My Birthright Wine Became My Brother's Victory Toast

1: 1

The year I was born, my grandfather buried a barrel of daughter's-wine sealed with my name.

He said I should drink it when I came of age, so that from then on I could swallow whatever was bitter and taste whatever was sweet.

My name was written on the red paper across the seal.

When Sabby grows up, I'll open it for her myself.

But Grandpa never lived to see that day.

When I was ten, my mother made me quit school to tend the winery.

"There's no future in a girl studying. Better she earn money to put your brother through school."

I was a good girl. I nodded.

For the eight years after that, the winery ran on me.

Today is my eighteenth birthday. It's also my brother's graduation party.

My father had the barrel carried out.

I'd only just reached for it when my mother tore off the seal-paper and told Jason Winslow to write across it:

"To Jason's future."

I stopped the man who'd come to open it.

"Grandpa left that for me."

My father shoved me back with one hand.

"It's your brother's graduation party today. Do you have to ruin it?"

My mother frowned.

"Jason's going to inherit this winery someday. It's only right the wine goes to him."

I froze.

"The winery is his too?"

Jason smiled and caught my arm.

"Sis, you make the wine, I'll carry on the name. Perfect."

At the table, my father raised the first bowl.

"This is the graduation wine Jason's grandfather buried the year he was born."

Nobody saw the old seal-paper trampled dirty by my father's foot, my name still written on it.

So it turned out my daughter's-wine and the winery I'd guarded for eight years both belonged to my brother.

If there was no place for me in this family,

then I didn't want it either.

...

The moment the mallet cracked the barrel open, my mother shoved the kitchen apron into my arms.

"Go carry the dishes out. We've got a lot of guests today, don't stand around getting in the way."

The apron was new, the price tag still hanging off one corner.

It was the only gift I got for my eighteenth birthday.

I tied it on and went into the kitchen.

Out in the yard the relatives crowded around Jason to toast him, praising my parents for raising a college boy.

Uncle Marcus caught sight of me and suddenly asked, "Sabby comes of age today too, doesn't she?"

My mother answered for me with a smile. "What's there to make a fuss over, a girl getting a year older? Jason getting into college, now that's what matters."

Uncle Marcus held out a cash envelope for me, and my mother reached over and took it.

"Thank you, Marcus. This'll go right toward Jason's tuition."

I stood in front of her with a platter in my hands.

"Uncle Marcus gave that to me."

The smile on my mother's face thinned.

"What's the point of splitting hairs like that between family? Your brother's getting an education. Someday he'll be able to look out for you too."

The first bowl of the daughter's-wine was carried over to Jason.

The heat of it made him cough, and my mother rushed to bring him water while my father patted his back.

Everyone crowded in around him. I dropped my head and pinched my own thigh, because it dulled the sting of the backs of my hands, scalded red by the steamer.

In front of all the relatives my father told him, "If you're short on money in the state capital, just say so. If anyone gives you a hard time, you tell your family. Dewbrook will always be your home."

I suddenly remembered the day I dropped out, when I was ten.

I'd stood at the winery door hugging my schoolbag, crying, asking if I could ever go back to school.

All my father said was, "This family's raised you all these years. It's time you learned to pay it back."

The same two children. One is told, going out the door, that if anyone wronged him he could come home.

The other never even made it out the door before she learned to take the whole family's hardship on herself.

Every dish at the table was one Jason liked.

The sweet-and-sour fish was set in front of him. The braised pork roast went into his bowl first.

My stomach had ached all day, and all I had was cold rice soaked in the back kitchen.

My mother came in for a platter and frowned when she saw it.

"It's a happy day today. Who's that sour face for?"

I lowered my head and swallowed that mouthful of cold rice.

When they cut the cake, I asked her one more time. "Mom, today's my birthday too."

She was fitting the paper crown onto Jason and didn't even turn around.

"I know. You got the apron, didn't you? Over a hundred bucks."

Jason scooped up a spoonful of frosting and held it out to me.

My mother stopped him at once.

"The whole cake's for the graduate. Don't jinx it."

I watched that bit of frosting go into my brother's mouth, and all at once I didn't have the fight left in me.

That night I washed the dishes from twelve tables, then carried the empty barrel back down to the cellar.

The osmanthus scent Grandpa had put inside still lingered at the bottom.

I searched a long time outside the courtyard gate before I finally found the old red paper, trampled and dirty.

The three characters of "Sabrina Winslow" had already blurred.

Just then my phone lit up.

It was Susan Abbott, who had reached out to me three years ago.

"You've turned eighteen?"

"The apprentice spot at Frostbrook Winery is still yours if you want it."

