She glanced sideways at him, seeing his perfect profile. So handsome.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Aw, heck, Els, I didn’t want to go to college anyhow.” He gave her a strained smile; black hair flopped across one eye. “I didn’t want to stay here, either, but…”
They looked at each other.
At last he took her hand, held it. “I’ll try to be a good husband,” he said.
Elsa wanted to tighten her hold on his hand, give a squeeze to show how much those words meant to her, but she didn’t dare. She was afraid that if she really held on to him, she’d never let go. She had to be cautious from now on, treat him as she would a skittish cat; be careful to never move too fast or need too much.
She said nothing, and in time, he let go of her hand and left her in his bedroom, sitting on his bed, alone.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, ELSA woke late. She pushed the hair from her face. Fine strands were stuck to her cheek; she’d cried in her sleep.
Good. Better to cry at night when no one could see. She didn’t want to reveal her weakness to this new family.
She went to the washstand and splashed lukewarm water on her face, then she brushed her teeth and combed her hair.
Last night, as she’d unpacked, she’d realized how wrong her clothes were for farm life. She was a town girl; what did she know about life on the land? All she’d brought were crepe dresses and silk stockings and heels. Church clothes.
She slipped into her plainest day dress, a charcoal-gray with pearl buttons and lace at the collar, then pulled up her stockings and stepped into the black heels she’d worn yesterday.
The house smelled of bacon and coffee. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since yesterday’s lunch.
The kitchen—a bright yellow-wallpapered room with gingham curtains and white linoleum flooring—was empty. Dishes drying on the counter attested to the fact that Elsa had slept through breakfast. What time did these people waken? It was only nine.
Elsa went outside and saw the Martinelli farm in full sunlight. Hundreds of acres of shorn wheat fanned out in all directions, a sea of dry, cut, golden stalks, with the homestead part taking up a few acres in the middle of it all.
A driveway cut through the fields, a brown ribbon of dirt bordered by cottonwoods and fencing. The farm itself consisted of the house, a big wooden barn, a horse corral, a cow paddock, a hog pen, a chicken coop, several outbuildings, and a windmill. Behind the house was an orchard, a small vineyard, and a fenced vegetable garden. Mrs. Martinelli was in the garden, bent over.
Mr. Martinelli came out of the barn and approached her. “Good morning,” he said. “Walk with me.”
He led her along the edge of the harvested wheat field; the shorn crop struck her as broken, somehow, devastated. Much like herself. A gentle breeze rustled what remained, made a shushing sound.
“You are a town girl,” Mr. Martinelli said in a thick Italian accent.
“Not anymore, I guess.”
“This is a good answer.” He bent down, scooped up a handful of dirt. “My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family. We plant, we tend, we harvest. I make wine from grape cuttings that I brought here from Sicily, and the wine I make reminds me of my father. It binds us, this land, one to another, as it has for generations. Now it will bind you to us.”
“I’ve never tended to anything.”
He looked at her. “Do you want to change that?”
Elsa saw compassion in his dark eyes, as if he knew how afraid she’d been in her life, but she had to be imagining it. All he knew about her was that she was here now and she’d brought his son down with her.
“Beginnings are only that, Elsa. When Rosalba and I came here from Sicily, we had seventeen dollars and a dream. That was our beginning. But it wasn’t what gave us this good life. We have this land because we worked for it, because no matter how hard life was, we stayed here. This land provided for us. It will provide for you, too, if you let it.”
Elsa had never thought of land that way, as something that anchored a person, gave one a life. The idea of it, of staying here and finding a good life and a place to belong, seduced her as nothing ever had.
She would do her best to become a Martinelli through and through, so she could join their story, perhaps even take it as her own and pass it on to the child she carried. She would do anything, become anyone, to ensure that this family loved the baby unconditionally as one of their own. “I want that, Mr. Martinelli,” she said at last. “I want to belong here.”
He smiled. “I saw that in you, Elsa.”
Elsa started to thank him, but was interrupted by Mrs. Martinelli, who called out to her husband as she walked toward them carrying a basket full of ripe tomatoes and greenery. “Elsa,” she said, coming to a stop. “How nice to see you up.”