The Fullness of Time, chapter 1
Authors' note: this will be a multi chapter...though I am not sure how many chapters...story. It will be no great mystery where it is headed. But there may be a few twists and turns along the way. ( I apologize again for the very non idiomatic Spanish. It is what happens when you don't have the language and are dependent on Google translate. ). In terms of my own High Chaparral time line, this story falls after both High Tea and La Luna.
Since Luna's arrival, breakfast in the Cannon household was a bit more rambunctious than in the past. On this particular morning, Luna and Blue were engaged in a game where he pointed at her and said "sister" and she pointed at him and said, "sister." Then he pointed at himself and said "brother" so she pointed at herself and said, "brother." Then giggled. Which made everyone in her new family laugh.
"She knows," said Buck from across the table. "She surely knows, Blue," he added with a laugh of his own. And it was true; Luna's vocabulary had grown by more than leaps and bounds since coming to the High Chaparral.
"Oh, I know she knows," Blue said. "She's just being difficult!" He mock scowled at Luna and then stuck out her tongue at her. This caused Luna to laugh even more.
Victoria laughed too as she brought yet another plate of eggs to the un-fillable vessel that was her family. "Blue! Don't get her so excited! She will never finish her breakfast." Victoria shooed the other relatively new addition to the family...an multi colored young cat named...by Buck... "Ari, ("Short for Arimathea…where Joseph...Jesus' daddy...hailed from," he explained. The theological construct of that was much too much for anyone to take on, so Ari it was.)...from even thoughts of leaping onto the table.
"Alright," Blue agreed, settling for sending one more silly face toward Luna.
Victoria started to sit...but, in mid motion, abruptly stopped. She quickly turned, and left the table without a word.
"Victoria?" John had turned just in time to see his wife's back retreating from the room.
"What's that all about?" Buck wondered aloud.
John stood and followed after his wife. She wasn't in the kitchen but the door to the summer kitchen, (Something of redundancy since it always seemed to be summer in Arizona), was open. He walked though and encountered Julia, carrying a large platter of ham toward the dining room. "Donde esta la Sra Cannon?"
"Alrededor del mensajero, Patron," she replied with a small frown.
John quickly rounded the corner and found his wife splashing water from the rain catcher on her face.
"Are you alright? What happened?"
"Oh," she said, patting her face dry with a towel. "It was nothing really. I just all of a sudden felt a little dizzy. I just needed some air. Really," she repeated with a smile, putting a hand on his arm. "Don't look so worried. I'm fine. Come, finish breakfast. I'm suddenly very hungry."
John was reassured if not entirely convinced as they made their way back to the dining room. But Victoria certainly did look well ...especially well he thought... as she apologized to the others and explained her hasty departure. And she did indeed help herself to a large breakfast plate which she consumed with gusto. So, he put the incident out of his mind.
A few minutes later, he and Blue, Buck and Mano were headed out the door to sort out for sale or their own use, the last of the wild horse herd they had rounded up a few weeks earlier. After a certain amount of pleading, which showed off her vocabulary skills very well, especially variations of 'pleeeeze!', Luna went with them, swinging between Blue and Mano as they lifted her off the ground. Luna especially loved anything and everything on the ranch that had to do with horses and of course that was quite a lot, so she had become a familiar figure peering between the fence rails or sitting atop them, while John kept a protective eye on her.
Back in the house, Victoria finished clearing the table and discussed dinner with Julia, who was working her way through the breakfast dishes, before settling on the sofa to continue work on a dress for Luna. But she couldn't seem to stay focused on her sewing, a chore that she generally found not a chore at all, but rather a pleasure. She put down the dress and drifted off to other projects. But they proved to be no more engaging and eventually she found that she had drifted all the way into her and John's bedroom; simply wandering through the room, touching familiar objects. Her mind was as adrift as the rest of her.
Suddenly she sat on the bed as if her knees had given out. Which they had. Ari, who had found the spot of sunlight on the bed was annoyed at being roused from one of his many daily naps. No longer adrift, Victoria's mind was racing. She absently reached out to stroke Ari's head. When had she last bled? She had been dutifully drinking both the bone marrow broth and the Native tea that Matthew Kendel had sent. But she had been so busy since Luna arrived….several meetings with a lawyer about the adoption, creating a space for her to sleep, (Once they got past the first week or so when she was still so tethered to John that she wouldn't sleep anywhere but with them….a pleasant if somewhat inhibiting presence.), making her clothes, buying shoes and coats, working with her on her English and Spanish, (Luna's almost immediate mastery of both 'Papa' and 'Mama' had filled her with profound joy.), and in general being overwhelmed, if happily so, but the sudden appearance of a young child in their lives...that she had quite lost track. She tried to think back. The last time she clearly remembered was at a brief visit to her father. She remembered because she was grateful that it had waited until she was at Rancho Montoya to commence and that it ended before she had to take the hot, bumpy and dusty buckboard ride home. And then it was, she thought, about 10 days...perhaps two weeks...after her return to High Chaparral and John, that Luna had appeared. And all of that was...well it was something over 3 months because she had gone to visit her father for his birthday so she knew that date at least.
Taking a deep breath she got up and walked over to her dresser, quickly putting her hand on Matthew's letter where she had tucked it away. She opened it and read the relevant instructions again,
"De'sanna Ocho ta,' which is the closest my tongue can fashion of the healer's name, says you are to drink two strong cups per day, made with a large teaspoon of tea for each cup, but not during your courses. And should you feel a pregnancy quicken, you should drink it for one more month and then cease."
Yes, she had taken the tea with her in case her bleeding didn't start...she tended to be a bit irregular in that aspect...and then realized almost as soon as she got there that she wouldn't need it. Had she felt a pregnancy "quicken?" She placed a hand over her stomach and found it flat and firm as always. No – she didn't think so. And yet, she hadn't told John all of what had come over her this morning; hadn't told him that she barely made it through the summer kitchen before she found herself vomiting behind a shrub. Julia had heard of course, but hadn't said anything when Victoria re-appeared, merely raising an eyebrow at her. Had she ever thrown up before? Those times when she felt she might be with child? In truth, no. But she distinctly remembered feeling as if she might throw up during at least one of those times. In fact, now that she replayed the events in her mind, a bout of morning nausea, if not actual sickness, was the clue… the hint...that had sent her to the chapel of The Lady of Guadalupe, only to be kidnapped by Carr.
She rubbed her belly again and took another deep breath. It was hard to know what to do. There wasn't time to communicate with Dr. Kendel. And what could she tell him anyway? Still, her whole life, Victoria Montoya Cannon had been nothing if not decisive. It was that trait that brought her to the High Chaparral as John's wife in the first place. So she decided; unless she bled before then, in one month, she would stop drinking the tea. Until then, she would wait. And hope. And pray.