Once home, the kids take off running for the barn, chasing the swirling whirling dervishes the Santa Ana Winds are creating in the yard. Noah reappears with a kite streaming behind him. It’s made of newspaper, with a tail of knotted ribbons and rags that’s the perfect weight for today. His speed, along with the erratic gusts, lift the kite instantly.
Hannah scans the emerald groves of Valencia oranges, with a few rows of lemons and avocados. The wind’s currents undulate over and through the foliage creating waves like the ones on the disturbed surface of a lake.
She closes her eyelids and says a quick prayer, thanking her husband’s family for allowing her to raise her children here. She expresses her gratitude to God that Emma’s and Noah’s futures will be secure on these acres outside of Orange.
Hannah inhales and scans the groves again.
Against all odds, a headless chicken charges toward her clinging to life. “Bessie? I believe something that belongs to you is leaving a trail across my yard.”
She might be an excellent cook, but slaughtering is not her strength.
Hannah witnesses the headless creature scurry by in the opposite direction. “You never got to fly, but you got to roam. Farewell Henny Penny.”
She thinks about how her words might sound cold to a refined city person whose food is delivered to the table without the person ever having to prepare it or clean it up. She pauses and considers how her words are sensible, yet sorrowful, for a country person. “I didn’t coop you up in the hen house. You got to roam our barnyard. Freely. I just wish you could’ve soared like your cousins. The sparrows. The seagulls. Even the vultures.”
She waves to Emma who’s walking toward her. Hannah calls out, “Wherever you are Henny Penny, when you finish running your race, Bessie’s going to plop you into the pot.”
Emma says, “And life will go on. I know. It’s one of your barnyard rules: If you’re a milk cow, when you stop producing, you’re stew; if you’re a layer chicken, when you stop laying, you’re soup.”
“I’ve taught you well, my dear.”
“But what are you going to do with me when you think I’ve become useless?”
Hannah takes her daughter by the shoulders. “That day will never come. Now run along and have some fun before it’s time for chores.”
Emma kicks the dusty ground, spots Noah and his kite, and runs in his direction.
Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think I’d run…much less own…an orchard of my own. Never. One day I was a wife and mother. The next I was in charge of the whole kit and caboodle.
Hannah stops her train of thought as she drags her fingertips across a tangle of vivid purple morning glory vines that snake along the whitewashed picket fence.
And yet, here I am. She picks a blossom and studies how it glows in the center, as if a candle is illuminating it, giving it an extra helping of life and energy. Hannah rests the bloom among its regal purple siblings and goes inside.
First, she closes all of the windows on the first floor. Then, she heads upstairs to take care of the windows there. While on the second floor, she enters her bedroom and walks to her mirrored vanity table. She studies the intricate woodworking on the gold-painted chair as she pulls it close. She can’t help herself from running her fingertips across the ball-and-stick patterned chair back like the strings of a harp. A gift from Miguel. A “throne” he told her.
Hannah sits and releases her hair from its tight bun, placing her mother-of-pearl hairpin onto a lacey doily her grandmother made and lovingly placed in Hannah’s hope chest. Her hand now glides over her cheek. “Dry as a page of the Bible.” She looks in the mirror. “Time for some cream.”
After moisturizing her wind-whipped face, Hannah wipes her hands clean, opens her diary, and the inky curlicues begin to appear.
Is it too risky to write these thoughts down, even in the privacy of my room? Does it make it all more real to see my thoughts on paper?
This feeling…I’d never known this feeling before. Not really. And it hasn’t faded one bit. It endures. The sweetness. The kindness. The connection. The attraction. The risk? The danger? The desire? Yes, the desire.
I feel it every time I’m near him. It’s like reuniting with a piece of me that I didn’t know was missing.
I believe it’s his eyes. The way he looks at me. I know I shouldn’t look into them so deeply. But I do. And he looks back.
On the street.
In his store.
When he hands me a basket of groceries.
To look away, to break away…oh, these feelings keep growing stronger. Love, the truest of loves, shows itself in moments when nothing—and no one else—matters. It’s when the entire world goes quiet. But then the earth shakes and destiny awaits. What could be messy and miserable could also be marvelous. Simply marvelous.
