Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel

by Jannifer Chiaverini

  Quickly they finished their coffee and followed Dante and Giuditta outside. They crossed the yard, where the two brothers still wrestled with engine parts beneath the hood of the truck and the younger children ran and shouted beneath the walnut trees. They followed a cobblestone path to the low, elegant redwood building Rosa had glimpsed through the foliage as they had gone by in the wagon on their way to the cabin the previous day. Passing beneath one of the archways, they entered through the front double doors into a single large room where all manner of winemaking implements and trellises in need of repair sat idle, although someone apparently cared about them enough to make sure they did not gather dust. Dante led the way down a broad staircase into the cool depths of a cavernous room that seemed larger than the structure above it. The tan earthen walls of the subterranean cavern were smooth and straight, curving elegantly where they bowed to meet the high ceiling. They were lined with large oak barrels arranged on their sides upon thick, solid shelves, but as Rosa drew closer, she saw that they were trapped behind a cage of chicken wire that ran from the floor to the ceiling.

  Dante swept his arm in a broad arc. “This, my friends, is what happened to our wine.” He strode across the floor and struck a heavy padlock that bound two sections of the wire barricade together, sending it swinging back and forth with a rasping complaint as it scraped against a sharp, protruding edge. “Prohibition officers took inventory of our wine before locking us down, and each year we have to pay for a federal permit to keep our wine in storage. You might say we’re buying the privilege of not profiting from our years of backbreaking labor and patience.”

  Frowning thoughtfully, Lars tested the thickness of the chicken wire with his fingers. “Padlock or no, this shouldn’t be too difficult to get around.”

  “Perhaps not,” said Giuditta, tucking a loose strand of dark hair back into her bun with a sigh, “but agents come around from time to time, unannounced, to check that not a single gallon has gone missing. If they discovered we’d broken the law, we would lose everything.”

  “We might lose everything anyway,” said Dante grimly.

  “We won’t,” said Giuditta, more firmly than before. She walked along the row of entrapped barrels, marking off several dozen with the span of her hands. “These casks contain our finest quality wines,” she told Rosa and Lars. “These vintages can age for ten to thirty years, becoming ever more palatable and therefore more valuable. This is our long-term investment. Our future lives within these casks.” She turned to the remaining barrels, the vast majority. “These barrels—well, worrying over them has given me many a sleepless night. Their quality will last three to eight years, but after that, the wine will turn. It will be sour and utterly worthless, unsuitable even to make vinegar.”

  “What about those barrels over there?” asked Rosa, indicating a few barrels shelved on the far wall, unencumbered by wire.

  “Empty.” Then Dante promptly corrected himself. “Empty of wine. Since we can’t fill them with new wine, we fill them with water instead, to prevent the wood from going bad.”

  “So then you do have some hope,” Rosa said, “that someday you’ll be allowed to make wine again.”

  “Some of your friends continue to make wine now,” remarked Lars. “I met one of them last night—Paulo Del Bene. He makes sacramental wines for churches and synagogues. Couldn’t you as well?”

  Dante folded his arms over his chest and shrugged as if he had considered doing so many times. “Perhaps if I had followed my good friend Paulo’s example early on I could have, but we don’t make the type of wine churches and synagogues prefer. It would be an enormous expense to replant my stock and wait years for the vines to mature. I’ve already replaced some of my Zinfandel vines with Alicante Bouschet. The wine they make isn’t as good, but the skins of the berries are thicker and so they’re less likely to bruise or rot during shipment. I can’t tear out those vines, since those are the grapes that are selling, and it would break my heart to uproot my best Zinfandels. The older those vines get, the deeper into the earth their roots go. They draw up minerals from deep within the earth and give my wine its magnificent flavor.” He shook his head. “I can’t uproot any more vines to plant something new. I just couldn’t.”

  “Dante would also have to apply for a special license through the Prohibition Department and receive approval from the church,” said Giuditta. “Paulo Del Bene and the bishop are good friends, so that wasn’t an obstacle for him.”

