Rosa greeted this announcement with mixed feelings. Part of her surely longed to return to the muddy avenues she had walked as a girl…to return to see her mother and father and brothers and sisters; but another part seemed to fear the idea as something to be avoided, a door closed that perhaps should not be opened again.
Rosa voiced her vague misgivings and Joshua listened to them patiently. And then, his resolve unshaken, told her that they would make the journey and that it would be okay.
Rosa took a deep breath and damped back any further comment on the matter. Silently she prayed that her husband was right…that it would all be okay.
It took the better part of two weeks to make arrangements for the upkeep of the house and the business that suited Joshua. But once these things were in place, the family set out in a covered wagon bought for the journey from a farmer up the road who had used it to bring his family from Chicago some years before.
As Rosa was double-checking the contents of the wagon before they left she was surprised to see Joshua coming out of the barn carrying a rifle and wearing a gun belt with a great black pistol strapped in it. Rosa had known of the rifle but she had never seen her husband wearing a gun and it gave her pause.
Joshua noticed her concern and told her that the journey they were undertaking was at least a little bit risky and he was not going to have his family unprotected. Having made the journey north, Rosa was aware of the risks…however slight…but the heavy gun on her husband’s belt still left her feeling a bit ill at ease.
The three of them took to the road on a quiet morning, two sturdy horses pulling the wagon as they headed south towards Mexico.
When night fell they camped in a clearing underneath a torrent of blazing stars. Rosa hummed softly as she cooked beans and biscuits over a fire while Joshua smoked his pipe and John cooed contentedly in the basket that was serving as a traveling bassinet.
Rosa noted with some pleasure that, when she brought the baby up to her breast to nurse, Joshua did not grow flustered. As her son suckled at her breast her eyes met those of her husband and Joshua nodded and gave her a small, pride-filled smile. And then Joshua continued to rock softly to a rhythm all his own seemingly extremely content with the clearness of the night, the fragrant smoke from his pipe, and, most of all, the blessed company of his family.
The journey to Mexico was a relatively uneventful affair and when they rounded the road that led into Rosa’s hometown they both felt a sense of relief mixed with a sense of anticipation and apprehension. In his makeshift bassinet behind the seat, John slept blissfully unaware that they had arrived at their destination.
Rosa hadn’t known what to expect when she saw the ramshackle collection of buildings that passed for a main street. Things were pretty much as she remembered them but she felt no real connection to them…she felt no sense of homecoming.
The appearance of a white man in town was not something that would go unnoticed and a curious…but not especially hostile…murmur followed them as they made their way through town towards the houses that lay on its outskirts. Some people recognized Rosa and greeted her…some amiably, some warily…and she returned their greetings, her Spanish fluid and flawless despite the fact that she rarely used it up North.
Rosa felt her throat tighten a bit as they navigated the earthen road that led up to her family’s hard scrabble homestead, a house that now seemed impossibly small for the number of people who lived their at one time or another. Rosa felt her heart well up when an old man…slightly stooped from years of working in the fields to support his seemingly ever-growing family…came out onto the porch to see who the visitors were.
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