They brought him upstairs and bathed him twice, and Garland ran the purple shirt through the wash so that he could have it back again. While she helped clean and comfort him, she watched Alasdair. He had been about to say something important when Conn came in, and then had reacted very strangely to Conn’s misadventure. Once the boy had fallen into an exhausted sleep on her bed, wrapped in her shirt and down comforter, she went in search of him.
He was standing in front of her design wall, staring at the Storm at Sea quilt as he often did. But she had the sense that he had been waiting for her, for he turned and looked at her without surprise. Before she could say a word, he spoke.
“I knew it before, but it is made clearer now by what happened to Conn. We must leave, and the sooner we do, the better it will be.”
She came to stand next to him by the design wall. “What’s made it clearer? What does a little boy wandering off to pick flowers have to do with it?” She looked down and almost whispered, “Why can’t you stay here with me?”
“Garland…” He touched her shoulder, and when she looked up at him he rested his hand against her cheek, as he had when they’d first met on the beach…but this time it was a caress. “I don’t want to leave. I—” he swallowed. “If I stay here, it will be bad for you.”
“Isn’t that up to me to decide?”
He smiled, but pain and longing dimmed his eyes. “No. In this instance, it is not.” He traced the line of her cheekbone then let his hand drift up into her hair. His fingers trembled. “But I would ask a favor of you. Will you finish the gift of your quilt for me to take when we leave?”
“But I don’t want you to leave,” she whispered, reaching for him. “I lo—”
He pressed his fingers against her lips, stopping the words. “Please, Garland. Don’t make this any harder for me than it already is.”
She took a breath, and another. “I’m sorry,” she said against his fingers, and he let his hand fall.
“Then will you finish the quilt?” he asked gently.
She nodded.
She went back to work on Alasdair’s quilt, standing at the cutting table so that she would not have to look at him. She picked up her rotary cutter then put it down again because her hands were shaking. She had been a heartbeat away from telling him that she loved him. The thing that had sprouted within her as he’d held her hand had come into leaf.
This was crazy. Rob was the one she was supposed to fall in love with. Rob, not Alasdair.
All right. So maybe she had a school-girlish crush on him. Or maybe something more, some deeper and richer emotion. And maybe he even felt the same for her.
But he was going to leave and return to his old life, wherever that was, and there wouldn’t be room for her in that life. They both had to set aside whatever feelings they had, pick up their pieces, and go on.
She stared down at the piles of triangles and squares neatly stacked to one side of her cutting mat, all in shades of blue and turquoise. Storm at Sea. How appropriate this pattern had turned out to be, with storms within and without…
A memory came to her of a Storm at Sea quilt she’d seen a few years back in a quilting magazine, an otherwise-ordinary quilt with one difference. The quilt’s maker had played with the angles that created the illusion of curves, and pieced a heart into her quilt, keeping the pattern and using only contrasting colors to form the design within the design.
Sorting through the cut fabric, she found pieces of the right shape and similar dark turquoise, and constructed a heart like the one in that other quilt. Then she fit it into the already laid-out pieces on the design wall. Surrounded by all the other shades of blue and green, it could only be seen if you knew where to look. The heart of the storm.
She stepped back to survey it. There. Schoolgirl crush or something more, she would still give Alasdair her love whether he knew it or not.
Chapter 12
On April 29th, Rob called.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been calling all along. She’d seen him several times since the night they went to the movie when he’d made his declaration. They’d gone out for brunch and to a fundraising dinner for the Historical Society and to a local quilt show up in Wellfleet. He had been much his usual self, smiling and pleasant if restrained, only giving her chaste pecks on the cheek when saying hello or goodbye. But as soon as she heard his voice this morning on the other end of the phone, she knew something had changed.
“Hi, Garland. So, uh, I was wondering…are you doing anything special for dinner the day after tomorrow?”
