Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (26 page)

Rosa pressed her lips together and nodded. “Thank you.” Briefly she lay her hand upon his, and then she stepped away, and his hand fell to his side. He studied her for a moment, then nodded and turned away, striding back to his brother’s car with the mail bundle tucked under his arm.

“Lars,” she called after him as he opened the car door. “How long will you be visiting?”

“It’s no visit,” he replied. “I’m home to stay.”

A hundred questions sprang to her lips, but she held them back. “John goes to the train station every Monday at noon to pick up the mail,” she said instead. He had resumed his regular schedule shortly after Isabel died. “You could come back sometime, if you want. If you’d like to see Marta.”

In response, Lars nodded and climbed into the car. A few minutes later he was gone, leaving behind only a faint, low cloud of yellow-brown dust lingering above the road—and questions, so many questions, for which she ached to know the answers.

For the next four days, Rosa wondered with a mixture of hope and dread whether Lars would return. When Monday noon came and John departed for the train station, she distractedly began and abandoned several chores, checking the clock often, straining her ears for the sound of a car approaching, and peering out one window and then another just in case her ears had deceived her. Finally, disgusted with herself, she put a drowsy Pedro down for his nap, sent the girls out to play, pulled her hair back into a kerchief, and began the weekly laundry, dragging the washtub into the sunshine before filling it so that
she could enjoy the fair weather and keep an eye on the children while she worked. As soon as she was up to her elbows in soapsuds, she heard the clatter of the Jorgensens’ Model T coming up the drive.

Quickly she snatched up a towel and dried her arms, leaving John’s filthy overalls to soak in the tub. She waited until Lars parked the car before crossing the yard to meet him. “Come for the mail?” she asked, as if he were any other neighbor.

He nodded and took a small paper sack from his coat pocket. “I brought a little something for the girls too. Pedro is probably still too young to have any, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.”

Her heart leapt as he handed her the bag, for even before she opened it, she knew what it held. The sweet fragrance and bright color of the dried apricots vividly illuminated long-shadowed memories, and for a moment she was a child in the schoolyard again.

“Go on,” Lars urged as she closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and sighed, enjoying the familiar mouthwatering scent. “There’s plenty for you too, and more where that came from.”

Smiling her thanks, Rosa took an apricot from the bag and savored the delicious sweetness. “Better than candy,” she said, repeating their old joke, and Lars grinned. Curious, the girls abandoned their play in the shade of the orange trees and hurried over to see what was going on. When they learned that Lars had brought them a treat, they thanked him happily and clamored around Rosa for a taste. Rosa allowed them to have two pieces each, but decided to save the rest for another day.

“I’ll bring more next week,” Lars promised, with a questioning look for Rosa. She nodded, unable to keep from smiling as she turned and went inside for his mail bundle.

His visit lasted all of ten minutes, but it brightened her day,
and his promise to return gave her something to look forward to throughout the week whenever she was feeling especially exhausted and worried and lonely. The following Monday, Lars arrived earlier and stayed longer, and to the girls’ delight, he remembered his promise to bring them more apricots. When the girls ran off to play, carrying the paper sack as if it held a hard-won treasure, Rosa and Lars lingered in the yard, chatting about the girls, the weather, and the plentiful harvests both families were in the midst of bringing in. When he left, Rosa was sorry to see him go, and sorrier still that she had not been bold enough to ask him where he had spent the previous seven years, why he had returned to the Arboles Valley, what had become of his inheritance, and how he was, really, behind the perfunctory greetings they had offered one another.

Week after week, Lars returned every Monday without fail, with apricots for the children and kind, gentle words for Rosa. Even after school resumed in September and he no longer had the opportunity to see Marta, his visits continued. Eventually, tentatively, their conversations evolved from the safe niceties of acquaintances into the shared confidences of friends. At last Rosa learned that in his seven-year, self-imposed exile, Lars had traveled throughout the western United States, settling down briefly in Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Denver, and Albuquerque, with shorter stays in smaller cities throughout California. He had spent the profits from the sale of his inheritance on several failed business ventures and had returned home penniless and, like the Prodigal Son, had thrown himself upon the mercy of his family. Oscar, who in Lars’s absence had married and had accepted responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the ranch from their ailing, aged father, welcomed his brother home with open arms and hired him as his foreman. Unlike his biblical
predecessor, then, Lars had not been restored to his birthright, but he had three square meals a day, a roof over his head, the company of his family, and gainful, worthwhile employment he had failed to appreciate in his youth.

