Carina looked at the bowl of large gray prawns, their legs like stunted tentacles gathered in the curl of their bodies. “Shall I devein them?” She reached for the small sharp knife when Mamma nodded. What would Quillan think of prawns? Fried with butter and oregano and lemon until they turned pink and firm, their edges crisp and golden. She closed her eyes and pictured his expression as he filled his mouth with a new flavor.
“What is it?” Mamma touched her hand.
Carina opened her eyes, picked up a thin-shelled prawn. “I was thinking how Quillan would look when he tried it for the first time.”
“Has he had no shrimp?” Mamma swabbed the marble counter with a hot cloth.
Carina shrugged. “He never saw a crab until San Francisco.”
“What did he think of it?”
“He thought it tasted better than it looked.” She dangled the prawn from her fingers. “He has a point.”
Mamma laughed. “That’s why we don’t allow men in the kitchen.
It’s better they don’t know.”
Carina sliced the blade down the back side of the prawn, splitting the shell and cutting shallowly into the translucent flesh beneath. With the tip of the knife she lifted out the thin blue vein that was really the animal’s intestine. Why was it a woman could deal with that thought, but Tony and others grew pale, contending they would never touch a prawn again—until, of course, a plate of them was set sizzling before them in savory buttery sauce.
“Quillan would try anything I make. He loves to watch me cook.”
“You’ve let him in your kitchen?” Mamma slapped the cloth onto the counter with a soft plop.
Carina pictured Mae’s kitchen with the long board table where she had served Quillan that first meal of cannelloni, how he had lingered over each bite. What would Mamma think that she had fed him right there at the table where she prepared it? And then the time he had watched her make the ravioli, mixing the pasta with her fingers, the intensity in his eyes as he watched.
She smiled. “Yes, Mamma. Quillan is welcome in my kitchen.”
Mamma stared at her a long moment. “Then where can you be separate?”
Carina considered that. She knew what Mamma was asking. Where was her woman’s place, her refuge from a husband’s expectations, her place to control, to rule. She picked up a second prawn. “I don’t want to be separate. I want to be one.” She looked up into Mamma’s face. She had no doubt Mamma loved Papa, but she had never fought for that love as Carina had. Could she understand?
Brows raised, Mamma lifted the cloth and squeezed the excess water into the washbowl. “You are naïve, Carina.” She smiled. “But maybe . . .
not so much, eh?”
Carina laughed. “You should see him, Mamma. He watches me as though I speak the lasagne into being. He says it’s magic. He thinks my fingers are magic.”
Again Mamma paused. “Is it possible—could it be I’ve missed something all these years?” She looked around the room where the women had always gathered to prepare meal after meal, their world.
“What are you thinking, Mamma?” Carina held the knife poised over the fragile shell.
“I’m trying to imagine your papa in here watching me.” She slowly folded the cloth and laid it on the edge of the counter.
“And?” Carina held her breath.
“I would take a spoon to him.”
“Mamma!”
Mamma shook her head, laughing. “It’s no use, Carina. Your papa could no more sit in here than I could tell him how to grow his vines or cure his patients. We are what we are.”
“But, Mamma . . .”
“No, Carina. Some things don’t change. Maybe . . . maybe it’s different with your man. He is not . . .”
“Italian?”
Mamma shrugged. “Who can explain the humors that flow in the blood?” She rested her hands on the counter. “If you had chosen Flavio . . .”
Carina met her mother’s eyes. Would she be condemned again? Would this time of connecting end here with that name mentioned?
Mamma sighed. “Flavio would not have watched you cook, Carina.” Her heart swelled. It was true. Flavio was her own kind, but she had chosen Quillan, or God had.
“Your home will not be the same as mine.” There was a wistful note in Mamma’s voice.
“Not so different, Mamma.”
Smile lines crinkled at her mamma’s eyes. “Not in the bedroom, eh?”
Carina looked up, startled.