“Hmm. Would that be the evening of May first?” She stuck her needle into Alasdair’s quilt and leaned back in her chair, trying to match his casual tone.
“As a matter of fact, it is.”
“The first…yes, I think I’ll be free.”
He laughed. “I know you will. In all senses of the word. That’s why I’m calling.”
“You’re not wasting any time.”
“Why should I wait any longer than I have to? Actually,” his voice sobered, “I’m not calling from entirely selfish motives. I thought you might like some company to mark the occasion. It’s a milestone in your life, after all. The world makes a fuss over the start of a marriage but always turns its back on its ending. And anyway, it’s as much a beginning as it is an ending. I’d like to celebrate your new beginning with you.”
She felt teary-eyed all of a sudden. He was right. The quilt was nearly done, and Alasdair would leave. It was time to think about new beginnings. Especially with Rob.
She looked down at Alasdair’s quilt, all pieced and sandwiched with its batting and backing fabric in her hand-quilting frame, a cross between an easel and a stretching rack. She supposed she could have quilted it by machine, which would have only taken a day or two. But machine quilting wouldn’t have been right for this quilt. The fact that hand quilting took longer had nothing—nothing!—to do with it.
But she wondered if she shouldn’t have compromised her artistic principles and quilted it on the machine. Then Alasdair and Conn would have left already and she could file these last weeks away as an interesting episode in her life, the Time I Found the Perfect Man On My Beach or something like that. More importantly, she could begin to recover for the second time in a year and a half from being left by a man she loved. May first would be the day she was officially free of Derek. Maybe it ought to be the day she renounced Alasdair, too.
“Oh, Rob, that’s really sweet,” she said. “Thank you. I would like to have dinner with you.”
“Then I’ll come get you around quarter to seven. Love you, Garland.” He hung up before she could respond.
Garland switched off her own phone and sat staring at it in her lap. Sweet, kind Rob. He would wipe away the memories of the other men who had so bruised her heart. She could start to forget, to pile the rest of her life on top of the memories the way an oyster secretes layers of mother-of-pearl around a grain of sand in its shell.
She picked up her needle once again, took a deep breath, and dove back into Alasdair’s quilt. Storm at Sea. She’d always loved the pattern but had never made one. The time had just never been right, and other ideas and projects had clamored for her attention first. So when she’d decided to make it for Alasdair because of the manner of his appearance, she’d decided to make it as well as she could. All those blues and aquas that she’d loved and accumulated for years had been put into this quilt so that it was an ocean of color, of the sea in all its moods. When she’d laid out the fabrics for it she’d felt like a mermaid diving through endless indigo depths or frolicking in tropical turquoise surf.
And like King Midas whispering the secret of his donkey’s ears to the reeds, she’d confided her feelings for Alasdair to the fabric, pouring into the quilt all the tenderness and passion and simple joy of being with him that she felt. But unlike the reeds in the legend, the quilt wouldn’t tattle. No one would ever know what she felt for him except her and the quilt. It wasn’t the most satisf
actory confidant, but she felt better for it.
That was why she had to quilt it by hand and let the rest of her love get worked into it, stitch by tiny stitch. No simple echoing the seams lines or “stitching in the ditch” for this quilt. Instead, she was subtly outlining the heart she’d pieced into the pattern with swirls of silver thread, leaving it calm and unquilted—the heart of the storm. The silver thread would be storm winds and rain, and great sweeping curves of shaded blue thread would create waves. She smiled. Would Kathy complain of seasickness if she saw this quilt?
It felt strange not to be quilting a pattern in chalked or penciled lines, to just quilt where and how it seemed right. If she thought about what she was doing too much she would stop, feeling lost and confused. But if she half-closed her eyes as she worked her eleven stitches per inch, not looking exactly at what she was quilting at that moment but letting her mind range ahead, then the designs seemed to flow from her needle by themselves. It was like sitting down to draw with closed eyes and finding when you opened them that you’d made a perfect sketch of the Eiffel Tower.
