Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (23 page)

Rosa’s heart and head were full of the events of the day. “I can’t believe our good fortune.”

Lars made a noncommittal grunt. “Neither can I.”

“You think it’s too good to be true?”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “Don’t you?”

She had been desperately unhappy so long that she might be expected to look upon an unexpected shower of blessings with a cynical eye, but the opportunity for friendship and prosperity she had observed among the Cacchiones and their neighbors seemed wonderfully real. “The Cacchiones seem like good people.”

“They haven’t told us everything that goes on here.”

“Of course not. There wasn’t time because of the party. We’ll learn more about what they expect of us tomorrow.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Lars lowered his voice and slowed his pace, allowing Marta and Ana to pull farther ahead of them. “That was a mighty big barrel of wine in the barn, set out in plain sight for all to see.”

“I know. I tasted it.”

“Yes, I saw. You seemed to be enjoying yourself.”

Rosa resisted the impulse to ask him if he had indulged too, reluctant to appear as if she doubted his resolve. “They weren’t trying to hide it, so it must be all right. Perhaps it was left over from before Prohibition. Wines are supposed to age, aren’t they?”

Lars shrugged and shook his head, uncertain. “I suppose that could be it. But I spotted a lot of wary glances thrown our way until folks saw that the Cacchiones trusted us.”

Rosa hadn’t noticed. “Well, we are strangers in town, and this seems to be a close-knit community. Everyone seemed friendly enough to me.” But his worries sowed seeds of doubt. “Do you really think they’re hiding something?”

“I think time will tell, but in the meantime we should be careful.”

“We need to be careful anyway,” Rosa reminded him. “We’re the ones who aren’t being perfectly honest with our new acquaintances,
Nils
.”

Lars snorted dryly and quickened his pace to catch up with the girls, and Rosa fell into step beside him.

Before long they reached the cabin, a snug and welcome haven in a night that had grown cooler since they left the barn. Marta and Ana climbed the attic steps wearily, and Rosa followed close behind, Miguel in her arms. Lars carried Lupita upstairs,
placed her still sleeping upon one of the beds, and returned downstairs for the children’s belongings before bidding the girls good night and leaving the attic. After tucking in the children, Rosa returned downstairs to check the master bedroom for extra blankets and found Lars peering through the doorway and eyeing the bed. He looked up at the sound of her footsteps. “I’ll take the sofa.”

She nodded and brushed past him, feeling a flush rise in her cheeks as she searched the bureau and wardrobe for extra blankets. Finding none, she made up her bed with the folded sheets but carried the blanket to the front room, where her mother’s quilts still rested on top of her sewing basket. She gave Lars the blanket as well as the quilt Elizabeth had called the Arboles Valley Star, and took the Road to Triumph Ranch quilt for herself. Then she wished Lars good night, went off to the bedroom, and shut the door.

She wondered if he would notice the intertwined initials her mother had embroidered upon the quilt and puzzle over their significance.

As she drifted off to sleep to the gentle music of the brook, the wind in the oak boughs, and the soft, occasional creak of bedsprings overhead, she drew her great-grandmother’s wedding quilt up to her chin and hoped the children would be warm and comfortable in the attic. As autumn waned, the nights would likely grow colder, and the children would need quilts for their new beds. Closing her eyes, Rosa envisioned herself sitting by the fireside piecing scraps into cozy quilts, one for each of her beloved children. For Miguel she would stitch a quilt using the Railroad Crossing pattern, in hopes that he would sleep as peacefully beneath it as he had in her arms on their journey north, lulled by the music and motion of the train. For Lupita
she would make a Happy Home quilt, a symbol of her wistful prayers that her little girl would be content wherever their journey led them, and not miss too much the unhappy, broken home they had left behind. Ana, her little scholar, would cherish a Schoolhouse quilt, and as for Marta, the Loyal Daughter block suited her so perfectly it could have been named for her.

She hoped that as long as they resided within the cabin, and wherever they dwelt thereafter, quilts sewn with love would offer her children warmth, comfort, and a sense of home.

T
he next morning, Rosa woke to the sounds of the children’s footsteps overhead and muffled laughter. Pulling a robe on over her nightgown, she padded down the hall to the bathroom to wash up before returning to her bedroom to dress for the day, her thoughts already running through the many tasks awaiting her. The first, of course, was breakfast. The children would be hungry, and although Mrs. Phillips had packed them an ample lunch for the train the previous day, little remained left over to portion out among six people. Rosa would have to ask the Cacchiones for a ride to the market later that day, or else borrow staples from their pantry until a more convenient time arose. Rosa disliked depending upon someone else for transportation and was reluctant to put herself in debt to their new employers on their first full day of work, but there was no way around it. They had to eat, and it was absolutely essential that they replenish their stock of bananas.

She heard the children scrambling down the attic stairs, and when she joined them in the front room, she found them gathered
around Lars, peering into a large picnic basket in his hands. “Someone left this on the front porch,” he said, smiling a welcome. She returned his smile, and her gaze fell upon the blanket and quilt neatly folded on the sofa. She hoped he had slept well there. With a pang of embarrassment, she realized she should have taken a bed in the attic with the children and given him the bedroom. She would suggest the change to him that evening, although she suspected he would insist she keep the most comfortable room for herself.

“What’s inside?” she asked, bidding her children good morning with fond hugs and kisses.

“Breakfast, I gather,” Lars replied, handing her the basket. “Strawberries, cream, a bottle of milk, and a loaf of bread.”

“Didn’t I say the Cacchiones were good people?” she teased.

“I never said they weren’t,” he protested mildly.

