Phần I
Nobody moved in the study for a long time.
Then Victor Bellandi took off his reading glasses, folded them, and set them on the logbook beside the phone, the way he had done every night of Claire's childhood when he finished the harvest numbers and was ready to say something important.
"Not at half past twelve," he said. "I want you to understand. At half past twelve I believed it was Walter's boy. I had drunk a bottle of wine and I believed it with my whole body. I went to bed proud of myself." His voice was steady. It was the voice of a man reading a list. "I woke at three. Sober. Sick. And I remembered I'd left that boy in Seven, and I thought, Vic, what have you done, the gas. And I got my flashlight and I ran."
He looked at the window. The vines were black. The night crew's headlamps were up on the last of the Ridge.
"I opened the hatch," he said. "I put the light down. And on top of the cap, in the wine, there was a red sweatshirt. Bellandi Hill Harvest Crew. I bought him that sweatshirt." His hands were still flat on the desk. "I knew before I saw his face."
Sam had sat down on the floor against the bookshelf, like a boy. Claire stayed standing. She didn't know how she was still standing.
"I screamed," her father said. "Then I stopped. And I knelt on that catwalk for - I don't know. And I thought about what happens next. The sheriff. Victor Bellandi locked his son in a tank because he was stealing grapes from Walter Holloway. Your mother. You two. The hill." He closed his eyes. "And I chose. I slid the bolt back. I closed the hatch, softly. I went back to bed, and lay down beside your mother, and waited for Rafa to scream. I let it be an accident. I let it be Luca's fault. I let Rafa carry it. I cut the pages out of the log with a razor. And in the morning, I opened the valve and poured the only witness into the creek."
He opened his eyes.
"And every night since March," he said, "I go back to half past twelve. And it's Walter's boy again. And I lock it, and it's right, and I'm proud. And then, on the catwalk, I remember." A long breath. "The doctors say that's the last thing that will go. Good. It should be."
Claire found her voice.
"Your letter," she said. "In August. I want to say something to you before I forget it."
"This." Victor nodded slowly. "This is what I wanted to say. I couldn't say it to your mother. I couldn't say it to Sam, who stayed. I thought - Chiara left. Chiara can hear it and leave again." He almost smiled. "I didn't think you'd taste it first."
He pulled a sheet of the estate's letterhead from the drawer and uncapped a fountain pen.
"Tomorrow, when the last load comes in, I'm supposed to name who gets the hill," he said, writing. "Tomorrow I may not be me. I may call you Luca. I may ask for the ducks." He wrote for several minutes, steadily, in the long Italian script. Then he signed it, folded it in three, put it in an envelope and sealed it with his thumb. He held it out to Claire.
"Whatever I say at the table tomorrow," her father said, "if I'm not me - read this."