Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel

by Jannifer Chiaverini

  “Where did he go?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I don’t,” Rosa replied, too quickly, clenching her hands together in her lap. They were ice cold, despite the balmy weather. “I’m just curious.”

  “Frank didn’t say and I didn’t ask.” John took a bite of his dinner, nodded in satisfaction, and took another. “Anyway, he’s long gone now, and I say, good riddance. This is delicious, honey.”

  “It’s your mother’s recipe,” Rosa murmured. As John turned the conversation to the farm, she picked up her fork and moved the food around on her plate, but her stomach was in knots and she knew better than to try to eat.

  Lars had left the Arboles Valley, left her, without even saying good-bye, without meeting his daughter. That should have been what Rosa wanted, but with no idea where he had gone or when he might return, she felt as shocked and bereft as the night he had failed to light the lantern in the oak grove.

  But there was nothing she could do, no comfort to be found except in loving Marta.

  The next Sunday, John, Rosa, and Marta went to early Mass instead of the midmorning service they usually attended. As the parishioners filed out of the church afterward, Rosa passed her parents and brother in the aisle. A greeting died on Rosa’s lips as her father gazed through her as if she and the baby in her arms were as insubstantial as vapor. Behind her father’s back, Carlos and her mother shot her furtive, sympathetic glances before they too turned away, without a single word for her, without a loving kiss for her baby. She had never felt more alone, and with nowhere to turn, no safe refuge, she dared not confront John about his lies or his inexplicable determination to drive Rosa and her mother apart.

  In anguish, she sought counsel from her parish priest, who had heard her confession and absolved her of her sins before her marriage and again shortly after Marta’s birth. He expressed sorrow when, after reciting her venial sins, she confessed that she still thought of Lars often and worried about him, wherever he was. The priest urged her to concentrate on prayer whenever her thoughts strayed to Lars, and reminded her that in all things she must accept the will of God and submit to her husband. As Rosa left the confessional, the priest added that if her father should come to see him, he would remind him that the Lord called all Christians to forgive others as they wished to be forgiven, and this included wayward daughters. “Don’t lose hope, my child,” he told her, and his compassion brought tears to her eyes.

  If Rosa’s father did hear the good priest’s message, it failed to sway him.

  One afternoon, Rosa was pushing Marta in her stroller after running an errand at the bank for John when she heard someone call her name. She turned to see her mother dashing across the street toward her, and after a quick, tearful embrace, they hurried off together down a side street where fewer eyes would see them. There her mother cuddled her granddaughter and delivered the devastating news of her father’s decree: Rosa was dead to him, and her mother and brother must disown her as well.

  “You’re speaking to me now,” said Rosa hollowly.

  Her mother shifted Marta to her shoulder, defiance flashing in her eyes. “You’re my daughter and I could never abandon you. I see no good whatsoever in your father’s command that I renounce you or in your husband’s attempts to keep us apart. And so I see no reason to obey them.”

  Rosa felt long-dormant hopes stirring. “Do you mean that you’ll see me again, me and Marta?”

  “Of course, mija, but we must meet somewhere far from prying eyes.” Isabel stroked Marta’s soft, dark locks, thinking, and then her face lit up. “The mesa, our picnic spot near the canyon. Would you be able to slip away and meet me there without raising John’s suspicions?”

  Rosa assured her that she could. A few months after their marriage, John had taken a second job as the Arboles Valley postmaster, and once a week he went to the train station to collect the mail. If Rosa left soon after John departed, she could take Marta to the mesa and visit with her mother, and return home before John arrived. He would never know that his wife and daughter had been away.

  They agreed to meet on the mesa once a week if the weather was fair and if their husbands did not unwittingly intercede. Mindful of the waning afternoon and the men waiting for them at home, they embraced and parted with tearful, hopeful smiles.

