Unbreakable Read online

  At that point, Brett left his table and was starting to walk toward the dance floor.

  Oh, hell no. I would not let that man silence me.

  But I knew I should probably wrap this up.

  “The rest of you are probably on the Nice List,” I said, talking more quickly now that Brett was headed my way. “And if you want to make sure you stay there, it’s actually really easy.” I shrugged. “Don’t be an asshole. Merry Christmas, everybody. Peace out.”

  Then I held out my arm and dropped the mic.

  It sounded terrible. It looked ridiculous. Santa was going to switch me to the Naughty List, and people around here were going to talk shit about me for years to come.

  But it felt really badass.

  And that was worth it.

  Two

  Henry

  “Hey. You still here?”

  I looked up from the oak barrel I was working on, surprised to see Declan MacAllister walking across the stone floor of the cavernous winery cellar. As the CFO of Cloverleigh Farms, he didn’t poke his head back here too often. “Hey, Mack. What’s up?”

  “I saw your car in the lot. It’s Saturday night, DeSantis. You’re a swinging single dude now. You’re supposed to be out hooking up with chicks, not here in this bunker giving your wine a massage.”

  I laughed. “Bâtonnage, not massage.”

  “Whatever,” he said, watching me insert a long metal baton into the hole in the barrel’s side. “God, I really want to make a sexual joke right now. Would that be considered workplace harassment?”

  “Listen, this is about as sexual as my Saturday night is gonna get, so no jokes, please.” I worked the baton back and forth, scraping its curved metal foot along the bottom of the barrel.

  Mack shook his head. “That is depressing as fuck. I can’t even bring myself to make fun of you for it.”

  “Thanks, asshole.”

  “Come on, you need to get out of here. Let’s go to my house for a beer and some dinner. Frannie has a roast in the oven.”

  “No way. I’m not intruding on your Saturday night with your wife.” But my mouth watered at the idea of a roast. I hadn’t eaten a home-cooked meal like that in forever. But Mack, a single dad of three girls, and Frannie had just gotten married a couple months ago—right about the time Renee, my ex-wife, had served me with divorce papers and left for good.

  “Are you kidding? I’ve got three kids, DeSantis. There is no Saturday night that does not involve intrusion. And what else are you gonna do tonight, huh?”

  I hesitated. The truth was, tonight’s itinerary looked something like this:

  1) Eat some shitty leftovers straight from the carton.

  2) Watch some terrible porn that didn’t even turn me on.

  3) Jerk off anyway.

  4) Go to sleep.

  But I couldn’t say that. And I didn’t want to be anyone’s Saturday night charity project. “Actually, I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’ll be here for a while.”

  Mack wouldn’t give up. “Listen, Henry, I’ve been the divorced guy. I know all about the crappy takeout food and talking to your TV and feeling like everybody else in the fucking world is having a better time than you.” He gestured toward the barrels. “Although, in your case, it might be true.”

  Laughing, I pulled the baton out, replaced the air lock valve, and moved on to the next barrel. “I actually enjoy my work.”

  “But you’ve been in here nonstop since the harvest,” he went on. “I’m beginning to think you’re sleeping here.”

  “I go home eventually.” But the truth was, I preferred the bright, open spaces of the winery to the dark, empty rooms of my house. As head winemaker, I always had something to do here. We were a small operation, but I was involved in every single step of the process, both out in the vineyard and here in the cellar. And we did everything by hand, at my insistence, which meant a lot of extra patience and skill and time, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. At home, all I did was sit around and wonder where the fuck I’d gone wrong.

  But that wasn’t Mack’s problem.

  “What are you still doing here anyway, if Frannie’s got dinner in the oven?” I asked.

  “I had to bring a bunch of Christmas presents from Santa to my office to hide. The girls are constantly on the hunt for them.”

  Hiding presents from Santa—just one more rite of fatherhood I wouldn’t get to experience.

  I buried the thought before it got to me. “They still believe in Santa, huh?”

