Between Earth & Sky (14 page)

Perhaps I will take out my paints and commit one of my sketches to the canvas. Last week I finished a portrait of Pamela Porter, and she seemed pleased with the effect. Oh, Maggie, it is on afternoons such as these that I miss my Amy most, and if I dwell on her too much, all that I've lost through the years takes form and I cannot be convinced of this life's purpose.

But do not worry yourself. I will take out my paints and stroke the canvas with my brush, bringing back all color and brightness into my world.

I am your sister,

Abigail

May 26, 1884

Dear Maggie,

I am sending a money order for Amy's train ticket so that she may come home this summer. If you would, please cash it for her. I thank you, again, for all you have done. Her letters are filled with the kindnesses you have given. I am truly grateful. We will welcome Irene if she still wishes to make the train trip west with Amy. I know they have grown fond of one another, but that is not surprising—they are our daughters!

This has been a spring of flowering, one spring like this only every fifty or sixty years, our Spanish neighbors tell me. Everything has blossomed at once, so that the desert is pink, blue, and yellow, like a colored map. Yesterday Clayton and I rode up towards the mesa. Even the rock was striped with colors, bands of gold and red and pink. “Paint it, Abigail,” was all Clayton could say. “Paint it just the way the colors lie now.”

The purple verbena covers the garden like a carpet, and the apple trees which Clayton planted in the orchard are heavy with blossoming. I would that I could spend all day in it

Shortly after sunrise, I bake biscuits and fry eggs for Clayton, George, and the two Mexicans that help with the planting. Margaret eats the hominy we make from our corn, cooked with eggs. After breakfast, when the men go to the fields, George goes with them. He is as tall as I am and would be on a horse all day if he could. When the house is in order, I send Margaret to the fields with water, if she has not already gone to ride along the ditches with her brother or help with the planting. There are also the cows to be milked and the chickens which must be fed. It is after dinner, when the sun touches the mountain tops, before I can sit in my garden.

We will hope to see both girls by the end of June. We do so want to meet Irene. I know we do not have as many social occasions, which you write that they so enjoy, but I am sure they will be so busy exploring this strange and various country that they will not have time to wish for parties to attend!

Your Loving Sister,

Abigail

July 28, 1884

Dear Maggie,

It has been a joy for us to have the two young ladies in our house. The singing and laughter that have filled the rooms make me feel a girl again. Each evening after supper we sit in the garden under the shade of the cottonwoods and read poetry aloud. In the afternoons they often paint or draw. And they have taught Margaret her arithmetic. I am sure both of them will make admirable teachers. You should know that Irene was offered a post not more than fifteen miles from here. If she takes it, she and Amy will be headmistresses at neighboring schools!

While we have enjoyed Irene immensely, and of course she is welcome in our home at any time, you may think it wise to shorten this visit. Being here is a little like visiting another country, and young people often romanticize what is new and undiscovered to them.

A few weeks ago there was a Fourth of July barbecue held at the Deerings' ranch. Amy and Irene were quite excited, as the barbecue is a big affair held each year, which lasts the day and into the evening, with all kinds of food and games, music and dancing. The six of us rode out to the Deerings' the morning of the Fourth. Oh, you should have seen the decorations! Long tables were covered with bright table cloths on which platters of steaks with every kind of vegetable and breads had been set. Streamers made of red, white, and blue cloth hung from long poles stuck into the ground. And the people were dressed so that they could be called decorations too. Irene and Amy both had tucked tiny flags into their hats and wore their blue suits with the long wide skirts.

There was much eating and gossiping that afternoon. It had been a year or more since I had seen many of these neighbors, and I was lost in a flurry of greetings and news and reminiscences. Amy, Irene, and George joined the young people. The Deerings raise a large herd of cattle, and so there were a number of young cowboys in their wide-brimmed hats prancing around on horses and showing off their abilities with a rope.

I overheard Amy try to pull her cousin away from a ring they had created to ride in. “They only want to create a spectacle,” she said. But Irene did not want to leave the crowd which had gathered around them. It is difficult not to watch them; they are so agile, so full of quick grace.

Later when I looked up from my conversation with Mrs. Coleman, whose daughter had just gotten married the month before, I saw how the sun had sunk and that they were getting ready to light the fireworks display. I found Amy and asked where Irene had gone. It took me several minutes to get the truth from her, that Irene and a young ranch hand had taken two of the horses and gone riding. I immediately spoke with the Deerings and was assured that the ranch hand was a responsible young man, the son of a friend of Mr. Deering's who had settled in Utah.

By the time they returned, Irene breathless from the ride, the fireworks had ended. Later that night I explained to her that going riding with a young man, especially a young cowboy, out here is different than going out walking with a young man in Stillwater. In her mind I am sure it was no more than a friendly ride through the desert, but I suspected the boy had more in mind, as I heard him ask if he could ride out to visit her later in the week.

Several times now, despite the distance between our land and the Deerings' ranch, he has called on Irene. They go out riding is all that she will tell us, and I do not doubt her word but fear for her reputation. Mr. Deering has told Clayton the young man would marry Irene if it comes to this, but I am not sure you would want a young cowboy for a son-in-law.

If you think it wise we can send Irene back to Virginia a week or two early. I am quite sure Amy would agree to accompany her so that she would not have to travel alone. Once Irene is back in Virginia, I know she will forget this ranch hand, as she is a sensible young lady.

