Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel

ALSO BY JENNIFER CHIAVERINI

The Wedding Quilt

The Union Quilters

The Aloha Quilt

A Quilter’s Holiday

The Lost Quilter

The Quilter’s Kitchen

The Winding Ways Quilt

The New Year’s Quilt

The Quilter’s Homecoming

Circle of Quilters

The Christmas Quilt

The Sugar Camp Quilt

The Master Quilter

The Quilter’s Legacy

The Runaway Quilt

The Cross-Country Quilters

Round Robin

The Quilter’s Apprentice

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Elm Creek Quilts
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Quilt Projects inspired by the Elm Creek Quilts Novels

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Return to Elm Creek
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More Quilt Projects inspired by the Elm Creek Quilts Novels

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More Elm Creek Quilts
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Inspired by the Elm Creek Quilts Novels

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Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler from Elm Creek Quilts
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The True Story Behind the Quilt

• Traditions from Elm Creek Quilts
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AN ELM CREEK QUILTS NOVEL
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DUTTON

For Marty, Nicholas, and Michael, with all my love.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Excerpt from Ms. Lincoln's Dressmaker

C
lad in the faded apron she had sewn from a cotton feed sack, Rosa sat at the foot of the kitchen table sipping a cup of coffee and planning her day while her husband bolted down his bacon and eggs. Sitting quietly side by side on her left, twelve-year-old Marta, and Lupita, almost five, ate their oatmeal in silence, sneaking furtive glances at each other or at Rosa but avoiding John. Rosa couldn’t blame them. She didn’t like to draw his attention either.

John wiped his mouth, pushed back his chair, and stood. “I’m going out.”

“When will you be back?” She knew as soon as she spoke that the question was a mistake.

“Why?” he asked, immediately suspicious. “Are you planning to have company?”

“Not unless someone comes for their mail.” John was the postmaster for the entire Arboles Valley and ran the post office out of their front room. Residents from the small town a few miles to the west and neighbors from nearby farms might stop
by at any time throughout the day to post letters or pick up the bundles of envelopes and catalogues Rosa tied up with twine for them. “I only wanted to know when I should have your lunch ready.”

“I won’t be back for lunch.”

The girls incautiously brightened, but John had already left the kitchen and didn’t glimpse their sudden smiles. The front door squeaked open and banged shut, and a few moments later, Rosa heard John’s roadster roar to life in the garage. She listened for the sound of gravel churning beneath the new tires as he pulled out, and for the sound of the engine fading as he sped away. Only then could she take a deep breath and feel the tension leave her face and neck and shoulders. Even the kitchen windows seemed to let in more of the warm California sunshine in her husband’s absence, and the breeze that had felt clammy and oppressive as she served him his breakfast seemed newly refreshing as it carried ocean mists over the Santa Monica Mountains to the small adobe farmhouse on the mesa where Rosa had lived since her wedding day. Even after thirteen years of marriage and eight children, four of whom still lived, the adobe felt more like John’s home than theirs together.

As soon as only birdsong and the wind drifted through the open windows, Marta and Lupita began planning their Saturday adventures in earnest. “Mamá, do you think Ana will feel good enough to play today?” asked Lupita.

Rosa glanced down the hallway toward the bedroom where her middle daughter slept fitfully in the bedroom with Miguel, who at two years old was still her baby. “I don’t know,
mija
. I hope so.”

She hoped so every morning, but far too often, Ana could do little more than sit on the front step and smile as she watched
her sisters play beneath the orange trees. She had become so accustomed to her illness that she had long ago forgotten to be jealous.

Rosa’s anger rose, sharp and sudden. John insisted he had no money to spare to search for a better doctor for Ana and Miguel, one wise and skilled enough to cure them of the terrible affliction that had already taken the lives of four of their brothers and sisters, and yet he had enough to waste on that ridiculous roadster, a lavish, impractical, and frivolous expense for a rye farmer in the rural Arboles Valley. When John first brought it home, beaming proudly through the open top, he demanded that Rosa go for a ride with him. “I will never set foot in that machine,” Rosa declared, “unless it’s to take Ana and Miguel to Oxnard or Los Angeles to see a new doctor.”

“I’ve told you,” said John, his dark blue eyes narrowing. “We can’t afford it.”

“We can’t afford it now,” she retorted, gesturing to the car angrily—and then she reeled as he struck her across the face.

In the weeks that followed, Rosa decided that the only good to come of John’s extravagance was that the roadster took him away from home, and kept him away for hours at a time on errands he did not bother to explain. As the harvest approached, the rye fields lay forgotten beneath the September sun, except when Lars Jorgensen—her childhood sweetheart and dearest friend until she married John—tended them for Rosa and the children’s sake. They would not starve, thanks to Lars’s kindness, but if John had mortgaged the farm to pay for that roadster, what would become of them when the bill came due?

As much as Rosa despised the roadster, sometimes she was tempted to lift the keys from John’s coat pocket while he slept, steal out into the night with the children, help them into the car,
and speed away, far, far away where John would never find them. But there the dream came to an abrupt halt, because she knew that escape alone was not enough to ensure the children’s safety. Where would they go? How would they live? What could she do to keep a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, and food in their tummies? The litany of questions always led to the same bleak conclusion: She had nowhere to go, no money, no means to provide for her children. And she was certain John would pursue them no matter how great a distance separated them. He would not relent. If Rosa ran off with the children, she could never stop running. John would want her back, even though he no longer loved her. He would want the children back, even those he surely suspected were not his.

Ana and Miguel woke by mid-morning to a day that had turned overcast and breezy, with a metallic taste in the air that hinted at coming rain. While Marta and Lupita played outside, Rosa tried to entice Ana and Miguel to eat by drizzling honey on their biscuits and promising them a story if they each ate a little. Miguel turned his head away every time she brought the fork close to his mouth, but Ana bravely took a few bites and glowed when Rosa praised her. Rosa had saved the best of the milk for them, but no sooner had they drained their cups than it all came back up again—milk, biscuits, honey, everything. After Rosa cleaned them up and helped Ana change into a fresh blouse, she asked Ana to mind her little brother while she cleaned the floor. Tearfully Ana apologized for the mess, wiping her eyes with her sleeve as she held a restless Miguel on her lap.