The soft warm breeze felt nice. The full moon made the vineyard an interweaving patchwork of light and shadow.
She leaned back on the bench and stared up at the stars.
Late July evenings are the most incredible...
Her mind wandered.
"You should be happy to know that have I made the big decision," Lou told her. She could remember his words as though the conversation had just happened five minutes earlier.
"The big decision?" she asked.
"Yes. You know." He glared at her in mock exasperation, smiling at the same time. "About what should be done with me. My remains."
"Oh, right. Of course."
After a rather tense and awkward pause, he asked, "Don't you want to know?"
"Not really," she answered. "I mean, not right now. Not now."
"You're going to have to know eventually, and soon. You agreed to be in charge of everything." Though he was maintaining a cheerful veneer, she yet detected a slight tone of peevishness in his voice.
"I know. Just not right now, okay? Later, maybe."
That was a Wednesday afternoon in early September. That day particularly stood out in her mind because a terrible storm struck suddenly as she left the hospice and headed home. She remembered it as so gothic and surreal. The sun was bright and the sky was a wash of clear blue when she left, with not a cloud in sight. But gray clouds suddenly converged and a terrible wind began just a few minutes after she began her commute. The television news later reported that evening that the winds had accelerated up to 80-100 miles per hour at the storm's peak.
The rain eventually became so heavy that looking through the windshield was like looking through a liquid kaleidoscope; she could barely make out what was five feet in front of her car. She slowly pulled it over and gently steered it into an open space she luckily spotted on the side of the street to wait for the rain and wind to subside.
She could make out a man and a woman walking by her on the sidewalk just after she parked her car, stooped over and struggling against the fierce wind. It took her a moment to realize that they were an older couple, perhaps in their sixties or seventies. They had no umbrella. The old man had removed his jacket and did the best he could to shield his wife from the sheets of rain bearing down on them. April was just about to roll down her window and shout at them that they could take refuge in her car, but they were suddenly embracing one another. Amidst the torrential downpour, the elderly couple started kissing. Then they dodged through the front door of a café.
Gazing across the vineyard, amid the chirping crickets and cicadas, she asked herself if she really saw them kiss. Perhaps her memory was playing tricks on her. Romanticizing the moment.
One morning, April had stopped by to see Lou at the hospice before she went into work. She had grabbed a couple of donuts and coffee at a little shop that they used to love to go to some years before. A nurse had just finished checking his vital signs when Lou granted her admittance in reply to her knock on the door of his room.
"Carla here was just making sure I'm still alive," he said. "Thanks, Carla." April could hear a thick strain of bitterness in his voice. The nurse brushed by April and hurried out through the door. The expression on her face was that of deep frustration.
"Bitch," muttered Lou after the nurse left his room. April shot him a stern and quizzical look. "They have no bedside manner here. This is a place where people come to die and they have all the bedside manner of Joseph Mengele."
There was a long and awkward silence before he finally said, "Well, come on in. Sit down. You brought coffee and donuts--pour moi?"
"I stopped at Café Amour. Haven't been there in ages." She handed him a coffee. He sipped.
"Ah, just the way I like it," he said. "Black. And bitter. Like my soul." He attempted a smile. "So what brings you to the dyin' place at this fine hour of the morning?"
"I was just on my way to work, and I just wanted to stop in and see--"
"You know, you really don't have to do all this, April," he blurted out.
"What are you talking about?"
"This--stopping by every day. Visiting with me. Bringing me coffee and donuts. I mean, come on."
She hated it when he got like this. She made an attempt at deflection. "So I got a chocolate-frosted and an eclaire. Which would you like? You get first choice."
"I'm not hungry. The coffee should be enough for me at the moment." He gave her an icy glance before he looked away, sipping his coffee.
She understood why he so often degenerated into these surly moods. She knew she wouldn't exactly be a barrel of rainbows if she was dying from a particularly aggressive form of cancer that seemed to strike out of nowhere.
"You should really eat something."
"You should really stop using me to work out whatever emotional shit you're trying to work out here."
She was stunned, but not surprised. Those kinds of statements came with the mood. "I don't know what you're alluding to, exactly," she said to him.
"Oh, for Christ's sake, April." He fixed his gaze right on her eyes. "You feel bad because you turned me down when I asked you to marry me, and then, boom, a few months later I find out I have cancer."
"Um, look--"
"No, just let me finish. It's OK, April. You don't have to feel bad about it. It is a scientifically proven fact that rejecting a proposal of marriage does not cause cancer for the person who proposed, m'kay? They have found absolutely no linkage whatsoever, according to the literature. Nobody's obligated to accept anyone's marriage proposal. I mean...I appreciate the visits, but all this...coming almost every day...on your way to work, on your way home from work...bringing coffee and donuts...It's not necessary. You're already doing enough by agreeing to tie up my affairs once I shed the ol' meatsuit here and shuffle off this mortal coil."
She just looked at him for a long moment. She reflected on their relationship--stretching all the way back to their college days--in a matter of a few seconds.
"Oh, for fuck's sake! I'll just come right out and say it--fucking leave, OK? I want to be alone right now. Go. Get out of here!" She looked around, confused, unsure of what to say or do. "I said, go, goddammit!"
She turned around and left his room, just in time, so he couldn't see the tears falling from the corners of her eyes.
She thought back to the first time they had come to this place. Lou had found it online by pure chance. They were looking for a getaway for a very long weekend, and neither of them had ever ventured up to the far northwest corner of Illinois before. A Chicago businessman owned the cottage, kept his own little vineyard there just beyond the back yard. He bottled his own wine, which he sold to only a few shops in the area. He was a wine lover and it was simply a hobby for him. A labor of wine love.
The cottage overlooked vast swaths of farmland. Lush, rolling green hills for as far as the eye could see. The pictures of the area Lou and April had found on the web barely prepared them for how truly breathtaking the scenery was. They almost felt as though they had traveled all the way to Ireland by simply driving a few hours out of the city.
The little towns in the area all seemed frozen in time, like Norman Rockwell and Thomas Kinkade paintings come to life. They had quaint little shops on their main streets, and art galleries that ran the gamut from the classical to the postmodern. Lou and April made it their top getaway destination from that point on.
Lou had proposed to her there. That was their last trip together.
It was getting late. She had no idea what time it was. She shifted on the little bench that was situated before the vineyard, watching the morphing shadows and moonlight as the vines danced a little in the warm humid breeze. She brought her knees up to her chin, closed her eyes, and she let the breeze wash over her face. It felt so comforting, as though it were gently caressing her. When she opened her eyes again she saw him standing right in front of her. Lou. Alive. In the flesh. At least it seemed so to her. The moonlight revealed all the features and contours of his face she had known so well.
"Thank you for taking care of everything for me," he said. "You did just as I asked of you. You cremated my remains and scattered them in the garden of the house where I grew up."
"You're welcome. Your sister wasn't crazy about the idea but I convinced her that your parents would have been very moved."
"Well, Joy's a bitch. That's all there is to it."
"Be nice. She agreed once I talked to her."
"That's why I needed you to take care of things. Joy would have totally shit on the whole idea."
They regarded one another quietly in the moonlight for a long moment.
"I miss you," she said, finally. He had no answer.
"I love you," she said a moment later. "I always have."
He smiled at her. Then he turned around and walked into the vineyard. He disappeared into the shadows and moonlight.
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