“Not when your sons come, nor your daughters.”
Carina’s heart constricted. “I don’t know, Mamma.” Her cycle was again irregular. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d bled.
Mamma waved her hand. “Your husband is capable still. I asked Papa.”
Carina flushed. Her parents had discussed that? She swallowed the pain in her throat. “It’s not Quillan I’m worried about. After my miscarriage Dr. Felden was unsure if I could—”
“Don’t say it, Carina. Of course you can.” Mamma crossed herself, then sobered. “It must have been awful.”
Carina nodded slowly, tears stinging her eyes. And then she was in Mamma’s arms, the knife and prawn lying where she dropped them, and the scent of Mamma’s lemon water and the soft flesh of her throat against Carina’s face. She poured out the story of the terrible men and her own temper and the disastrous price her baby had paid. She sobbed.
“Cara mia.” Mamma stroked her hair. “And where was your Quillan?”
Carina sniffed. “Away.”
Mamma rocked her. “Ah, tesora . . .” She dropped a tear of her own to Carina’s face. “If you can forgive him that, you must truly love him.”
“With all my heart, Mamma.”
Her mamma pressed her face to Carina’s hair. “Then God will provide, eh? You hear, Signore? Give them a child again.” She squeezed Carina and released her.
Carina laughed, suddenly seeing that Mamma’s scolding was really a deep belief that God could and would answer her prayer. Carina knew God would do as He saw best, but silently her heart added its own plea.
“I’ll finish the prawns. You go wash your face.”
Carina sniffed, grateful for the release the tears had given, but ready to be through with it. She went to the bathhouse and washed, then toweled her face dry and drew in a deep settling breath. God was good. His perfect will would be done. Surely she and Quillan would both recover. She just had to be patient.
She went outside and drank in the spring scent of waking earth, budding and blooming shrubs and bulbs and nut trees. The Gravenstein apple trees would soon be profuse with blossoms and the scent from the rows of forty orange trees just behind the barn indescribable. Everywhere life quickened, and she had to believe it God’s promise that hers and Quillan’s too would be restored.
Feeling almost buoyant, she wanted to see Ti’Giuseppe. Quillan had taken so much of her time and concern that— “Mrs. Shepard!”
Carina turned in surprise.
“I am so glad to find you.” Mr. Pierce hurried over from the gates outside the courtyard. “I’ve come every day, but your brothers turned me away. I can only hope it isn’t at your bequest?”
She was too surprised to be anything but truthful. “I didn’t know you had come. What is it you want?” She only hoped her tears didn’t show again.
He looked exasperated. “I heard about the accident, but no one seems to know what happened. The men at the quarry shake their heads and mumble with side glances at each other; but get a straight answer?
I’d have to be Socrates.”
“Mr. Pierce—”
“Now don’t put me off, Mrs. Shepard. Quillan and I have a deal, and I find it my duty—”
“A deal?” She dropped her hands to her sides. “What deal?”
“His story, of course. I told you I had an opportunity.”
“Yes, but—” She spread her hands wide. “Quillan agreed?”
“Of course.”
She looked at him p
robingly. How much of this was bluster? “My husband was badly injured.”
“How badly?”
She shook her head. “The wagon fell on top of him.”
“How? How did it fall?”
“An explosion.”
He pulled the ever-present pad from his pocket. “What caused the explosion?”
She looked into Mr. Pierce’s face. Was it any of his business? Did he have a right to their misery? “You’ll have to ask Quillan.”
He nodded sharply. “That’s all I want. To speak to him.”
Unsnagging the hem of her skirt from a honeysuckle bush, she looked back toward the house. “I don’t know. Papa will have to decide.”
“Mrs. Shepard . . .”
She recognized the cajoling tone and turned back, annoyed. “Mr.
Pierce, my husband was nearly killed. My papa is the finest surgeon around. Maybe no one else could have brought him through. I will let him decide.”
