Chapter Nine - Buena Fortuna
The morning after El Zorro’s great gallows escapade, Diego and Elizabeth went their separate ways early. A few hours later, finding himself with an unexpected break in his mid-morning tasks, Diego decided to find his family. He went upstairs expecting to see Elizabeth feeding the baby. Instead what greeted him was a large, bark-colored tabby cat with a white lightning streak running down the right side of her nose. The cat was plunked comfortably in Elizabeth’s favorite chair. Four perfectly shaped white paws were showing. When Diego entered she looked up at him and yawned.
Diego frowned. Looking across the room, the bed was empty. He peered down into the baby’s cradle. It was empty too. They were gone. He looked back at the cat, which was following him with large, serene green eyes.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” he told it.
The cat began to purr.
Diego sighed. Where could they have gone, this early? He wanted to go into the pueblo and thought perhaps he would take them along and show the baby off.
The cat’s purring increased. He looked at it again. Its gaze reminded him of another animal’s gaze, many years ago. He went over to the cat, picked it up, and sat down in Elizabeth’s chair. The cat stood on his lap for a moment, looked into his eyes, and then curled up on his lap, resuming its purr.
“You belong in the barnyard,” Diego said, scratching its ear. “But purring goes a long way around here.” His eyes travelled to the portrait of his mother, holding him at age three, on the wall beside the door. Again, he thought about that duck.
The duck paddled cautiously out from among the reeds and into the open pond. Getting across had become an ordeal thanks to the stalking of the two boys who often hovered on the banks of the pond with their nasty rocks. She now had a nest with five little eggs in it, on the far side of the pond among the tallest marsh reeds. She could never leave for long, for the eggs were subject to so many predators. But she had to eat. The minnows were better among the shorter reeds.
She paddled a little faster, for the coast appeared to be clear. Then came the first flying object, splashing in front of her.
“Almost got it!” came a shout from shore.
Then another rock came, harder and faster. It fell just short of her right wing and she felt the stinging blow.
“Ha! I hit it!” the second boy cried.
“You did not,” said the first. “You just grazed it.”
“I got closer than you did.”
It was a small pond, and in the time the short argument took, the duck was able to retreat into the taller reeds. She found her way to the marshy land and her nest. Shaking off, she settled onto it, warming her unhatched young. Another disaster dodged, and the coyotes still had not found her hiding place. From beyond the pond, she heard a woman’s summoning voice.
“Diego!” came the call. “Diego are you out here?”
“Si, Mama,” came the reply.
Matilde de la Vega walked towards the pond. She saw her son and the Indian boy he played with, young Windhawk, emerge from the reeds. “Have you been torturing that poor duck again?” she asked. “Don’t you know she probably has a nest somewhere and she is waiting for her little ducklings to hatch out of their eggs?”
“Si, Mama,” the boy answered. He was ten, his friend was eleven. Diego was already tall for his age, but he was awkward. Windhawk was already living up to his name in cunning, stealth and elusiveness.
“Where has your friend gone?” she asked, coming up to her son.
He looked around. Windhawk had disappeared. The boy shrugged, looking down.
“Haven’t I told you not to hurt the animals?” Matilde asked him.
“Si, Mama,” he said, keeping his eyes to the ground.
“Diego, look at me.”
He looked up into his mother’s beautiful, dark hazel eyes, the eyes his father insisted were passed on to their son. She was a tall woman, and wore her long, silky black hair pulled up onto her head in a soft twist. Her gaze was fixed on him in a way that would not let him go. She always looked right through him. “Si, Mama,” he said again.
She reached out her hand. “I am going to the San Gabriel Mission this afternoon,” she said. “I want you to come with me.”
He took her hand and they began walking towards the hacienda. A west wing was being added, and the walls were being reinforced. Workers were everywhere.
Although he was ten and would never admit it, Diego still loved holding his mother’s hand. By nature a calm person, she made the world more serene and beautiful by being in it. Diego loved his father, Alejandro, as well. But temperamentally he took more after his easily-lit father, and could be set off when things went counter to his will. It was his mother who brought calm and dignity to the household when Papa “went off,” as she sometimes described it. So with her son, whose competitive streak burned in him deeply. More than once, Matilde intervened at moments when Diego and Windhawk were at one another’s throats on the ground over some disagreement about who had just bested whom. Thought it would be many years later before he learned to fully draw on the part of himself that came from her, restraining his natural impulse to fight and compete aggressively, Diego knew intuitively that his mother was wise, and special.
