“I’d stay there except we don’t have much family left in Sugartree any longer. I’ll miss the old house, of course, but William Wiley’s having a real difficult time going up and down those steep stairs. He has to use the wheelchair more and more.”

  “Who’s taking care of him now?” I asked.

  “Jake and Neba Jean.” Jake was Aunt Garnet and Uncle WW’s only child; he and Neba Jean were my cousin Rita’s parents. “But I didn’t tell you this. Jake has decided to take a job in Vermont.” Jake was an accountant. From what I heard, a really good one.

  “Vermont?” Dove exclaimed. “What the heck is in Vermont?”

  “A job that pays a lot more than the job he has now. And they need the money,” Aunt Garnet said, her voice a little apologetic. “Neba Jean’s gotten them into a little financial bind . . . again.”

  It was an unspoken fact that everyone knew that Neba Jean loved her blackjack. Hopefully, there weren’t many casinos around Vermont. Though it was a little too close to Atlantic City. Was there anyplace anymore where there wasn’t a casino? Guess that was Uncle Jake’s problem.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing,” Dove said, rocking her sister back and forth. “We’re going to be with you every step of the way.”

  With those words, Garnet started bawling again and Dove joined her.

  I got up and fetched them a box of tissues.

  While they pulled handfuls of tissues from the box, I asked, “Anyone want a piece of pie?”

  “I do!” Daddy, Isaac and Gabe said simultaneously. All of them sounded relieved. There was just too much emotion flowing through the room right now.

  That made us women laugh. Thank the good Lord for pie.

  Dove and Aunt Garnet’s loving truce lasted about eighteen hours. The next afternoon, Aunt Garnet made some snarky remark about Dove’s potato salad needing a smidge more mustard and a tad less mayonnaise. Dove said that Aunt Garnet’s sour cream biscuits tasted like sawdust, and they were off and running again, each one calling me practically every hour to complain about the other.

  But there was a difference now. It didn’t feel as . . . mean-spirited. It was more like a longtime married couple sniping at each other because they trusted the love of the other one so completely that they knew they could let off steam.

  Uncle WW had contacted a realtor while Aunt Garnet was away and their house already had two offers. I promised to fly back to Sugartree to help my aunt and uncle pack up a lifetime of possessions, help them decide what would come to California, what they’d give away, what they’d discard. I knew Dove would be right there next to me, helping her sister every step of the way. Emory was going to contact a specialist in Santa Barbara to look into transferring Uncle WW’s insurance and medical records. We’d get them out here, and then, like families do, we’d deal with my uncle’s illness as it progressed. We’d just take it one day at a time. That tired old saying was a cliché for a very good reason.

  Another surprise happened after Aunt Garnet revealed the reason she’d come to San Celina. Emory’s dad, my uncle Boone, decided to sell his house and move to San Celina. He said he’d been thinking about it since Emory and Elvia had gotten married, but now that Sophie Lou was here, there was nothing keeping him in Sugartree. The home office would stay in Arkansas under the watchful eye of Uncle Boone’s long-time plant manager.

  “What is going on here?” Gabe said when I told him the news. It was Sunday afternoon, the last day of the Mid-State Fair. We stood on our front porch watching Beebs and Millee flirt with our new neighbor. He was half their age and had fine-looking, muscular legs. “Half the state of Arkansas is moving to San Celina.”

  “Hey, your family is welcome too. Do you think we’d be able to convince your mom to come out here to live?”

  His face was thoughtful and for a minute I panicked. I loved Kathryn Ortiz, but I wasn’t serious.

  “Nah,” he finally said. “She might like coming out for a few months in the winter, but her heart is in Kansas.” He gave me a mischievous smile. “You’d have a handful if Dove, Garnet and my mom all lived here.”

  “Oh, pshaw,” I said, waving a hand. “I can handle three old ladies. I’ll put them to work at the museum.”

  He pulled me into his arms and hugged me. “You are okay Aunt Garnet is moving out?”

  “Yeah, I am. She and I actually had fun together. She’s . . . different. More mellow. This might be the start of a whole new era in her life.”

  “She’s got a hard road ahead of her,” he said, resting his chin on my head.

  “They both do. But she and Uncle WW have all of us.”

  “La familia,” he said.

  “Yes, la familia.”

  We were quiet for a moment, each lost in our own thoughts of what the word family meant. With Aunt Garnet, Uncle WW and Uncle Boone all moving to San Celina, my extended family was growing.

