Elm Creek Quilts [10] The Quilter's Homecoming (11 page)

Mrs. Diegel gestured to the doorway. “Then you’ll need your rest.”

Elizabeth followed Mrs. Diegel from the kitchen, through the dining room, and back into the parlor, where Mrs. Diegel paused to pack up her sewing. As she folded her Nine-Patch quilt block and tucked it into her sewing basket, Elizabeth glimpsed scraps of a familiar fabric.

Impulsively, she asked, “May I see that?”

“The quilt block?” Mrs. Diegel unfolded it and smoothed out the creases on her open palms. “It’s just a simple Nine-Patch. I’m not much of a quilter, but I must keep my guests warm.”

“It’s very well done,” said Elizabeth generously, sparing a once-over for the block before peering into the basket. “Would you be willing to swap scraps? I could bring my sewing basket to breakfast and let you take your pick of my collection.”

“There’s no need to trade.” Mrs. Diegel folded back the lid of the basket and held it out to Elizabeth. “Take whatever you need if you can put it to good use.”

Elizabeth took the basket, hesitant. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want you to run out.”

“I have plenty of scraps already. These are too small for the quilts I make, but I’m too frugal to throw them out. I’m glad to find a better use for them.”

“Thank you.” Elizabeth took out two pieces each of three different cotton prints—a shirting fabric, a demure floral, and a cheerful blue-and-white check.

“You’re very welcome.” Mrs. Diegel closed the basket. “Now, don’t stay up all night sewing this quilt of yours. I suspect you have a busy day ahead.”

Elizabeth promised she wouldn’t, an easy promise to keep because she hadn’t nearly enough fabric to begin the quilt that a glimpse of Mrs. Diegel’s scraps had inspired her to make. As soon as Elizabeth spotted them in the sewing basket, she knew they must be left over from the innkeeper’s sewing for the Grand Union Hotel. The brown-and-white pinstriped fabric matched the shirtwaist dress Mrs. Diegel had worn when she welcomed the Nelsons in the lobby. The pretty chintz floral was identical to the pillowcases in the little room she and Henry shared. The blue-and-white check must have been trimmed from the tablecloth in the dining room where they had enjoyed their first meal in the Arboles Valley, sharing a delicious chicken and dumpling supper with the other guests. Each of those scraps held a special memory for Elizabeth. She would collect others—a piece from the silk scarf she had bought at Venice Beach, the trimmings left over from when she hemmed her skirts on the train west—and stitch them together into a patchwork of memories, a record of their journey. It would be only fitting for such a quilt to be the first she would make on Triumph Ranch.

1889

It took Miguel Diaz three years to convince Isabel to marry him. The first year went to making up for the bad impression he had made on her sixteenth birthday. Once he persuaded her to tolerate him, he needed a second year to win her heart. He rejoiced the day she confessed she loved him, too, unaware that this did not mean she would agree to become his wife. One more full year passed in which he felt as if he were taking her by the hand and cajoling her to take small steps out her front door and into the sunlight.

Her father was no help. Whenever the couple brought up the subject of marriage, her father spoke of how much her brother and sister needed her. How would they manage without Isabel to care for them? How would
he
manage? He had no wife. He worked from daybreak to sunset to provide for his family. Without their mother, without Isabel, the family would fall apart.

Whenever her father spoke this way, Isabel reluctantly set aside any thought of leaving. Miguel wanted to admire her loyalty, but he was becoming impatient. Would he have to wait for the old man to die—God forgive him for such a thought—before he could make Isabel his wife? Miguel promised her they would live close enough that she could check on her father and sister and brother every day if she wished. He would welcome her father into their home if that was what he had to do. Isabel listened to his assurances and told him, wistfully, that they needed to wait, to wait and see. Perhaps someday the time would be right.

The day finally came on her sister’s birthday. “She’s sixteen today,” Miguel remarked, watching from the kitchen chair as Isabel mixed up batter for a birthday cake. “She’s the same age you were when I saw you buying ice cream at the Arboles Grocery.”

Isabel smiled, remembering. “Yes, that’s right.” Then her smile faded.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have reminded you,” said Miguel ruefully.

“After working so hard to make you forget it—”

But Isabel did not seem to hear him. “At her age, I was taking care of the whole family. I had left school. I was so lonely.”