And he liked the way she held his hand -- not tightly, but surely. He was learning to hold hers back in the same way.
“Why are we going to the mission?” he asked.
“The padres need some help,” she answered.
“So we are not taking horses to them?”
“Not this time.”
“Will Papa come?”
“No,” she said, laughing softly. “Papa feels he needs to stay here and watch over the men repairing the walls.”
Diego paused, looking at the chaos around the hacienda. Then he heard a shout from inside the courtyard.
“I have said over and over again, you must smooth over the stucco with this, not that!”
Matilde looked down at her son with a smile. “I think we have found Papa,” she said.
They turned into the courtyard. Alejandro spied them coming through the gate. “Not that way!” he cried, waving them around towards the stable.
Matilde and Diego retreated and walked to the stable, entering the compound from the side. Alejandro greeted them in the stableyard.
“Nothing I say to these men will teach them to do this correctly!” he exclaimed. “The whole point of rebuilding the wall is to do it correctly! They seem determined to get it wrong for the second time! Why must I live with the sins of my father?!”
Matilde let go of Diego’s hand to go to her husband and touch his arm gently. “I see you are having a productive day,” she said.
He visibly calmed down at her nearness, taking a deep breath. “I am only trying to make a home that will not fall apart for our family,” he said to her. He looked at Diego. “And for his family, some day.”
Diego made a face, not wishing to be reminded of his obligations to carry on the family name. A year earlier, his father had taken him on a long ride and explained to his son that one day it would be his duty to make sure that the de la Vegas remained a powerful and established family in Spanish California. When Diego inquired as to what that duty would entail, Alejandro told him, “One day you will marry the proper girl and you will make a family with her, just as your mother and I have made a family with you.” Having recently attended a wedding, Diego understood the idea of a man and woman making a pledge to one another and establishing a household together. He was less clear, and inquired that day of his father, as to what was involved in the making the family part.
“Your mother will explain that to you,” Alejandro had stated.
When Diego went to his mother for information, she said, “He didn’t tell you? That scoundrel. He will tell you, Diego.”
“Tell me what?” Diego asked.
“About how families are made,” his mother said firmly. Then she took his hand and led him to his father’s desk in the library.
“Alejandro,” she said, “put down your account books and take your son to the barn.”
Alejandro looked up at her, startled. “What for?” he asked.
“Show him the new filly again, and explain to him how she entered this world and what was involved.”
Alejandro de la Vega blushed. “Matilde...” he started.
Diego looked up at his mother to see her unwavering eyes on his father. Years later he still remembered the last thing she said to him as he led Diego out the library door to take him to the stable. “We shall take this up later,” she had said to her husband. The odd thing was the way she had said it, with a quiet smile. It was only after Diego was himself married that he understood the promise his mother was making as Alejandro led their son to the stable for his lesson in where families come from.
“What are you two doing here now?” Alejandro asked, as they picked their way among the boards and buckets in the courtyard. “Why aren’t you being schooled?” he asked Diego.
“I finished,” came the reply.
“I suppose you and Windhawk ran off from the priests and started chasing that duck,” Alejandro said.
“Si, Papa,” Diego sighed. There was no keeping anything from these people.
“We are going to ride over to the Mission of San Gabriel,” Matilde explained. “It may be late before we get back.”
Alejandro looked at her sharply. “You are not going over there to help with....” he started.
“I am indeed,” she interrupted.
“But they are peons!” Alejandro protested. They stopped in the shade of the stable overhang beside the row of horses’ stalls.
“They are weak and poor. They need help,” she said firmly.
“Why are we going?” Diego asked.
“Some peons were hurt in a rock slide near the Cahuenga pass,” his mother answered. “The priests need help taking care of them.”
“Do we know any of them?” Diego asked.
“It doesn’t matter, Diego,” she answered, leading him towards the stalls where their horses were being saddled. “It is right to help when people are in need. The priests can use the extra hand, and the peons need those of us who are strong and well-off. Remember what the Lord Jesus said. ‘The poor will always be with us.’”
“If the poor will always be with us, why must we help them?” Diego asked.