She laughed and carried the basket into the kitchen. When she unpacked it, she also found a paper sack of prunes, a jug of olive oil, sugar, polenta left over from the party, and a note addressed to Rose. “I hope your first night in the cabin passed well,” Giuditta had written. “Polenta makes a delicious breakfast. Cut slices, fry them up in hot oil, and serve with cream and sugar. Come up to the house whenever you’re ready. Bring the children, of course! They can all play together while we show you and Nils around.”

Delighted, Rosa searched the cupboards for a frying pan and soon had breakfast underway. In the meantime, Marta found plates, cups, and cutlery on the shelves, rinsed and dried them, and set the table. They chatted as they worked, slicing strawberries and pouring milk, and although Rosa felt somewhat awkward moving about the unfamiliar kitchen as if it were her own, the customary rituals of tending to her family reassured
her, as if nurturing those she loved performed a transformative magic upon her surroundings, changing any setting, however strange and new or unanticipated, into a home.

The polenta was as delicious as Giuditta had promised, the strawberries fresh and sweet. The children ate heartily, chattering about what the day might bring, well rested and cheerful despite staying up so late the previous night. Occasionally, Rosa and Lars exchanged amused glances from opposite ends of the table, and at certain moments it almost felt as if they were a family, complete and contented in a home of their own. Wistfully Rosa realized that it was only an illusion, and like all illusions it could not last, but that did not mean she would not take what consolation from it she could.

After breakfast, Marta washed the dishes while Ana dried and Rosa swept the floor, and soon they were ready to follow the sunlit path through the vineyard up to the Cacchiones’ grand redwood residence. When they arrived, they found Vince and his older brother, Dominic, in the yard between the garage and the barn, peering beneath the hood of a Mack AC delivery truck with “Cacchione Vineyards” painted in large, white script letters on both sides of the covered bed. The impression Rosa had formed of the Cacchiones’ eldest son when they met at the party was that he was as serious as Vince was merry, although according to Francesca, the brothers were equally hardworking and responsible. Though Dominic was only twenty-two, he had been married for more than a year to Mabel, a vintner’s daughter from Healdsburg, and the happy couple had made their home within the Cacchione residence and were expecting their first child. The younger Cacchiones were playing tag nearby in a clearing framed by walnut trees, and after promising to look after Miguel, Rosa’s girls ran off to join them. Miguel trotted off
happily, holding one of Marta’s hands and one of Ana’s, sometimes lifting his stout little legs so they would swing him in the air between them.

Dominic told Rosa and Lars that his parents were in the kitchen lingering over breakfast and that they should go on inside. They found their new employers seated at the corner of a large wooden trestle table, papers spread out before them, forgotten cups of coffee pushed aside and growing cold. The snatches of conversation Rosa overheard from the doorway seemed hushed and earnest, and when they broke off at the sound of the door closing behind Rosa and Lars, the strain on their faces was evident. Even so, Giuditta’s smile was genuine and warm as she rose to greet them and offer them coffee. They gladly accepted, and as Giuditta took two cups from the drying rack beside the sink and filled them with a dark, strong brew, Dante gathered up the papers with a sigh and tapped them into a neat pile.

“Bills,” Giuditta said, handing the steaming cups to Lars and Rosa and gesturing to the cream and sugar on the table. She emptied her and her husband’s cups into the sink and refilled them.

“You may have come in the nick of time,” Dante said, thanking his wife with a smile as she handed him his refreshed cup. “I’m considering ripping out our vines and planting apricot trees in their place.”

“Surely not all of them,” protested Rosa. The long, level plains would seem barren and desolate in the wake of the destruction of so much beauty, no matter what was planted in its place.

“No, not all,” he admitted with a rueful grimace. “I exaggerate the need. These vines have flourished here since before I was born. My grandfather planted them, and it would be like tearing
out my own heart to uproot them. But if we’re going to keep this land in the family for generations to come, we’ll need to find another source of revenue.” He nodded appreciatively to Lars. “That’s why, when Dr. Reynolds mentioned your experience growing apricots in Oxnard, I jumped at the chance to take you on. This morning I’d like you to walk the fields with me. I’ve picked out a few places where I might establish an apricot orchard, and I’d like your opinion on which is the best.”

“I’d be glad to help,” said Lars, taking a sip of coffee. “But I’m not confident apricots would thrive in this climate.”

“We won’t know unless we try,” Dante replied. “It’s an experiment, and one that might fail, but if it succeeds, eventually it’ll pay for itself and then some.”

Rosa glanced from Dante to Giuditta as she stirred cream and sugar into her cup. “I gather that growing wine grapes isn’t as profitable as winemaking once was.”

“It was, at first,” Giuditta said. “In the early days of Prohibition the demand for wine grapes was so overwhelming that some of our neighbors enjoyed their most profitable seasons ever.”

“As did we,” said Dante. “But our success encouraged many other growers to jump in, not only in the Sonoma and Napa valleys but elsewhere in California and in Europe as well. Overproduction led to a glut in the market, and prices plummeted.”

Giuditta shook her head, frowning. “Grapes have been left to rot on the vine because it would cost more to hire pickers to harvest them than a grower could sell them for.”

“Not here, though,” Lars remarked. “Your vines look exceptionally well tended to me.”

“They are. I couldn’t mistreat my vines any more than I could hurt one of my own children.” Dante took a deep drink of
coffee, set his cup on the table, and fixed it with a distant, brooding stare. “My grandfather came to this country in the middle of the last century, beckoned, like so many others, by the promise of gold in the California hills. But he was clever, and he soon realized that most of the ambitious young men who toiled in the mountains and streams would have nothing to show for their adventures later in life except for entertaining stories, debts, and regret. He chose a more reliable, though less romantic, path to earning his fortune.”