Where the Lost Wander: A Novel(70)

“Sundown. Behind the fort. Mrs. Vasquez said we’ll even have cake,” Wyatt exclaimed.

Then John told me to come with him and bring my green dress. He said he couldn’t buy me a new one, but everything else was arranged. He told me to bring Ma too. And now we’re standing in Narcissa Vasquez’s pretty parlor, as out of place as two tumbleweeds in a tropical paradise.

“Yes . . . thank you for inviting us into your home,” I repeat, parroting my mother. I have a huge throbbing lump in my throat. I want to marry John. I want that more than anything, but I’m filthy, I’m tired, and for the first time in my life, I’m acutely aware of what I lack.

“It is my pleasure and privilege. I get lonely here,” Narcissa confesses. She is lovely in every way—her dress, her hair, her figure, her smile—and I can only stare, baffled. She presses her hands together and beams at us as though she has a great surprise.

“Now. Come with me. We’ve heated water for a bath. The men can wash in the creek, but a bride must have something special. Her mother too.”

Ma starts to shake her head; she has nothing better to don, and Wolfe is asleep in her arms. “Oh no. No, we couldn’t possibly.”

“Yes. You can,” Narcissa insists. “I will hold the little one. I have a pile of dresses you can choose from. I’m a bit of a runt, but without a hoop beneath the skirt, they will be plenty long. There’s one in particular that I think will do nicely. I wore it when I was expecting my youngest. It has a little more room in it.”

Ma gapes.

“And Naomi. That green dress will be lovely with your eyes. You are so tall and slim. I have a bit of lace you can wear at your throat, if you wish, or you can wear one of mine as well. There might be something there that you love.”

We trail obediently behind her, careful not to brush up against anything as she leads us into a kitchen manned by a Mexican woman who is pouring steaming water into a big cast-iron tub. She swishes her hand in the water, mixing hot and cold, and nods in approval. There are trays of little cakes on the table, iced in white and begging to be tasted. My stomach growls, and Narcissa winks at me.

“The cakes are for the party. But Maria’s set some bread and butter out. There are dried apples and apricots too. And cheese. Please help yourselves.”

“But . . . ,” Ma protests. I know she is worrying about the boys and what they’ll eat while we stuff ourselves on bread and cheese and apricots.

“We will go so you can bathe. Give me the baby,” Narcissa says, extending her arms for Wolfe.

Ma wilts beneath her vehemence and settles him in Narcissa’s arms. She gives us another radiant smile and swooshes out of the kitchen with Maria trailing behind her.

For a moment after the two women leave, Ma and I stand in stunned silence. Then we begin to laugh. We laugh until we are doubled over, we laugh through Ma’s coughing, and we laugh until we cry. And then we cry some more. For the second time in less than a week, we have been embraced by the grace of strangers.

“You bathe first, Naomi. So the water’s clean,” Ma insists, and I cry again because of her sweetness. She pulls up a chair like she did when I was a girl bathing in the washtub on Saturday nights. I always went first then too, before my brothers took their turns and made the water murky with their little-boy dirt.

Ma pours water over my head, rinsing out the soap. It smells like roses, and I’m overcome once more. When it’s Ma’s turn, I do the same for her, turning the tin cup over her sudsy hair until nothing remains but little silver streaks amid the glistening brown.

“Someday my hair will look just like yours,” I murmur, following the stream of water with my palm.

“Yes. But you have a life to live before then. And today is a new beginning.”

Maria reappears before we are finished and whisks our dirty clothes away, leaving crisp cotton bloomers and chemises behind, and we begin to laugh in amazement all over again.



There is no place to sit, so everyone stands, making a crowded half circle in the clearing cloaked in flowers and guarded by the trees. Webb isn’t wearing any shoes. He hasn’t worn them since we crossed the Big Blue. His feet are as tough as horse hooves, the dirt ground in deep, but Pa has made him comb his hair, and his cheeks are still pink from the cold water of the creek. Ma keeps mending the holes in his clothes, but he’s starting to look like a patchwork quilt. They all are. Wyatt and Warren and Will and Pa. They’ve made an effort, it’s easy to see, but nothing has been left untouched by our travels.

The families of our company are all here too, wearing dusty clothes but freshly scrubbed faces. Abbott, Jeb, Lydia and Adam, Elsie and Homer, all smiling like I belong to them. Even Mr. Caldwell is here, his white hair neatly parted above his sunburned brow, and Elmeda is already weeping. Grief and joy are complicated. Love and loss too, and I know tears aren’t always what they seem. I smile at her as I approach on Ma’s arm, and she smiles back through trembling lips.

Narcissa has made us wait until very last to make our entrance, directing the service like she’s directed everything else today. Pa is crying too, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at Ma in Narcissa’s lavender dress; it’s a little short in the sleeves and tight across the shoulders, but she looks like a girl again. We drew her hair back in soft waves from her face and coiled it at her nape, and Narcissa gave us both a handful of little white blossoms to carry. She called it yarrow, and it surrounds the clearing on every side.