Elm Creek Quilts [10] The Quilter's Homecoming (33 page)

All day long the pickers plucked sweet, ripe fruit from the trees for the women to cut, on and on, pausing only for lunch beneath the apricot trees. There the men and women mingled, friends greeted one another, laughing, talking, as if they were enjoying a picnic on a summer holiday. All too soon for Elizabeth they returned to work, chatting and gossiping about who had shared whose blanket in the shade and which young lady had brought what special treat in her lunch basket to share with which admirer. Since Elizabeth recognized few of the names that came up in conversation, she half listened to the talk while giving most of her attention to the task at hand. Although she had grown accustomed to the work, she still felt as if she had been thrown into the middle of an elaborate country dance in which everyone else knew the right places to spin and twirl and bow while all she could do was struggle to hear the caller over the band, doing the Charleston for all she was worth and hoping no one would notice.

By the third day, Elizabeth noted with some pride that no one who didn’t know her would have been able to pick her out as the novice among the more accomplished cutters. While Oscar had not consented to grant her a punch card, the two beneficiaries of her labors must have felt either gratitude or pangs of conscience, for both brought Elizabeth gifts of food from their lunch baskets, delicacies like chicken pie and jars of preserves, which Elizabeth was clearly meant to take home rather than add to the picnic.

Elizabeth had assumed that the sulfur curing process was the last step in preserving the sliced apricots, but learned differently once the first trays were removed from the sulfur house. Local children joined the older harvest workers for the last task, carrying the large trays of cured apricots from the truck to a flat stretch of ground just south of the orchard. The trays were placed close together, with only enough space to walk single file between them, and left to dry in the sun for five or six days. During her infrequent breaks from cutting, Elizabeth enjoyed walking past the rows of plump, juicy cured apricots, breathing deeply of their sweet fragrance and admiring their bright orange hue. She admired the children, too, who were happy in their work but diligent, well aware of how essential they were to the success of the harvest. They reminded her of Henry and his siblings back at Two Bears Farm and of the Bergstrom children at Elm Creek Manor. Their work had been play to them, and they had been proud to contribute to the success of the farm.

One morning, Elizabeth was surprised to discover Marta and Lupita among the children arranging trays in the sun. Lupita was still too little to hold her own among the older children, but Marta kept her younger sister close and praised her efforts. Marta’s smile was brighter than Elizabeth had ever seen it. Lupita was so happy she sometimes could not resist jumping up and down instead of remembering to carry her edge of the tray.

When Elizabeth mentioned seeing the Barclay girls, Mary Katherine seemed even more surprised than Elizabeth had been. “They’ve never helped with the harvest before, not since the Rodriguezes left the farm,” she said, adding with an impish grin, “Maybe they need the extra cash to pay for John’s car.”

At lunchtime, Elizabeth discovered the truth. As she spread out her blanket in the shade of the apricot trees and unpacked her basket, she looked up at the sound of laughter to find Rosa seated on a blanket in the sunshine several yards away. Miguel lay in her lap, smiling up at Marta, who tickled him under the chin with a leafy twig from an apricot tree while Lupita and Ana dug into their picnic basket. Marta and Lupita had spent so much time in the sun that their hair had turned from dark brown to rich bronze.

As Elizabeth watched, Lars emerged from the orchard and crossed the grassy clearing, hastily finger-combing his thinning blond hair before replacing his hat. Elizabeth expected him to continue toward the house, where Mrs. Jorgensen had lunch ready for the immediate family and a few of the farmhands who preferred their usual table to a picnic blanket, but instead he paused at Rosa’s blanket. She smiled up at him, they exchanged a few words, and Lupita jumped up to tug on his hand. Lars settled down on their blanket and smiled as he thanked Rosa for the leg of fried chicken she handed him. He almost dropped it as Lupita scrambled onto his lap. Rosa laughed, and Lars smiled warmly back. They sat so close together that their shoulders nearly touched.

“I hope John Barclay doesn’t show up.”

Elizabeth started at Henry’s voice, but quickly turned to smile at him as he sat down beside her on the blanket. “He wouldn’t like it,” Elizabeth acknowledged. “He’s a jealous man. He must not know they’re here. I can’t believe he would stand for it.”

Henry glanced at the couple for a moment before deliberately turning away. “Lars better be careful,” he said, reaching into the basket. “She’s a married woman. It doesn’t look right.”

Henry disliked gossip, and Elizabeth knew that would be his last word on the subject. Still, she could not help observing Lars, Rosa, and the children as they enjoyed their picnic—and worrying about what others would think. Gossip and rumor already swirled around Rosa because of her children’s mysterious illness, and although Lars had become a respected member of the community, he did not have a spotless past. They seemed oblivious to anything but their own happiness, unaware of the curious glances of their neighbors. Elizabeth, who had considered herself an expert in the art of gossip once upon a time, could imagine all too well the nature of their speculations: Could anyone remember seeing either Rosa or Lars so content in anyone else’s company? Weren’t they being rather bold, for two people who had once been in love? Wasn’t it interesting how well the children took to Lars, who was not exactly known for his playful temperament?

At that moment, as Marta threw back her head and laughed at something Lars had said, her long, sun-bronzed hair slipped free of the red ribbon that had held it away from her face. As Rosa retied it, Elizabeth was suddenly struck by the realization that Ana had spent nearly as much time in the sun as Marta and Lupita had that summer, watching them play, and yet her hair was still the same dark hue as her mother’s. Miguel, too, had hair so dark brown it was almost black.

