The extreme warmth of summer was a heavy blanket, padded and cumbersome even in the cool of the morning, over the vineyard. The air was vibrating with the quality of late July heat that has an edge of unreality about it; edges blurred, distances deceptive. But even with the weight of the present moment—the clusters of grapes hanging heavy on the vines they were each bent over, the pressing urgency of preparation for the grape harvest, the lush sweetness of the fruit ready to pick—Lila found herself trapped by a memory that had nothing to do with grapes or sunlight, or the peaceful little life she and Tate tried to make for themselves.
Traumatic memories always came to her in bits and pieces like the flicker of old film exposed to too much light—sharp, incomplete images that even after she