“Do not be cheeky with your mother!” Alejandro said to his son. He looked at Matilde. He knew not to argue with his wife when she was bent on fulfilling a charitable purpose. He kissed her cheek lightly and said, “I must return to those fellows at the wall. Please travel safely, my dear. Take Juan with you, so that if you decide to remain there overnight he can come and let me know. Otherwise I shall expect you tonight.”
“Si, Alejandro,” she replied.
He looked at his son. “Mind your mother, Diego, and help her with anything she asks. Don’t wander off.”
“Si, Papa,” the boy said. He watched his mother’s eyes follow his father out into the sunshine and away to the courtyard. He was becoming more and more aware of the connection between the two of them, though he could not exactly pinpoint what triggered this growing consciousness.
Diego sat on a bale of hay and watched as their servant Juan saddled his mother’s black Andalusian mare and his own young buckskin mare. When he turned nine, Matilde and Alejandro had given him his first full-sized horse, which he named Fortuna. He had been thrilled with the horse, though he could not resist asking why he had been given a quiet little mare.
“You will grow into each horse you own, Diego,” his mother had told him. “Do not question your gifts.”
His father’s eyebrows raised at that one. “That is a lesson the Trojans might have argument with.”
Diego was studying the story of the Trojan War at the time, and observed, “The Trojans did not receive their horse from their parents. They received it from the Greeks.”
“That is right, Diego,” his mother said. “We do not question gifts from those we trust. On the other hand your father is right in suggesting that, taking a lesson from the Trojans, we be cautious of gifts from those we do not know.”
“Or those who are, as the Greeks were, our sworn enemies,” Alejandro added.
Now as he sat in the stable watching the horses being readied for riding, Diego felt a mix of excitement and apprehension over going to the mission. A rock slide meant that people were hurt. He liked going to the missions with his mother, especially when they took a number of horses along. But this trip was for a different purpose.
“Why must I come along?” he asked.
“It is very simple,” she answered, looking at him on his perch. “You are a strong boy and one day you will become a strong man. You are from a very fine family and you will have many responsibilities when you are grown.”
Oh no, Diego thought, she is going to tell me about carrying on the family name. He shifted uncomfortably.
“It is important now for you to see and understand that not everyone has what you have, my son. Do you remember the lesson we have had in church? ‘To whom much is given, of him much will be required’?”
“Si, Mama, I remember.”
“This is a time when we will see what is required.”
Diego sighed. He wanted to go back outside and find Windhawk. But he followed his mother’s instructions. Soon they were on their way across the arroyos towards the Cahuenga Pass on their horses, followed by Juan in a horse-drawn wagon filled with blankets and other supplies. It took 45 minutes to reach the Pass. Matilde made Diego recite his verb conjugations in Latin, French and English along the way, reminding him that all he was learning outdoors with Windhawk would do him no good once he went to the University in Madrid. This information did nothing to improve his attitude about the conjugations, but he was more or less captive and therefore cooperated. At one point he thought he heard the sound of another horse behind them, and began to suspect that they were being followed by Windhawk. But he never spied his friend or the swift paint pony he rode.
When they reached the Pass, the results of the rock slide were still very apparent. Several small wagons full of broken clay water pots and baskets were abandoned in the rubble. It had happened early that morning, the result of one of the many tremors their land was subject to. They had all felt it in their beds shortly after dawn. It was some hours later that a messenger from the mission had ridden in to speak with Señora de la Vega. Diego had noticed the robed visitor but had not known the content of his message.
They had to slow down in order for the horses to pick their way around the many rocks in the road. At first it appeared that the wagon could not make its way beyond a certain point, but the Señora was insistent, Juan was persistent, and eventually they got past the worst of the pile-up. Then Matilde stopped.
“This is what happens, Diego, when the earth moves. People were trapped here, on their way to the river to fill their clay pots with water.”
The boy kept his eyes ahead. “I wish the earth would stay still,” he said.
“It is the price of living in this beautiful place,” his mother said as the horses resumed walking.
“Is it beautiful here, Mama?” Diego asked. He had nothing to compare to California.
“It is one of the most beautiful places on earth,” she replied. “The sun shines most of the time, the air is cool at night, and the ocean brings us the breeze. We do not freeze, as they do in so many places in Europe and on this continent. Do not take California for granted, my son. We are very blessed to be here.”
Sometimes it seemed to Diego that his mother did nothing but instruct him. Of course she played with him, and encouraged his play with others. Unlike other parents of his peers in the pueblo, she did not object to his friendship with Windhawk. “You can never know who will end up being your friend,” she told him.
