Page 15 of Que Será, Syrah

“Gallbladder?” Now Rosa looks confused. “He said it was her heart!”

“What?” Bianca turns to stare at Rosa. “No. No, it was her gallbladder. I’m sure of it.”

“Of course, you’re sure of it!” I snap at Bianca. “Because that’s what it was.”

“Ye-es,” Bianca replies hesitantly. “Probably. Unless we were the ones he was lying to.”

I feel my mouth drop open. “Fuck. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“He really is a bastard, isn’t he?” Rosa (who almost never swears) says furiously. “Well, besides that guilt trip, he also told me I was being ungrateful, irresponsible, impulsive. I was set to start college in the fall, and he reminded me that my tuition had already been paid and that we wouldn’t be able to get a refund if I decided not to go. He said it would kill Nonna—or, at the very least, cause a relapse, or break her heart all over again; or something equally dire—if she were ever to learn that I was following in Mama’s footsteps, dropping out of school and rushing into marriage, just like she did.”

“You are nothing like Mama,” I protest angrily. “And what did your being married have to do with college, anyway? Married people go to college, don’t they?”

Rosa shrugged and shot a rueful look at Jake. “What can I tell you? I was eighteen. It made sense at the time.”

“I suppose,” I concede, shrugging a little as I remember that, when I was eighteen, I’d also allowed Geno to talk me into doing something stupid. Not quite as stupid as Rosa’s breaking up with the boy she’d already been in love with for most of her life, but stupid all the same. “I mean, I guess I can see that. So, when did you get remarried?”

Another look passes between Rosa and Jake. Then Jake says, “We didn’t.”

“What? But didn’t you just say…?”

“We didn’t have to get remarried. Because I never filed the paperwork for the annulment. We’ve been married this whole time.”

I blink at him in surprise. “For ten years?”

“Yeah.”

I turn to Rosa. “And you didn’t know?”

She shakes her head. “Didn’t know and didn’t believe it when he told me.”

“Bruh.” I scowl at Jake—who’d just admitted to having held my sister’s future hostage for an entire decade. “Not cool. Not cool at all! I mean, what the hell, Jake?”

Be careful what you wish for, I think to myself as chills wash over me—that eerie sensation that Nonna had always referred to as a goose walking over her grave. Having Jake join the family is exactly what I’d wished for all those years ago. He was the big brother I’d always wanted and the father figure I’d needed after my own father died. Not that there weren’t other men in my life. But my uncle was always too absorbed in his own concerns—his reputation in the community, the winery and his sons (in pretty much that order). And he and my cousins always seemed to view me and my sisters as poor relations—the kind of people you pitied and low-key disdained, but for whom you were grudgingly (and super annoyingly) responsible, all the same.

But Jake is nodding. “You’re right,” he says sheepishly. “It wasn’t cool; you’re not the first person to mention that. And, for what it’s worth, I have apologized.”

“But it’s also not your business,” Rosa tells me, taking her husband’s side over mine, which I guess I should have expected.

Except that it literally is my business. Jake’s turning up now, just weeks after we’d inherited the winery is giving serious ick. Not to mention the fact that, since Rosa was (technically) already married when Nonna died, doesn’t that mean Jake stands a good chance of being awarded fifty percent of her share if they ever do divorce? Which I hope they won’t because they really are perfect for each other.

But that’s the old me’s perspective. I used to be a lot more trusting than I am right now. And speaking as a newly minted cynic, it all sounds super sus. “Fine. Whatever,” I tell her, shrugging to show I don’t really care—a barefaced lie, but they don’t need to know that.

“All right well, I’d love to see how this plays out,” Bianca says, slinging a heavy-looking canvas tote over her shoulder and heading for the farm-house’s back door. “But I’m already late for work, so?—”

“No, wait!” I say, stopping her before she can slip out the door. “Don’t go yet. I wanted to go over some of the ideas I had for the winery.”

“Sounds great,” she replies, not even slowing her steps. “Maybe tonight, or sometime this week, for sure.” And she’s gone before I can pin her down to anything more specific than that.

“Where’s she even going?” I complain to Rosa. “I thought the harvest is in, isn’t that what you said yesterday? That the grapes have all been pressed and crushed, etc? Aren’t they all fermenting away at the moment?”

“Yes, but?—”

“There’s still a lot to do,” Jake points out. “The numbers still need to be monitored, etc.”

“Sure,” I agree. “I get that. But does that have to be done rightthisfuckingminute? She couldn’t even spare half an hour to talk to me?”

Rosa smiles. “You’ve met our overachieving sister, haven’t you? You thought working at one winery at a time would be enough for her? Oh, no; she’s also making wines for Bar Down. That’s where she’s gone this morning. There’s even more work that needs doing over there—blending, bottling…”

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