After a while, she began to feel as if she were dreaming. A vision of being carried on the wind like a feather, swirling and pirouetting on the puffs and eddies of air, made her feel giddy. Yet all the while she could feel the needle in her fingers, the faint prick of its tip on her left index finger under the quilt as she stitched, the slightly rough silver thread no longer catching but gliding, flowing through the fabric. Then, changing to a length of blue thread, she felt as though she were dancing across the tops of storm-tossed waves, leaping from one foaming crest to another or rolling down the billows like a child on a snowy slope. Silver or blue, wind or water, she was reaching out to catch the essence of wild weather and capture it in patterns of thread.
* * *
Rob was a few minutes early picking her up but she was ready.
“I made you and Conn tuna salad plates, and there’s plenty of bread for toast. No knives in the toaster, please. And don’t wait up. I’ll probably be late,” she said to Alasdair, who stood in the kitchen watching her.
“I…yes. Thank you for telling me.” He did not meet her eyes. She’d not told him she was having dinner with Rob but he’d probably figured it out.
She and Alasdair had been even more distant with each other since the day Conn had gone flower-picking. Or maybe it would be more true to say that she had been more distant with him. Only when she’d been working on his quilt had she let her feelings for him out, like a prisoner let out of a cell for fresh air. But that morning, looking at the quilt, she’d realized she was nearly done. Another two days of work and the prisoner would be walled up in the cell forever. Alasdair would leave, and she could concentrate on falling properly in love with Rob.
The day had been bright and sunny, perfect May Day weather, and the evening still held some of the day’s golden warmth. Garland wore a linen dress with a long jacquard shawl in shades of olive, rose, and amber. Rob’s eyes gleamed as he opened the door for her. “You look incredible,” he said, pausing for a kiss. “I wish we could just go home and have pizza delivered at some point.”
“Aren’t you hungry?” She returned his kiss, wondering if Alasdair was watching from the window.
“Oh, yeah. But I suppose we have to eat.” Rob squeezed her arm and gave her a wicked, lop-sided grin.
At the Coq d’Or they had wine and an earthy tapenade spread on slices of toasted baguette at a table basking in the last of the rosy evening light, and a rich duck confit tart and bouillabaisse. Rob’s eyes on her were almost as warm as the setting sun, and his hand kept straying to play with the fringe on her shawl.
“Would you like dessert?” he asked after their dinner plates were removed. “Or if you want, we can have coffee and whatever back at the house.”
It wasn’t hard to guess which alternative he preferred. It also wasn’t hard to guess that coffee might not be all he wanted to have. She hesitated, then remembered that this was the night she was making herself begin to forget. “Let’s do that.”
They drove back to his house mostly in silence. Rob drove one-handed, holding her hand. He pulled into his driveway and turned off the car. “Well,” he said, smiling at her. “Here we are.”
She returned his smile and took a deep breath. “Here we are.”
He watched her for a brief moment, then reached over with one hand and cupped the back of her head before leaning in to kiss her—not a peck this time, but a full-on, this-means-business kind of kiss. She closed her eyes and let him take her lips, resolutely shutting out all thoughts of another mouth, another man.
“Garland…” he murmured, dipping lower to kiss her neck then returning to her mouth. His breath was warm and quick. “Oh God, Garland, to hell with coffee. I want you.”
She’d tried, all that evening. She’d tried very hard. But all at once knew she could not—could not—get out of his car and go inside with him. She disengaged as gently as she could. “Rob, I—”
“Garland?” He drew back to look at her, still cupping her head.
“I—I think I’d better go home.”
“Are you all right?” His voice was concerned. “Did something at dinner disagree with you?”
It was so tempting to say yes, to say that she suddenly felt sick to her stomach, that maybe she’d had a bad mussel in the bouillabaisse. But she couldn’t lie. Not to Rob. “No, I’m all right. Physically, I mean. But I just…can’t. I can’t go inside with you.”
