“Dad, what are you doing here?”

He nudged his eyeglasses up (they had a tendency to slide down his nose), then handed me the wine. He poured two glasses of chardonnay and passed them off to another patron before turning back to me.

“Hey, babe, isn’t this a gas?” he said, grinning. “Abraham swung this gig. The Covington’s agreed to feature our wines at all their events from now on. Robson’s totally psyched. Can you dig it?”

He went back to pouring and explaining the complexities of the wines to the others gathered around the bar while I took two deep swigs of excellent cabernet sauvignon. It wasn’t the best way to savor a fine wine, but who could blame me? I’d been here less than half an hour and I was already wrung out.

Back in the seventies, my parents and Robin’s parents and a few hundred of their closest friends, fellow Deadheads and seekers of wisdom, had followed their spiritual leader, Avatar Robson Benedict-or Guru Bob, as my siblings and I called him-to Sonoma County, where they created the Fellowship for Spiritual Enlightenment and Higher Artistic Consciousness. I couldn’t say whether higher consciousness had anything to do with it, but it turned out to be a good investment. The commune lay on sixteen hundred acres of lush farmland, most of which were eventually turned into vineyards.

Dad had been a trust-fund baby disinherited by his father, who disapproved of my dad’s free and easy lifestyle. By the time Grandfather decided to put Dad back in his will, it was too late to change his evil ways. Dad loved the low life, as he liked to call it.

It was no surprise how well he took to the wine-making life. He was a bon vivant down to his toes.

Nowadays, Dad ran the commune winery with my older brother, Austin, and my sister Savannah. My brother Jackson was in charge of the vineyards. I wondered whether they were here tonight as well.

“How’s the cab, Brooks?” Dad asked.

“Mm, perfect,” I mumbled, taking a smaller sip of wine and properly rolling it around in my mouth as I scanned the crowd, looking for Robin. That was my story, anyway, until I couldn’t take it anymore and finally took a peek back at the corner where I’d last seen the frowning man. He’d moved away from the Audubon exhibit, but I tracked him down easily enough over by the circular Shakespearean display.