  “Obstacles,” said Dante. “I’ll give you obstacles. Winemakers with sacramental wine permits already produce more wine than the entire country’s churches could possibly use, and they all have a head start on us. Even if we started today, the effort would likely bankrupt us before we earned a single dollar from sacramental wines.”

  Lars shook his head in sympathy. “Doesn’t sound like you have a lot of options.”

  “I don’t want options. This is the wine I make,” said Dante with fierce, protective pride, spreading his arms as if he would embrace all the barrels arranged before them. “This is the wine my father and grandfather made. This is what I know.” He fixed Lars and Rosa with a piercing, challenging look. “You tell me. How can my life’s work suddenly be wrong when it was never wrong before?”

  Rosa had no words for him. She could only shake her head in helpless, stricken sympathy.

  “Scores of vineyards in the Sonoma and Napa valleys have closed since that law was enacted.” Dante gazed at the wire-bound casks as if they were a beloved burden. “Thousands of grape growers and winemakers have lost their livelihoods. But it’s not only us. Think of it—jobs for migrant pickers are scarce. Brewers, bottle makers, coopers, hops growers, wagon drivers, deliverymen, and on and on—all have been thrown out of work. We may be next.”

  “We won’t be,” said Giuditta softly, but with less conviction than before. “We’ll find a way.”

  Rosa wished she could offer them words of comfort, but they needed help, not cheerful platitudes. Lars was right. The Cacchiones had indeed been hiding something—their uncertainty, their fears, their precarious toehold on the edge of bankruptcy.

  “You understand now, don’t you?” asked Giuditta, taking her husband’s arm. “Our harvest dance last night wasn’t a celebration of our abundance, although of course it’s always proper to be grateful for one’s blessings. It was a commemoration of our very survival. We’re still here. Despite the attempts to ruin us, we’re still here, and we’ll still be here when this madness ends.”

  Dante’s eyes shone as he placed his hands on her cheeks, gazed at her with naked admiration, and kissed her full on the lips. It was such a tender, intimate moment that Rosa had to look away.

  “Ma,” a young man shouted down the stairs from above.

  Dante and Giuditta separated. “Yes, Mario,” Giuditta called back.

  “There’s a bunch of tourists out here, on their way home from one of them resorts on the river. They want to know if they can gather some walnuts for the drive back to the city.”

  “One of those resorts,” Giuditta corrected automatically. “Why, yes, of course. Fetch them some baskets and show them the way. I’ll be right there.” She turned a look of resignation upon Lars and Rosa. “And this is how we’ll stay afloat until Washington comes to its senses.”

  Rosa managed an encouraging nod in response, but she had balanced the books for the Grand Union Hotel back in the Arboles Valley, and it was obvious that the Cacchione Vineyard was a far more complex venture. She doubted the sale of a few pounds of walnuts to passing tourists would suffice to keep it afloat.

  Rosa accompanied Giuditta to the walnut grove while Dante and Lars set out to inspect the different sites Dante was considering for an apricot orchard. After the tourists paid for their walnuts and set off in a roadster that bore an unsettling resemblance to John’s, Giuditta showed Rosa around the kitchen, garden, and outbuildings where in the weeks to come she would spend her days working side by side with the Cacchione family.r />
  Rosa soon realized that she and Lars were very fortunate that Dr. Reynolds had recommended them to the Cacchiones, because she couldn’t have asked for a more ideal place to live and work while Ana and Miguel underwent treatment. She liked the Cacchiones, from the youngest to the eldest, and the beautiful vineyard was as pleasant as their company. Although the days were long, the work was no more difficult than what she was accustomed to—if anything, the routine farm chores seemed easier because they were shared, and she no longer toiled in isolation. She enrolled the girls in school and started sewing quilts for the children’s beds and turning the cabin into a proper home. Lars began planning the apricot orchard on a sunny hillside on the northern hills of the property, but he also worked alongside Dante and his sons in the vineyard, determined to learn all he could about cultivating a crop very different from what he knew.