I am your devoted sister,

Abigail

August 20, 1884

Dear Maggie,

I am dismayed by your accusations that it was my influence, or lack of influence, that caused Irene's indiscretions. Irene is not a child anymore, and surely she is accountable for her own mistakes. I assure you, living in the west has not caused me to “loosen” my values so much that I no longer can “tell what is right from what is wrong.” When you comment that my notions about love lack the maturity of a woman my age, I wonder that you could be so “mature.” I would hope that I am never so old.

Maggie, you have been my one true confidante. How can you judge my life so harshly? Did you use my confessions to strengthen the blame which you falsely laid on me? I can picture you in Virginia attending socials and helping out at the church and at John's store, and in the house that was given to you by John's parents with its wide and gracious porch, under the shade of the magnolias and oaks, sitting in judgment on my life when you know how I have had to struggle to shape it myself, the best that I could.

I have written to Amy that she is to return home in April upon completion of her certificate. The school east of North Valverde is expecting her to begin the following fall, and she will need a good part of the summer to prepare her classroom and her lessons. In the event that she is no longer welcome at your home, I have sent her money enough to board elsewhere while she finishes her studies. I shall write to Aunt Celia. Perhaps she will assist Amy in finding a suitable place.

Your Sister,

Abigail

October 13, 1884

Dear Maggie,

Amy has written that she is “most welcome” in your home and plans to stay with you through the spring while she completes her certificate. I am grateful that your judgments of me do not extend to Amy. I know she is looking forward to completing her studies so that she may return to the west.

She writes that Irene's new suitor is the son of Mr. Clyde Baker. I remember Mother's wish that one of us might marry “a Baker boy.” It is a good family. I am happy for you.

It has been two months now since I sent you a letter, and I had thought you would write back to me. Aunt Celia has not written since the spring. Have you divulged any of your doubts about my lack of judgment or morality? I pray that you have not betrayed my confidences. Amy has said that Mother is not well. Please write to me if she is declining. I shall come east at once despite your ill feelings towards me. I wish very much to make a reconciliation with her.

Your Sister,

Abigail

January 14, 1885

Dear Maggie,

You write that if I were truly in mourning, I would come east for Mother's funeral and pay my respects. You know nothing of the depths of my grief and remorse. If I had not heard from Amy that Mother had taken to her bed, I would have known nothing, so little care did you take to keep me informed. Had you written to me truly as a sister should, I would have come at once to attend her. Instead you expect me to come now, after there is no hope of reconciliation. You expect me to come and sit at her funeral when everyone in the church will know that she had refused my letters.

I cannot believe you when you say that you had not expected an end and that her illness was sudden. Did she not take to her bed last September? And as for your love for me, I feel these are words at best, empty of any substance. I shall let Amy take my part at the funeral. I shall not return east.

Abigail

June 5, 1885

Dear Maggie,

It has been five months since Mother's death. Until last week, I thought I would not write to you again, for I do not think I will ever forget that you took from me any chance that Mother would welcome me back into her keeping before her death. But now I see that there is more betrayal that binds us. Even now that Mother is no longer alive, you have the ability to alter the course my life runs.

Amy's latest letter states that she has refused the teaching post offered to her in New Mexico and that she has a suitor who will write to Clayton asking her hand in marriage. Now you stand between me and my daughter as you stood for so long between me and Mother. She writes that his name is Everett Turner and explains that he is from a good family, as if I did not know the name, as if Sally, the closest friend of my girlhood, were not the boy's aunt.

Stillwater appears in her letters as if some magical kingdom, with its paved streets and buggies, the men in coats and hats and ladies in silk or taffeta basques, with stiff petticoats and ruffles, their hair tied with ribbons. Has she shown you the bustle I once taught her to make by folding a thick towel over a string? I suppose you had a long laugh at our simple poverty. Now Amy tells me she wears only suits and dresses that are in fashion.

I am an outsider to this world where one can buy soft, narrow-toed shoes and a new hat for every season. I did not know that Japanese parasols are carried in the sun or that the Inmans hold a ball each spring. Do the mimosa trees still drape over the sidewalks on Chelsea Avenue, and do the ladies gather on the porches along Vine Street to hear the latest gossip? I cannot imagine a Stillwater that is any different than the one I left eighteen years ago.

Maggie, know that it is not the young man himself that I object to, only that I have lost too much in this world already. I cannot face the loss of my own dear Amy, and it will be a loss if she marries this boy, for I feel sure they will settle near his home.

The wide sky that stretches over our ranch seems too full of light this summer, fragile and empty. Clayton and George have gone to check on a mine that Clayton plans to invest in. I have sent Margaret to play at a neighbor's house, for she needs company her own age, even if they do speak Spanish. If Amy were here, I would ride with her to a grove of piñon trees that grows along the base of the mountains. They are so pretty against the sandy hills.

I remain your sister,

Abigail

September 29, 1885

Dear Maggie,

Clayton has given his consent so that Amy and Everett Turner may wed. It went against him to do so. But she would only resent our interference, and we will not force her to live in New Mexico. Amy writes that the wedding will take place this winter in the Turners' home. Clayton refuses to attend, insisting she should be married out here. Now that his oldest brother has moved to Denver, he has no family ties left in Virginia and will not leave the ranch for the two or three weeks we would need to make the trip.

I will plan to take the train east with Margaret. Amy is my oldest and dearest daughter, and as you say, I could not bear to miss her wedding. I will look forward to seeing you also, Maggie, despite our quarrels. When we were young, each thought I had could have easily been yours. I knew all of you—your quick, fluttering gestures, the sadness that stayed in your eyes for months after we heard about Father's death, and the brightness that came into your voice the summer you met John. I hope you are not right in saying we no longer know one another. But perhaps time and distance, wide as the sky, have lain down between us.