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Chapter TWENTY

"There's your answer."

"Right." I lick my lips. Type, Okay! Tell me what to do.

Really?

Yeah. I'm with my neighbor Electra. Is that okay? She's making brownies.

Sure, of course.

Step by step, he takes me through the process of downloading the Skype app and helps me get it set up. A couple of times I get frustrated, trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong, but it's not even ten minutes before I can see his number, with a little green phone beside it.

I stop and take a breath, my hands on my thighs. "I haven't talked to my dad since I was seven."

"I'll give you some privacy." She starts to stand up.

"No! Stay!"

She keeps going, pressing a hand to my shoulder. "I'll just be in the other room, child."

My heart is pounding as I text I'm ready.

The machine makes a little noise, and I see the icon blinking and touch it. A face appears, a man with curly black hair and twinkling eyes.

My dad. I'm swamped with images, memories, all tangled up.

Tears fill my eyes and I cover my mouth. I can't even talk because there's so much emotion roaring through me, like the water in Manitou, rushing through the streets. "I'm sorry," I finally manage, and hiccup a little. "Wow, I didn't know-"

He's emotional, too, and he's blinking really hard. "Me, too. Jess. Me, too." His accent is strong. "You do look a bit like your mother," he says. "But you've got a lot of my family in you, too. I can see it in your nose and chin."

I just keep staring at him, a weird buzzing in my ears. I'm feeling shy, but so full that I hardly know what to say. "You look just like I remember you," I say at last.

"You do remember?"

"Yeah," I say. "A lot. I don't know that I knew that until we started talking."

He nods, mouth serious.

Electra comes through and hands me a fistful of tissues. "That was Electra," I say.

"Hello, Electra!" he says in a sing-song voice.

He's outside, with sunshine and trees behind him. "So these are my vineyards," he says, waving to one side. "Do you want to see them?"

"Yes, of course."

He picks up his own machine; I figure it must be an iPad, too. I'm suddenly looking toward a line of mountains, with rows of plants in between. Even I know what grapevines look like. "Wow, that's beautiful."

"We grow grapes for Sauvignon Blanc for our own label, but also ship grapes to the US for some California labels, too. Americans are drinking a lot of Sauvignon Blanc these days."

I don't even know what that is, other than wine of some sort, but don't want to say so. "What's your label?"

"I can show you." The accent suddenly rings in my head, singing and fluty, and I suddenly remember being in school in America, thinking they all sounded strange. "Dad, did I have an accent when I left?"

"Course you did. Proper little Kiwi, you were."

"I forgot about that."

His camera bounces over to a row of bottles, very simple and clean. Long Cloud Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough New Zealand is on the label. "This is us. Right here."

"Nice."

The camera spins back to show his face, and he's holding the iPad out in front of him as he walks. "Tell me about yourself, Jess. What do you do?"