A memory came to her then, like a fresh breeze across the hilltops. It took her back to her childhood, when she and Connor and their cousin Ruth used to play hide-and-seek in the cool, musty wine cellars. What fun they had, exploring the dark spaces between the gigantic wooden barrels full of aging wine. Sometimes they were put to work, pruning the vines in July and weeding the vegetable gardens. Maria always had something interesting for Sloane to do in the kitchen. She remembered kneading bread, standing on a chair to stir something in a big pot, or bottling plum jam. Sloane remembered all of it fondly, until it became colored with regret. The feeling caught her off guard and left her a little shaken.
Clearly, her father’s funeral had been more difficult than she had anticipated. The deep melancholy in the wake of her nostalgia came as a surprise to her, because she and her father had hardly spoken in years, nor had she visited the winery since before her children were born. Whenever she traveled, she took them to London to visit her cousin Ruth, who was more like a sister than a cousin to Sloane, and Ruth had two young children of her own, which made it fun for Evan and Chloe. For that reason, she had expected to arrive in Italy, say her final good-byes, lay the past to rest forever, and move on. But seeing this place again reminded her of another time in her life when everything was so much simpler.
People say you can’t return to the past, but why can’t you? she wondered with frustration, looking around at the familiar landscape. Here it was, exactly as she remembered from her childhood.
Some things in the past were gone forever, of course. She had grown apart from her father in recent years, and she would never see him again. Even if he were still alive, she couldn’t imagine how she could ever go back to the way things were and be close to him. Her parents had separated when she was only five and Connor was three, and an ugly divorce had followed because their father cheated on their mother. That’s why she took them out of Italy, where they were born, and dragged them back to her family in California. The custody agreement specified that Connor and Sloane would spend four weeks each summer with their father in Montepulciano and one week at Christmas. They’d enjoyed it when they were young children, when they considered it an adventure to spend a month on what was essentially a working farm, where they could get dirt under their fingernails and chase chickens. But when the teen years came, there were arguments and doors slamming over the issue of their visits, when all they’d wanted to do was remain in LA with their friends. Their authoritarian father had never budged an inch, and he had forced them to present themselves each summer until the age of eighteen, when he finally relented and allowed them to make their own choices.
Unsurprisingly, Sloane and Connor elected to remain in LA most of the time, and their mother always took their side over their father’s. If they traveled, it was to their London house, where they enjoyed a social life with Ruth, who took them to parties. With every year that passed, they saw their father less and less. They spoke to him on the telephone once a year on their birthdays, when he called to catch up.
A bumblebee flew by. Sloane turned to look back at her children. Their eyes were glued to their phones, and she sighed heavily, wishing they would show some interest in their surroundings.
Another wave of regret washed over her. Was this how her father had felt when she and Connor visited him in the summers, surly and resentful, complaining about what they were missing back home?
Catching sight of someone in her peripheral vision, Sloane turned and shaded her eyes from the morning sun. It was her brother, Connor, walking briskly toward her with his hands in the pockets of his blue chinos, his white shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, his mirrored sunglasses reflecting the blinding glare.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said, ducking out of the path of a dive-bombing dragonfly. “What in God’s name are you doing out here?”
“Showing the garden to the kids,” she explained.
He glanced back at them. “Looks like they’re loving it. A couple of gifted green thumbs you’ve raised there, sis. Congrats on that.”
“Oh, shut up,” Sloane said.
Connor pulled out his phone and checked the time. “It’s almost ten. The lawyers will be here any second, and you’re out here playing peasant games in the vegetable patch.”
“Cut it out.” She turned away from him because she couldn’t bear for him to lay waste to the enchantment of her childhood memories just now, which he would definitely do if she spoke of them. He would crack some stupid sarcastic joke like he always did.
“This is good for them,” she said. “They need to experience other cultures.”
Connor laughed mockingly. “For pity’s sake, it’s not like we’re visiting a developing country. Didn’t you notice they buried Dad in a gold Rolex?”
“No, I didn’t, but I’m not surprised that you did.”
He checked his phone again. “You need to lighten up. This will all be over soon enough, and we can take the money and run.”
She kicked at the grass with the toe of her shoe, then glanced back at her two children, who were now sitting on a bench under an olive tree. They were still swiping. Always swiping.
“Do you think I allow them too much screen time?” Sloane asked.
Connor glanced in their direction as well. “Please. You’re not going to turn into one of those mothers, are you? Back to the land? Will homeschooling be next?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “I just wonder how this generation is going to turn out. I mean, look at them. They hardly talk to each other. What’s going to happen when Chloe grows up and has a baby? Will she be pushing a stroller down the street and looking at her phone, ignoring her child? What about language skills? How will babies learn to talk when their mothers are barely present? Chloe could be sitting on a park bench in a playground with her eyes on her phone, sucked into an endless stream of cat videos, and someone could abduct her toddler, and she wouldn’t even notice until it was too late.”
“What is wrong with you?” Connor asked. “She’s seven!”
“I know, but look at her. Clearly, she’s addicted. They both are. Alan didn’t want to give them phones until they were older, but all their friends had them, so I couldn’t say no. Now I think he was probably right. It’s going to melt their brains, and heaven help me when they hit the teen years.”
“Listen to you,” Connor said affectionately, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and giving her a tight squeeze. “What a good mama you are, all concerned about their welfare.”
“Just wait until you have kids.”
He raised both hands in the air. “Oh no. Not me. I’m never having kids.”
“Oh, right. I forgot,” she replied. “You’d have to enter into a committed, loving relationship in order for that to happen.”
He wagged a finger at her. “Not so. I could follow in Dad’s footsteps, have a few illegitimate rug rats, and never even have to meet them.”
Sloane laid her hand on the tree trunk and frowned. “Do you think there were others, besides Fiona?”
“Who knows?” Connor replied. “Dad was a spectacular cornucopia of secrets.”
They were quiet for a moment, standing in the shade of the olive tree. Sloane shrugged out of her blazer. “Have you seen her yet?”