Take this cup and drink from it

My mother is a gifted caretaker.

She’s nursed me through three births and two surgeries. I’ve watched her sit with dozens of friends and relatives who were sick or grieving. When I was very young, she volunteered at a hospital and I remember the things she told me when I would go with her: people who are frightened or heartbroken need to be touched, carbohydrates are comforting, those who are stricken often want to talk.

It was with these things in mind that I made dinner last week for friends whose teenage son had been killed suddenly in an accident. Remembering all my mother’s wisdom, I made a very simple meal: marinated chicken, cold tortellini and vegetables, a green salad with fresh strawberries and a balsamic vinegar dressing.

Midafternoon, my husband called to ask what kind of wine he should pick up. I had never seen this couple consume alcohol. And the funeral for their son had been a conservative Christian ceremony with incense and scripture, so I told him the wine likely was unimportant. But just in case, could he get something very light, easy and drinkable, a Viognier, or perhaps a Vinho Verde.

He came home with a wine I’d never before seen: Pavão Vinho Verde, with a picture of a peacock on the label and no vintage.

Our friends arrived at 6:30, clearly exhausted but bearing a gift for us. At first, they refused anything but water, sitting close on our couch, holding hands. “We’ve lost our appetites,” the husband admitted. He didn’t need to: both of them were worn-looking, drawn and small.

Like many parents, I’ve dreamed that one of my children was dead and I know what it’s like to awaken with my heart pounding and my legs full of ice. I’ve written a novel in which I imagined the death of a child for the characters, and it felt — for those few minutes that I made myself re-live the nightmares — like a loud, black, empty place from which there was absolutely no escape. There is, I think, a wildness to this grief: something you must work every minute to contain. What I wanted, more than anything, was to reach through that darkness if only for a few minutes.

We moved to the table. These two gracious people took tiny spoonfuls and placed them on their plates. Then they sat staring at them, as if wondering how it would be possible to open their bodies enough to put the food in.

My husband offered wine. “I would take a little,” the wife said. “Maybe half a glass.” So we opened the peacock wine and I tasted it, hoping it would be right. And it was. The most utterly drinkable white I’ve ever had: not so effervescent as other Vinho Verdes and a little drier, too, but lemony and clear and glinting with a touch of steel.

I’m not a believer in the divine intervention of God or the wisdom of the world — I don’t adhere to the “everything happens for a reason” school of thought. But if there is luck, it was with us that night. The couple tasted the wine and said, as if surprised, “This is good!” Both of them pushed their glasses forth.

Do I care that they drank or that the wine was successful? No. Here’s what I care about: their world was gentled, however slightly. Because I recalled another of my mother’s donations to my bank of knowledge — a little wine or beer can stimulate the appetites of people who need desperately to eat: the elderly, pain patients, those who are lost in grief.

The light dimmed, which helped somehow. The gift our friends had brought was a rosewood candle with a wooden wick and we lit it. I watched as our guests relaxed, the wine and the candlelight softening their world, if only for an hour. Over dinner, we talked about their son, about his love of cars and his mastery of certain video games and his plans to attend college in the fall. Once or twice, they laughed. And they actually ate.

It is my business to talk about the qualities of wine and most of the time I do this as if the substance itself is the focus. In this case, however, the wine was simply a palliative — one that the savior in whom our friends believe ardently offered to his followers when times were tough.

It was comforting, just as my mother said it would be. And for that, I am grateful.