As for his persistent struggles with alcohol, he professed that he had lost all taste for gin after drinking himself nearly to death “that one night back in November 1912,” as he carefully referred to the night shortly after Rosa’s wedding when he had pounded on the front door of the adobe and begged her to run away with him. Prohibition made alcohol more difficult to come by and helped him stay on the straight and narrow. He admitted that even though he had remained sober for eight years, he was wary of testing his resolve, so he would not allow himself even a tiny sip of liquor lest he fall back into his old, destructive ways. Rosa was glad to hear it, but her congratulations were tinged with melancholy. She could not help wondering how differently their lives might have turned out if only he had found sobriety eight years earlier.

“Why did you come back?” Rosa asked him one Monday in early December when cool rains fell and they sat in the kitchen drinking coffee while Marta was at school and Ana read her younger siblings a story in the front room.

“I heard your mother died,” he said, mildly surprised, for he had told her so upon his first visit.

“After seven years away, you came back just to express your condolences?” Rosa asked, skeptical.

“I thought you might need some comfort.” He hesitated, and then he shrugged. “I didn’t intend to stay, but my mother and Oscar talked me into it.”

She watched him for a long moment in silence as he absently stirred his coffee. “I’m glad they did.”

He smiled briefly, set down his spoon, and reached across the table to squeeze her hand.

It was good to have a friend again, one who didn’t judge or condemn or doubt. With Lars she felt as if she were no longer the careworn farmwife and grieving mother but the bright young beauty with a promising future she had once been. They lingered at the table long after their cups were empty, until Lars noticed the time and said he had to be on his way. As reluctant as Rosa was for him to go, she was more unwilling for John to find him there, so after seeing Lars to the door, she hurried back to the kitchen to wash their cups and the coffeepot and return everything to its proper place.

But in her haste, she had not taken care to conceal all signs of Lars’s visit. As she was preparing supper, John came into the kitchen carrying the paper sack of apricots Lars had brought for the girls to share. “I found this outside on the grass beneath the orange trees,” John said, eyeing it before he tossed it on the table, his dark, thick brows drawn together in puzzlement. “It’s half full of apricots.”

“Only half full?” Rosa shook her head, heart pounding with apprehension she hoped he wouldn’t detect. “I told the girls they could have one piece each. They were supposed to bring the bag back inside afterward. I hope this won’t spoil their suppers.”

“Where’d they come from?” John clarified since she had ostensibly missed the point. “They look like Jorgensen apricots.”

“How so? I wouldn’t know one apricot from another.” That was no lie. “The Arboles Grocery carries dried apricots, and they’re still reasonably priced this time of year.” Also not a lie, since she didn’t claim she had bought them there. “Why? Is something wrong?”

John had already turned to leave the kitchen. “Just don’t let them waste food like that, leaving the sack outside on the ground. Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

“Of course. I’ll tell them.”

When he was gone, Rosa snatched up the bag and stashed it in the side cupboard. She would have to be more careful or she would lose her only friend.

A few days later, John was working in the barn when Betsy Frazier came by to mail a letter and pick up a package from Sears, Roebuck & Co. Rosa was busy in the kitchen canning orange marmalade, so John took care of Betsy, bringing the letter into the house and carrying the parcel out to her car. A few minutes later, Rosa happened to glance out the window and was surprised to find them still chatting. John tended to be abrupt with customers, sending them on their way and returning to the work they had interrupted as soon as their business was done.

After a bit she heard Betsy drive away, and then the front door opened and shut. “You’ll never guess what Betsy Frazier just told me,” John said as he entered the kitchen. “Lars Jorgensen is back in town.”

“Yes, I know,” Rosa replied nonchalantly. It would do no good to feign ignorance. “He returned in August. He stopped by to express his condolences.”

“For what?”

