedicated owner and one of the ‘uncles’ of Amavita Estates, Victor was always the one in the fields. Family and friends alike will remember Victor for his barrel laugh, his words of wisdom, and his talent that turned Amavita Estates into one of the premier vineyards in the Finger Lakes region. “Mr. Wilson died Tuesday evening while visiting New York City with his wife, Josephine. The two had recently embarked on a ‘trip of a lifetime,’ their sons, Henry and Ryan, said. “Born in Ithaca, Mr. Wilson was a graduate of Ithaca High School and Cornell University. He had a degree in viticulture and almost forty years experience running Amavita Estates. He shared his wealth of knowledge with anyone who crossed his path, happy to tell you how to make a great bottle of wine. If you were really lucky, he might even let you taste a grape once in a while. “Besides his wife and sons, Mr. Wilson is survived by his brother, mother-in-law, three sisters-in-law, two brothers-in-law, three nieces, and four nephews. His parents, Robin and Jason Wilson, preceded him in death. The family will be accepting visitors at Russell’s Funeral Home Friday two to four and seven to nine. Funeral mass will be celebrated at St. Urban’s Catholic Church Saturday morning at ten am.” “Holy s**t,” Cynthia breathed. Mr. Wilson was always larger than life. She had a hard time imagining him ever being sick, let alone dying. Her heart ached, but her thoughts went to Henry. He’d been her best friend growing up. She knew it had to be killing him. “You should go,” Vivian said, setting the paper down. Cynthia shook her head. “No. I haven’t spoken to Henry in forever. He wouldn’t want to see me.” Vivian gave her a look that said she was being silly, but Cynthia never told her mother what happened between her and Henry. It was too painful to confess. Especially since she partly blamed her mother. “I think he’d appreciate you being there for him. Even if you two did fall out of touch. He was your best friend for a lot of years, Cynthia. You should go see him. Give your condolences.” “He’s better off without me in his life. He doesn’t want to see me.” “Let him make that decision. I’m going to go to the funeral in the morning. I hope you’ll go with me. But I think you should go to the wake this afternoon also. He doesn’t even know you’re back in town, does he?” Cynthia shook her head. “I didn’t want to tell him.” “Well, think about it, Cynthia. I need to get ready for work.” Vivian left the room, forcing Cynthia to argue with herself. She picked up the paper and looked at the grainy photo of Mr. Wilson. He was older than she remembered, but fifteen years could change a man. He still had the same smile she remembered. The smile that was just like Henry’s. A pang of sadness she couldn’t ignore hit her square in the chest. She could go to the wake, say something to Mrs. Wilson, and leave. She didn’t even need to tell Henry she was there. Besides, he wouldn’t recognize her. It had been too long. She hoped.