The weeks after Rhys left felt like being in an earthquake that never quite stopped.
Not the big jolt—she’d had that already. The foreclosure. The sale. The kiss against the pallets.
This was more like the constant, low-level tremors that made the walls creak and the glasses on the shelf rattle just enough to remind you that nothing was entirely stable.
Aurora moved in.
Trucks came and went. Contractors in branded vests measured, photographed, muttered about “load-bearing walls” and “code.” Lila floated between them like a general—calm, efficient, unflappable.
In the tasting room, painters taped off trim and rolled fresh coats of a slightly lighter, slightly more “on-brand” cream onto the walls. New stools arrived, sleek and uncomfortable-looking.
“They’re pretty,” Yolanda said, turning one over. “They look like they hurt your ass.”
“That’s the point,” Nora muttered. “They don’t want people lingering. They want turnover.”
“We want both,” Lila corrected mildly from the doorway. “Experience and throughput. It’s a delicate balance.”
“Like acid,” Nora said.
Lila smiled faintly. “Exactly,” she said. “And you’re the expert on that.”
They clashed. Constantly. About big things and small.
“You can’t move the tasting bar in front of the window,” Nora said one day, arms crossed, watching a design team fuss with tape on the floor. “The light will blind the staff in the afternoons.”
“We’ll add shades,” Lila said.
“We’ll end up with people sitting with their backs to the view,” Nora said. “That’s…dumb.”
Lila considered. “What if we angle it,” she said. “Forty-five degrees. Compromise.”
Nora eyed the tape. Sighed. “Fine,” she said. “But if I get skin cancer on my left cheek, I’m suing.”
“Noted,” Lila said.
Another time, they argued about a proposed “wine library wall” in the foyer.
“It’ll be beautiful,” the interior designer gushed. “Floor-to-ceiling bottles, backlit, like jewels.”
“It’ll be a nightmare,” Nora said. “Heat. Light. Bad for the wine.”
“We’ll use empty bottles,” the designer said, horrified at the idea of real inventory.
“Then it’s a lie,” Nora said. “Fake wine. Great.”
“It’s…art,” the designer protested.
“Art is truth,” Nora shot back.
Lila stepped in. “We’ll do shallow shelves,” she said. “Labels facing, no backlighting. Real bottles. You can rotate them. Educational. Authentic.”
Nora reluctantly nodded. “Better,” she said. “Still…annoying.”
There were wins, too.
She got Aurora to budget for a new press—a gleaming stainless beast she’d once only dreamed about. She insisted on more drains in the crush pad floor. She convinced them not to install speakers in the vineyard “for ambiance.”
“Our ambiance is birds and wind and the occasional tractor,” she said. “Not Enya.”
“You have strong feelings about Enya,” Lila observed.
“I have strong feelings about everything,” Nora said.
Through it all, she carried a constant ache. A Rhys-shaped absence.
She found herself reaching for her phone at odd moments. To send a photo of a barrel leak. To make a joke about towel thread count. To complain about Lila’s obsession with word clouds.
She didn’t.
He texted, occasionally. Not often. Enough.
— Board signed off on easement language. Mei Lin threatened someone on your behalf. It was glorious.
— Saw a bottle of your 2018 Cab on a list in the city. They’d spelled your name wrong. I corrected them.
— Aanya says hi and also says if you ever want a job yelling at analysts, she’ll hire you.
She replied. Briefly. Wryly.
— Tell Mei Lin I owe her a lifetime supply of Merlot.
— What did they spell it as? Figeroa? Figgura? Fee-joo-ree?
— I already yell at people for free. Might as well get miles out of it.
Sometimes there were longer exchanges. Late at night, when the house was quiet and the hum of the heater sounded like a distant tractor.
> *Rhys:* > How’s the pump?
> *Nora:* > Alive. For now. New parts on order. Lila wanted to wrap it in reclaimed wood to make it “on brand.” I said no.
> *Rhys:* > God bless you.
> *Nora:* > How’s your water deal?
> *Rhys:* > Complicated. Senior lienholder is a stubborn bastard. Reminds me of someone.
> *Nora:* > Your mirror?
> *Rhys:* > Touché.
She never called. He never asked.
Aurora’s HR department sent her forms. Taxes. Direct deposit. A handbook full of things she’d never had to think about before, like “paid time off accrual” and “wellness stipends.”
She filled them out. Grudgingly.
One evening, she sat at the kitchen table with Rosa, explaining the new world.
“They’re going to…pay you on a schedule?” Rosa said, eyes wide. “Like…every two weeks. No matter what.”
“That’s the idea,” Nora said. “Unless the world ends.”
“And health insurance,” Rosa said. “For your gallbladder. And your teeth.”
“And therapy,” Nora said. “Apparently I get six sessions a year free if I use their provider. Corporate-sanctioned breakdowns.”
Rosa laughed. Then sobered. “You might…need that,” she said gently.
Nora bristled. “I’m fine,” she said.
“You’re not,” Rosa said. “You’ve been…carrying this place on your back for a decade. Now…you have help. That doesn’t mean the load disappears. It just…shifts.”
