Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (18 page)

The sobering reminder diminished some of Lupita’s birthday joy, but Lars cheered her up with the promise of an exciting day ahead full of new places to see and unexpected surprises. “And presents?” Lupita asked, bounding out of her seat. When he assured her that there would most certainly be presents, she clapped her hands and impulsively hugged him. Lars’s startled expression softened into tenderness as he awkwardly returned her hug. Rosa was so moved she had to look away.

They packed up their belongings, settled the bill, bade their landlady good-bye, and rode the cable car to the ferry, where they crossed the bay to Sausalito and boarded a train to Santa Rosa on the Northwestern Pacific line. Rosa and Lars exchanged amused glances over the children’s heads as they took their seats, enjoying their excitement and sense of adventure. Before long, the whistle blew, steam drifted past the front windows, and the train lurched forward. As it chugged away from the station, Lupita suddenly bounced in her seat and declared, “I know what one of the unexpected surprises is.”

Rosa smiled, her heart warm with affection. “What’s that,
mija
?”

“We’re going home to see Papa.”

“Oh, no, Lupita, we aren’t,” said Rosa, dismayed. “We’re going to live on a grape farm for a while. We have to stay near the city so Ana and Miguel can visit Dr. Reynolds every week. Don’t you remember? I told you last night before bed and again this morning at breakfast.”

“But…maybe that was just a pretend story so I wouldn’t guess the surprise.”

“No,
mija
, it’s the truth.”

“Will Papa meet us at the train station?”

“No,” said Rosa. “No, he won’t.”

“Is he coming later?”

“No, Lupita. He won’t be joining us at all.”

“But it’s my birthday.”

Rosa took a deep breath and said, with utter truthfulness, “I know he remembers, and I’m sure he’s thinking about what a big five-year-old girl you are today.” What she could never tell her precious daughter was that John would remember the day but only to curse Rosa for betraying him.

Lupita looked so crestfallen that Rosa handed Miguel to Lars and pulled Lupita onto her lap. “You’ll like it there, I’m sure,” she said, kissing her on the cheek and stroking her thick chestnut brown hair off her neck. “Remember the pictures Mrs. Phillips showed us? Didn’t she tell us that the Sonoma Valley is one of the most beautiful places in California?”

“She said the world,” Lupita corrected her glumly. “One of the most beautiful places in the world.”

“Well, that’s even better, isn’t it?”

Lupita sighed and rested her head on Rosa’s shoulder. “I guess so.”

Patting her comfortingly on the back, Rosa caught Lars’s eye and gave him a small, perplexed shake of the head. John
had never paid much attention to Lupita when they were all together at home in the adobe, nor had he ever made a fuss over any of the children’s birthdays, nor had Lupita seemed overly fond of the sullen, mercurial man she knew as her father. Rosa was at a loss to explain why Lupita apparently missed him so much. It seemed impossible to believe that she had any fond memories of him, for he had never treated her with any particular tenderness. By the time Lupita came along, John’s capacity for affection had been eroded away to nothing by grief, betrayal, and resentment.

And that too was Rosa’s fault.

Six weeks after their wedding, a month after Lars pounded on the door of the adobe and begged Rosa to come away with him, Rosa told John that she was expecting a child. He was surprised but proud and pleased, and as the winter passed and he eagerly built a cradle and considered names, Rosa convinced herself that he would be a good father and that she had made the right choice. Her parents were elated, and her mother happily set herself to work on a Four-Patch quilt for the baby. Rosa was grateful beyond measure for her mother’s joy and reassurances, which comforted her in the midst of a constant swirl of guilt and grief and worry. Lars had not tried to see her again, but Rosa had heard rumors that he had nearly killed himself with liquor that night, and in the weeks since he had not left the Jorgensen ranch—and some said he had not left his bed. No one knew whether he was drinking himself into an early grave or drying out, but everyone was astonished that he had been driven to such extremes over a marriage between his two childhood friends. Distressed, Rosa prayed for him, for their baby, and for herself, that she would be a steadfast wife, a devoted mother,
and eventually, if it were ever possible, a good friend to Lars. She had so much to atone for.

