Rows of Praise

Synopsis

Something is bothering Nick Maskelyne, and one evening, after a beer or two with his good friend Terry Woodford, he inexplicably stands up, wheels about, and heads out into the night without so much as a, "See ya later." He walks past the darkened windows of his house on Regent, across the haunted park known as The Commons, and then across John Street into the vineyards. He momentarily exists within Helen’s rows of praise, with the ancient vines stretching to infinity around him and the stars and quarter moon floating above. Nick has worked most of his life among the rows, and would die among them when too when his time came. Nick smiled because there was no other place he would rather be. This was home. He had Helen to thank for that. 

But it is late and he is a bit drunk. Nick searches for, and then finds, the familiar hollow and lays down to sleep. He dreams of Anna—poor Anna, long in the ground like the roots of the vines reaching down into the clay. He dreams, too, of Ruthie: tall, thin, and beautiful, her serious grey eyes level with his. She can wrap her long legs around him as if never wanting to let him go—not that Nick wanted her to. He is in love with two women at the same time, one very much alive and the other long dead, and he cannot seem to resolve what he feels about that. Nick is not alone in his quest to comprehend the tugging on his heart which drags him one way and then another; he has Helen, Clarence, Jamie, Terry, Bill, Marie-Caroline, Anna, and, of course, Ruthie to accompany him all the way. He is never alone and never will be. He is a lucky man.