“Why do you always teach me, Mama?” he asked as they continued towards the San Gabriel Mission.
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“You are always teaching me things and telling me things. Ricardo’s mother does not do that. She sends him off to the mission school or off with his father or sometimes off to the woodshed, but she doesn’t tell him things all the time.”
“Parents are different,” Matilde smiled. “To me, there are so many things to prepare you for. We have high hopes for you, Diego. You will be a leader in the pueblo one day. Papa and I want you to be ready. That is why we teach you things. That is why we will send you to Madrid for your formal schooling.”
“When do I have to do that?” he asked.
“Not for some years, yet,” she answered. “We will send you when you are sixteen or seventeen, and you will come home when you are twenty-two.”
That seemed like a long way off, though it also seemed like a very long time to be gone. “Why do I have to go away for so long?” he asked.
“It will take that long for you to learn what the professors there have to teach you,” she answered.
“Will you come with me?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “I will come with you to help you get settled in Madrid, but then I will come back home to Papa and wait for you to return to us here in Calfornia.”
This horrified Diego. “You won’t be there with me, or Papa either?” he asked.
She laughed. “By then, you will not need us with you. And perhaps you cannot imagine this, but you will not even want us there. You will want to be with your friends and make the discoveries that a young man makes when he is first on his own.”
Diego could not imagine a time when he would not want to be near his parents. He loved exploring and getting into mischief, but it never occurred to him that Rancho de la Vega and his parents would not be there to return home to. “I am not sure I want to go to Spain,” he said.
“We have lots of time for you to get used to the idea,” his mother said, as they rounded the last curve on the road in the pass. Before them lay the sparkling San Fernando Valley, lush with river grasses and sloping hills, the great San Gabriel mountains rising in the distance. “Good,” she said, as they paused to take in the sight. “We will arrive soon. Take some water, Diego. We will be very busy once we arrive.”
As he took a drink, Diego noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. They all saw it, and before them a red fox was trotting across the road some yards ahead of them. The fox looked over at them as he crossed, and then continued without increasing his pace.
“Why wasn’t the fox afraid?” Diego asked.
“He knows he can outrun and outwit us,” his mother answered.
“But we might have a gun!” Diego said.
“Foxes are very smart, Diego. He was probably watching us for miles and could tell that we would do him no harm.”
Diego looked at the place in the underbrush where the fox had disappeared. “I wonder where he went,” he said. He and Windhawk had not, for all their effort, ever discovered a fox’s lair.
“No animal is harder to capture than a fox,” his mother answered. “They are wily animals. Have you finished your drink? Si? Then let’s go on to the mission.”
What they found was over a dozen peons in great misery. Matilde walked among them with the padre who led the mission, and agreed with his conclusion that two of them were so badly injured that they would not live to see the next sunrise. Of the ten remaining, three could still die, four were bound to recover, and two were unhurt but devastated by what had happened to their companions. One of those two was a little girl who appeared to be slightly younger than Diego. She sat by her badly injured mother in horrified silence.
After tending to the injured as she could, distributing more blankets, offering food and water, and trying to ease pain, Matilde sat down next to the little girl. She motioned for Diego, who had watched all of the ministrations from a side bench, to come to her.
“Hello muchacha,” she said to the child. The little girl would not look up, she only stared at her mother, holding on to her hand. “What is your name?”
The child did not answer.
“I want you to meet my son, Diego. How old are you?”
Still the girl said nothing. Matilde looked at the mother. She was one of the ones who probably would not last the night. She looked at Diego, and nodded in the direction of the little girl.
“Buenos tardes,” Diego offered. “I am sorry your mother was hurt.”
The child looked at him. Tears formed in her eyes. She looked over at Matilde. “It was such a big rock,” she said, beginning to cry.
Matilde reached for the little girl and the child let herself be held by the tall, strange woman with the beautiful eyes. Diego stood by feeling helpless. Not knowing what else to do, he patted the little girl’s shoulder as she wept in his mother’s arms. Then he stepped back.
Finally the little girl slowed down her crying.
“Can you tell us your name now?” Matilde asked.
“Maria,” the little girl answered. “That is my mother’s name, too.”
The padre came up to join them. He checked the older Maria, who was all of 25, and then looked at Matilde. He shook his head sadly.