“But…” His hand fell, and he slumped back into his seat. “I see. There aren’t just two of us in this car, are there?”
She swallowed. “No.”
He was silent for a moment, then hit the steering wheel. “Damn it!”
“Rob—”
“I’ve planned this evening for weeks, ever since you said you couldn’t think about touching another man till your divorce was final. I made sure you had lots of time to absorb that you were through with your ex and would be officially and legally single. That’s what you’d said—that you needed time to finish cleaning Derek out of your head, right? Maybe you did, but Alasdair moved right into his place.”
“That’s—I am not in love with Alasdair!”
“No? Do you swear that you aren’t? Can you look me in the eye and say, ‘I have no feelings whatsoever for Alasdair’? Can you?”
She looked down at her hands. They were gripping each other tightly. She forced them to relax and took a deep breath. “This is ridiculous.”
“Is it? I’ve seen the two of you, you know. I’ve watched how he looks at you when you can’t see him. And I’ve seen how you look at him, too. I’ve seen how you move near him and I’ve heard your voice when you talk to him. Do you even realize how you act around him?”
“No,” she whispered.
“I only wish to God you were the same way with me.”
“Rob, listen—it’s—it’s nothing. He won’t stay forever—”
“So you figured that one out, did you? But not before he got what he wanted?”
“Rob!”
“Garland, what am I suppose to think? The first evening we spent together was wonderful. Then suddenly you retreated. It was like he was pulling you away from me, bit by bit. Christ, it’s made me angry—you’re so vulnerable, and he’s been treating you like you’re his private property, and you’ve been powerless to resist him.” He started the car. “I’ll take you home.”
They were silent for most of the drive. Garland huddled in her seat, head bowed. Not until they came to Eldredge Point Road did Rob speak.
“So is he staying or leaving?”
“Leaving.” She fought to keep her voice steady.
“When?”
“Another day or two, as soon as I finish making him his quilt.”
“Nice of you to offer to make one for me.”
She winced. “Rob.”
He exhaled. “I’m sorry. That was unnecessary.” They turned into her driveway. Rob pulled up to the f
ront door, but didn’t take the car out of gear.
“You’re home,” he said pointedly.
She reached down for her purse and opened the door.
“Garland.” Rob’s voice stopped her.
“What?” She didn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry if I said anything that hurt you, but I’m hurt too. Right now I feel like I’ve just had my skin peeled off. You know my phone number. When Alasdair is gone—really gone—you can call me if you want. I will be thrilled and make a complete fool of myself telling you in detail how much I love you and how I’ve missed you. But I don’t want to hear from you until he’s gone.” His voice was low and steady.
She paused and stared at her feet, already out of the car. “I understand. And—I’m sorry. I truly am.”
He didn’t say anything more, so she climbed out and shut the door carefully. He did not wait while she fumbled for her keys and let herself into the house.
Chapter 13
The clock in the front hall said it was just under two and a half hours since Rob had picked her up. It had been a very long two and a half hours.
Garland dropped her purse on the table in the front hall and went into the kitchen. She’d make herself a cup of tea and then sit at the kitchen table and watch it steep itself into inky undrinkability while resting her head in her hands and feeling miserable—
No. No, she wouldn’t sit and feel miserable. Rob had been right—she did need to get her past out of her head, the recent as well as the not-so-recent. It was too late to go upstairs and work on Alasdair’s quilt, and Alasdair and Conn were probably already asleep. But she could go and clean out Derek’s old office so that as soon as Alasdair left she could move the beds out of her quilt room and down here. Welcome to single womanhood, where you got to move your own furniture. Good thing she hadn’t let Derek tease her out of taking strength-training classes at their sports club. “Are you trying to be stronger than me?” he’d once asked, pinching her biceps. “Why not just stick to aerobics classes and get some of those hot little thong leotards?”
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