Elm Creek Quilts [10] The Quilter's Homecoming (34 page)

“That’s unfair,” said Elizabeth. “What she did was wrong, but not unforgivable.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Diaz were devout Catholics. Rosa had defied them, deceived them, and broken one of the strictest tenets of their religion. They believed she had committed a terrible sin. Worse yet, in their eyes, she was unrepentant. Her determination to conceal her sin was proof enough of that.”

“But Marta was an innocent baby,” Elizabeth protested. “Say what you will about how Rosa had disappointed her parents, how could the sight of their beautiful grandchild not move them to reconcile, regardless of the circumstances of her birth?”

The chicken began to smoke and spatter. With a start, Mrs. Jorgensen snatched the tongs and transferred the chicken from the frying pan to a serving platter. “I don’t know that the Diazes ever saw Marta.”

“What?”

“There was some talk around the valley that John had banned the Diazes from his property. Oscar heard it from their neighbor, a kindly soul who picked up their mail for years, until Rosa’s father passed on, since they could no longer visit the post office.”

“What did John have against Rosa’s parents?” asked Elizabeth, bewildered. “They allowed him to marry Rosa, didn’t they? And I myself have seen Carlos at the post office. He drove Henry and me there on our second day in the valley.”

“Well, perhaps Carlos wasn’t included in the ban. As for Rosa’s parents, they believed John had relations with Rosa before their marriage, didn’t they? From their point of view, he led their beloved daughter into sin. For all I know, it was their choice not to set foot on the Barclay farm, and John never banned them at all. I suppose that is a more plausible explanation.”

Elizabeth did not agree. She could not believe the bright-eyed young bride gazing out warmly from the pages of Rosa’s album could have transformed into a woman coldhearted enough to sever all ties with her only daughter. Rosa had spoken of her parents so lovingly, describing her father as a man who was always cheerful and laughing. She said she had grown up surrounded by love. If that was true, how could her mother and father have disowned her, even after she had broken their hearts?

“John must have suspected Marta was not his child,” said Elizabeth.

“Suspected? I’m sure he knew it for an outright fact when she was born only seven months into their marriage. John Barclay is a man of many unadmirable qualities, but he is not stupid. He can count as well as the next man.”

“Then he forgave Rosa. He forgave her, even when her parents did not.”

“I don’t know if he ever forgave her entirely. He certainly never forgave Lars. Accepting Marta as his own child was the price he had to pay to keep the woman he desired as his wife. He is a proud man, but I think he would have been content if Rosa had forgotten my son.”

“But she didn’t.”

“For many years, I’m sure John was able to convince himself that she had. Everyone in the valley believed that Rosa chose sensibly when she married John instead of Lars, taking a sober man with a good living over a drunkard who had lost his farm. They have no reason to question her fidelity. If Rosa gave John reason, however, if he thought everyone knew she had betrayed him, exposed him to ridicule—then he would confront her. He would think he had no choice.”

Mrs. Jorgensen’s mouth was a grim line in the soft curves of her face, and Elizabeth knew they shared the same thought: Lupita’s health, a blessing to be cherished by all who loved her, was to John nothing more than a sign that Rosa had betrayed him.

Mrs. Jorgensen gestured to the carrots. “Come. Let’s finish. The others will be here soon.”

Elizabeth picked up the peeler. “How long until John is forced to face the truth?”

“The other children took sick before the end of their fourth year,” said Mrs. Jorgensen. “Lupita will be five in September.”

For nearly a year, John Barclay had been watching his daughter, watching and waiting, torn between relief and rage. For nearly a year longer than should have been possible, Lupita had evaded the trap that had ensnared his other children. Lupita had thrived, her blossoming good health a mockery of John’s willingness to overlook Rosa’s sin and accept her as his wife. How much longer could he be expected to pretend, all for the sake of keeping an ungrateful wife who bore him only sickly children, who taunted him with the fruits of her infidelity?