Not like her sister, who excelled at school, flourished in her circle of friends, and insisted that after graduating, she would go to college and become a teacher. Miguel wondered what dreams Isabel had cherished in her heart at sixteen, dreams that she had been unable to fulfill. Did she hope someday to make them come true, or had she abandoned them?

“Your brother and sister are old enough to take care of themselves now,” he told her.

“Yes, but my father—” Her spoon clattered against the side of the mixing bowl. “Don’t you see? If I leave, my sister will take my place. There will be no graduation for her, no college, no classroom of her own, no love of her own. I can’t do that to her.”

“Isabel, listen to me.” Miguel took her hands. “Your father can look after himself. Your sister knows that. She won’t fall into that trap.”

Isabel tore her hands from his. “Is that how you see me? I’m not trapped. This is my choice. My family needs me. I can’t walk away from my duties. This is what my mother would want.”

“Would she?” asked Miguel gently. “You
are
locked in a trap, and you’re carrying the key in your own pocket. Are you sure that’s what your mother would want?”

Miguel’s words haunted Isabel long after he went home. She could not bear to think that he pitied her. She did not want him to think that caring for her family was a burden. It was not the life she would have chosen, but neither would her mother have chosen to die.

Isabel was so subdued during the family birthday party for her sister that her brother asked if she was feeling ill. “I am, a little,” she said. “I think I’ll go to bed early.”

The next morning, she remained in bed long after she should have risen to fix her father’s breakfast. She heard him moving around the kitchen but feigned sleep when he came to her doorway. Finally he rapped softly on the door. “Isabel,” he whispered. “Are you all right?”

“I’m not feeling well.” It was no lie. She had not felt well since Miguel told her she was trapped.

Her father hesitated in the doorway. “Can you make breakfast?”

Annoyance flared. “No,” she said, a trifle harder than a sick woman should have been able to manage.

After a significant pause, her father shuffled off to the kitchen to find something to eat. Silently Isabel wished him luck, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

She woke to sunlight streaming through the windows. After stretching luxuriously beneath her favorite quilt, the one her mother had made as a young bride-to-be, she was struck by the realization that her brother and sister had allowed her to sleep in rather than waking her to fix their breakfasts, pack their lunches, and send them off to school. They would not have risen until after their father had left for the dairy, so he could not have told them Isabel was very sick. Perhaps they had assumed as much, because Isabel had never let illness keep her in bed before. Or perhaps—and this was a more troubling thought—they had let her sleep in because, like Miguel, they felt sorry for her.

She ate a light breakfast on the back patio and spent the rest of the day working on a Double Nine-Patch quilt she was making to use up scraps. It was bright, colorful, and cheerful, and when she had begun piecing the first blocks, she imagined spreading it over the bed she would share with Miguel after they married. How quickly she had sewn those first dozen blocks, as if that would speed her wedding day. Now she knew that unless she stood firm, she would have all the time in the world to complete her wedding quilt—all the time, and none of the necessity.

When she expected her brother home from school, she put the quilt away and hurried back to bed. He checked in on her, feeling her forehead and offering to bring her a glass of orange juice, as she always did for him whenever he did not feel well. He was so sweet and courteous that she felt guilty for deceiving him, but a sudden recovery would raise too many questions, so she stayed in bed.

Her sister came home soon after, toting an armload of books. She perched on the edge of Isabel’s bed and asked about her symptoms, frowning studiously at Isabel’s carefully worded, vague replies. She only wanted a day off, not a diagnosis that would alarm the people she loved.

Her father came home just as the sun was going down. Isabel listened to his footfalls from her bedroom and heard him come to an abrupt halt in the kitchen. The sight of an empty table where he had always found a meal waiting before had apparently confounded him.

When he came to her doorway, she pretended to be asleep. Rather than disturb her, he moved on to the front room, where her sister was curled up in a chair with a biology textbook on loan from her teacher.

“I’m home,” he told her, somewhat mournfully.

“Hi, Papi. How was your day?”

“Good, good. Busy.” He hesitated. “It’s suppertime.”

“I’m not hungry. I ate when I came home from school.”

“Well, I’m hungry, and I’m sure your brother is, too,” he said.

“Will you make us something to eat?”

“Sorry, Papi, but I have to finish this book tonight. My teacher has to return it to her college’s library tomorrow.”

