Charis: Regrets

Row after row of green vines spread out before her in an expanse that almost reached the shore. The green stopped just as the soil beneath it changed from rich loamy earth into white sand. A breeze ruffled the leaves and sent the strong fragrance of ripening grapes wafting up to where Charis stood on the cliff overlooking the vineyard. Here and there she spotted the dark figures of the vineyard’s workers moving through the row.

As she stood atop the cliff looking down on the fields of the Heart of Atlantis Winery, her father’s vineyard and pet project, Charis couldn’t help but to feel depressed and a little guilty. She had promised her father almost a decade ago that she would move in and help him expand the winery one day. She was thirteen then and her mother had come to collect her from her father after winning the custody case. Sadly, it had taken Charis ten years, her father’s death, and a career ending accident to get her to come back and make good on that promise.

“I’m so sorry…” she whispered into the wind. The biggest reason Charis had for not returning is that somehow she felt betrayed by her father for not winning custody over her; she felt as if he just gave her up to the tyrannical reign of her mother. She knew now those thoughts were untrue and severely unfair to her father. A tear slid down her cheek and landed with a soft clink on the object in her hands. She looked down at the silver urn that she held awkwardly as she balanced on her crutches.

With the Aegean Sea in the distance and the vineyard spread out before her, Charis could think of no better place in the world than this to release her father’s ashes. However, now that the time had come to perform the rite, she wasn’t sure she could let go so easily. She gripped the lid of the urn with a shaky hand and lifted the urn towards the edge of the cliff where the wind seemed ready and willing to lift her father’s ashes heavenward.

Still, Charis found she could not let go of her father, not yet anyways. She pulled the urn in close to her and cradled it to her chest. She clenched her eyes tightly shut and tried to imagine her father’s arms around her. It had been so long since she’d actually hugged him that she could barely remember the feel of his big embraces. She opened her eyes with a sigh and replaced the latch on the urn.

“I know it’s too late, but I’ll take care of the winery, daddy. I promise.” She whispered to the cold metal in her hands. She slipped the urn back into the back pack slung across her back and made her way slowly and carefully back towards the villa. She’d come here to the Heart of Atlantis to release her father’s ashes and to see the place one last time before she sold it to the highest bidder. At the time it was the best plan she could think of, what did she know of running a winery? But as she made her way back another plan was beginning to form. Charis still didn’t know anything about running a winery, but could change that. Charis would finally make good on that promise she made all those years ago before she moved away, before she become a model, and before she let her mother twist her into some strange superficial Barbie with little thought for others. She would expand her father’s winery.