“I don’t have time to…talk about my feelings with a stranger,” Nora said. “I have budgets.”
“Your feelings are in your budgets,” Rosa said. “Someone should help you untangle them.”
Nora made a face. “Occupational hazard,” she muttered.
In January, they had the first “All Hands.”
Aurora insisted on the term. Nora insisted on catering lunch from Yolanda’s cousin’s taco truck.
The crew gathered in the multipurpose room, some wary, some curious. Lila stood at the front with a laptop, Kenji by her side. A big screen displayed the new logo.
“Welcome,” Lila said. “To Aurora Figueroa.”
Nora stood off to the side, arms crossed, watching faces.
Diego rolled his eyes at the logo. Yolanda pursed her lips. Martinez, invited as “key partner,” leaned against the back wall, arms folded.
Lila did her thing. Vision. Values. “Honoring the past while building the future.” There were bullet points. There was a slide about “Our People” that made Nora want to vomit and clap at the same time.
Then it was her turn.
She didn’t have slides.
“I’m not going to give you a speech,” she said, stepping up, shoving her hands into her jeans pockets. “Lila did that. Better than I could.”
A ripple of chuckles.
“You all know me,” she continued. “Too well. You know…what we’ve been through. Frost. Fires. Bank calls. Pumps. You were here. You bled. You sweated. You swore. Sometimes at me. Sometimes with me.”
More laughter. A few nods.
“We’re…still here,” she said. “Different. With new bosses. New…words. New logos on the sign.”
She glanced at the screen. At the vine curling through the A and the F.
“What’s not different,” she said, “is the land. The vines. The way the wind hits block nine at three p.m. The way the Merlot tastes when it’s ready and the Cabernet doesn’t care what month it is.”
She swallowed.
“I’m staying,” she said. “You know that. At least for now. If you’re staying too…we’ll figure this out together. If you’re not…if you’re going…somewhere else…we’ll still be tied. In bottles. In stories. In these hills.”
Her voice thickened.
“I can’t promise it’ll be…what it was,” she said. “It won’t. It’ll be…something else. Some days that’ll be better. Some days worse. Some days just…different. But I can promise this: as long as I’m here, I’ll fight for you. For this. For us.”
She didn’t look at Lila as she said it. She felt Lila’s gaze anyway.
Silence. Then, slowly, someone started to clap.
Diego.
Then Yolanda. Then Rosa. Then…everyone.
It was messy. Off-beat. Real.
Nora blinked fast.
“Okay,” she said gruffly. “Enough of that. Let’s eat. Aurora’s paying.”
Laughter broke the tension. Chairs scraped. The smell of grilled meat and cilantro filled the room.
Lila came up beside her as people queued for tacos.
“That was…good,” she said.
“I don’t do decks,” Nora said. “I do…whatever that was.”
“Leadership,” Lila said.
Nora eyed her. “You really believe that,” she asked.
“Yes,” Lila said simply.
Nora shifted, uncomfortable. “Don’t start,” she said. “I’m not your LinkedIn inspiration.”
Lila smiled. “You’re something,” she said. “I’m still figuring out what.”
“You and me both,” Nora muttered.
After lunch, as people trickled back to work, Martinez caught her by the arm.
“Jefa,” he said. “You did good.”
“Don’t you start,” she said.
“I mean it,” he said. “You’re making this…less bad. Maybe even…good.”
She snorted. “High praise,” she said.
He sobered. “He’d be proud,” he said.
“Who,” she asked. Even though she knew.
“Your father,” he said. “Not for the deal. He’d be confused by that.” He smiled faintly. “But for…this. Taking care of people.”
Her throat burned. “He took out loans he didn’t understand,” she said. “He put us in this mess.”
“And he loved you,” Martinez said. “Both can be true.”
She nodded, unable to speak.
When she finally escaped to the quiet of the barrel room later, she pulled out her phone.
Stared at Rhys’s last text.
Wrote a new one.
We had our first ‘All Hands’ today. I didn’t throw up. Lila didn’t say ‘synergy’ once. Progress.
Hovered.
Deleted.
Typed again.
I didn’t let them move the front door. You can rest easy.
Sent.
The reply came a few minutes later.
> *Rhys:* > Front doors are sacred. Proud of you. > Aanya wants to know if you made anyone cry.
She smiled despite herself.
> *Nora:* > Maybe. Hard to tell. Could’ve been the salsa.
He sent back a laughing emoji and a photo of his desk: stacks of papers, his laptop open to a spreadsheet, a small potted plant on the corner with a sticky note on it that said NORA in Aanya’s handwriting.
> *Rhys:* > She says this is you. Spiky. Difficult. Needs the right amount of water.
She snorted.
> *Nora:* > Tell her I prefer Merlot.
> *Rhys:* > Already did.
She tucked the phone away. Touched the nearest barrel.
“Okay,” she whispered. “We’re doing this.”
And for the first time since signing, the words didn’t taste entirely like ash.
* * *