“Oh. Of course.” Papi respected teachers and was proud of his bright daughter’s achievements. He would never ask her to set a schoolbook aside. “Well…I guess I’ll fix myself something.”

Before long, Isabel heard the frying pan sizzling on the stove and her father call her brother to the table. They even washed the dishes afterward.

The next morning, Isabel was miraculously cured. She prepared breakfast cheerfully and sent her siblings off to school, then hurried off to see Miguel. By the time her family returned home to supper waiting on the table like always, she and Miguel were engaged.

They married three months later. Her father turned out to be a fine cook, and fairly good at keeping house and doing laundry. At Christmas, he prepared tamales from memories pieced together of his wife and mother and grandmother in their kitchens, taking two days to cook enough for the family and to share with friends. Isabel’s brother swore they were much better than Isabel’s and nearly as good as those their mother had once made.

Isabel, who had not finished her wedding quilt in time after all, was happy to agree.

1925

T
he next morning Elizabeth rose at dawn full of anticipation and as energetic as if she had slept soundly the entire night. Henry had risen even earlier and dressed in his second-best suit. He sat on the bed going over their papers for Triumph Ranch while Elizabeth quickly washed and dressed. They were the first guests to the breakfast table and the first to finish eating. Afterward, Henry arranged for Mrs. Diegel’s handyman, Carlos, to drive them to the post office. They would take their overnight bags with them and arrange to pick up the rest of their luggage later that day.

Cool mists shrouded the hotel grounds when the Nelsons met the handyman in the garage, but he assured them they would burn off by midmorning. “They always do,” he said. “Except during the winter. Then they might linger all day—or turn into rain.”

“You have winter here?” asked Elizabeth as she climbed into the car.

“
Sí,
we do.” Carlos grinned. “Maybe not so bad as what you have back east, but we do have winter, even here.”

“Does it ever snow?” asked Henry.

“Only on the mountaintops.”

“Then it can’t be too bad,” said Elizabeth, hoping it was so. “Perhaps California winters only seem cold to you because you’re used to Mexican winters.”

Carlos was silent for a moment. “That might be so, except I was born in the Arboles Valley. I am a sixth-generation Californian on my mother’s side.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Elizabeth, abashed. “From your appearance and accent I assumed—Please forgive me. I have this terrible habit of making a fool of myself by speaking on subjects I know nothing about.”

“I’m not offended,” said Carlos, with a tolerant chuckle. “You’re not the first to make that mistake and I doubt you’ll be the last.”

The car rumbled over the cobblestone driveway and back onto the road they had taken across the valley the day before. They turned north at the intersection instead of heading back east toward the Norwegian Grade. It was a smooth, gently descending ride from the foothills though oak groves and past the outer pastures of farms. After a mile or two, Carlos turned east onto a dirt road.

“Do you know Mr. Barclay well?” Henry asked.

Carlos shrugged. “He’s married to my sister.”

Elizabeth took it as a bad sign that he did not continue. “Is he an able postmaster?”

“He fulfills his duties competently.”

“I would have expected higher praise from a brother-in-law.”

Carlos gave her a sidelong glance before returning his attention to the road ahead. “You’re right.”

“About what?”

“You do have a terrible habit.”

Henry let out a loud guffaw. Elizabeth was about to protest when a small, one-story farmhouse, a larger barn, and several smaller outbuildings came into view. Carlos turned the car onto a narrow, dirt road in poor repair. Elizabeth saw his gaze leap from a broken fence to a half-plowed field. “He plows later each year,” Carlos grumbled softly, as if to himself. “And fewer acres.”

He said nothing more as they topped a low rise and pulled up in front of a tidy wood and adobe structure.
ARBOLES VALLEY POST OFFICE
proclaimed a signpost hammered in the ground beside a walkway of worn wooden planks. Two little girls about four and twelve years old played jacks on the hard-packed earth near the front steps, where another girl of about eight sat watching them listlessly. Their floral calico dresses appeared handmade but deftly stitched, and their dark brown hair was neatly braided. The girls were a solemn-eyed welcoming committee, but they brightened at the sight of Carlos. Somewhere inside the house, a toddler wailed weakly.

“Your nieces are beautiful,” said Elizabeth, and in his proud smile she saw that her earlier gaffe had been forgotten.