The winter passed, and with regret, Rosa arranged to see her mother less often. Whenever she went to the grocery store or church, she endured innocent teasing from well-meaning neighbors who beamed as they declared that she was enormous for so early in her pregnancy and surely must be carrying twins. She feared that her mother, who knew her secrets, would take one look at her and guess the truth. As spring approached and John turned his attention to the rye fields, she longed for her mother’s practical advice and cheerful help around the house, but she dared not reach out to her, not yet. She would ask John to fetch her mother as soon as she felt the birth pangs beginning. When that moment arrived, the comfort of her mother’s presence and her reassuring confidence with babies would be more important than concealing her secret shame.

But on that sunny spring day when Rosa’s contractions began and rapidly intensified, John, who could count to nine as well as the next man, raced off to summon the doctor, frantic in his belief that his child would be born two months too early. Thus Rosa spent most of her labor alone in the adobe longing for her mother. John returned with the doctor in time for the birth, and when the doctor delivered her beautiful baby girl, rosy and pink and crying indignantly, perfectly healthy and obviously full-term, the doctor bathed her, swaddled her in a soft flannel blanket, and declared with forced heartiness that for an infant born two months premature she was as robust as they could have hoped, which surely spoke to Rosa’s vigorous constitution.

Tears slipped down Rosa’s cheeks as she held her daughter, oblivious to the doctor’s hushed conversation with John just
outside the door. Eventually John came to her bedside and wordlessly took the baby in his arms. He held her for the longest time without speaking, swaying gently from side to side, and punctuating the silence with slow, deep breaths like gusts of wind heralding an approaching storm.

“What should we call her?” said Rosa tentatively when he would not speak, exhaustion roughening her voice. “Do you still want to name her Mildred after your grandmother?”

Only a few days before he had insisted upon it, but now he frowned and returned the baby to Rosa’s arms. “It doesn’t suit her. Call her anything else. Call her whatever you like.”

Abruptly he turned to go, and in a sudden swell of alarm, Rosa called after him, “John?”

He paused in the doorway, his back to her. “Yes?”

“Are you—” She swallowed back her tears and held her daughter close. “Are you angry? Did you hope for a son?”

He was silent a long moment, and when he spoke, his voice was low and subdued. “I prayed for a healthy child of our own.”

Her deep pool of grief and remorse, so long contained, spilled over under the pressure of his gaze. “I should have married Lars,” she choked out, bowing her head and rocking back and forth. “I should have married him, and maybe everything would have been—”

“No.” John sat down on the bed and grasped her shoulders. “You couldn’t have brought an innocent child into the world with that—that drunk. Rosa, I love you. You’re my wife. I’m this child’s father. That’s the way it is. That’s the way it’ll be. Do you understand?”

Bewildered and dazed, Rosa took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded, her gaze fixed on her daughter’s sweet, delicate features. Dark eyes, a thick cap of soft, dark hair, and a precious
rosebud mouth—already Rosa loved her more than she had ever loved anyone, and she knew she would give her own life to protect her.

John gripped her shoulders so tightly it pained her. “Then we’ll never speak of this again.”

Again Rosa nodded, swallowing hard, her heart welling up with gratitude. She had wronged John terribly, but he had forgiven her without anger, without recriminations. For the rest of her life, she should need no more proof of his love and goodness than that.

Surely she had made the right choice—for herself, for John, and for their daughter.

Rosa and John named the baby Marta, after Rosa’s paternal grandmother—or rather, Rosa suggested the name and John agreed that it would do. Rosa knew her father would be proud and pleased by their choice, and she looked forward to telling him. She missed her parents desperately, and as the days passed, it seemed very strange that they did not come to meet their new granddaughter.

Marta was three weeks old on the day John came in from the rye fields carrying a large basket covered with a small Four-Patch quilt. “They came,” Rosa exclaimed, recognizing her mother’s handiwork. As John set the basket upon the kitchen table, Rosa flew to the front room to welcome her family. But no one waited there. She flung open the front door, wondering why they had not followed John inside, only to find the yard empty except for a feral cat prowling for mice near the barn.

Rosa slowly shut the door and returned to the kitchen, where John was unpacking the basket. She stroked the soft folds of the quilt, bewildered. “Did they leave the basket on the doorstep? Why didn’t they knock? Were they afraid to wake the baby?”

“It was just your mother, and she didn’t come up to the house.” John took a flat bundle wrapped in cheesecloth from the basket and lifted back one edge. A waft of steam emerged, and Rosa smelled corn tortillas. “I met her on the road.”