But surely a man as suspicious as John Barclay would not have waited for Lupita’s fifth year to doubt his wife’s faithfulness. He must have been constantly vigilant all the years of their marriage, waiting for Rosa to betray him. In the forge of suspicion and mistrust, any love he might have had for his wife had turned to jealous cruelty. It was little wonder the grieving, heartsick woman had turned to her steadfast first love for comfort and solace.

“You were wrong to say that John forgave Rosa when her parents did not.” Mrs. Jorgensen broke off at the sound of approaching voices just outside the window. The men had come in for a supper that was not yet prepared for them. “Mrs. Diaz’s heart softened at the end. A friend of mine spotted her lingering out of sight in the back of the church at Ana’s christening, and I myself saw her leave flowers on the graves of her grandchildren. She even approached me at the Arboles Grocery once and asked after Lars. That was shortly before her death, only a year before Lupita was born. Mrs. Diaz’s death was such a shock. I have always suspected that she took her own life out of shame and remorse for forbidding Rosa to marry Lars. She wanted to make amends, I’m sure of it. If she had only lived a little time longer—”

The kitchen door swung open and the men trooped in, tired but in good spirits. Oscar declared that he had never seen such a bountiful harvest. Henry kissed Elizabeth on his way to the table, but his grin faded at the sight of her troubled expression. She smiled and patted his arm to assure him he had no need to worry, that she would explain later, when they were alone.

She urgently wanted to ask him if he, too, thought it was unfathomable that a mother—especially one known as a devout Catholic—would take her own life when reconciliation with her estranged daughter seemed imminent.

1917

Isabel watched the baptism from the vestibule of the church, shrouded in a dark shawl and veil. She crossed herself as the priest poured water over her newborn granddaughter’s head, and again when he anointed her with oil. Her heart ached to see the emptiness in Rosa’s eyes on a day that would have been joyous had it not come so soon after the death of her son.

As the ceremony ended, Isabel ducked into a shadowy alcove. Her disguise would not fool four-year-old Marta, who would surely call out a happy greeting and scamper down the aisle of the church to hug her grandmother the moment she spotted her. Hugs and kisses would have to wait until the next time Rosa could slip away from home and bring the children to meet Isabel on the mesa, a secluded spot with a breathtaking view of the canyon. Every week at the appointed time, Isabel went and waited, hoping Rosa would come. In recent months, the sudden illness and sudden death of Rosa’s son and the last weeks of her pregnancy had kept her at home, and Isabel had walked home from the mesa discouraged and lonely. She resented her son-in-law for keeping her away from Rosa, but contrary to her heart’s yearnings, she could not help blaming Rosa, as well. Why did Rosa not stand up to her husband? She had not learned such meek acceptance in her parents’ house. Was it love that made Rosa so determined to please him?

Somehow Isabel could not believe it was so.

She watched, hidden in the alcove, as the family departed. John passed by first, escorting his mother, who beamed with proud satisfaction. She ought to be happy, that other grandmother, Isabel thought ungraciously. She possessed everything Isabel desired and because it came so easily to her, she could not have any sense of its true worth.

Marta trailed behind her, holding on to John’s sister’s hand, questioning her unhappily about something Isabel could not discern. Last of all came Rosa, carrying baby Ana. Isabel choked back a sob, longing to stretch out her arms to embrace her precious granddaughters. It was too painful to see them so close and not be able to speak to them, to hold them. She should not have come.

Suddenly, just as Rosa tugged a quilt over the baby’s head and stepped from the warmth of the church into the cold November rain outside, a flash of white fell to the tile floor over her shoulder, like a dove descending.

Isabel waited until the door closed and the church grew still before stepping from her hiding place. She stooped over to pick up the fallen object, her fingers closing around soft satin. Ana’s cap, trimmed in lace to match her baptismal gown. A gift from Rosa, an apology for all she had denied Isabel that day.

