Authors: Shirley Streshinsky
"He is transformed since his arrival," I said to Willa. "He seems so happy on the ranch, do you think he will want to start Harvard this fall?"
"Oh, I'm sure," Willa started, then stopped. "You know, Owen made the arrangements all those years ago, I guess I've always thought it was settled."
"Do you feel Thad thinks it is settled?" I prodded.
"I hadn't thought," she answered, "but you know something, don't you?"
"Not really," I answered, "nothing precise. Only that he mentioned something to me about the University of Southern California—about some of the faculty having been trained in the best Eastern schools, he said
if he had to go . . ."
"Is that all he said?" she probed.
"Nothing was very direct. It was just a feeling I got. He kept coming back to talk of Porter Farm, and the last time he visited there—last spring. He admires his uncles, the way they live. He talked quite a lot about it."
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said, "I truly don't. It's just that he made such a point that none of his uncles had gone to college, and he thought they lived quite a good life."
"I wonder what Owen would think?" she said.
"I suppose he would have been dismayed," I answered honestly, because I had thought about it. "But then, you didn't agree with Owen's insistence on the boy's being educated in the East from the beginning. I think now you must make your own decisions. You have the right to be as opinionated as Owen was."
Willa slipped her arm around my waist and gave me the briefest of hugs. It was her way of thanking me for bringing an issue to the surface, and helping her deal with it, pushing gently toward a decision.
Neither of us knew then how determined Thad was to stay on the ranch; neither of us could have guessed how relieved he would be when he met with no resistance. Thad loved the ranch in much the way that Willa loved it. There was plenty of work for a young
patrón
, though Thad's temper caused the men to be cautious of him. Still, they admired his willingness to learn, his capacity for work, and his lack of pretension. Soon, the men—especially the
vaqueros
—discovered his admiration for what they called machismo, and they preened for him and basked in his envy.
The day Ignacio and Trinidad returned, Thad was there to greet them. It was the first day he had spent around the ranch house, and it took me a time to understand that he was, in fact, waiting for them.
He greeted them affectionately, which made Ignacio a trifle uncomfortable but pleased Trinidad.
"Pablito," Thad said, as soon as he could, "tell me about Pablito. What is he doing?"
Trinidad glanced at Ignacio, whose face had darkened. Thad saw and changed the subject. He would ask Trinidad when she was alone.
"Aiiie," she said, later in the kitchen as they sat across the table from each other, like friends, her hand on his. "My poor Pablito, he has brought such shame on us. First he fights with the revolution, then he fights with the dictator. He fights with whoever asks him for money, we hear. Ignacio has forbidden me to speak of it." She shook her head, in sorrow and in perpetual sadness.
"I would like to see him," Thad said.
"Ah, and I," Pablito's mother answered, "but not here, never here I think."
Joseph spent several days each week at the ranch, bringing a clerk with him so that Willa and he could tend to business. He also brought Arcadia whenever the Señora would allow it. Once only, Arcadia convinced the Señora to accept Willa's invitation to join us on the ranch. Joseph had hired a comfortable coach for the trip. We had a guest parlor outfitted to accommodate a most important house guest. We did more than ever we had done for a guest, including Mr. Roosevelt, but it was all for naught. The Señora, it seems, had forgotten that Owen was no longer alive. "And where is young Mr. Reade?" she had demanded upon arrival. "Why isn't he here to greet me?"
"I'm not at all sure she can accept our excuse for Owen's absence," Joseph had whispered, in jest. In fact, she didn't.
"It's not at all the same without him," she told Arcadia in a loud aside, "I think I will not wish to stay."
"There were some things only Owen could do," Willa sighed. "And one of those was to make the Señora feel beautiful again." She turned away, surprised by the tears that stung her eyes. Joseph patted her gently on the shoulder.
At dinner that evening, the conversation was strained. Joseph did his best, but even he could not manage to lift the pall the Señora put on the gathering. After a bit, when the Señora dozed off, her chin sunk into her chest, we talked quietly, not to startle her. Suddenly she came awake, and announced, in a rusted voice, that Abel Stearns had come to court her dressed in knee breeches and silver buckles.