Perplexed, Rosa watched him take a covered dish from the basket. The tantalizing aroma of her mother’s tamales drifted to her, evoking memories of her
abuelo
mixing
masa
at the kitchen table and instructing Rosa patiently so that one day she would be able to make the Christmas delicacy as well as he did. Everyone else who had been fortunate enough to taste her
abuelo
’s tamales declared that they had no equal, but Rosa loved her mother’s best. “My mother spent hours in the kitchen preparing these foods and weeks making the quilt, she carried this heavy load five miles from home, but she wouldn’t go the last few hundred yards to the house? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Rosa—” John sighed heavily and set the dish on the table. “She was in a hurry. I told her Marta was napping and she said she’ll meet her another time.”

“Why didn’t you tell her to come in anyway?” Rosa cried. “Marta doesn’t have to be awake for my mother to see her. If she’s in that much of a hurry, you can drive her home.”

As she turned to leave the kitchen, John caught her by the arm. “Rosa, no. Don’t.”

Rosa struggled, but she could not free herself from John’s firm grasp. “I won’t be gone long. If Marta wakes up, just rock her until I get back.”

“Rosa, stop it.” An unfamiliar grimness in his voice brought her to a halt. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

Rosa stared at him, shaking her head. “You’re not making any sense.”

“Your parents don’t believe that Marta was born two
months early,” he said, his voice bitter and cutting. “You’ve disgraced the family, and they want nothing more to do with you. Your father insists.”

Rosa couldn’t breathe. It was exactly what she had feared in those frightening early weeks of her pregnancy. Her parents might indeed disown her over such a terrible, mortal sin, but a small voice in the back of her thoughts whispered a protest. Her gaze fell upon the basket and her mother’s gifts. “Why would my mother bring me this beautiful quilt and my favorite foods if she and my father have renounced me?”

“To soften the blow, I guess.”

Drawing in a long, shaky breath, Rosa sank into a chair and rested her head on her arms upon the table. As her tears began to fall upon the tabletop, John was suddenly standing behind her, rubbing her neck and shoulders. “It’s all right. You have me and Marta. You don’t need them.”

But she did, she did.

Eventually, time and the duties of new motherhood wore the edge off Rosa’s grief. She found comfort, even pleasure, in making a home for her husband and daughter, and when she sat with Marta on a quilt in the shade of the orange trees, she would gaze out upon the fields of rye where her husband labored and feel an overwhelming rush of thankfulness. She could not have borne her family’s abandonment alone.

In those early weeks, John was as dutiful a father to Marta as if she were truly his own child. He seemed, sometimes, to have convinced himself that she was. Lars stayed away, long after the news of Marta’s birth surely must have reached him. Rosa concluded—sadness inexplicably tainting her relief—that evidently he too wanted the world to believe that John was Marta’s father. His absence convinced Rosa that she had made
the right decision, and she strengthened her resolve to forget Lars and be the wife John deserved.

But before long, she began to wonder whether instead John had become the husband she deserved.

Marta was almost three months old when Rosa took her along on a trip to the Arboles Grocery. As she carried Marta past bins of dark green asparagus and bright red strawberries, she stopped short at the sight of a familiar, beloved figure in the next aisle—her mother, picking out a chicken for Sunday dinner. Cautiously, heart pounding, Rosa summoned up her courage, and said, “Mamá?”

Her mother whirled around. “Rosa.”

Rosa offered her a tremulous smile, expecting her mother’s startled expression to harden into righteous indignation. Instead Isabel rushed forward to embrace her, her eyes widening in wonder at the sight of the baby in her arms, snuggled in the Four-Patch quilt she herself had made. “Oh, my darling,” she gasped, her hands trembling as she tentatively reached for her granddaughter. “Oh, what a perfect angel.”

Rosa blinked back tears and gently placed baby Marta in her mother’s arms. She watched as her mother gazed with open adoration upon her granddaughter as if she were soaking in every detail—her sweet baby scent, her long eyelashes, her tiny nails on tiny fingers. Her mother’s rapturous expression, as unexpected as it was welcome, emboldened Rosa to speak. “Thank you for the quilt,” she said hesitantly. “And the tortillas and tamales. They were delicious.”