  Mack pulled on a knit winter hat. “Winnie does for sure. She’s only five. Felicity’s eight and suspicious of everything, so that’s a maybe. Millie is thirteen, so probably not, but she’s putting on a pretty good show. Frannie told her anyone who doesn’t believe gets three fewer gifts so she wouldn’t ruin it for her sisters.”

  “Smart.”

  “She is.”

  “How’d you get her to marry you, anyway?”

  Mack looked genuinely perplexed as he shook his head. “Seriously, I’ve got no fucking idea.”

  * * *

  After Mack left, I finished up my barrel work, returned some emails, tasted some riesling from the tanks, made some notes, straightened up the lab, and looked around to see if there was anything else that needed to be done before I headed home.

  There wasn’t, but I didn’t feel like facing my empty house yet, the one I’d hoped would be full of family by now. So instead of going out to the parking lot, I zipped up my coat, pulled on a hat and gloves, and went out to the vineyard.

  It was cold, late December in Michigan cold, but I didn’t mind. I liked the smell of winter, the sharp sting of the air in my lungs, the crunch of the snow beneath my boots. I walked the rows of dormant vines, thinking over the past season, getting a feel for the energy of the upcoming growth, contemplating new strategies for each block of vines. I was always happiest out here in the vineyard, no matter the season. The vines could be cooperative or temperamental, fragile or hardy, but they spoke a language I understood, and I knew how to nurture, shape, and renew them into something beautiful year after year.

  If only I’d been half as successful as a husband.

  I exhaled, my breath a cloud of white in the icy night air. For the millionth time, I wondered if there had been something more I could have done to save my marriage. The real enemy had been infertility, which had eaten away at our happiness little by little, until there was nothing left. Despite what Renee said, I’d never blamed her, but she’d felt crushed under the weight of knowing it was her endometriosis causing the problem. She said she felt like a failure as a woman, and as a wife. No matter how many times I tried to convince her otherwise, she refused to listen or get therapy. The hormones were hell on her, and I tried hard to be sensitive to her feelings, to remind myself that this wasn’t what either of us had planned.

  The only times I got angry with her were when we’d fight about adoption—she wouldn’t consider it. Had I called her stubborn? Unreasonable? Closed-minded? Unfair? Had I said things I regretted?

  Fuck yes, I had.

  But I’d said those things from a place of frustration and exhaustion and fear. I wanted to be a father, dammit, and I saw my chances slipping away because of her relentless determination to “become a mother the real way.” I did blame her for that. Had I been wrong?

  In the end, maybe it didn’t matter.

  After five failed rounds of IVF, our savings were drained. After years of trying to get the timing exactly right for conception, sex became a chore. After months of endless fights and sleeping on the couch and apologizing the next day for whatever I’d said that made her cry all night long, I’d given up on having children and just wanted peace.

  I wanted to talk about something other than fertility. I wanted to stop being unable to go places as a couple because seeing a pregnant woman—or worse, hearing one say we weren’t even trying—would put Renee over the edge. I wanted to want sex again, to take pleasure in it for its own sake, for th
e release, for the connection, for the fucking fun of it. My dick had become a clinical piece of machinery, just another cog in a mechanism that refused to work. And eventually, it was clear Renee had no use for it if it wasn’t going to get her pregnant.

  We grew resentful of each other. We grew distant and angry. We grew apart.

  Then she said she was leaving. That my presence in her life was a constant reminder of her childlessness, she wasn’t in love with me anymore, and she couldn’t stay. She took off one afternoon in early September, and I hadn’t heard from her since.

  I’d been hurt, of course. Angry. Bitter. Resentful. But also . . . relieved.

  Because I couldn’t honestly say I was in love with her anymore either—it felt shitty, but it was the truth. The years we’d spent trying and failing to start a family, the fights, the cost, the blame . . . all of it had taken a toll. I had no idea how to make her happy, and I wasn’t sure I ever would.