  I sighed, rubbed my face against the front of Gabe’s shirt, inhaling the sweet scent of clean cotton.

  “Quarter for your thoughts.” His lips were warm on the top of my head.

  I laughed and slipped my hands into the back pockets of his jeans. He still felt fine, real fine. “Inflation strikes the Ortiz household.”

  “Well?” he said.

  “Just thinking about Calvin Jones and how he didn’t have any family at all. What will happen to his body?”

  “Once they establish he has no next of kin, the state will bury him.”

  “Paupers’ field,” I said softly.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “We can’t let that happen. I want to pay for his funeral and for a decent burial. And a proper headstone. He deserves that.” I waited for Gabe to protest.

  “I agree. I’ll talk to the sheriff’s department about it tomorrow.”

  I looked up at him. “Want to go to the fair tonight? It’s the last time you’ll get a chance to taste raspberry wine ice cream.”

  “Wine ice cream. Sounds wonderful.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Not to me. But there is something I want to see. The deep-fried-food contest. I hear that one of the entries is a deep-fried jelly doughnut.”

  “Isn’t that redundant?”

  “Seriously, they take a jelly doughnut, dip it in a batter and deep fry it. It’s supposed to be doubly delicious.”

  “Only you could possibly think that.”

  So that’s what we did. We went to the fair, ate some raspberry wine ice cream (wasn’t as bad as it sounds), laughed at the fried-food contest (deep-fried bacon won) and congratulated Levi on the fair’s successful run.

  “Now that it’s over, Katsy has talked me into that Alaska cruise,” he said, sitting with us in the wine gardens. The sound of a blues band playing in the arena floated through the warm air and surrounded the misty gardens with a melancholy vibe. “Maggie and Jazz are coming too.”

  “Good for them,” I said. “You all need a family vacation.”

  After dark, Gabe and I walked through the midway holding hands talking about what the rest of the year might bring. The air had cooled and the bright, colorful lights of the carnival rides flashed and pulsated. When we reached the Ferris wheel, Gabe turned to me.

  “How about a ride, Mrs. Ortiz?”

  “Only if you pay.”

  He bought our tickets at the booth and gave them to the carnie, slipping him some bills.

  “I saw that little maneuver, Chief,” I said, stepping into the ride’s rocking seat. “Why are you bribing the operator?”

  He smiled and pulled the lock bar across our laps. When the Ferris wheel started, we circled a few times, exclaiming like the other riders, at the incredible nighttime view of the fair and the city of Paso Robles. After a few rotations, the Ferris wheel stopped with our car at the very top.

  “Very smooth,” I said, tucking my arm into his. “And how much did this cost you?”

  “I’m trying to be romantic.”

  I smiled at him, thinking how lucky I was to have this man. The thought flashed through my head—the last time I’d been on a Ferris wheel was with Jack.

  But I wasn’t sad. That was another time, another life. It had been a good ride with him. And it was a good ride now.

  “Here.” He reached into his pocket and handed me a small box.

  “What is this?” For a moment my mind thrashed around frantically. Had I forgotten an important date?

  “Relax, you didn’t forget an anniversary. I just bought you a gift. No reason.”

  Relieved, I opened the box. It was a ring. A pear-shaped diamond set in a plain gold band. I slipped it on my finger next to my gold wedding band. “It’s gorgeous, Friday.”

  “I know you’re not the jewelry type. And it won’t hurt my feelings if you only wear it occasionally. But I never bought you an engagement ring and . . .” He leaned over and kissed me hard, causing our seat to rock.

  “Whoa,” I said, gripping his arm. “No more sudden moves until we touch planet earth.”

  “I love you, querida,” he said.

  “I love you back, Sergeant Friday.”

  The operator gave us another minute before starting the Ferris wheel moving again. As we slowly descended, we watched the carnival lights flicker, neon firecrackers against the purple-black sky. Around us people screamed and laughed and cried and kissed, making memories that would last for the rest of their lives. We stepped off the Ferris wheel, taking a moment for our legs to get used to solid ground again and started walking toward the rest of our lives.

  An excellent source for the history of black cloth dolls is “No Longer Hidden—A Catalogue of the Exhibit of Black Cloth Dolls 1870- 1930,” by Roben Campbell. For more information about black cloth dolls, please check out the website www.blackclothdolls.com.

 

 

  Earlene Fowler, State Fair

 

 

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