I listened to all of it without interrupting.
When he finished I said, “Why did you?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“My family,” he said carefully, “has a specific idea of what things are supposed to look like. I grew up with it. It’s harder to see from inside than I realized.”
“That’s true of most things we grow up with,” I said.
He looked at the vineyard. The afternoon light was doing what it does in August on this hillside, turning everything amber and precise, the shadows of the vine rows long across the ground.
“This is remarkable,” he said, and he said it simply, without the performance of compliment. He meant it.
“Your wife’s grandfather cleared this land,” I said. “Her father planted the first vines. She grew up in that truck you find inappropriate.”
Something moved through his face.
“I know,” he said.