Mr. Pierce backed up one step, with his palms raised. “All right, all right. But ask, will you? Ask Quillan when we can meet.”
She stared at him. How did one become so insensitive and bullheaded? He removed his hat and fanned his face. “One more thing. Was it your lover who injured him?”
Her breath came out in a rush of indignation. “My lover?”
“I asked around. Flavio Caldrone . . .”
“Flavio—was not—my lover.” She punctuated each phrase with a step in his direction.
“You were betrothed.”
He was not as tall as Quillan, but she was aware of her diminutive size in comparison, mainly because she considered slapping him. Instead, she eyed him as she might a particularly odious reptile. “Mr. Pierce, you overstep yourself.”
“It must be painful to be the cause of your husband’s tragedy.”
The breath left her lungs in a huff. “Painful? This is painful!” She kicked his shin with everything in her.
Hopping backward, he gripped his leg and howled, even dropping his pad into the dirt.
She snatched it up. “Now get off my land.” With a flourish of skirts, she stalked toward the tiny cottage beside the barn.
“Mrs. Shepard.” He gasped, limping behind. “I meant no disrespect.”
No disrespect? Seething, she gained Ti’Giuseppe’s door, yanked it open, and turned. “Go away, or I’ll have my uncle blow your head off.”
Mr. Pierce stopped. “Well, all right, then. Tell Quillan I want to see him.” He straightened his pants leg, gathering what dignity he could.
She went in and closed the door in his face. Ti’Giuseppe sat by the fire with a smile as wide as his ears, bare gums and all. She took the stool at his side. “I kicked him, Tio.”
“Good, good. Nosy one, that.”
“Did he talk to you?”
Giuseppe nodded. “Wandered this way when Tony wouldn’t let him in the gate.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Eh?”
“I said, what did you tell him?”
“Eh?” Giuseppe burst into a wicked laugh.
Carina’s mouth dropped open, and she laughed full chested as she hadn’t in a long time. “Oh, Tio.” She flung her arms around him and squeezed.
“How is he, your man?”
Carina sighed. “Better, but frustrated he can’t do everything for himself. He doesn’t like to be helped.”
Again Giuseppe laughed. “Then he’ll learn more than he might have.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Life stripped of any consequence, brings one to aching cognizance.
Strength once commanding reality; Keen, now, the mind knows futility.
—Quillan
QUILLAN WINCED ONLY SLIGHTLY when Dr. DiGratia unbound his arm and probed the collarbone. He imagined the doctor’s fingers like insect antennae sending information to the brain as his mouth puckered slightly in concentration, and the tendons in his gray-haired forearms rippled with each movement of the fingers.
“Better, eh?” the doctor said.
“Yes,” Quillan grudgingly admitted.
Dr. DiGratia pointed to the other arm still in the cast. “That one was a compound fracture. The bone broke through the flesh. It will take longer. But at least you will have one arm now to use.”
“Thank you.” These last weeks had reduced him to gratitude for the smallest things. Being allowed to fumble about left-handed would be significant. He moved his arm, dismayed by its weakness.
“Atrophy. The muscle will come back with time.”
Time. Had it ever hung so heavily and passed so slowly? Quillan no longer had the benefit of invalid exhaustion to sleep away these helpless days. Even the pain had diminished, and nothing was offered to lull him. He chafed as he had never chafed before. His own body held him trapped. Sometimes the terror was inexpressible, but during the day he did his best to hide it.
The doctor left, and Carina came in smelling flowery and fresh as the breeze the dottore had let in the window once the morning mists evaporated. “Come stai?” She kissed his lips.
How was he? He caught her neck with his freed hand and kissed her back. “Sto bene—no, benissimo!” He kissed her again.
She laughed, catching his hand between hers. “You have your arm free?”
“And good as a wet noodle.”
She kissed his fingers. “It will strengthen. How are your ribs?”
“Fit as a fiddle—as long as I don’t move or breathe.”