  Frankly, I wasn’t sure I knew how to make any woman happy. My whole experience with marriage had taught me that you could never really know a person. What you thought someone wanted, what you thought you could offer, it could all change. Life was unpredictable, and just when you thought you had it all figured out, just when you thought winter was over and spring was right around the bend, you got hit with a late frost that killed every bud on the vine.

  So when people said things to me like, “Oh, you’re still young, it’s different for a guy, you’ll be fine . . .” I kind of wanted to fucking punch them in the face. It wasn’t that easy to just pick up, move on, and start over. I didn’t trust anyone or anything to turn out like I thought.

  Plus, it’s not like this small town was overrun with hot single women banging my door down.

  I was closer to forty than thirty. I was a farmer and a science nerd. I got excited about things like soil and microclimates and carbonic maceration. I loved getting my hands dirty.

  I had a pretty decent body (thanks to hours spent working off tension at the gym), but I wasn’t ripped. I had a career I loved, but I wasn’t rich—and I was never going to be rich. I drove a beat-up truck, tracked mud in the house, and got a fourteen-dollar haircut.

  Did I own a suit and tie? Yes, but three-hundred sixty-five days a year, I went to work in frayed jeans and shirts with holes in them, and I liked it that way.

  Back when she gave a fuck, Renee used to say I was good in bed—I never took a woman’s pleasure for granted—but those days were long gone.

  Christ. Would I ever have sex again? I missed everything about it—the smell of perfume in the dark, the feel of soft curves beneath my palms, the taste of a woman on my tongue.

  I nearly groaned aloud as I reached the end of one row and started down another. But there was no use getting worked up about it. I wasn’t ready to date anyone, and I wasn’t the type to jump in bed with some random woman I didn’t know.

  I told myself to be grateful for what I did have—a nice house, a great job, some good friends. Sure, my sex life was depressing as fuck and my first Christmas alone was going to be hard, but I’d get through it. Maybe I’d buy myself a present—a new truck, a nicer watch, a fishing boat.

  At the very least, a subscription to a better porn site.

  I was going to need it.

  Three

  Sylvia

  One week after the Breakfast with Santa debacle, the kids and I caught a 5:50 A.M. flight to Salt Lake City, then a 9:35 A.M. flight to Detroit before finally hopping on a small plane that took us to Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City. By the time my dad picked us up, we’d been traveling for almost ten hours. We were exhausted, grouchy, and starving.

  “Should we stop for dinner on the way home?” I asked him as we waited for our mountain of luggage. Each of us had two huge suitcases, and what winter clothing we hadn’t been able to fit in those, I’d boxed up and shipped here. Once the house sold, I’d have to go back and ship our summer things. I planned on leaving almost everything else in the house for Brett to deal with—I wanted no reminder of my old life here.

  “Nope, your mom was ordering pizza when I left the house. Should be there by the time we get back. And she’s all excited about baking cookies with the kids tonight.” He put an arm around Whitney and squeezed her tight. “We’re so glad you guys are here. Did I tell you I bought a new sleigh?”

  Whitney beamed up at him with her bright red lips. “The kind the horses pull?”

  “Yep. This one is even bigger—it’s got three rows of seats, so you can take a ride together with your cousins. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

  “Yes, it does.” I smiled, even as my throat tightened, overwhelmed with gratitude and relief at coming home. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  My parents had said we could stay at Cloverleigh Farms as long as we needed to, and they certainly had the room. Back when I was growing up, it had been just a small family farm, but in the last thirty years, my parents had expanded the farmhouse into a thirty-room inn with a bar and restaurant. In addition, there was now a winery, tasting room, a brand new distillery, and it was consistently named one of the top wedding venues in the state. My sister April was the event planner, and I’d never seen anyone bring a bride’s vision to life the way she could. My sister Chloe was the new CEO, slowly easing into the position as my dad “retired” at a snail’s pace.

  “Is anyone else coming to dinner?” I asked as we started on the thirty-minute drive from the airport to the farm.

