After four decades of teaching—half of them in classrooms with flickering lights and the hum of old radiators—he had longed for quiet. For fresh air. For something real he could tend with his hands. Something that grew because he cared for it.
So he bought a vineyard. It wasn’t grand. Just a modest patch of sloping earth with rows of old grapevines and creaky trellises. His wife, Marianne, had fallen in love with the place first. She had walked between the rows with her hand grazing the leaves, smiling like it reminded her of childhood.