Goodbyes and Cheap Wine

“Goodbye,” She said, gulping down a dry vacuum, which felt like a million hairballs stuck down her throat.

“Goodbye ma’am,” The man smiled. Although a full smile, it was a practiced one; flashed for every stranger that paid him for a bag of Merlot Wine at ‘Vineyard Creek, A collection of Chelan’s finest’.

“Mom, what did Jose used to look like?”

Catherine remembered her eight-year old self asking her mother. Her mother, stooped over their crammed grey scullery, had turned around and slapped Catherine across the face, leaving a wet sting that smelled of fishwater and old yams. At night however, her mother sat by her mattress and cried a little; then told her not

to ask about Jose ever again. Every time Catherine thought of Jose thereafter, she could smell the fishwater slap; wet and putrid against her face.

And yet, here was Jose in front of her eyes; or at least, Catherine hoped he was. A whimsical young Catherine had often tried to envision what Jose would look like. Perhaps like a horse-rider out

of an Eastwood film, with a sharp nose and dusty saddle. Jose, however, was nothing like she had imagined. He looked painfully ordinary, like those middle-aged shoppers you'd pass in the lanes of Georgetown and won’t ever see again. She looked at his sombre chiseled face, wrinkling at the edges; and his coarse stubble. His greying straw curls resembled Catherine’s short-cropped strawberry hair. She had his deep-set brown eyes. Looking at them almost felt like staring into a mirror. Only – his eyes were kind, like an old dog’s; while hers were two still black ponds.

“Ma’am,” Jose said, with patient nonchalance. He suddenly looked much older, “You’re kind of holding up the line.”

“Oh,” Catherine said, before stepping away. In five large steps, she had marched out of ‘Vineyard Creek’, with a brown paper bag containing two bottles of cheap Grape Riesling, just expensive enough to make her look like an experienced drinker instead of the thoughtless nineteen-year-old she was. Stealing her mother’s month-end cheque and an old letter, she had set out for Chelan Valley, from Redmon across the state.

She walked over to her car parked outside the winery. She got inside, dumped the paper bag in the backseat, and inhaled deeply. Jose didn’t know who she was. How could he? After all, he had left six months before she was even born.

I can’t explain it to you Becca. Some things just cannot be explained, I guess. But I am in love. I am in love with April and I cannot be anywhere else but with her, and I can’t explain it to you.

Catherine skimmed over the letter lying on the passenger seat, shining gold against the afternoon sun. She bet Jose thought of himself as a poet.

Just my luck to have an asshole for a father, she thought to herself.

However, it was true that she had soloed two hundred miles in her mother’s rackety car just to see the man who had supposedly left a gaping hole in their lives. A bunch of wrung-out letters she found in a shoe-box under her mother’s bed and fifteen minutes of acute inquiring at the post-office had led her to finally put together where he might be living. Driving around the countryside for another five hours, she found herself in Vineyard Creek,

the best winery in town. A sign outside said it was closed on Mondays, and the handwriting struck devilishly familiar. Long, bent, squiggly; like he was always in a hurry.

Chelan was different from Redmon, where Catherine had lived with her mother for nineteen years. Catherine watched the summer sky from within her car; light cornflower blue, stretching for miles till it waned over the tiny green hills in the distance. Feathery whites streaked the sky like paint-patches. The sun shimmered off the metal hoods of the cars that whizzed down the dusty road. Shops, stores and eateries lined the streets like women dressed for pageants; small, charming, dazzlingly coloured. Redmon however, was different. There were tall greying buildings blocking the sky, and all Catherine could see out of their window was purple ivy clinging on to the neighbour’s wall.

Catherine sighed and dropped her face into her palms. She had been so caught up in trying to find Jose that she never planned on what she would tell him if she did finally meet him. He had showed her around the store like he did with all the other customers. He told her about the new brands of wine imported all the way from Bordeaux and Tuscany. All the time, her heart thumped and she stayed silent. She eventually picked up two bottles with fancy labels and he billed them. Barely had she gotten a good look into his eyes and it was goodbye. Just like that. Goodbyes were always, just like that.

He left because he wanted to, was all her mother had said, signing bills on the kitchen table one evening.

