Page 92 of My Brother's Best Friends

“I don’t get it.”

“Let me enjoy the small stuff, like the cutest little library and the local cinema with its outdated movies, sister, because it’s my way of coping with whatever monsters nature has stashed in your future vineyard.”

That’s enough to crack me up, and I give Janet all the space she needs to marvel at the quaintness of small-town Cali while we continue our slow drive up to my land.

Pushing north, we move through orange groves and avocado fields and eventually find ourselves in a redwood forest. Giants rise all around us, with thick green crowns and trunks as wide as my old apartment studio. It’s so beautiful, so quiet and serene out here… for a second, I forget about everything we left behind.

“Oh, man, think about it, Mac. These trees have been around for centuries.”

“The things they’ve seen,” I mutter.

It takes a while, but we finally leave the redwood forest and reach the much-anticipated hills of fabled wine country. Rolling before our eyes in deep shades of emerald under a greyish-blue sky, Napa Valley welcomes us with soft tones and an eerie silence.

“At the next stop sign, turn left,” the robotic voice of my GPS says, almost startling me.

I follow instructions, discovering an old stop sign at an intersection between two one-way streets. I turn left, glide down a long hill, and at last the last of the trees falls away, revealing a breathtaking vista of the valley.

“It’s as beautiful as Tuscany, don’t you think?” I ask. “I’ve only seen it in pictures, though.”

Beside me, Janet catches her breath. “We should definitely put that on our travel list,” she says. “In fact, I think we have to visit Tuscany if we’re going to open a winery, Mac.”

“What better reason to go to Italy, huh?” I chuckle lightly.

“Business research,” she quips.

I wonder if we’ve arrived at my family’s land. It’s been so long since I was last here that I can’t remember what it really looks like. The GPS flashes, indicating that our destination is right over the next hill. I pull up, expecting to see a ramshackle hut buried deep in a nest of scrub brush. Instead, the house is a bona fide two-story home with only a scattering of weeds around it.

“Is this it?” Janet asks in awe.

I pull into the driveway and turn the engine off. Stepping out, I’m pleasantly surprised by the building. “This must be it. I’ve only been here once or twice when I was a child, and I think they’ve done a considerable amount of work since then.”

Beyond it, acres of wild land spread out. It’ll take a while to clear and prep the soil, but I refuse to let such thoughts intimidate me. We made it this far!

“Did someone live here at any point?” Janet wonders, walking around to the left side of the house before retracing her steps to the right. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been around in at least a year or two.”

“I think so,” I agree. “We’re going to have to cut the lawn and repaint the siding, among other things. But I think the entire second story is new—look at the windows; they’re completely different.”

“I see,” Janet agrees, comparing the front-facing windows on the lower level with the more industrial-looking ones upstairs. “Let’s hope there’s not much grime and dirt to clean up on the inside, either…”

“My grandparents used to live here,” I explain. “And then it passed to my father, who wasn’t interested in it. I guess he had some work done, maybe hoping to sell it.”

“So no one has managed the place since your parents passed away?”

I shake my head slowly. “Bryan paid one of the locals to come in every other month and look around, fix whatever needed fixing, but I doubt they were paid to keep it clean or pretty.”

“We can handle it,” Janet replies. “You have faith in the winery, I have faith in the two of us. We’re golden, you and I.”

“Aw…”

I dig into one of my bags for the keys to the cottage. They’re in an envelope with my name on it.

“Either way, your brother’s helper seems to have patched up a few things over the years,” Janet mutters upon a closer inspection of the front porch steps. “Some of the wood is newer looking. The hinges on the front door were recently changed. And I packed all of my cleaning products from the apartment, so we’ve got a decent head start.”

“Bryan’s the best. He would’ve loved to be more involved with the winery, but he has his own business to focus on. I’m grateful he managed to handle the upkeep on this place, though, you’re right. I’m going to send him an engagement gift as soon as I have the requisite funds in the bank.”

We investigated all the rooms together, tallying the amount of work that needs to be done to bring the dwelling up to code. The electricity is working and the plumbing seems fine, but there’s a solid inch worth of dirt on the counters and a ring of scum around the kitchen sink.

“Okay, it’s not too bad,” Janet says. “I’ll go get the cleaning supplies from the car.”

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