Arcadia rose quickly and moved to her side. She whispered in the old woman's ear, and soon the Señora was dozing again. The incident was important, Willa and I decided later, only because it showed something of what Arcadia must contend with, day in and day out. It made us sad.
Arcadia and Joseph doted on the twins, who returned the affection lavishly. In some ways, the twins bound us even closer to Arcadia and Joseph. They were among the few who knew the truth, our inner circle. They were among the people we trusted most in the world. We were, in turn, their family, the twins their children, as well.
The week after Wen and Thad's arrival (and Wen's precipitous departure), the twins took a bag of oranges to the bottom of the palm lane to eat while waiting for Arcadia and Joseph's carriage to arrive. It had become their habit to ride to the house with the couple, on the way telling them all that had happened during their absence. Porter would give the running narrative, trusting Kit to fill in the details. Arcadia and Joseph loved these drives, and always asked their coachman to go slowly to prolong the time with the twins.
"Sara's in town," Arcadia called to me as soon as the carriage halted, and the twins came tumbling out. "She's finishing up some business in Santa Monica today, and she'll be along shortly."
"Wonderful," I exclaimed. Sara had been in Paris for most of the spring. We had not expected her for several weeks.
"Not so wonderful, I think," Joseph put in, "Charles is champing at the bit."
"Charles?" I said, wary.
"We've been giving the Southern Pacific a good deal of trouble," he answered, speaking of the Good Government League. "Charles is angry that we were able to get the documentation on rebates that will enable us to take our case to Washington. He's out for bear."
"Joseph," Willa said, "behind that cigar and gathering girth, you really are fearless."
Joseph erupted in one of his great laughs, throwing Kit into the air and catching her, then giving her a big kiss before gently setting her down. "Porter," he said then, "I think we men had better retire before the women pick us to death. Let's find Wing Soong."
That, too, had become part of the ritual. Shortly after arriving, Joseph and Porter would make their way to Wing Soong's little cabin. There, Joseph would light his cigar and the two men would talk, while Porter listened. They spoke of politics, they talked of revolution, they covered a whole range of subjects. In Soong, Joseph had found an inquiring mind to rival his own. Owen had been fascinated with Soong, but not intellectually. Joseph, on the other hand, plumbed the depths of Soong's Oriental mind. While Owen had been a captain of industry, Soong and Joseph were men of conscience with goals that far outstripped anything Owen Reade had ever imagined.
Porter listened, now and then asking a question. Most of the questions were a child's but all were answered. I wondered, at times, how much of what he heard would stay in his memory. I wondered, more often, what effect it would have on our son, these long, convoluted discussions about morality and ethics, about duty and the dignity of work.
Porter had been told that Owen Reade was his father. Joseph was Porter's godfather, Soong his good friend. Even before Porter had much of a notion of what a father should be, he selected his own. I will never forget the words. He said to me, "I have chosen my father." He paused, continued, "Soong for half, Joseph for
half." When I told Soong, his pleasure was real. "A wise man, our Porter," he said. "His judgment is sound. How agreeable to be able to choose one's own father, and to be fortunate enough to know such a man as Joseph Brennan."
Sara arrived on Saturday and we celebrated with a beach party, the first of the season. We set our umbrellas and chairs in the sand, and watched as the twins romped off to the surf, squealing with pleasure as the waves washed over them, letting the water lift and carry them, belly first, onto the hard, wet sand. After a time they tired of riding the waves and came to fetch Sara. The three wandered off to comb the beach.
Sara and Porter were squatting by the tide pools along the rocky ledge, jumping when the surf washed too close, returning then to stare into the pools. Kit approached with a starfish in her hand.
"How beautiful, love," Sara enthused. Porter moved to Kit's side, examined the starfish and announced, "It was a shooting star, you know, when they fall into the ocean, this is what happens to them."