  “I think April might come by.”

  “No wedding tonight?” I was surprised, since Saturday nights were always booked.

  “It was an afternoon wedding, so she thought she’d be done around seven. But the whole family is coming for Sunday dinner tomorrow, and then we’ll have the big party at the inn on Tuesday.”

  I nodded. My parents always threw a big Christmas Eve party at the inn for staff, extended family, and close friends. It had been a few years since I’d attended one, since Brett had preferred Aspen to Cloverleigh Farms for the holidays, but I remembered them from my youth as warm, noisy, fun gatherings full of people in high spirits. Part of me was looking forward to it and part of me dreaded having to explain over and over again where Brett was.

  But that would be my reality, at least for a while.

  When we pulled up to the house, I got a little teary-eyed at seeing it blanketed with snow and covered in lights. It was beautiful and familiar, reminding me of Christmases from my childhood—I’d missed it.

  My mom misted up as well when she greeted us, and she gave me an extra long hug. “It’s going to be okay, darling,” she whispered, squeezing me tight. “You’re home now. You belong here.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” I hoped with all my heart she was right.

  * * *

  Later, April and I snuck over to the bar at the inn for a glass of wine, and I told her about Breakfast with Santa.

  “Wait—you did what?” Seated across the high-top table from me, April paused with her glass halfway to her mouth.

  “I got drunk at Breakfast with Santa, dumped a pitcher of ice water in Brett’s lap, took the mic right out of jolly old St. Nick’s hand, made a kid cry, and told the entire country club not to be an asshole.” I cringed. “Then I said ‘peace out’ and dropped the mic.”

  She burst out laughing. “You did not!”

  “I did,” I admitted, wrinkling my nose. “It was pretty bad.”

  “What possessed you?”

  I told her the news about Kimmy’s pregnancy, how she’d said terrible things about me in public, how my former friends had failed to have my back. “I just couldn’t take it anymore,” I said. “I’ve kept my cool this whole time, but I finally had to let it out.”

  “I don’t blame you. How did the kids react?”

  “I’m sure they were embarrassed, but neither of them wanted to talk about it when they got home.”

  She shrugged. “Well, parents have been embarrassing their children since the beginning of time. They’ll live. T
hey might need therapy,” she added, “but they’ll live.”

  “Yeah. I think we’ll all need some therapy. Including Santa.” I winced a little as I recalled the old man’s befuddled face when I went charging up to him.

  “Santa will get over it. Your kids are the only people you need to worry about. How are they doing?”

  “Hard to say for sure,” I fretted. “They don’t talk much about their feelings.”

  “No?”

  “No, I think they’re coping in other ways—Whitney has taken to wearing a lot of heavy makeup.”

  April smiled ruefully. “I noticed that. Looks like you during your black eyeliner phase. Mom hated it so much, remember?”

  I exhaled. “I do, and part of me says she’s just acting like a normal thirteen-year-old girl. But another part of me wonders if it’s some kind of mask she’s trying to put on for protection.”

  “Hmm.” April’s forehead creased. “That’s a tough one.”

  “And I don’t want to forbid it or tell her it looks ridiculous, because that’s what her dad does. She’s not even allowed to wear makeup at his house.”

  “Dickhead,” my sister muttered. “As if lipstick and eyeliner are more inappropriate than his pregnant girlfriend?”

  “Exactly.” I slowly spun my wineglass around by the stem. “I want to be understanding of her age and what she’s going through, but also still a responsible parent. Like, what’s the balance?”

  “Beats me.” Her expression was sympathetic. “You’re in a tough spot there, hon. I’m sorry. What about Keaton?”

  I sipped my pinot noir. “Keaton’s coping mechanism is food. He’s been sneaking it.”

  “Oh, no. Have you talked to him?”

  “A little. But I don’t want to punish him, you know? I just sort of keep trying to encourage him to talk to me if he wants to.”

  “He seems happy about the move.”