(This tale started out as just a little love story, a story that came to me in a series of dreams...a simple little story that resonated like it was something that had really happened...and then it grew to something longer than a short story, shorter than a novel. I'm not really sure how many parts there will be as I'm still breaking it down.)
Rosa was tired. It had been a long, busy day and she was so tired that her very bones seemed to ache and cry out for the relief of a warm bed and a lingering night’s sleep. But sleep would have to wait its turn, she knew all too well, because Rosa’s day was not yet done even though the sun was long gone and the moon was lolling lazily in the expansive darkness above.
Rosa was a softly rounded woman with full breasts and full hips setting off a well padded but still somewhat tapered waist. Both her long, thick hair and her piercing eyes were so deeply brown that they often seemed black. Her skin was a burnished golden brown.
Rosa rocked idly on the porch of her home in the sturdy chair that Joshua had made for her. It was, she mused without rancor, the same chair that was supposed to have provided some occasional relief from the busyness of her days. In fact, it was a chair that only got used in those rare quiet moments when the night was still and the children were asleep and Rosa had a bit of time to just get lost in her thoughts.
It was in these fleeting times that Rosa wished that she had had time to learn to read better, but she always pushed that thought aside. Her Mary could read like nobody’s business, after all, and Rosa was always so very happy when the girl would sit close to the stove and read the Bible or the newspaper to her while she worked. Rosa was pleased that her daughters could all read and that was enough for her in regards to that.
Rosa relished these moments…all the dishes, save for one, were washed and put away and the house was as clean as it could be with the dust tracked in by five very active children coming in and out all the summer’s day long. Even the baby was sleeping soundly in his cradle in the nursery.
Their home…the house that she and Joshua had built on the hardscrabble plot of land just outside of town with the help of friends and neighbors…pleased Rosa to no end in those moments when she could sit and reflect upon it. It was seemingly ever changing, ever growing…rooms being added as babies came along…but always familiar and comforting just the same. As comforting as the shouts and laughs and cries of her children…as comforting as the blanket of stars stretching out to the very edge of eternity in the nighttime sky. As comforting as the familiar lope of Joshua’s horse coming slowly but surely up the dusty road that led out of town.
He came slowly out of the evening dark, riding tall even though he too was bone tired from a long, hard day’s work. Rosa rose from the chair and waited patiently on the porch as Joshua put his horse in the barn and trudged wearily towards the house.
Joshua was a tall, sturdy man, deeply tanned by days working in the sunlight and in the face of the flames from the forge. His hair was chestnut brown, like his mother’s. His beard came in darker and coarser, like his father’s hair, and it grew fast, every morning Rosa shaved him and every night the stubble had grown dark and thick anew. His eyes were striking, blue and gray…more one than the other depending on the light.
Rosa’s head only came up to her husband’s broad chest.
Neither of them smiled at the other as he climbed the stairs…they had neither the energy nor the need to do so…but Rosa’s heart quickened as their eyes met.
“What’s for supper, wife?” Joshua asked gruffly…though not quite so gruffly as to be able to disguise the affection he obviously felt for her.
“Beef stew,” she answered, reaching over to open the screen door for him.
“Sounds good,” he said, carefully shaking the dust off his boots before going into the house. Joshua loved Rosa’s heavy accent, which lingered despite the many years in which she’d been living in the north…he found it musical, exotic, and endearing beyond words…but he knew better than to ever give voice to that because she was still more than a little self-conscious about it. He sat in his chair and Rosa dutifully bent down to pull off his dusty boots. Joshua smiled to himself as Rosa took his boots out to the kitchen…in the morning they would be clean as a whistle…and gave silent thanks for the blessings in his life.
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