Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [2]
Mike and Magaline Messina and Lisa Marrone, fire captain, Department of Forestry—for showing me the Carrizo Plains.
Pam Munns, officer, California Highway Patrol, and Janice Mangan, officer, San Luis Obispo Police Department—for generously sharing your life and experiences.
Judith Palais, my ever remarkable editor, and Deborah Schneider, my wonderful agent.
My husband, Allen—who proves to me every day that love isn’t only someplace that you fall, but something that you do.
SEVEN SISTERS
The Seven Sisters quilt pattern, like many others, was most likely designed from an observation of nature. The Seven Sisters, or Pleiades, is a fairly loose grouping of stars in the constellation Taurus. Although seven stars can be seen with the naked eye, binoculars or telescopes reveal it actually consists of several hundred more. The quilt pattern itself, a single six-pointed star surrounded by six identical stars, has been seen as early as 1845. It became popular again during the Depression era, when hand-piecing difficult and challenging patterns was popular. It is also known as Seven Stars, Evening Star, and Seven Stars in a Cluster. An interesting phenomenon of the Seven Sisters star cluster is though they appear to be close together, they are, in fact, quite far apart.
THE BROWN FAMILY
First generation:
JOHN MADISON BROWN—judge, father, and husband (deceased)
ROSE JEWEL BROWN—96 years old—wife of John Madison Brown, mother of seven daughters
Second generation:
CAPITOLA ‟CAPPY” JEWEL BROWN MATTHEWS—75 years old—oldest Brown sister (took back her maiden name when she divorced her husband)
WILLOW JEWEL BROWN D’AMBROSIO—74 years old—second Brown sister
ETTA JEWEL BROWN—73 years old—third Brown sister
DAISY JEWEL AND DAHLIA JEWEL BROWN (first set of twins—deceased)
BEULAH JEWEL AND BETHANY JEWEL BROWN (second set of twins—deceased)
Third generation:
SUSANNA ‟SUSA” JEWEL MATTHEWS GIRARD—47 years old—Cappy’s daughter
CHASE MADISON BROWN—48 years old—Cappy’s son
PHOEBE JEWEL BROWN D’AMBROSIO—Willow’s daughter (deceased)
Fourth generation:
BLISS JEWEL GIRARD—22 years old—Susa’s daughter
JOY JEWEL GIRARD—22 years old—Susa’s daughter
ARCADIA JEWEL D’AMBROSIO NORTON—29 years old—Phoebe’s daughter and Willow’s granddaughter
GILES NORTON—35 years old—Arcadia’s husband
1
“BUT WE’RE IN love,” my stepson said, his dark chocolate eyes burning bright with the passionate angst of a nineteen-year-old male in full-blown heat.
“Oh, Sam,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully. “You’re still so young.” I reached down and scratched behind my dog’s soft brown ears. Scout was a part Labrador, part German shepherd mix with a suspected itinerant coyote grandparent. He gazed up at me with adoring ocher eyes.
“You were nineteen when you married Jack,” Sam replied.
There was no way I could argue that point with any sort of genuine conviction. I had indeed married my first husband when we were barely nineteen, and it had been a warm, loving relationship working together on our ranch for fifteen years until he was killed in an auto accident two and a half years ago. Since then, I’d moved to town, married Sam’s father, Gabriel Ortiz, San Celina’s police chief, and acquired a new life. A life that included being, or attempting to be, a proper police chief’s wife, curator of San Celina’s folk art museum, still occasionally wrangling cattle on my family’s ranch, and often acting as the buffer between my volcanic husband and his equally explosive son.
Now it appeared love was in the air. Or a reasonable facsimile. And it wasn’t even spring. Like the haunches of old mountain lions, the hills around San Celina were spotted with early September golds and tans, adhering to the old Central California Coast joke that this region possessed only two actual seasons, green and brown. Downtown streets were equally covered with new Cal Poly University students flush with excitement, hope, and abundant checking accounts. It was a natural fact that the hills would retain their dusty colors a good deal