Unbidden, an image of John Barclay swam to the surface of Elizabeth’s thoughts—shouting at Lars to stay away from his family, his blue eyes snapping with anger as he snatched his hat to mop his brow. His hair was nearly as dark as his wife’s.

It could mean nothing, Elizabeth told herself, but she could not make herself believe it.

As she had done every day of the apricot harvest, Elizabeth left the shed earlier than the other cutters so she could help Mrs. Jorgensen prepare a late supper for the family and finish other necessary tasks the work of the harvest had prevented Mrs. Jorgensen from completing. As she approached the yellow farmhouse, she spied an unfamiliar automobile parked near the carriage house. Three men, two in dark suits and one in a police officer’s uniform, stood talking to Lars. They were too far away for Elizabeth to make out their words. Lars handed something wrapped in a handkerchief to one of the dark-suited men, they all shook hands, and the men climbed back into their automobile and drove away. Lars turned too suddenly for Elizabeth to pretend she had not been watching them. Annoyance clouded his face briefly, but he offered her a nod in greeting and strode back to the orchard without a word.

Elizabeth hurried on into the kitchen, where Mrs. Jorgensen set her to peeling a pile of carrots, freshly washed and glistening on the drainboard. What had Lars done to warrant a visit from the police? She could not believe he had committed any crime. It was not in his nature—unless he had begun drinking again, which was unbearable to contemplate. Had John Barclay, his only enemy, falsely accused him of something out of spite? Who were the other two men, and what had they taken from Lars?

Elizabeth took up her potato peeler and got to work. “Who were those men?” She knew Mrs. Jorgensen would have heard the unfamiliar car pull up to the carriage house.

“One is Tom Jeffries, the county sheriff,” said Mrs. Jorgensen, quartering a chicken with a sharp cleaver. “The other two men aren’t from around here. I don’t know who they are. Why didn’t you ask Lars?”

He had not given her a chance, but perhaps Mrs. Jorgensen knew that.

They worked in silence for several minutes. “May I ask you a question?” said Elizabeth, setting down her peeler.

Mrs. Jorgensen poured cooking oil into the frying pan and turned on the gas. “I suppose so.”

“How many grandchildren do you have?”

For a moment, Mrs. Jorgensen froze, but she quickly resumed her work, and when she spoke, her voice was even. “What an odd sort of question. I think you know the answer.”

“How many?”

Mrs. Jorgensen said nothing. The oil in the pan sizzled. She adjusted the gas and arranged chicken pieces in the pan with a pair of metal tongs, jerking her hand away as a spatter of oil touched skin. “Do you know anything about the language of flowers?” She quickly wiped the oil from the back of her wrist. “It’s an old-fashioned belief that every flower has a symbolic meaning. Do you know what the apricot blossom is supposed to represent?”

Elizabeth shook her head, although Mrs. Jorgensen was not looking at her.

“Doubt. Perhaps in bygone days it meant doubt that a lover was true, but I think it could also act as a warning not to believe everything one sees, not to jump to conclusions based upon rumor and suspicion.” Mrs. Jorgensen turned over the chicken pieces and set down the tongs. “The orchard was full of apricot blossoms in the spring. It was only a matter of time before they bore fruit. The soil may be rich, the rains ample and gentle, but if you sow mistrust, that is what you will harvest.”

“John is dark-haired and Lars is fair,” said Elizabeth. “Only two of Rosa’s children have hair that lightens in the sun—Marta and Lupita. Rosa’s children have been struck down by the same mysterious illness—all but two, Marta and Lupita. Mary Katherine once told me that one of John’s sisters died in childhood after suffering an unknown sickness. Lars’s siblings are healthy and strong.”

At last Mrs. Jorgensen turned around. “I never took you for the sort to spread malicious rumors.”

“I’m not,” said Elizabeth. “I care about Rosa and her children. And Lars. I worry what John might do if he discovers he’s been betrayed.”

Mrs. Jorgensen gave a sharp laugh. “If
you
figured it out after knowing them for only a few short months, do you really believe John hasn’t?”

Shocked into silence, Elizabeth could only stare at her. “Then why—”

“Why has John not accused Rosa of adultery? Why has he not cast her out?” Mrs. Jorgensen shook her head. “Only John knows that. I think he still loves her in his way—although love is perhaps the wrong word for it. He desires her. He covets her. He was willing to ignore what he did not want to see, because if he didn’t, he would lose her.”

“Lars and Rosa were lovers,” said Elizabeth. It was not a question. “Rosa became pregnant with his child, but her parents had forbidden her to marry him. She was desperate to marry someone for the sake of her child and herself, and John was there—sober, a landowner, a man who claimed to love her.”

“I don’t know why liquor had such a hold on Lars,” said Mrs. Jorgensen, an uncharacteristic ache in her voice. “My father was the same way. I’ll never understand such men, not as long as I live. If only Lars had been able to stop drinking all those years ago, he and Rosa might have defied her parents and married. They might as well have. Rosa’s obedience to her parents’ demands gained her nothing. When Marta was born, two months earlier than expected but as perfect and healthy as only a full-term child could be, they knew Rosa had been pregnant when she married. The shame she had brought upon the family was so great they shunned her from that day forward.”