This time, I didn't write back that the family couldn't do without me.

2: 2

The next morning a new sign went up over the winery door.

"Winslow Winery, Third-Generation Heir Jason Winslow."

Jason ran the livestream in a spotless white brewing coat while I stood off camera, minding the temperature and turning the starter.

Someone asked how you could tell the mash was ready. He didn't have an answer, and turned to look at me.

I murmured, "Check the color, smell for the sour edge."

He repeated it word for word, and the comments were already praising how gifted the young heir was.

Dad's face was flushed with pride.

"My boy's had a knack for this since he was little. Most things he only has to see once."

Adrian Whitney, there to buy wine, frowned.

"All these years it's been Sabby blending my wine. When has Jason ever set foot in the cellar?"

Dad jumped in at once. "Sabby just lends a hand out back. The recipes are Jason's own work."

After the livestream ended, he shoved my eight years of fermentation logs into Jason's hands.

"The college startup program needs these. Your brother gets them first."

I pressed my palm flat on the notebook.

"Can my name go on the application?"

Mom was peeling grapes for Jason. Her face went cold.

"You didn't even finish grade school. You want people laughing at us?"

"And why didn't I finish?"

Her fingers paused.

"Back then the family could only afford one. Jason had the grades. We weren't going to hold both of you back."

"So you sent me off to put my brother through."

Dad's hand cracked down on the table.

"Putting your brother through was for this family too! Dragging up old scores now, for whose benefit?"

Jason tugged at my sleeve.

"Sis, you make the wine, I get the word out. Neither of us loses anything."

I asked, "And if something's wrong with the wine, who answers for it?"

He smiled. "You're this good. How could anything go wrong?"

Mom pushed the logbook into his arms.

"Focus on school. Your sister's got the back."

Then she brought out the customer roster I'd spent four years compiling. Who liked it sweet, whose wedding banquet had to steer clear of osmanthus, which elder could only drink the light stuffI'd written it all down, clear as day.

Jason flipped through a couple of pages.

"Sis, all these words. How am I supposed to remember them?"

Mom said with a smile, "Doesn't matter if you can't. You just handle the deals up front and let your sister keep track behind you."

I asked, "Then what does that make me?"

Dad was wiping down the new sign, his tone offhand.

"You're his sister. Since when does helping him need a title?"

That night I wrote back to Susan Abbott.

"Mentor Ellison, is that spot still open?"

"Still here. Come and you can catch up on the coursework. There's a wage, and days off too."

With the money I'd saved delivering wine to the next town over, I bought a ticket for three days out.

When Mom pushed the door open, I'd just tucked my ID into my bag.

She didn't see it. She only threw a stack of forms onto the table.

"The cultural affairs office comes tomorrow to do the first review of Jason's heir status. Fill out the paperwork."

The name field on the first page already read Jason Winslow.

3: 3

Tucked inside the application packet was a stack of old photos.

Me at ten, balanced on a stool scrubbing wine jars. Me at twelve, hugging a wooden rake to turn the mash. Me at fifteen, draining the flooded cellar on a night of pounding rain.

Every photo had my face cropped out.

But the paperwork read: Jason Winslow began learning the craft from his father at ten, and could produce mash on his own by his teens.

I set the packet down in front of my father.

"The person in those photos is me."

He didn't even lift his eyes.

"Jason has the degree. That's the only way the application goes through. What good does putting your name on it do?"

"Then don't apply at all."

My mother rushed over at once.

"You've already put him through college. What's one more time?"

I looked at her.

"Which time is ever the last?"

The question made her angry.

"All those times we asked you to help, you never had this much to say."

Jason picked up a photo and lowered his voice, trying to talk me down. "You can't see the face anyway. Whose name it is doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't matter, why does it have to be yours?"

He dropped his head.

That afternoon, my father handed my grandfather's brewing notebook to Jason.

I reached for it, and he knocked my hand away.

"This belongs to the Winslows. It goes to my son from now on."

"Grandpa's name was Walker."

"The craft came into the Winslow house. That makes it Winslow property."

My mother locked the notebook in Jason's cabinet, then bagged up the old books in my room. My brother wanted my room for a livestream studio.

A grammar workbook slipped to the floor, my teacher's red note showing on the page.

"Sabrina is very bright. She'll make it out of Dewbrook one day."

My mother didn't even glance at it. She took it to prop up a wine jar.

I bent down, pulled the workbook out, and knocked the dust off the cover.

It was the only textbook I'd brought home when I left school.

For eight years, I'd sometimes turn a few pages in secret at night, afraid that one day I wouldn't even be able to write my own name.