Years ago, Isabel would have been infuriated by the very idea that a baby’s cap could compensate for the insult she had been forced to endure that morning, and so many other mornings since John had banished Isabel from his home. She never should have had to lurk in the back of the church at her granddaughter’s baptism instead of sitting proudly in the first pew, as was a grandmother’s right. But that was long ago. The years of waiting and hoping had drained her anger from her. Now all the spaces of her heart had room for was longing, and a fervent hope that someday John’s resentment would abate and Isabel would no longer have to meet her daughter and grandchildren in secret.

She clutched the soft white satin cap and prayed.

1925

A
fter the apricot harvest, Elizabeth spent the summer evenings on the cabin’s newly mended front porch, working on the quilts she had found in the old steamer trunk. Henry sat beside her, reading aloud from the newspaper or letters from home while she sewed. They sat together, talking quietly, content in each other’s company, as the sun set behind the Santa Monica Mountains. Elizabeth imagined the fading daylight offering the valley below one last caress as it slipped behind the western hills, pulling a veil of darkness over the Norwegian Grade, then the Jorgensen farm, then the adobe where Rosa lived with her children, then Safari World, and last of all, the Grand Union Hotel. Then the sun disappeared behind the mountain range, and Elizabeth and Henry watched the stars appear, talking about the next day’s work or reminiscing about summers in Pennsylvania—swimming in Elm Creek, riding the wooded trails that crisscrossed the valley, savoring the hint of autumn that came only at night, a gentle, wistful warning that summer could not endure forever.

Henry usually went to bed soon after the moon rose, and Elizabeth always joined him. If she could not sleep, she would leave the bed without disturbing her husband, light a lamp in the front room, and stay up to work on the quilts, mending torn seams, patching holes, replacing worn pieces with sturdy scraps, adding soft cotton batting to the places where the quilt had worn thin. When the top was whole and sound again, she restored the missing quilting stitches that had held top, batting, and lining together, following the tiny needle pricks left behind from the original threads. Some had broken over time; others Elizabeth had been forced to pick out in the act of mending. She followed her predecessor’s patterns as closely as possible, even to the length of her stitches, so that her handiwork would blend in harmoniously with what had gone before.

She put her last stitch into the Road to Triumph Ranch quilt at the end of August, and when she finished, the hexagons no longer resembled wagon wheels that had broken and splintered on a hard road. They might roll on steadily for miles into the distance, even into an uncertain future.

Elizabeth washed the quilt, hung it to dry in a freshening breeze, and turned her attention to the Arboles Valley Star. On closer inspection, she became even more certain that it had rarely been used, or perhaps not at all. The binding around the edges, one of the first places signs of wear appeared on a quilt, had not rubbed to a threadbare thinness from use. She found no holes or tears aside from two places where a mouse had nibbled through the lining and removed some soft batting to make a nest elsewhere. What she had mistaken for stains was merely dust that came out in the first wash. The creases that she had attributed to the uneven shrinkage of the fabric and batting through many washings had disappeared during the months that the quilt had been draped over their bed instead of folded and crushed at the bottom of the steamer trunk. Curious, Elizabeth picked out a seam at the tip of one star and discovered that the fabric was the same shade from edge to edge. If the fabric had faded after the quilt was complete, the edges hidden within the seam would have been darker than the part in the center, which had been exposed to sunlight. The fading of the fabric must have occurred before the quiltmaker pieced her blocks, perhaps when the calico was still part of a favorite dress, worn by a child who played in the sunshine. As far as Elizabeth could tell, all of the damage to the quilt could have occurred while it was stored within the trunk.

Compared with the extensive restoration the older, homespun-and-wool quilt had required, repairing the Arboles Valley Star was a simple matter. Elizabeth replaced the missing batting and patched the holes. She replaced the stitches she had picked out to check for uneven fading of the fabric. Last of all, she studied an embroidered satin patch trimmed in lace appliquéd on the back of the quilt. Within the circle of rosebuds, the initials R.D. and L.J. were intertwined. There was no question in Elizabeth’s mind whose names those letters represented, or who had made the quilt, or why.