Kit looked at him, saw that he was serious, accepted his explanation. It never occurred to her to doubt Porter.
"That's a lovely idea," Sara said, considering her godson carefully. Later she would tell me, "He has the most remarkable presence. Sometimes I think Kit is the only one who truly understands him."
"And Soong," I added.
Sara smiled, "Kit and his mother and father, I should have said."
"Oh, not me," I assured her, "I don't have the same sort of thought processes they have—Porter, Kit, Soong—or you or Joseph, for that matter. You're all much too quick for me."
Sara took my arm, then, and we walked down the beach together feeling fine with each other. I tried to explain, to put into words, what the twins had done to change all our lives, but I could never quite manage. It was fascinating, and somewhat strange, but we were a family again. After Owen left, the pattern had been shattered.
We all missed the excitement, the cohesion, he had brought to our lives. There were times, in those months following his death, when I despaired of our ever being together, a whole, again.
And then the twins came. Our days formed around them. We came together, our circle of friends who were more than friends, more even than family. Willa was able to enjoy her daughter as she never had her sons. Perhaps it was just that Kit was a girl, perhaps it was something else. I didn't know, it didn't matter. Kit and Willa had lovely, laughing times together. Whenever Kit awakened in the night, it was Willa's bed she went into.
On the Sunday after the beach party, Willa and Arcadia rose early to go to the boat dock to do some sailing, a sport they had revived for themselves. As they walked toward the barn to get the dog cart, Thad, shirtless, leaned from an upstairs window and called to them, "Can you use a crew?"
Arcadia shielded her eyes and looked up at him. "Come along, sailor," she called.
"We'll go ahead and get the boat ready," Willa added, "come along when you've had some breakfast. We'll be away all morning."
"Right behind you," Thad shouted, slamming down the window. In a few minutes he was racing across the yard, eating biscuits on the run. Sara and I watched from the kitchen window. "How nice to see that boy so happy," Sara said, "he doesn't seem at all the same Thad I saw in Boston. Not the same boy."
"I know," I answered, "Sometimes I think there are several Thads—but this is the one I like best."
Joseph joined us, and Trinidad was right behind, shooing us out of her kitchen and onto the verandah where we were to allow her to serve us a leisurely breakfast. Joseph was her clear favorite, eating everything she put before him, as she clucked and cajoled all the while.
"Trinidad, you are a wonderful woman, but you are ruining my figure. I'll never be a slim man again, I fear, and it is your fault, all of it."
"No, no," Trinidad murmured, as she might to a lover.
Sara shot Joseph a wry, affectionate smile. "When I try to explain to my friends in Europe, or even San Francisco, what it is I love about the Malibu, I never can. How does one explain the noises Trinidad makes as she serves sausages in the morning?"
"One doesn't," Joseph answered. "Never try to describe a state of mind, of being . . ."
"I suppose it is the way a few lucky people feel about home."
"Strange you should speak of home," I put in. "We had rather a large disappointment earlier this week. Wen came out with Thad, you know. It was his first time on the ranch since the trouble, and Willa had gone to great lengths to get Trinidad and Ignacio to visit Aleja . . ."
"Oh, yes, and did they actually see her?" Sara put in, breaking my thought.
"Yes, they finally did—and it seems to have been a remarkable visit, their seeing Aleja on the campus of a university, where she is actually taking the course prescribed for men. But I'll tell you about that later, what I started to say was that Wen only stayed long enough to tell Willa he expected to take over the reins of the family business. When Willa objected, he left. That in itself hurt her, but I think she was just as hurt when Wen said the Malibu wasn't his home."
Joseph stopped eating. He was looking at me intently, but I knew he was not really looking at me, he was thinking. It was his way, it was how he put things together.
"I wondered what had happened," he finally said. "As soon as he came back to town, he stopped in the office and asked some very specific questions about the legal organization of the company, specific and rather sophisticated questions."
"He's not smart enough for that," Sara said bluntly, "so they were someone else's questions."