“Maria,” Matilde said, “I do not think your Mama is going to get well. I think her injuries have hurt her too much and that perhaps the Blessed Mother will help her by taking her up to heaven.”
“But she can’t go away,” Maria began crying again. Matilde took her back into her arms.
“Do you have a Papa anywhere?” Matilde asked, looking into the little girl’s eyes.
Maria shook her head. “He died in a fire,” she said.
“Aunts or uncles?” Matilde asked.
The girl shook her head. “Only Mama.”
Matilde hugged the girl more tightly. This peon child was about to be orphaned and there was no one to claim her. “Maria,” she said, “I want you to stay here and hold your Mama’s hand for a while. It will be very hard, but you must say your goodbyes to her in your heart, and tell her how much you love her and that you will always remember her. Diego and I will come back to see how you are in a little while. All right?”
Maria nodded, and sat down again next to her mortally injured mother.
Matilde stood up and took Diego’s hand, leading him away. They went outside, and she sat down on a bench. Diego looked into her face to see that there were tears in her eyes.
“Mama, why you are crying?” he said, puzzled. He sat down next to her.
“The little girl will be alone in the world after her mother dies,” Matilde said. “It makes me very sad.” She put her arms around her son. He hugged her, not entirely understanding but feeling certain that somehow it was what his mother wanted.
“You are a good son, Diego,” she said to him, letting go of him and wiping her eyes off. The padre came up to them from inside the mission.
“The peon woman has died,” he said sadly. “The little girl was saying a prayer when it happened.”
Matilde nodded. “May the poor woman rest in peace. Can you take care of burying her?”
“Of course,” the padre answered.
Matilde was silent for a moment. Then she said, “The little girl appears to have no other family.”
“Si,” the padre said. “We can keep her here, we have several orphan children already. They help around the mission.”
“No,” Matilde said. “She will go home with Diego and me.”
Diego looked at his mother sharply.
“We will teach her to serve in our hacienda,” Matilde went on. “She is only a peon child, but she needs a place to live and a purpose to her life. We will add her to our household.”
“That is very generous, Señora de la Vega,” the padre said. “Our Lord in heaven will bless you for such kindness.”
After the padre left them, Matilde looked at her son. “I know you think I should discuss this with Papa first,” she said.
He nodded.
“He will not object, when I tell him that I will use the girl as my own servant,” Matilde said. “It is the right thing to do. We will stay overnight here in the mission and help the padres again in the morning, and let Maria be here to say a last goodbye to her mother when they bury her in the morning. Then we will take her home and help her become part of the household at Rancho de la Vega. All right? This will be something you can help with.”
Diego felt a great deal of turmoil. Having a girl around? A new servant who was not even his age? It was a very unsettling thought.
“You will not make me marry her some day, will you?” he asked his mother.
Matilde looked at her son in amazement and then laughed. “No, Diego, she is a very nice little girl but she is not someone who would be the right match for you.”
“Who would be?” he asked suspiciously.
“Someone from your own class,” Matilde answered, brushing the black lock of hair that had fallen onto her son’s forehead away. “And a meek girl will not do for you. You will need someone with a great deal of spirit.”
Diego frowned. “What does that mean?”
Matilde smiled. “You will understand soon enough, my son.” Then she thought about it for a moment. “Think about the difference between my Cyclone,” she referred to her Andalusian mare, “and your Fortuna.”
Diego considered it. “Cyclone is more temperamental,” he said.
“Yes, she is more spirited,” Matilde told him. “And Fortuna is more quiet and obedient. That is what I mean. You will need a wife who is more like Cyclone. Otherwise I fear you will be bored, and that is never good in a marriage.”
Diego wrinkled his nose. He truly did not like the reminders about having to marry one day and thus be around a girl a lot. Spirited or not, the whole project held no appeal. He concluded then and there that he never wanted to grow up.
She stood up. “Let us go back inside and see who needs more food and water. I want to show you how to take care of a broken arm, and I want you to be kind to Maria and try to help her get used to the idea of coming home with us. I will tell her, and then you can describe the Rancho to her so she will have a picture in her head. That will give her something to look forward to.”
He nodded, feeling he could do that much. They returned to the mission. For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, Diego watched and helped as his mother set broken bones and fed the injured and comforted the downhearted, including little Maria. By the time he fell asleep that night, he was exhausted. His heart, while confused, was very full.
