Page 31 of A Brambleberry Summer

“Biblioteca.”

Rosa never seemed to lose her patience with the constant barrage of questions. He could only guess how relieved she must have been when they reached Carrie and Joe’s house a short time later.

“Now you tell me. What wasdooragain?” she asked him as they approached the porch.

“Puerta.”

“No.Puerto.Puertameansport.”

“It’s so confusing!”

“English is far more confusing,” she said with a laugh. “Try figuring out the difference betweenthere,they’reandtheir.”

“I guess.”

“You are doing great. We will keep practicing.”

His son was already enamored with Rosa. They had practiced together the night before while Rosa was working in the small vegetable garden at the house. Wyatt had come out ahead in the arrangement, as she had sent Logan back to their apartment with a bowl of fresh green beans and another of raspberries, his favorite.

He always felt a little weird just walking into his sister’s house, even though he had been living there only a few weeks earlier. He usually preferred to ring the doorbell, but this time he didn’t have to. Bella opened the door before they could and grinned at them. “I saw you all walking up.Hola.”

“Hola.”Rosa’s features softened. “That’s a very cute shirt. Is it new?”

Bella twirled around to show off her patriotic red, white and blue polka-dotted T-shirt. “Yeah. I picked it up this afternoon on clearance. It was super cheap.”

“I like it very much,” Rosa said.

“I’m going with some friends to watch the fireworks in Manzanita.”

He thought he saw disappointment flash in Rosa’s dark eyes before she quickly concealed it. “Oh. That will be fun for you.”

“I’m going to go play on the swings,” Logan announced, then headed out to the elaborate play area in the backyard.

“I’ll take these into the kitchen,” Wyatt said, lifting the woven bag that contained the bowl of Rosa’s salad, the one he had insisted on taking from her when they met up outside Brambleberry House for the walk here.

He found his sister in the kitchen slicing tomatoes. He kissed her cheek and she smiled. “You’re here. Oh, and Rosa’s here, too. You came together.”

“Yes,” Rosa said. “It was such a beautiful evening for a walk. I made a fruit salad with strawberries from my garden.”

“Oh, yum. How is your garden this year? I’ve had so much trouble with my flowers. I think I have some kind of bug.”

“They are good,” Rosa replied. “Not as lovely as when Sonia was here to take care of them but I do my best with it.”

“I miss Sonia,” Carrie said. “I guess we should call her Elizabeth now.”

Rosa nodded. “I will always think of her as Sonia, I am afraid.”

Wyatt knew the story of Rosa’s previous tenant. For several years, she had lived in Cannon Beach as Sonia Davis but a year earlier, she had admitted her real name was Elizabeth Hamilton. For many complicated reasons, she had been living under a different name during her time here, until her husband showed up out of the blue one day to take her back to their hometown. It had been the talk of Cannon Beach for weeks.

Rosa had been good friends with her tenant and Carrie had told him how astonished she had been at the revelation that the woman she thought she knew had so many secrets.

“How is Sonia Elizabeth?” Carrie asked, the name some of the woman’s friends had taken to calling her. “Do you ever talk to her?”

“Oh, yes. We speak often,” Rosa said. “I texted her the other day to ask her a question about a plant I didn’t recognize and we did a video call so she could take a better look at it. She seemed happy. Her children are happy. She said she isn’t having seizures much anymore and she and her husband are even talking about taking in a foster child with the idea of adopting.”

Carrie looked thrilled at the news. “Oh, that’s lovely. Do you know, I was thinking about Sonia the other day. I bumped into Melissa and Eli and Skye at the grocery store. Do you see them much?”

Melissa Fielding Sanderson had been another tenant of Brambleberry House. She had married a doctor, Eli Sanderson, whom Wyatt had known when he used to visit his grandmother here during his childhood.

---