In the Vineyard

The tangled grapevines rustled softly in the breeze as I followed Kurt through the overgrown vineyard. We came to the edge of a irrigation canal choked with cattails and water hyacinths. Kurt stopped and turned to face the setting sun. I went to his side and took his hand. We stood quietly for a moment, watching the colors of the sunset play in the gnarled branches of the ancient live oak that stood watch over the vines.

“It was here, right here,” Kurt finally whispered. “It all ended here. My childhood. My family. Lani's life.”

In the lengthening shadows, it was hard to imagine the bright, hot day fifteen years previous when Kurt's sister had drowned in the canal's murky waters. From pictures taken before that day, I knew the twelve year-old version of the man standing next to me to be no more than a collection of elbows and long legs. Later I would learn Kurt had almost drowned himself diving again and again, looking for Lani. Her tiny battered body washed up on the peaty shore of one of the Delta's islands two days later.

This place explains it all, I thought to myself. Kurt's vulnerability, his mother's distance, and his father's distraction. A family stuck in their pain, and Kurt looking to free himself of it.

Kurt cleared his throat and looked up. “I had to bring you here, to have you understand,” he said, “if you're going to be with me.”

I moved to face him, brushing a tear from his cheek. His eyes met mine. “You brought me all the way out here for this?” I asked. “I would have said 'yes' anywhere, but I understand why it had to be here.”

We walked hand-in-hand back through the vineyard under the indigo sky.

Word count: 299