She pauses.
I’ll never forget what he said when I asked him what he thinks makes a woman beautiful. I thought it was an innocent question to ask an artist to pass the time when he was painting my portrait. He told me the beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because they’re the open doors to her heart, the source of her love. Then, he said that to have attractive lips, all a woman has to do is say kind words. I had to stop him. What he was saying was true, but I couldn’t hear any more. A line was being crossed and I’d asked him to cross it. I could also ask him to step back.
Her pen stops and starts again.
He looks into me. He sees me. Me. The me who longs for—who’s ready for—a special man in my life. When I’m with him I’m not in control. I’m mesmerized. I don’t want to blink…to miss something, anything. Yes, he’s got me. But does he know it? He must.
I refuse to starve my soul. To live with the taste of ashes and the thrumming of echoes from the past constantly in my mind. Perhaps it’s silly of me, but I wish for a perfect kiss. That would be something—just one thing—that no one can take away.
Hannah pauses, blinks her wind-dried eyes and begins again.
I’m a widow. Should I feel guilty that I didn’t mourn forever and ever? Is that what people expect? To wear black and only visit with other widows? Old ladies? I’m not an old lady. Not yet, anyway.
Yes, I allowed myself to feel like I didn’t have an anchor anymore. But not for long. I have a family to raise and a business to run. Thoughts of Cal are making it all bearable. But one day I’ll look at a man and think I’m going to burst into flames. Maybe that day is today. Who knows?
Hannah puts down her ink pen. “Enough of that,” she whispers to herself during a lingering exhaled breath. She smooths out the red strip of satin that acts as a bookmarker and closes the book. She slides it back into her vanity’s drawer for safe keeping.
As if almost a ritual, Hannah turns to look at the trio of portraits on the wall to the left of her vanity. She stands, takes a few steps, and sits on the edge of her bed so she can admire the portraits more fully. Hannah leans back a bit, resting one palm on the double wedding ring quilt that spans the feather-stuffed mattress. Her fingers slide over the patchwork masterpiece as if she’s reading Braille. Over connected rings. Over each patch, remnants from dresses and aprons and bonnets. And over stitches that bind everything together. Adding some much-needed uniformity to such a diversity of colors and patterns and textures.
She thinks about how the women of her family pieced the quilt together before Hannah’s wedding…and how her mother kept saying as she sewed, “It starts with love and ends with happily ever after.” Hannah was not allowed to lift a needle this time. Brides in her family receive this type of quilt, not labor on it.
She returns her focus to the portraits. The first is of Emma in a frilly pink hat and dress. The next is of Noah looking serious in his tan suit coat, his hair slicked and parted to perfection. And the largest of the three is of her. She had paintings done of the children as a surprise for her husband. He never saw them though. He died before she could give them as a present.
Hannah recalls how having her portrait painted was one of the most intimate things she’d ever done. How he studied her and painted her. How she melted inside through it all. Each time she sees her portrait, Hannah savors the thought that she’s looking through Cal’s eyes. Seeing herself in the strokes of a paintbrush controlled by his hands. From his vantage point. From his mind. From his heart. He saw me as beautiful— She pauses and then completes her thought. He made me beautiful.
She’d never admit to anyone she had the children’s portraits done just so she could sit in Cal’s private studio while he captured their likenesses. As a married woman, her choices were improper at best. To concoct ways to spend time with the shopkeeper who paints portraits as a side business. After all, he’s a shopkeeper who’s related to one of the city’s prominent founders. A shopkeeper whose own mercantile had an address on a street that was named after his family.
Her husband painted too. The artistic gift ran in his family. But he painted landscapes. The rolling hills. The herds of cattle. The yellow-and-orange speckled orchards. The walls of Hannah’s house are like the walls of an art gallery. Framed landscape after framed landscape. Seeing Southern California through her husband’s eyes. Through the strokes of a paintbrush in his hands.
His aloofness is almost always on display as well. Very few people appear. Never Hannah. Never his daughter. Never his son. And when he recklessly died that day just a year ago, he left behind the orchard and all his worldly goods to Hannah.
Now, she’s doing her best to put the rust and dust behind her.