  Every Wednesday morning, Rosa, Ana, and Miguel rode the train into San Francisco to meet with Dr. Reynolds. Ana grumbled about missing school and spent the entire ride sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest and her nose in a book, but Miguel enjoyed the trips, peering out the windows to watch the passing scenery and studying the train’s features with awestruck fascination. With each examination, Dr. Reynolds noted marked improvement in their health, with one exception—the day after Alegra Del Bene brought her young son over to play, and the well-meaning, generous boy shared half of his jelly sandwich with his new friend. Dr. Reynolds assured Rosa that the effects of Miguel’s lapse would not last, as long as he resumed the banana diet immediately. “Eat only what your mother says you may. No more mistakes,” he warned his patient, and Miguel held his tummy and nodded solemnly.

  One week their examinations ended early, so Rosa decided to visit Mrs. Phillips before catching the train back to Santa Rosa. Their former landlady greeted them with delight and marveled at how healthy and robust Ana and Miguel had become since she had last seen them. She served the children bananas sliced on pretty china plates and milk in teacups, offering scones and tea with honey to Rosa. As they chatted, Rosa noted with some satisfaction that not once did Mrs. Phillips refer to them as “poor little dears.”

  As they were leaving, Rosa spotted a newspaper folded on an armchair in the parlor and on an impulse asked if she might borrow it to read on the train. “I’d like to see if there’s any news from home,” she explained.

  Mrs. Phillips clucked sympathetically. “You must miss it terribly. Well, from the look of things—” She paused to beam at the children. “They’ll finish their treatment soon and you’ll be able to return home. Of course you may take the paper. Would you like me to keep an eye out for stories about Oxnard from now on? I’d be happy to save them for you until your next visit.”

  Rosa gladly accepted her offer—adding, as an aside, that she had family in the Arboles Valley and would be interested in news from there too—and promised to stop by again soon. Tucking the paper into her coat pocket and taking each of the children by the hand, she bade Mrs. Phillips good-bye, promising to bring her some walnuts on her next visit.

  The excitement of the day had worn out Miguel, and he slept most of the ride home, resting his head on Rosa’s lap while she read the newspaper above him. As she skimmed the pages, a bold headline suddenly caught her eye: “Attempted Murder Charges Against Postmaster Dismissed.”

  Her heart plummeted. “Dios mío.”

  “What is it, Mamá?” asked Ana.

  “Nada, mija,” she said, shifting the paper so Ana would not glimpse her father’s name and demand the truth. Dubious, Ana returned her attention to her book as Rosa read the article, her hands trembling so much that the words on the page blurred and ran together. Despite the presence of irrefutable witnesses and the testimony of shooting victim Henry Nelson, prosecutors had been forced to drop attempted murder charges against John Barclay due to a technicality. He remained in custody on charges of racketeering, but his lawyer said he intended to plead not guilty and was confident that he would prevail in court.

  Rosa carefully folded the paper and set it aside as if nothing were amiss, and then she held herself perfectly still, staring straight ahead, scarcely able to breathe. A technicality. There was no question that John had shot Henry and had threatened to kill Lars, and yet if not for the contraband the officers had found in his hayloft, he would be a free man. Her blood ran cold with shock and fear, and not even the welcome news that Elizabeth’s husband was evidently on the mend offered her any solace.

  Until that moment, Rosa had not realized how much her hopes for a safe and happy future for her children had depended upon John being confined to prison for the rest of his life.

  She dared not speak and allow her shaking voice to betray her fear and disbelief. Ana too was quiet, but Rosa assumed she was engrossed in her book until, just as they passed through the El Verano station, she marked her place with her finger and closed her book on her lap. “Mamá?”

  “Yes, mija?”

  “We aren’t really going home after Miguel and I are better, are we?”

  Rosa considered her words carefully. “No, mija, we aren’t.”

  “Are we ever going back?”

  Rosa did not see how they would ever be safe to do so. “I don’t think so. I’m sorry.”

  “No, that’s fine. I don’t want to,” Ana said quickly, opening her book again. “I like the cabin better. My new teacher’s nicer than my old teacher. I like the Cacchiones and I like Mr. Jorgensen.”