But don’t you want to look for him?

Try to understand, Cath. There’s no point.

She kept asking her mother the billion questions that popped into her little head. Maybe he would come back? Maybe he is sorry? Don’t you want to know? Don’t you care?

Her mother cast her a look, and she knew it was time to shut up.

Stuck in her own dilemma, she suddenly noticed Jose step out of the winery and lock its large metal doors. He slid his sunhat onto his balding head and crossed the street. He hopped into his red Buick, and drove off down the sparkling road. The trees, houses and his car looked like a painting against the afternoon sun.

Catherine found a strange feeling pulsating inside of her. Almost involuntarily, she turned on the ignition and clumsily manoeuvred her way out of the driveway onto the road, trailing the diminishing speck of Jose's red car.

She didn't pay attention to the swaying spruces as she drove, nor did she realise when she had come close to the coast - rocky ledges encompassing a large shimmering lake.

Finally, Jose turned into his home's driveway and into a garage. Catherine parked her car a few safe yards away on the road. She watched Jose get out of his car, whistling an unfamiliar tune. He looked out towards the bay, waved, and smiled. This smile was different from the ones he gave the customers back at the winery; this smile demanded to pour out of him like warm frothing tea; it made him look younger.

When Catherine looked down at the bay, her heart fluttered. Something welled up inside of her, but she couldn't explain it. Perhaps some things really could not be explained.

She watched two little girls, perhaps of eight and ten, playing in the shallow ridges by the pier, laughing in shrill bubbling voices. They yelled at Jose, with wide scraggly grins and straw hair fluttering in the wind.

A part of her wanted to walk down and tell those girls not to trust their father too much, but the other part gazed scrutinisingly at Jose's beaming face and realised that perhaps, they wouldn't have to worry about Jose leaving. They wouldn't have to read his cruel, fluffed-up poetry or watch their mother cry quietly on some nights. She didn't know if it made her sad or relieved; perhaps both.

Jose walked into his home. She studied the house - the whitewashed mailbox was rusting at the edges, and the grass in their garden grew wildflowers. The house was small, swathed in a shy orange, with a low stoop and wooden beams. A white pop-top caravan was parked by the house, under a big fluttering oak. Catherine could picture Jose and his family set for the road, telling jokes or eating tart biscuits; feeling the sun against their skin as they'd watch the endless unfolding roads.

From where she was standing, Catherine could see Jose through the kitchen window. There was a woman - tall, young, brunette. Catherine couldn't see her face but she was in an apron, cooking, while Jose hugged her from behind. She laughed as Jose kept talking into her ear. Perhaps he was telling her about the trip he had planned for the summer.

Something suddenly pierced through the air; hollow and distant. It came from the lakeside.

Catherine wheeled around and hurried down the rocky ledges onto the pier. One of the girls was standing on the shore, wailing, bending over the pier. The younger girl, having fallen into the deeper side, flailed around, her screams intermittent, gurgling.

"She can't swim!" The older girl howled when she saw Catherine.

Catherine, driven by an impulse which wasn't courage but something as obvious as swatting a fly, yanked off her shoes and jumped into the water, gasping as the cold hit her body. It was a good few seconds after the reflex that she recalled, neither did she know how to swim.

She splashed over clumsily to the girl, an inexplicable down-tide pulling her down, like the air over her suddenly weighed so much more. She grabbed the girl around the waist and hoisted her head above the water. Catherine's head kept sinking like a metal ball, and her limbs fought the water to resurface and catch a breath. Her eyes burned with saltwater as she slowly made out the blurry forms of Jose and April, bending over the pier, hands outstretched, yelling something she couldn't hear. Catherine splurged her way over with the girl; Jose and April caught the girl by her arms and heaved her up. Jose bent down over the pier, his hands outstretched for Catherine.

Catherine's hands slid past Jose's like a slippery eel. Jose's face suddenly became clear to her; she could read every emotion in his shrivelled face - urgency, fear, fatigue. His lips yelled something inarticulate. What was he saying? She wished he'd make sense for once. The afternoon started dissolving into a spinning, gurgling haze as she felt herself being swallowed by a thick icy snake.

Someone splashed down into the water and grabbed her. His husky arms grew tighter around her and the weight started lifting.