  A year passed. Rosa devoted herself to her family, finding happiness in the minutiae as well as the milestones of Marta’s childhood—first words, first steps, first hugs and kisses—and it seemed to her, day by day, that John grew happier, more confident, more content. She had never seen a prouder man than the day he held his firstborn son in his arms. “We’ll name him John Junior,” he declared, cradling the baby tenderly only minutes after his birth. Watching them together from where she lay resting in bed, Rosa was overwhelmed with love, and joy, and hope. Their daughter Angela was born a year and a half later, and for a while, Rosa believed that despite the sorrow of her continuing estrangement from her father and brother, God had heard her prayers, and she and John would be happy together.

  Then, only a few months after Angela was weaned, she fell seriously, chronically, incomprehensibly ill, plagued by diarrhea and stomach cramps that left her listless and bloated. A few months later, John Junior began to suffer from the same symptoms. Only Marta thrived, glowing with robust good health as she sweetly tried to help her mother care for her younger siblings.

  Angela died in March 1917, John Junior seven months later, a mere few weeks after Ana was born. As the household plunged into grief, John seemed to conflate Ana’s birth and her elder siblings’ deaths. He never warmed to her, never held her unless Rosa urgently needed him to, offered no suggestions for her name. On the morning of her christening, Rosa reminded him that they had to have a name before the ceremony. John replied, “My son is dead. Call her whatever you want.” Rosa chose Ana Maria, in the desperate hope that the Blessed Mother would protect her namesake.

  The sunny hours spent on the mesa with her mother and the children were Rosa’s only respite from the grief that pervaded her home, offering her solace even on the anniversary of John Junior’s death. Wind swept the mesa as Rosa and Isabel sat near the canyon’s rim watching five-year-old Marta amuse Ana, who had grown into a lively toddler. Despite the melancholy anniversary, Rosa had to smile as Marta threw handfuls of golden grass into the air around her younger sister, who squealed and laughed as she tried to catch them. But it was a wistful smile, since Isabel had just finished telling Rosa how she had spent the morning laying flowers upon her grandchildren’s graves. Rosa had never visited the cemetery after John Junior’s funeral; it would be more than she could bear to see headstones engraved with her beloved children’s names. Marta and Ana were as healthy and happy as any two girls in the Arboles Valley, and the child within Rosa’s womb seemed to be growing steadily, but sickness and death seemed to lurk in every shadow. Her daughters’ vitality seemed a cruel illusion, and she no longer expected to see them reach adulthood. With no future to hope for, she had learned to be content with every moment, and that was enough to endure each day.

  Then Isabel, gazing upon her granddaughters at play, said, “They’re so full of joy and light. I don’t see anything of John in them.”

  With a jolt of recognition, Rosa knew then God had sent her an opportunity to redeem herself by telling the truth, even if it meant that her mother too would renounce her, and her last refuge would disappear.

  “Mamá,” she said softly, “there’s something to what you say.”

  Her mother turned her head sharply, her gaze keen. “What do you mean?”

  There Rosa’s courage faltered. “There is something of John in the girls, though you might not want to see it because you despise him.”

  Her mother studied her for a long moment. “I do despise him,” she admitted, turning her gaze back to her granddaughters. “I think I understand his grief, though I’ve never lost a child, but I can’t forgive him for lashing out at you. You should be able to draw comfort
from each other in your mourning. Instead John seems to blame you.”

  Rosa laughed shortly. “He’s not the only one.”

  “Ignorant people, whispering cruel rumors,” her mother said in disgust. “Pay them no mind.”

  Marta proved to be as devoted a big sister to Maria when she was born in the winter of 1919 as she had always been to Ana. John and Rosa were blessed with another son in the spring of the following year, and for a brief, precious time, all four children thrived. The perpetual scowl left John’s face, and he treated Rosa with kindness he had not shown since the early months of their marriage. Then Maria fell ill, and then Ana, who had so long eluded the strange sickness that had claimed her siblings that her parents had begun to hope that, like Marta, she would avoid their fate. Soon after John Junior passed away, in a rare display of tears, John confided to Rosa that his eldest sister had died in childhood after suffering from a similar affliction. “We must resign ourselves to the will of God,” he had choked out, roughly brushing away his tears with the back of his fist. Then he had bitterly added, “At least we’ll still have Marta when all the others are dead and buried.”