  “I like them too.” And she desperately wanted to keep them out of danger.

  She put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and Ana snuggled up closer to her, smiling with contentment as she lost herself in her book again. The train steamed ahead, but their destination no longer felt like a safe haven to Rosa.

  She inhaled deeply and stroked Miguel’s hair, willing herself to remain calm. She could not allow herself to be swept away by the flood of fear that crashed down upon her. She must hold fast and let it wash over her and back out to sea, as she had done before when danger and despair threatened.

  • • •

  When Isabel died, Rosa might have succumbed to that undertow of grief were it not for her children, whose needs outweighed her own.

  Like their siblings before them, Ana and Maria had seen every doctor in the Arboles Valley to no avail, and John refused to allow Rosa to take them beyond the valley. Frustrated, Rosa nonetheless remained undaunted. She remembered that a guest had left behind a Los Angeles business directory at the Grand Union Hotel, so she borrowed it from Mrs. Diegel and wrote to every doctor listed, describing the children’s symptoms and begging them for advice.

  One day, she was out back weeding the garden and puzzling out how she might obtain similar directories for Oxnard and Santa Barbara when she heard a car approaching the front of the house. “Marta, please watch your sisters and the baby until I get back,” she called, brushing the soil from her hands and glancing into the bassinet where Pedro slept peacefully. Tucking a stray lock of hair back underneath her kerchief, she rounded the corner of the adobe and spotted the Jorgensens’ Model T parked near the barn. The driver emerged, tall and thin, with fair hair visible beneath his hat. For a moment she wondered who Oscar’s new hired hand was; a heartbeat later, she recognized Lars.

  Riveted in place, she watched, scarcely able to breathe, as he crossed the gravel driveway to come to her, his worn boots kicking up clouds of dust.

  He looked weather-beaten, thin and weary, as if he had aged far more than the seven years that had passed since she had last seen him. When he was still a couple of yards away, he halted, removed his hat, and regarded her somberly. “My condolences on the loss of your mother,” he said, his voice rougher than she remembered and yet achingly familiar. “I came as soon as I heard.”

  Where had he been, she wondered, that it had taken six weeks for word to reach him? Or had he gone so far abroad that he had needed all that time for the journey home? “I’m sure your family was happy to see you,”
she managed to say. As far as she knew, Lars had not returned to the Arboles Valley since his departure seven years before, not once. In all the time he had been away, the Jorgensens had never sent him a letter through the Arboles Valley Post Office, nor had she seen his familiar handwriting on any envelope she had sorted into the Jorgensens’ mail bundle. Either Lars and his family had not exchanged a single letter throughout his long absence, or they had found another way to correspond, one that did not require the Barclays’ involvement.

  “They were, and I was glad to see them,” Lars replied. “How are your father and Carlos bearing up?”

  “I don’t know.” Their eyes met for a moment, but Rosa quickly dropped her gaze. “They don’t speak to me.” She was surprised his brother had not told him. Everyone in the valley knew of the longstanding estrangement, even if they misunderstood the cause.

  “I’m sorry.” Frowning, Lars put his hat back on and eyed the rye fields, thick and golden beneath the warm August sun. “Where’s your husband?”

  “At the hardware store, picking up a part for the harvester.” She took a deep breath to marshal her courage, and as she exhaled, she said in a rush, “Do you want to meet Marta?”

  Immediately Lars returned his gaze to Rosa’s face. “Marta’s your eldest.”

  Rosa bit her lips together and nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’d like that very much.”

  Rosa led him around to the back of the house. Near the garden, Marta knelt beside the bassinet, tickling Pedro’s chin with a long blade of grass gone to seed. Even from afar Rosa heard his happy squeals and saw his plump legs kick with delight. Nearby, Ana and Maria lay on their backs gazing up at the sky, inventing names and histories for the aerial creatures they spied in the clouds. Marta looked up as they approached, beaming and beautiful, and she tilted her head in friendly curiosity at the sight of Lars.