Page 49 of Unbreakable
“Yeah, Dad. You working today?”
“Barrel day,” he said.
“Got anything I can do in the tasting room?”
“Oh, we can put you to work, Jeannie. I think your mom’s packing the Christmas shipments. She could always use a hand.”
“What can Mom do?” Mom breezed into the kitchen, already dressed and primped with what I consider her winery uniform: a black long-sleeve, a zip-up vest with Wendlock Wineries on it,and nice jeans with her hair in a French twist. Preppy, chic, and practical.
“Jeannie was just asking how she can help around here,” Dad said.
I slumped into a chair at the table, pulling a section of the newspaper toward me. Mom slid into the seat across from me.
“We’ll take you however we can get you, J, but you know what we’re going to ask,” Mom said, tilting her head down at me.
Once a child, always a child. I figure I probably gave my kids that look all the time. “Why am I here?”
“Bingo,” Dad said.
I sucked in some air as my eyes watered. “Dyl and I are . . . I’m mad at Dyl. I just needed to come home.”
Mom nodded, patting my hand on the table. “Sorry, honey.”
She was waiting for me to say more. “He just—this move has been harder than we thought it was going to be. I really would have rather stayed in L.A. Moving took away my whole world. And then, he expects me to just adapt. But I can’t. I don’t have anyone in Ohio.”
“We miss you out here,” Dad mumbled.
“Joe!” Mom chided him.
“What? We do. I do, at least,” he argued.
“Well, I do too, but we don’t need her feeling worse than she already does,” Mom said, turning to me. “You’re always welcome here, Jeanine.”
I sniffed and lifted my gaze. “I get it now, Mom. All the stuff about unseen labor.”
Dad flattened his lips and Mom spoke up. “It’s true that women pick up the slack a lot. But I have to give your dad credit. The years with young kids are just hard. You can both be working at it nonstop from sun up to sun down and still feel like the other person didn’t do as much as you did. And some daysthat’s true, but it’s not a race, Jeannie. You and Dylan are in it together.”
“He’s gone all the time, Mom. He doesn’t know what it’s like and he just tells me to keep my chin up. I just want him to see how hard it is. He doesn’t know and I’m not sure he cares. I have my role to fill and he has his.”
Mom took a sip of her coffee and twisted her lips. “It wasn’t all sunshine and roses when you kids were little. Right, Dad?”
Dad gave me a morose smile. “Nope. It’s just hard, kiddo. Hoping a little time in the country will fix you up and get you back in there.”
“I hope so too.”
I was coveredin cardboard shavings and kept sneezing from the little particles getting into my nose. Mom and I had been packing holiday shipments for the wine club since the morning, making paninis in the office for a quick lunch.
“Andy’ll be by soon to pick these up,” Mom said, referring to my little brother’s best friend who worked for the winery.
Who was also my ex.
I nodded, a pit developing in my stomach. “Oh, yeah. Haven’t seen him since the summer. How’s his mom?”
“Not great,” Mom sighed. “He’s good to her, though. It’s worked out well that he could stay here.”
“Definitely. I get it.” I had to clamp my jaw together to keep from crying. I wished I could stay. My mom didn’t have a long-term illness like Andy’s did, but I still wished I could be in Temecula, or at least Los Angeles, long-term.
Mom, who misses nothing, eyed me sidelong. “We’re fine, Jeannie. You don’t need to be here with us. Your kids need you.”