  Distressed and angry, Rosa poured out her heart to her mother. “You mustn’t give up searching for a cure, no matter what your husband decides for himself,” Rosa’s mother said staunchly, embracing her with one arm and cradling baby Pedro in the other. “And I will help you. I’ve heard of a powerful curandera in El Paso, someone I haven’t consulted before. I’ll write to her today.”

  Reluctant to tear herself away from the comfort of her mother’s company, Rosa lingered on the mesa longer than she should have. When she finally arrived home with the children, she found John sorting mail in the front room. “You’re home early,” she said breathlessly, managing a smile in passing as she took the children to their bedrooms and put them down for a nap.

  John met her in the kitchen as she was tying on her apron. “Where were you?”

  “Out for a walk.”

  “You were gone a while. Long walk for such little girls.”

  “We didn’t go far. We stopped to play on the mesa.” Rosa suddenly remembered that she had once told him that the mesa was her mother’s favorite place in the Arboles Valley, and she hurried on before he had too much time to ponder the implications.

  “Did you meet your mother there?”

  “Would that be so wrong?” she asked. “The girls ought to know their grandmother. You forbade me to invite her here, but you never said I couldn’t see her elsewhere.”

  “Well, I’m saying it now. I don’t want you seeing her anymore.”

  “She’s my mother,” Rosa protested.

  “She disowned you!”

  “My father did. She didn’t.” A vivid image sprang into her mind’s eye, John unpacking the quilt-draped basket of delicacies her mother had prepared so lovingly and telling her that her mother never wanted to see her again. He had lied to her, and she still did not understand why. “She never disowned me and she never will. But even if she had, she obviously wants the girls and me in her life now. Why are you dead set against it? What has she ever done to offend you? You were the one she preferred. You were the one she wanted me to marry. She never hated you the way she hated Lars—”

  John slapped her across the face, sending her reeling back against the kitchen table. “I told you never to mention his name,” he thundered, clenching his fist so close to her eyes that she could make out the black hairs against his tanned skin on the back of his hand. “Is that why you married me? Because you couldn’t marry him?”

  “You were my friend, and you loved me, and I thought we could be happy—”

  He seized her by the shoulders again and shook her until her head swam. “Answer the goddamned question!”

  “Yes,” she choked out. She shouldn’t have married him. Better to bear a child out of wedlock than to endure a lifetime of misery and deception. But it was a lesson learned too late.

  He stared at her for a long moment, red-faced from rage, breathing heavily. “You are a filthy whore,” he said flatly, releasing her. “I’ve raised that girl as my own daughter, and this is how you repay me, by going behind my back, plotting against me.”

  “I took the girls to see my mother,” Rosa said, incredulous, clutching the back of a chair for support. “How does that hurt you?”

  He shook his head slowly, a warning. “Don’t make me hit you again.”

  “If that’s what you want to do,” she snapped, “is there anything I could say that would prevent it?”

  This time, his closed fist knocked her sprawling to the floor. As she lay there, stunned, he came upon her so swiftly that she instinctively rolled onto her side and curled protectively around the child in her womb. But the kick she was expecting did not come. “Don’t try to see her again,” John said without emotion, and walked away. She heard his boots striking the floor as he crossed the front room, the door open and shut. Only when she heard the tractor start up and knew he would not soon return could she take a deep, shuddering breath, drag herself into a chair, and rest her throbbing head in her arms on the table.

  Week after week, Rosa’s distress escalated as she imagined her mother sitting alone on the old quilt she spread on the grass of the mesa, waiting and waiting without fail, hoping Rosa and the children would come. Rosa wanted desperately to send her an explanation through mutual acquaintances when they came to the Barclay farm to pick up their mail or post letters, but John was always hovering nearby, rendering it impossible for her to exchange more than a few pleasantries.