When the little party returned to Rancho de la Vega the next morning, Diego led Maria away while his mother went to his father to explain what had happened at the mission and why they now had a new servant girl. Unsure about how to entertain the new arrival, he led her out to the pond.
“This is where the ducks live,” he told her. “One of them has a nest over here somewhere. Would you like to help me find it?’
“Si,” Maria said. She was quite shy, but was learning to follow Diego’s lead.
“Take off your sandals, then,” Diego told her, pulling off his own shoes.
They worked their way around the edge of the pond and into the marshy area among the tallest reeds. “This is squishy,” Maria said, feeling the mud oozing around her toes.
“Si, it is supposed to keep us from wanting to come in here,” Diego said. Then he caught his breath, for they had stumbled to within a few feet of the duck’s nest. He pulled the reeds apart and they peered into the little flat spot, where the mother duck was sitting on her eggs. “Shhhhhh,” Diego said. Maria leaned over to get a better look.
The duck stared up at them. It was one of the boys who threw rocks. The other creature she did not recognize. She wanted to leave, but these little ducklings were very close to their hatching point and she knew she should not go. She also knew there was danger that the eggs would be stolen by this tall human pair. Thus she met the eyes of the rock-thrower.
Diego felt the duck’s look. He remembered his mother’s words from the day before, “haven’t I told you not to hurt the animals?”
“I am not going to hurt you, duck,” he pledged.
Maria looked at him, puzzled.
“I used to throw rocks at her,” he confessed.
“Why?” Maria asked, aghast.
“It was fun to see if I could hit her,” he said. “But now I understand.”
They looked back at the duck. The duck relaxed. She now gazed into Diego’s hazel eyes with the certainty that he would at least cease getting in the way.
“Let’s leave her alone,” Maria said.
“Okay,” Diego agreed. With that they made their way quietly back to the more solid ground, and cleaned their feet at the water’s edge.
A knock came on the bedroom door, and Diego started out of his long-lost memory. The cat in his lap jumped to attention, her claws sinking into his thighs. “Ouch!” he cried, lifting her off his lap. “Si?” he said to whoever was at the door. He dropped the cat on the floor. Naturally, she landed on her feet.
“It is Maria, Don Diego, I have a message from Señora Elizabeth,” came the voice from the other side of the door.
He went to open it, and there stood the young woman who had been in their household from the time she was eight. Now she was Elizabeth’s servant. Along with Bernardo, she was the most trusted and valued of all the de la Vega household staff.
He smiled at her. “Hello Maria. Where is Elizabeth? Where is the baby?”
“She said to tell you they are in the live oaks grove above the garden,” Maria answered. She smiled up at him, and then lowered her head
“Thank you, I will find them. Can you tell Bernardo to prepare the carriage, I want to take them into the pueblo. And Maria, somehow a cat has gotten into our room, can you chase it out?”
“Oh, si, Don Diego,” she said, “I am sorry!” She went into the room and as he headed for the stairs he heard her say, “You again!” He smiled.
A few minutes later he was walking through the bright sunshine, towards the cluster of live oaks. It had been many years since he had thought of that trip to the San Gabriel mission and the kindness his mother had shown that day. He had forgotten about the fox crossing their path, and about the duck. He realized how persistent his mother had been, in showing him over and over how to learn from the world around him. He realized, anew, how dedicated she had been in trying to instill in him values that would make him a good, if privileged, man in a hard world. “Your privilege is an accident of birth, Diego,” she had told him more than once. “Never take it for granted.”
Elizabeth had once suggested to him that perhaps his creation of El Zorro was somehow connected to the things his mother taught him. In this, he now believed, his dear wife was right. He shook his head with a smile as he climbed the hill. His mother had also been right about the wife he would need. Definitely more like Cyclone than Fortuna, he thought, as he chuckled to himself. Though certainly she is my buena fortuna. A duck, a fox, Maria, and much about his mother. This was a story Elizabeth would like
He sighed, feeling a moment of gratitude for that sly tabby cat on Elizabeth’s chair. She had set all these tender memories in motion. Perhaps he should tell Maria to indulge the animal now and again. Good deeds deserved reward.
Ahead of him he saw Elizabeth sitting on a blanket in the shade, shaking her hair in the baby’s face. Chubby little hands were reaching up and grabbing at Mommie’s showering chestnut hair. Both of them were laughing. Diego smiled broadly. “Here are my girls,” he said softly.
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