She thought of her own floral Double Wedding Ring quilt, beautifully and lovingly made by the women of her family, and lost to her forever. She thought more wistfully of the Chimneys and Cornerstones quilt, sturdy and cheerful, delighting guests at the Grand Union Hotel. She could do without the quilts, as she certainly must learn to do, but what a comfort it would be to have them with her now, offering with their soft and gentle warmth the memory of love and the promise of happiness.

With one last, fond caress, she folded the quilts she had restored with such care, the quilts that were not truly hers. They had given her purpose and distraction in her loneliness, comfort and warmth in her need. Now it was time to pass them along to their rightful owner, whose need was so much greater.

The next time Elizabeth made the mail run, on a cool, overcast day when the air tasted of the metallic tang of rain, she took the quilts with her, folded carefully and stacked on the backseat of Lars’s car. When she arrived at the Barclay farm, no one was outside, neither in the fields nor beneath the orange trees, where she had grown accustomed to the sight of Marta and Lupita playing while Ana watched. A glance into the barn told her that John had gone off somewhere in the roadster. Suddenly anxious, she hurried to the adobe and knocked on the door, but her relief when Rosa answered was quickly tempered by concern. The haunted despair had returned to the mother’s dark eyes, and her mouth was a tight knot of worry and pain.

Elizabeth’s first thoughts were of the children. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Rosa quickly amended, “Nothing new. Nothing that has not been wrong for a very long time.” She opened the door wider and beckoned Elizabeth inside. “Please come in while I get your letters.”

Marta and Lupita played with dolls on the floor in the center of the room. They glanced up warily when she entered, but after recognizing her, they returned to their game. She did not see the other two children and assumed they were in bed. Days when they felt strong enough to get out of bed to play had become less frequent.

Rosa returned from the kitchen with a bundle of mail. Elizabeth took it, thanked her, and said, “I found something in the cabin that belongs to you.”

While Rosa looked on, perplexed, Elizabeth took the mail to the car and returned with the quilts. She set the Arboles Valley Star quilt on the sofa and unfolded the Road to Triumph Ranch. Rosa’s eyes widened as she reached out to take the bottom corners of the quilt, lifting them so the quilt unfurled between their hands.
“Dios mio,”
she breathed.

“It is your great-grandmother’s, isn’t it?” said Elizabeth. “I recognized it from the photograph you showed me.”

“Without a doubt, it is hers.” Rosa’s gaze ran over the quilt as if she were drinking in the memories stitched into the cloth. “It is just as I remember it.”

“Almost but not exactly,” said Elizabeth apologetically. “It needed some mending. I matched the fabric as best as I could when I replaced worn pieces.”

Rosa smiled. “Then it is even lovelier than I remember.” She sat down in a rocking chair, draped the quilt across her lap, and ran her hand over it. “I remember my mother cuddling me in this quilt when I was a little girl no bigger than Lupita. My great-grandmother made it when she was a young bride-to-be in Texas. Her parents had arranged for her to marry my great-grandfather through a cousin who lived in Los Angeles. The first time she saw him was the day he came to San Antonio to bring her back to El Rancho Triunfo.”

“Triumph Ranch,” said Elizabeth.

“Yes, and for many years the name rang true. They raised barley and rye. One hundred head of cattle grazed where the sheep pasture and the apricot orchard stand today. But my family lost everything in a terrible drought, the worst ever to strike the Arboles Valley. Every farm in the valley suffered. Some families sold their land after the first summer without rain, but by the time my great-grandparents decided to put El Rancho Triunfo up for sale the following year, there were no buyers. My great-grandparents sold all the cattle to slaughterhouses rather than let them starve. They were thankful and relieved when Mrs. Jorgensen’s grandfather bought the ranch and permitted them to remain on the land in exchange for their labor. The rains fell two months later. My great-grandparents never forgave themselves for not holding out a little while longer, for giving up too soon and accepting less than the land was truly worth.”