  As spring blossomed into a glorious, warm summer, the rye grew tall in the fields surrounding the adobe and fruit ripened on trees throughout the valley. Neighboring farmers cheerfully predicted a harvest more plentiful than in decades, but the promise of abundance did not touch Rosa, who felt herself fracturing under the strain of Ana and Maria’s illness, John’s coldness, and her interminable isolation. She had not fully understood how much her weekly visits with her mother had sustained her until they were gone.

  In late July, Rosa was hanging wash on the clothesline when a dark, unfamiliar automobile slowly crawled up the gravel drive from the main road and parked between the house and the barn. Pinning one last sheet to the line before going to see who the visitors were, Rosa glanced over her shoulder and spotted two grim-faced men emerging from the car. Her heart plummeted when she recognized the sheriff and the young, red-haired priest who had replaced her old confessor. “I’m afraid we have some bad news, Mrs. Barclay,” the sheriff greeted her solemnly. “May we come in? Is your husband home?”

  Her mouth dry, she nodded and led them into the front room, where they waited while she went to ring the triangle to summon John. They waited for her to be seated and for John to come in from the fields before they told her that earlier that day, her mother’s body had been found at the bottom of the Salto Canyon.

  “We found no signs of foul play,” the sheriff said. To Rosa it seemed that his voice came from very far away. Her ears rang and her vision seemed dimly unfocused. Her mother, dead? It was impossible. Impossible. “From the condition of her remains, we believe she fell from the top of the canyon. Do you have any idea why she might have been out that way alone?”

  Everyone waited for Rosa to speak, but when she said nothing, John cleared his throat and said, “My mother-in-law walked on the mesa often. She enjoyed taking in the view of the canyon.”

  The sheriff nodded. “Then we have no reason to suspect her death was anything but a tragic accident.”

  “Of course it was an accident,” said the red-haired priest firmly. He moved to the sofa beside Rosa, and in a gentler tone, added, “Your father and brother are making arrangements for the funeral mass on Thursday. I understand that you’ve been estranged, but I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Rosa murmured. Tears filled her eyes, blurring the men’s faces. She understood then why the priest had emphasized that her mother’s death was
surely an accident. Isabel had been a faithful, devout Catholic all her life, but if she had committed suicide, she could not be buried in sacred ground.

  The sheriff, the priest, and John quietly discussed the investigation while Rosa stared into space, insensible. She roused herself enough to bid the visitors good-bye when they left, and to thank the priest for his promised prayers. When she and John were alone, he held her for a moment and told her he was sorry for her loss, and then he returned outside and resumed his work. Momentarily alone, Rosa could almost believe that the sheriff and the priest had never been there, that the terrible event they had come to tell her about had never happened. Life not only went on, it had barely paused to mark her mother’s passing.

  Marta and Ana clung to Rosa and wept when she told them that their abuela had gone to heaven. Maria was too young to understand, but she knew that her mother and sisters were sad and so she was too. Rosa assumed she would have to beg John to let her attend her mother’s Mass of Christian Burial, but he decided that the entire family must go. “If we don’t, people will talk,” he told her the night before the service.

  “People will talk anyway.” She saw it in their eyes as they came to the farm to pick up their mail, heard it in the undertone that ran beneath their solemn, gentle words of condolence. She realized she was probably the only person in the Arboles Valley who believed her mother’s death was an accident, but she had grown accustomed to being alone in all the different ways a woman could be alone, and their doubt did not weaken her certainty.

  The funeral mass was solemn and poignant. Rosa could not bear to look upon her mother lying in repose in her coffin, so she fixed her gaze on the back of her father’s head, grayer than she remembered and bowed in grief. Rosa, John, and the children had seated themselves near the back of the church rather than in the front pew where the closest family belonged, and after Mass when the mourners gathered at the grave site, they made sure to be among the last to arrive so her father would not notice them. Rosa and John had agreed that they would quickly slip away as soon as the final prayers were spoken, but in the press of the crowd leaving the churchyard, Rosa suddenly found herself face-to-face with Carlos.