“For the death of my mother, of course,” said Rosa, incredulous.

John studied her, his eyes narrowing. “Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”

Ladling marmalade into sterile jars, she managed a shrug. “You’ve forbidden me to mention his name.”

“Don’t get smart.” When she made no reply, he pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. “He squandered his entire inheritance, and now he has to live off his brother’s charity. How pathetic.”

Rosa didn’t know what to say, but John was watching her, waiting for a response. “I suppose there’s a lesson in that for us all.”

“What exactly am I supposed to learn from Lars Jorgensen?”

“I—nothing.” Rosa wished she had simply agreed with him that Lars was pathetic. That was all John had wanted to hear. It shouldn’t matter that she didn’t believe it. “I only meant that we should all take care not to repeat his mistakes.”

Suddenly John bolted to his feet and seized her wrist. The ladle flew through the air and clattered upon the table, spattering John’s face with hot marmalade. He swore, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and yanked her closer until their faces were only inches apart. “You burned me!”

“You grabbed my wrist. I didn’t mean to—”

“How stupid do you think I am?” He struck her across the cheek.

“Please, John, it was an accident!”

Her protests died as he struck her again and again. Shielding her head with her arms, she backed away from him while he rained blows upon her. Suddenly her lower back collided with the edge of the sink and she crumpled to the floor, her legs bent painfully beneath her. He tangled his fingers in her hair and yanked her onto her side. “Don’t try that again,” he said, and stormed out of the kitchen.

Closing her eyes, Rosa lay on her side and held perfectly still, listening, catching her breath, feeling the sting of each blow, tasting blood. Her cheek was damp against the linoleum, but
from blood or tears or both, she would not know until she sat up, pulled herself to her feet, and examined her face in the mirror. But she was not ready to do so yet. Not yet.

“Mamá?”

Muffling a groan, she sat up as quickly as she could to find Ana, pale and tearful, lingering in the doorway. “Yes,
mija
?”

“Did Papa hit you?”

What a fool Rosa had been to think she could shield her children from John’s ugly brutality. “Yes, Ana.”

Her chin trembled. “He shouldn’t do that.”

“No, he shouldn’t.” Rosa tried to stand but fell back against the cabinet beneath the sink, head spinning. Ana flew to her side and helped her to her feet. Rosa thanked her and turned on the tap, splashed her face, and felt for loose teeth with her tongue. A sharp sting as the water hit her cheekbone, warning of a cut, and she gingerly probed it with her fingers. It was not deep, and perhaps it would not leave a scar.

Rosa managed a wan smile for Ana to assure her she was all right, and then sent her off to check on her napping siblings. Alone again, she cleaned herself up, put on a fresh apron, and finished the marmalade. Before long a dozen glass jars were lined up neatly on the counter, catching the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the windows and glowing as if they contained the essence of summer itself. Anyone who entered her kitchen at that moment would think she had spent a pleasant, industrious day in her happy home. How easily the truth was swept away like the bits of orange rind that had fallen to the floor.

When Marta came home from school, she gasped in shock at the sight of her mother’s face. Rosa braced herself for questions, but the telltale signs of John’s violence were easy enough
for Marta to interpret. Rosa was thankful that Marta still had the presence of mind to be angered by John’s cruelty, that Ana could still voice her conviction that he was wrong to hit her. If they ever accepted his behavior as normal, as something that they too should expect when they were old enough to marry, Rosa would have failed them utterly.

That evening, sore and exhausted, Rosa went off to bed as soon as she tucked in the children and kissed them good night. John woke her when he climbed beneath the covers a few hours later, and although she feigned sleep, he stroked her arm and kissed her neck so persistently that she couldn’t pretend to sleep through it. She had dreaded and expected this. On days he hit her, his lovemaking started out gentle, almost as if he meant to apologize or comfort her, but it grew more aggressive as he went along, until for her it was always uncomfortable, sometimes painful. He wanted her to desire him, but through the years, every blow had driven out a little more of her affection for him until none remained. She couldn’t bring herself to pretend she enjoyed his attention, but she would not humiliate and anger him by rejecting him. All she could do was submit, as her wedding vows bound her to do.