“They never forgave the Jorgensens, either, or so I’ve heard.”

“That is also true.” Rosa glanced at the other quilt, almost forgotten on the sofa. Elizabeth unfolded it and held it up high by the corners so that only the bottom edge touched the floor. Rosa admired it politely, but she soon returned her gaze to her great-grandmother’s quilt.

“I call this quilt the Arboles Valley Star,” said Elizabeth, surprised by Rosa’s reaction. She folded the quilt in half and draped it over the sofa. “I found it with your great-grandmother’s. Don’t you recognize it?”

“I’ve never seen it before,” said Rosa. “I suppose I could look through the album and see if it appears in any of my family’s photographs, but I’ve looked at them so many times. I think I would have recognized this quilt if it were in any of them. It seems too new for my great-grandmother’s handiwork.”

“I thought you had made it.”

“Me?” Rosa shook her head. “Why would you think that?”

“Because of this.”

Elizabeth turned the quilt over and showed Rosa the embroidered monogram on the square of lace-trimmed satin appliquéd to the back, the intertwined initials surrounded by a wreath of rosebuds. As if in a dream, Rosa touched the letters with her fingertips and pressed her other hand to her mouth. Her eyes widened in astonishment and, Elizabeth thought, confusion and anguish.

“What is it?” Elizabeth prompted her. “Do you remember the quilt now?”

“No.” Rosa shook her head. “I’ve never seen this quilt, but I—I do know this embroidery. This is my mother’s work. She made these stitches. And this satin and lace. It came from Ana’s baptismal cap. But—why? And when?” Rosa swiftly turned the quilt over and studied the pieced stars, running her hands over the patches. Her long, slender fingers came to rest on a piece of ivory sateen. “This was from her wedding gown. I know it. And this—” She touched a triangle of pink floral calico. “This was from the dress Marta wore on her first day of school. But how did my mother come to have it? I don’t understand.” She threw Elizabeth a beseeching look. “Where did you find this quilt?”

“Both quilts were in an old steamer trunk in the cabin,” said Elizabeth. “On the Jorgensen farm, where Henry and I live. Where your family once lived. I assumed your grandmother had forgotten the older quilt there when they moved out, but as for the newer—”

“Oh, no, no. They left nothing behind. The homespun-and-wool quilt was in my mother’s home all my life. It never left her bed. But this star quilt…” Rosa looked from one quilt to the other in bewilderment. “My mother must have taken the quilts to the cabin and left them there. But I don’t understand—” Suddenly Rosa grew very still. “She wanted me to have them. And she could not bring them to me here.”

“Why not?”

“My husband would not allow my parents on his property, not even to visit their grandchildren. When I wanted to see my mother, we had to meet on the mesa. Once a week, when John went to pick up the mail from the train station, I would take the children to see her. You know the place.”

“Rosa,” said Elizabeth, gripped by a sudden fear. “The day your mother died—were you supposed to meet her on the mesa?”

“I was, but she didn’t know that I could not come. A few days before, John had returned home with the mail and found me and the children gone. I—I had to tell him where we had been.” A shadow of remembered pain crossed her features for a moment, and Elizabeth could imagine how she had been compelled to confess. “After that, he varied his schedule so I never knew when he would be gone or how soon he would return. I was never able to meet my mother again.” She clutched her mother’s quilt, her gaze far away. “I can’t help but think of her waiting for me, waiting and waiting, every week without fail, hoping I would come. I cannot help but imagine her despair when I never appeared. Perhaps she thought she would never see her grandchildren again. Perhaps—perhaps I have been fooling myself all these years, telling myself her death was an accident.”

Elizabeth’s breath caught in her throat. “Perhaps you were.”

Rosa looked up sharply and read the fear written on Elizabeth’s face. “No. No. I know what you’re thinking. I can’t believe it.”