“I’ll wait here with
mis pequeñas preciosas
while you conduct your business,” said Carlos as the two jack players came running. He scooped up the youngest and swung her high in the air as the older girl flung her arms around his waist. On the steps, the middle girl sat up straighter and beamed at her uncle, barely registering the Nelsons’ approach.

Henry rapped on the front door. “Papi’s in the barn,” said the middle girl, her gaze fixed on her uncle.

At that moment, the door opened and a woman holding a baby on her shoulder peered cautiously outside. “Yes?” she said, her wary gaze darting from Henry’s face to Elizabeth’s. With her dark lustrous hair and regal features, she looked to be no more than ten years older than Elizabeth, yet her eyes seemed to have witnessed all the grief of the world. She would have been beautiful if not for those eyes. The baby, a tiny bundle with a dark cap of black curls, lay limply upon his mother’s shoulder.

“Good morning,” said Henry. “We have business with the land office.”

The woman did not seem to hear. Her gaze rested upon Carlos, playing with his two nieces in the dusty yard. “
Buenos días,
Carlos,” she said to him, so quietly that Elizabeth doubted he would have heard.

But Carlos halted and turned to face her, his expression unreadable. “
Buenos días,
Rosa.” His eyes fell upon the baby on her shoulder. “Miguel has fallen ill?”

His sister shrugged and attempted a smile, but it was a bitter grimace. “He is two. He had two blessed years.”

Anger flashed in Carlos’s eyes. He muttered something in Spanish but broke off abruptly at the sight of his nieces. Sick at heart, Elizabeth looked upon the tiny child with shock and dismay. At his age, Elizabeth’s cousins had been twice his size, and his illness, whatever it was, had apparently not been unexpected.

“Have you called the doctor?” asked Carlos in a flat voice.

“Of course, but what good will that do?” Suddenly Rosa seemed to remember the Nelsons. “My husband is in the barn. If you care to wait here, I’ll get him for you.”

“That’s all right,” said Henry quickly. “We’ll find him ourselves.”

Rosa nodded, withdrew into the house, and shut the door. Elizabeth trailed after Henry to the barn, mulling over the short exchange between brother and sister, wondering why Carlos had not gone inside with Rosa.

They found John Barclay in the barn, wrench in hand, tightening bolts on a tiller. He looked up when the Nelsons entered and wiped his hands on a rag. Henry introduced himself and Elizabeth and explained that they had come to collect the deed of trust that was being held for them in the land office.

John Barclay looked puzzled. “I’m not holding any deeds of trust at the moment,” he said. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Nelson. Henry Nelson. From Pennsylvania. Back in December, I bought the Rancho Triunfo from Vicente Rodriguez through J. T. Simmons, a land agent from Pittsburgh.”

“Aw, hell, not again.” John Barclay flung his rag down in disgust. “I suppose you have some documents to show me?”

Henry nodded and retrieved them from the pocket of his suitcoat. John looked them over, shaking his head. Elizabeth tried not to wince at the greasy fingerprints he left on the parchment.

“There’s no good way to say this, so I’ll just tell you straight out.” John thrust the papers back at Henry. “You’ve been had.”

Henry returned a blank stare. “What?”

“You’ve been had. There’s no Rancho Triunfo, at least, not anymore. Vicente Rodriguez was my wife’s great-grandfather. He died years ago. The land you paid for has been in the Jorgensen family for three generations.”

“But…” Henry seemed to struggle for words. “We have a signed contract. A map. Photographs.”

“Forgeries.” John rustled the worthless papers. “Go on. Take them. They won’t do me any good.”

Numbly, Henry did.

“You said, ‘Not again,’ ” said Elizabeth.

“This J. T. Simmons character sold this property to two others before you. First fellow was from South Bend, Indiana. Second was from Cleveland. I guess he’s working his way east.” John spat into the dirt and took up his wrench again. “I swear I’d throttle him if I could get my hands on him. Why he chose to make this my problem, I surely don’t know.”

“Your problem?” echoed Henry in a strangled voice. “I gave every cent I owned to that man.”

John Barclay hesitated, scratched the back of his neck, and frowned in what might have been sympathy. “I hate to say it, but you can kiss that money good-bye. Though I guess it’s too late for that, since it’s already gone.” He eyed them for a moment. “Unless you folks have a letter to mail, I’ve got work to do.”