Seeing me hold on to it, my mother's tone turned sour.

"You're eighteen. What are you playing at, pretending to be a student? Use that time to scrub a couple more jars."

I bent down and pulled the workbook out.

My mother saw it and frowned. "A pile of junk paper, and you're fighting over it? There's nowhere to put your brother's livestream gear."

"This is my only textbook."

"You're eighteen and still thinking about school?" She said it like she'd heard a joke. "Knowing how to make wine will feed you for life. Don't go chasing things that aren't realistic."

Jason walked past the doorway carrying a new computer.

That computer had cost over ten thousand, money I'd earned taking orders two months straight.

He didn't look at the old book in my hands. He only asked our mother which side the livestream desk would look better on.

That same day, my father took an order for three hundred jars in the name of a college-educated heritage craftsman.

He slapped the order down in front of me.

"Don't sleep tonight. Get the first batch of mash started."

"What about Jason?"

"He has his assessment tomorrow. He needs the rest."

I looked at the clock on the wall.

Twenty-seven hours left until the northbound bus.

4: 4

The day of the cultural office evaluation, Jason wore the red flower of the third-generation heir pinned to his chest.

The examiner opened one of the fermentation jars.

"The sour smell is too strong, and the jar wall is hot. How would you handle it?"

Jason had no answer. He just looked at me.

I caught the smell and picked up the wooden rake at once.

"The temperature's too high. Cool it down first, then check the three jars beside it."

The examiner followed me into the cellar, watched me work, and asked, "You're the one who actually runs this cellar?"

My father cut in before I could speak.

"This is my daughter, sir. She only does the grunt work. Jason handles the recipes and the theory."

"Is that so? But she seems very practiced."

"Jason taught her. She stopped going to school at ten, so she can't understand the technical side. She only follows instructions."

I looked at my brother.

He knew exactly who had kept this cellar all these years, and he knew not a single word our father said would hold up.

Jason avoided my eyes and murmured his agreement. "My sister has a bad memory. I wrote all the steps out for her."

In that moment, the last bit of hope I had was gone.

After the evaluation, the family threw a party to celebrate passing the first round.

That night, my parents called me into the front room.

A partnership agreement lay on the table.

The brand, the account, and the profits all went to Jason.

In the box for the person responsible for product quality was my name.

My mother held the pen out to me.

"You turn eighteen today. Perfect timing for you to sign."

I didn't take it.

"If something goes wrong, there's compensation to pay. There could be prison time."

My father frowned.

"You're the one watching over the wine, so of course the responsibility is yours."

"Then why don't the name and the profits go to me?"

"Jason's building the brand. You've had food and a roof here for eighteen years. Is it too much to ask you to shoulder a little responsibility?"

I said quietly, "From the age of ten until today, I've never received a single cent."

My mother's voice shot up.

"We haven't even asked you for the cost of your meals, and here you are counting wages!"

Jason tugged at me, anxious.

"Sis, our wine has never had a problem. It's just a name. It won't matter."

"If there's no risk, then put your name on it."

He let go of me at once.

My father pressed the pen into my palm.

"Your brother starts school any day now. Don't make him leave with something weighing on him."

I set the pen back on the table.

"I'm not signing."

My mother grabbed my wrist.

"Your brother's project is due tomorrow. You back out now, you want to see him laughed at by his classmates?"

I looked at her. "When I dropped out at ten, I got laughed at for a long time too."

Her hand froze for an instant.

But my father cut in, his voice cold. "Are you going to keep dragging up old history?"

A slap landed hard across my face.

He pointed to the door.

"Without this family you wouldn't even have food to eat. When you're done with your fit, go turn the mash!"

My mother complained that I was set on ruining my brother's future.

Jason stood off to the side, his eyes a little red.

"Sis, I'll make it up to you someday."

I asked him, "With the money I earned for you, or with the wine I brewed?"

He couldn't get another word out.

I went back to my room, picked up the bag I'd already packed, and left the cellar keys, the apron, and the order ledger on the bed.

Outside, my mother was still shouting.

"Get up at four to turn the mash. Don't let it hold up what matters!"

I left through the back door.

They were all gathered around Jason, packing his things. Not one of them came after me.

At four in the morning, I boarded the northbound long-distance bus.

As the bus passed the Dewbrook arch, my mother sent a voice message.

"Turn every one of the three hundred jars before you come back."

"Don't hold up your brother's start of school."

I pulled out my SIM card and slid it into the envelope holding the old red paper.

Beyond the window, Dewbrook grew farther and farther away.

And everyone at home was still waiting for me to come back before dawn and open the cellar.