It was only this last choice that I liked. The other options would put me right back where someone else was deciding my future instead of me.
As the next few days slipped past, I couldn’t decide if I should flee to San Francisco or San Jose or somewhere else, much farther away. It seemed such a weighty, impossible decision. And there was no one to turn to for advice.
Had I saved enough money, and would I be able to convince the outside world that I was already an adult, just widowed young? Would I be believed if that was the story I told? Perhaps a church would help me. Wasn’t that what churches did? Helped people in need? As I lay in my bed wondering what to do and when to do it, I felt a fluttering, like tiny moths, inside me. The child was moving, stretching its small arms and legs, telling me,I am here.
I curled up into a ball, and the movement stopped. But only for a moment. Sleep eluded me for hours.
The following morning, I could not zip up the uniform whose side seams I’d already let out. I looked down at my middle, at the little bulge that refused now to be hidden. There was no more time to ponder where I would go. I would have to leave. Today.
I would have to feign sickness that morning, but not such that Celine would insist on my seeing a doctor. I knew Truman was leaving after breakfast for an overnight trip to San Leandro to negotiate a contract with a hotel there. If I waited until Celine had an errand to run, I could sneak away and ride my bicycle to the Santa Rosa bus station without either one of the Calverts seeing me. Heading to San Francisco, where surely it would be easy to get lost in the crowd, frightened me, but it now seemed the bestplan. It was a huge city; there had to be plenty of churches there. And there was no more time now to come upon a better idea. I would leave a note for the Calverts saying I was grateful for the home and job for the last year but that I was sad living at the vineyard without my family and was setting out for a new start in Los Angeles, a place to which I had no intention of going.
I put my nightgown back on, and my bathrobe, cinching it loosely over the bump. I grabbed my travel bag from the closet shelf and put in the cigar box with Helen’s letters and the money I’d saved, my toiletry things, my mother’s necklace, a photograph of my family, a book I loved, and a few items of clothing. The last thing I tucked in was the baking soda tin with the amaryllis bulb inside it. I zipped the bag closed, shoved it under my bed, and waited to hear the sounds of Truman or Celine coming into the kitchen to see about breakfast.
I heard Celine first and was glad it was her and not Truman. Celine was just on the other side of the door, getting the coffee out of the pantry, huffing surely because I should have made it by now. I opened my bedroom door just a little and coughed.
“I’m so sorry,” I said in a forced, scratchy voice, and then I coughed again. “I have a bit of a cold, Mrs. Calvert. I’m sure if I just rest today, I’ll feel better.”
“Oh,” Celine said. “Are you running a fever?”
Before I could say I was sure I wasn’t, Celine had her hand on my forehead. “You don’t feel warm.”
I willed Celine not to look down at the little round thing puffing out the fabric of my bathrobe.
“All right. Go back to bed,” Celine said. “I’ll make you some tea in a little bit. Let me just get Truman on his way.”
“I’ll be all right. I don’t need anything.”
“I’ll be the one to decide that.” Celine turned for the pantry. “Go on. Go back to bed.”
I obeyed, closing the door and returning to my bed, to listen and wait.
I waited as the Calverts got their own breakfast. Waited as I heard Truman open the front door to leave for his trip and Celine call after him to make sure he got the good year when he loaded up the Riesling. I waited as he finally drove away, and as Celine brought the promised cup of tea and some toast. Waited for Celine to have a reason to go to town in their other car or to the barrel room. Anywhere.
Finally, a bit before noon, I heard Celine open the back door. I got out of bed and peeked through the curtain. Celine was watering her potted geraniums. When she was done, she crossed the patio to head down the path to the barrel room. Finally.
I shed my nightgown and robe, grabbed the travel bag from under the bed, and shoved them inside. I pulled on a pair of pants but could not button them closed, and I kicked them off, tossing them into the closet and pulling out a skirt. I couldn’t zip it closed, either. Tears of frustration burned my eyes. I stepped out of the skirt and tried a cotton dress better suited for summer, but I could button every button. It was a tight fit, and the buttonholes puckered in an unflattering way, but it was going to have to do.
I grabbed a piece of writing paper and scribbled the hasty note that I’d waited to write until I was sure Celine wouldn’t hear me moving about in my room. I apologized for not telling them in person and signed my name. Leaving the note on the dresser, I checked the window that looked out on the patio for any sign that Celine was returning to the back door, and then picked up my bag.
I opened my bedroom door, saw that the kitchen was empty, and turned to close the door behind me. The button above my navel popped off, and as I bent to retrieve it, a second button popped off and skittered across the floor.
“No!” I whispered as I chased after it. “No, no, no!”
My fingers had just curled around the second button when Celine walked into the kitchen from the main part of the house. She had returned through the front door.
“What’s this? What are you doing?” Celine gaped at me crouched on the floor with a travel bag only a few feet away.
An arrow of dread zipped through me. I couldn’t think of any words to answer her.
“Rosie?” Celine said, annoyed now. “What is going on?”
I knew there was nothing to do but stand and hope Celine wouldn’t notice the two missing buttons and the widening opening in my dress. Or that if she did, she wouldn’t surmise why it was there. Maybe she would think it was just two missing buttons on a dress I had outgrown.
“I need to go.” I rose to stand.
“Go? Where do you think—” Celine stopped midsentence, her gaze fixed on the opening in my dress. “Are you...? Have you...?” Her words fell away as she stared.
I reached for the bag on the floor. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Calvert. But I need to go.”
