Chapter 24: Rosa's Vineyard

Medevac 2 sat on the north lawn with its blades turning slowly in the late sun.

I had never been inside one.

The crew's seat was narrow, and Alec buckled me in himself, and set the urn on my lap with both of my hands around it.

"Headset," he said, and settled it over my ears.

Then he climbed into the pilot's seat and ran his hands over the switches without looking at them.

The rotor came up to speed.

The lawn dropped away.

Behind us, two hundred people stood among the white roses with their faces turned up.

I saw Mitchell at the edge of the crowd with his hands in his pockets, and Constance beside him with Biscuit's leash wrapped around her wrist.

I saw the fire captain take off his cap.

"Where to?" Alec asked in my ear.

"The north rows. The top of the hill."

"Four minutes."

I turned my head and looked at him.

"I'm not turning around," he said.

"I know."

"Neither of us is."

The vineyard slid under us, row after row of green going gold at the tips.

The long shadow of the helicopter ran across it.

I thought of Nonna in her black cardigan at the kitchen table, tracing a finger over a postcard of Napa that she'd kept for forty years.

*Maybe next year,* she used to say.

This was next year.

Alec set the aircraft down on a patch of grass at the top of the hill so gently that the urn didn't shift.

He shut down and the rotor slowed and then the only sound was the wind in the vines.

I climbed out.

My legs shook.

The hill fell away in rows below us, and past the rows the valley went blue and layered to the horizon.

I knelt at the head of the first row and unscrewed the lid.

"Nonna," I said. "Buon compleanno."

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