“Still sore, eh?” She cupped his face in her palm.
“Not so bad.” Even the abdominal surgery seemed to be healing well. He was able to raise himself with help. His hip no longer pained him, but it was the leg no one mentioned. It throbbed in the night, and Quillan noted the sickly yellow toes. If holding his arm inert these weeks could render it limp, what would the leg be like when they took the plaster off? “You don’t suppose you could spring me loose, do you?”
“Why would you want to be?” She kissed his forehead, but this time he didn’t hold her there.
That was the crux of it. Carina was perfectly content now that her flock had swooped him into their midst. She didn’t understand that he belonged there no more than he had at the start. And he had no remaining inclination to belong. He learned the language because it was easy and Carina enjoyed speaking it with him, but not because he wanted to be one of them. Jesus was the vine, Quillan the branch—and Carina, too, God help him. But the rest of them could be pruned away, and good riddance. No matter what she said about independence and surrender.
“You’re anxious.”
“Yes, I am.”
She threaded his hair with her fingers. “Healing takes time.”
“Well, I don’t have time. I need to work, now that . . .”
“That what?” She tipped his chin up with a look of pure indulgence.
He felt a spiteful surge. “Now that everything I have is destroyed.”
“A wagon, Quillan. It was only a wagon.”
He shook his head. “No, Carina. Everything I had was in that wagon. Every dollar I’d earned except those washed away by the flood. It was all burned to ashes, every cent.”
She stared at him. “You kept your money in your wagon?”
“I had a special box built into the frame just above the axle.”
“You didn’t have it in a bank?”
He dropped his eyes, then shot them up defiantly. “Carina, I was there when Shane Dennison cleaned out that bank.”
“He didn’t get away with it.”
“He has since.”
She shook her head uncomprehending. “So the money from the mine . . .”
“And everything else I earned freighting.” Quillan spread his fingers.
“Up in smoke.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed. “How much was it? No, don’t tell me; I don’t want to know.”
“Fifty-four thousand dollars.”
She dropped her face into her hands and started to shake. He thought she wa
s weeping until he realized with annoyance it was laughter he heard. She could laugh—now that everything they had, that would have bought them land and a living was gone?
She looked up, still mirthful. “Oh, Quillan, God is merciful.”
He shook his head, dumbfounded.
“I know you. I see the wheels turning in your mind. As soon as you are well it would have been off to Alaska or someplace to make your own way and the devil take the world. Now? Now maybe you will see that there are those willing and able to help.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ll see.” She started to stand.
He caught her wrist. “See what, Carina?”
She tugged gently until she freed herself. “Is there anything I can bring you?”
He swallowed his frustration. “Yes. The things from my room at the Union Hotel. My journal and Cain’s Bible and the books. Bring it all. There’s no sense keeping the room when I can’t pay for it.” He scowled.
She smiled serenely. “I’ll be glad to.” And she left as though he had just told her the finest news imaginable. Never, as long as he lived, would he understand the mind of his wife.
Carina’s heart sang. Before, she could not imagine how she was going to get Quillan to accept Papa’s gift, but now? He had little choice now! Ti’Giuseppe hitched the small buggy, and she rode into the plaza and pulled up at the hotel where Quillan had been staying. She marched in to the counter. “Good day, Mr. Renault. I need to collect my husband’s things.”
Mr. Renault tucked his watch back into his vest pocket. “Is he finished with the room then? He hadn’t given word so I’ve been compelled to charge it each night to his account.”
“How much does he owe you?”
“I’ll tally the bill.” He penciled the figures and handed her the slip.
“I will bring you payment.” She tucked the paper into her wrist purse and held out her hand for the key.
“I’ll send a man up to carry it all down.”
“Thank you.”
He cleared his throat. “How is he, if I may ask? Rumor is rampant.”
She smiled. “He is improving, thank you.”
“I’ll tell your friend.”
She turned. “My friend?”
The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine Page 36