"Why'd you leave, Dad?" Catherine tried to speak.

She had never imagined calling Jose Dad before. He probably didn't hear her as he was still yelling something. The world was swimming; water flooded into her ears, nose and throat at the same time. Just like that, everything went black.

When she woke up, she found herself inside Jose's living room, wrapped up in a blanket. She coughed up some water, and Jose and April came to her aid. She sat up when she could finally breathe. She realised she didn't feel scared anymore; or anxious at how close Jose was sitting next to her. She felt...almost nothing. It was freeing.

April was beautiful, even with reddened eyes and an anxious face.

"You saved my girl's life," she said, her voice breaking, "Thank you."

Jose stared at Catherine, his face twisted in worry, "How're you feeling?"

"I'm fine," her head was pounding, and voice was raspy. She looked at Jose, right into his eyes, before eventually getting up and making her way towards the door.

"Wait," April called, "Will you be alright?"

"Yeah, I need to get going," she didn't wait for a reply. She was out of the house, out of the driveway. Her legs still felt weak and the world was still a bit blurry - shouldn't she have asked him something? Anything? Should she have told him who she was? Was this the same Jose who had abandoned her years ago without ever looking back?

I don't know if I'll ever change, Becca. I want to, trust me. But right now, I need to leave. I need to escape from all of this. I don't know if you'll understand, but I really need to leave this place.

The sun had melted into a red strip along the horizon, and the sky was bursting with soft gold. Catherine was about to step onto the road when a voice called her from behind. It was Jose.

"Hey!" he said, "You were at the wine store today, weren't you?"

"Yes," she said, and after a pause, "I'm Catherine."

"Jose", he said, walking up to shake her hand, and holding it a little longer than usual.It felt warm against her skin, "What you did back there was awfully brave. You saved my little girl."

"Well," she said, "You kind of saved my life too."

Jose laughed. It was beautiful. She watched the wrinkles by his eyes closely, hoping to find the answers that had kept her up for countless nights. But as she watched him laugh, and thought of April and the girls, nothing made sense and everything made sense at the same time; She realised it didn't matter.

"I wanted to give you this," Jose handed her a polished bottle of wine, "As a token for what you did for us."

Sauvignon Gris.

Her mother's favourite brand. She always had two bottles stored under their sink cabinet. Catherine had seen her mother drink it almost every night while she sat with bills, paperwork, or just stared out of the window into the night.

"This is not a very popular brand," Catherine looked up at Jose.

"I know, " he said, "It used to be special to me; so I always kept new bottles in the cabinet. Would you like a Pinot Noir instead?"

"No, that's okay," Catherine smiled, "I'll take this one."

Jose waved her off and started walking towards his house. Catherine watched him grow smaller till he disappeared into his house. Catherine's heart was still, like the air. She walked up to her car, pulled out the brown bag of wine bottles, and then dumped all three bottles into the garbage bin by the road. She glanced towards the house, its windows glowing with warm yellow. Catherine hoped the little girl felt alright.

I'm sorry Becca, for all it's worth. When our baby is born, please don't tell them their father was a monster; just don't say anything, if you will. I know I'll think of them. And I'll think of you too, probably in my darkest days. I need to leave and I'm sorry.

Stars flecked the sky as Catherine got into her car and started driving. She crumpled up the letter lying on the passenger seat and threw it out of the window onto the dusty tracks. She felt tired and was glad that she was finally headed for home. She wasn't thinking about Jose anymore. Her mother was right, there was no point and never had been. All those times Catherine had watched her mother stare out of the window at things like trees or the wind or at thunderstorms, she realised her mother had not been thinking about Jose. Never about Jose. Some things could not be explained and it was tiring to keep digging. If only she remembered that goodbyes, like the flick of an eye, happened just like that.

Instead, she thought about the upcoming days and years and college, and all the things she had yet to see and do. Perhaps if Catherine had enough money one day, she'd buy a big white caravan and would go camping down Maine with her mother. Yes, Becca would love it. They would tell each other jokes and eat tart biscuits and watch the sunset burn the shimmering valleys of Maine, and in the evening's dying embers, she'd know that she had all she ever needed.