Free The House on Seventh Street by Karen Vorbeck Williams

another Edwin. Nora was glad it was a girl and laughed off the memory of her father-in-law’s offer to pay her three-hundred dollars if she would give him a grandson.
    Lying in bed surrounded by the sweet scent of flowers, Nora could see Grand Mesa out her window, a blue flattop mountain bordering the east side of the valley. All her life she had watched clouds move over the valley dropping blankets of shade over the mountains.
    Now and then, she still pinched herself. She had come back to Grand Junction. The very town she was excited to leave when her father was promoted and transferred to LA in 1935. She grew to love Hollywood and the City of Angels with its theatres, art museums, and nearby beaches. She liked the cool foggy mornings, the afternoon sunshine, the almost constant presence of flowers in the garden. Sometimes—with a sense of liberation—she thought back to the unimportant little town where she was born, glad to be living so far away.
    Then one day, as Nora was helping her mother shell peas in the kitchen, Henry Grumman—and Grand Junction—came to her door. She welcomed him inside the house and into her heart. They had been friends in high school, had dated once or twice. He had changed. No longer boyish, he stood there a full-grown man with love in his eyes. Their reunion led to a brief, passionate courtship followed by a wedding at Carmel by the Sea. Nora’s pregnancy was also a surprise, an event that pulled them back to Colorado where Henry had been promised a partnership in the family business. Home again, they struggled to live on the small salary Edwin Grumman paid his son. Henry did not complain and encouraged Nora to be patient. His father would increase his wage as he took on more responsibility and ascended to full partnership.
    Nora lay in her hospital bed learning how to nurse her baby girl. Even though her friends swore by an infant formula, she wanted to breast-feed her baby. Dr. Sloane seemed not to have an opinion one way or another and neither did Henry. Magazine ads made using the baby formula sound preferable, easier, even more nutritious. Nora thought differently—Mother Nature could not be improved upon. At first, nursing was painful. Nora worried, but as the days passed it became easier and the baby gained weight.
    Every time her mind wandered off to all she had left behind, Nora told herself to forget California. She loved her husband and the tiny daughter in her arms. She would make her life here. Two very dear friends still lived in town and the mountains and countryside beckoned to her. She wanted to spend time there with her drawing materials, to draw the mesas and the rows of peach trees in the orchards, and to paint the skies with oils.
    After eight days of hospital confinement, Nora was helped into Edwin Grumman’s shiny black Cadillac Fleetwood, baby Edwina was placed in her arms, and they were transported to the house on Seventh Street where her mother-in-law, Juliana, would nurse her back to health. A caesarian section required a long period of bed rest.
    Carried upstairs by two hospital orderlies, Nora was put to bed in the guest room. She had not wanted to be isolated upstairs all day and had hoped they could make her a bed in the library. Juliana insisted that she be in a proper bedroom where she could rest away from the household bustle. The baby was taken to the nursery down the hall from her room—Henry’s old bedroom. Nora was told that confined to bed in a quiet room, she would heal faster and regain her strength. She knew it was useless to complain and surrendered herself to Juliana’s will and care.
    THE GRUMMANS HAD two servants, a married couple who lived on the third floor at the back of the house. Maria kept house and cooked, and Roberto did maintenance and the lawn and gardens. After Nora and the baby arrived, Juliana told Maria to carry on with her usual chores, she would take care of the mother and child. With her