With trembling hands, Elizabeth gave him the letters she had written the night before. John stuffed them into his pocket and was back to turning wrenches before the Nelsons left the barn. Outside in the yard, Carlos took one glance at their stunned expressions and shooed his nieces toward the house. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Henry said nothing. As if in a daze, he went to the car, climbed inside, and shut the door.

Carlos turned to Elizabeth. “What happened? Did you collect your letter? Was it bad news from home?”

“We weren’t here for the post office.” Elizabeth craned her neck to watch her husband, but all she could see was his head, slumped wearily in his hands. “I’m afraid we’ve had a shock. We thought we had bought a ranch, but our papers were forgeries. We’ve been robbed.”

“
Dios mio.
Not El Rancho Triunfo again.”

Elizabeth nodded.

Carlos scowled. “That swindler should be tried and hanged.”

“He has to be caught first.” Suddenly dizzy, Elizabeth pressed a hand to her forehead. “God help us. We’ve lost everything.”

Carlos caught her by the arm and helped her to the car. The Nelsons sat wordless from shock as he started the car and left the Barclay farm behind. “Do you have family?” Carlos asked. “Someone who can wire money, enough to get you home?”

“No,” said Henry shortly. “I won’t go hat in hand to my father. It was my mistake that got us into this mess. I’ll get us out of it.”

Carlos glanced at Elizabeth to see if she might respond differently, but she would not humiliate Henry by contradicting him.

“What do you want to do?” Carlos asked her. “Should I take you back to the Grand Union?”

“I suppose.” They had nowhere else to go. With a sudden jolt, Elizabeth realized that they could not afford a second night in the hotel.

They drove along without speaking until Carlos broke the silence. “The Jorgensens are decent people. Every farm in the valley is glad to have extra hands. They might offer you work, good work, until you can get back on your feet.”

Henry said nothing.

“Henry?” Elizabeth prompted. “It would be a start. Just until we can make a better plan.”

“All right,” he said dully. “All right.”

Carlos pulled the car onto another dirt road that gradually turned toward the east. It occurred to Elizabeth that they were crossing through the landscape they had admired from the citrus grove the day before, but its beauty was lost on them. Everything they had planned for and dreamed about for the past four months had vanished in an instant, burned away like the ocean mists beneath the brilliant California sun.

Elizabeth recognized the Jorgensen farm from the photographs of Triumph Ranch, although there were several additional outbuildings and the yellow farmhouse with white shutters had a new wing. Chickens scratched in the front yard. Petunias grew in window boxes; a young woman and a girl hung laundry on a line. Beyond the house, Elizabeth glimpsed row after orderly row of trees in full leaf, pink and white blossoms newly emerging. It was a cheerful, prosperous farm, as ambitious and industrious as the Barclay farm had been despondent.

It should have been theirs.

Henry’s gaze followed a team of sowers laboring in a newly plowed field. Elizabeth wondered if he was imagining himself among them.

“Spring planting has just begun,” said Carlos. “This is a good time to be seeking work. You have worked a farm before?”

“Since before I could walk,” said Henry.

“Then the Jorgensens are fortunate you have come. I hear they pay a good wage, the best in the valley. They offer room and board, as well.”

Carlos was doing his best to raise their spirits. Somewhere in the depths of his shock and disappointment, Henry must have recognized this, for he managed a nod and a tight-lipped smile.

Carlos parked the car outside a machine shed and called to a man inside working beneath the hood of a truck. They exchanged a few words in Spanish. “Oscar Jorgensen and his brother are in the barley fields,” he reported. “My friend says they’re shorthanded.”

“Then let’s go meet him,” said Henry grimly.

Carlos suggested that Elizabeth wait by the car; she was not sure if that was because her shoes were not fit for a trek through the mud or because it was not fitting for a man to ask for work with his wife by his side. She strolled around the front yard, keeping out of sight of the woman and girl hanging laundry. A mother and a daughter, she decided. They were laughing and talking as they fastened men’s flannel work shirts to the rope line with clothespins. White sheets billowed in the breeze. Elizabeth felt a sudden, painful ache for her aunt Eleanor so intensely that she had to sit down on the fender and catch her breath.