An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler

by Jennier Chiaverini

  Sarah managed to hold her fury in check long enough to point out that Carol herself had chosen a man much like Matt. “Did you settle for Dad?” Sarah demanded. “Would you have let your parents buy your affection?”

  “I didn’t have your choices,” Carol said.

  “I’ve made my choice,” Sarah said, and as far as she was concerned the matter was settled. But Carol wasn’t willing to give up, and her appeals continued throughout the engagement.

  Sarah had torn up and discarded the letters long ago, but she could still see them in her mind, page after page of her mother’s small, neat handwriting on the Susquehanna Presbyterian Hospital letterhead she’d probably stolen from the receptionist’s desk. “Marriage will change your life, and not for the better,” Carol had written. “Twenty-three is too young. You should have a life of your own first. You could go anywhere, do anything, and you ought to do it now, while you’re young. If you marry that gardener, you’ll be stuck in some little town forever, and everything you ever wanted for yourself will be swallowed up in what you do for him.” Marriage was expensive, she argued in letter after letter. Sarah could forget about the little luxuries that made life bearable. If she took a job in an exciting city, she would come into contact with all sorts of eligible men, lawyers and doctors rather than overgrown boys who liked to dig around in the dirt. After a few years, while she was still young enough to look pretty in a wedding gown and bear children, she should consider marriage. But not now, and not to that gardener.

  “I understand why you find him attractive,” her mother had written. “But young people today don’t have to be married to have sex. You can do that, if you must, and get it out of your system without ruining your chances with someone better. Besides, if you marry him, the sexual attraction will fade once the novelty wears off, and then where will you be?”

  Carol’s signature followed, as if anyone else could have written such a hateful letter. There was a postscript, but Sarah’s hands trembled, rattling the paper so that the words blurred and she could barely make them out: “Please know that my feelings are specifically about you and your friend. They are not a reflection of my relationship with your father. We had a happy, loving marriage that ended too soon.”

  At once, Sarah had snatched up the phone and dialed her mother’s number. When she answered, Sarah didn’t return her greeting. “Don’t you ever, ever spew such filth about Matt again,” she snapped. “Do you hear me? Do you understand?”

  She had slammed down the phone without waiting for a reply.

  The letters halted, and despite her earlier threats, a few months later Carol came to the small wedding in Eisenhower Chapel on the Penn State campus. She spoke politely with Matt’s father, posed for pictures as the photographer instructed, and wept no more than was appropriate. Sarah could hardly look at her, could hardly bear to be in the presence of someone so spiteful to the man she loved. She knew Matt sensed the tension that sparkled and crackled between them, and hoped he attributed it to the inherent stress of the occasion.

  The memory of those letters stung as sharply as if she had received them only yesterday.

  “What do you think, Sarah?” Sylvia asked, startling her out of her reverie.

  “Oh.” Sarah carried a bunch of carrots to the sink to wash them. “Whatever you want to do is fine with me.”

  “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

  Sarah shook the water from the carrots. “No. I’m sorry.” She avoided meeting Sylvia’s eyes as she returned to the counter. “I’ve been thinking about our newest camper.” She picked up a knife, lined up a carrot on the cutting board, and chopped off its top with a sharp whack.

  Sylvia’s eyebrows rose as she watched the cutting board. “I see.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Tell me. What brought about this estrangement? Did your mother abuse you? Neglect you?”

  Sarah dispatched another carrot with a few strong chops of the knife. “No.” As angry as she was at her mother, it wouldn’t be fair to accuse her of that.

  “What was it, then? It must have been something truly horrible, the way you two act around each other.”

  “It’s hard to explain.” Sarah divided the carrot slices among four large salad bowls and began cutting up the rest of the bunch. “Sometimes I wish she had done something bad enough to justify cutting her out of my life altogether. As a mother, I’m afraid she was all too typical. Lots of mothers constantly criticize their daughters, right?”

  Sylvia shrugged.

  “That’s what my mother did. Does. Nothing I do is ever good enough for her. For most of my life I’ve been knocking myself out trying to please her, but it’s useless. It’s like she thinks I’m not living up to my potential just to spite her.”

  “I’m sure your mother is proud of you, even if she doesn’t always show it.”

  “I wish I could be so sure.”

  Sylvia opened the oven door to check on the chickens. “You do love her, though, don’t you?”

  “Of course I love her.” Sarah hesitated, then forced herself to say the rest. “I just don’t like her very much. Believe me, the feeling is mutual.”

  “Sylvia, Sarah, would you two like some help?”

  Quickly, Sarah looked up to find Carol standing in the kitchen doorway. Two other quilters stood behind her, smiling eagerly. Sarah’s heart sank. How much had her mother overheard?

  “We’re fine, thank you,” Sylvia said, as she always did. Quilters were generous people who knew that many hands could make even a dull, slow job pleasant and quick. Sylvia often had to remind her guests to enjoy their vacations and let others wait on them for a change, but there were always a few who brushed off her protests.

  This time was no different. “Preparing a meal for twelve is too much work for only the two of you,” Carol said, motioning for her companions to follow her into the kitchen. She had changed into a dark blue warm-up suit but somehow still managed to look dressed up.

  “We can handle it,” Sarah said. Her voice came out sharper than she intended. “And there’s fifteen, including me and Sylvia and Matt.”

  Carol pursed her lips in a semblance of a smile. “Fifteen. I stand corrected.” She went to the sink, tucked a dish towel into her waistband, and began washing a bundle of celery while Sylvia found tasks for the others.

  Sarah forced herself to breathe deeply and evenly until the edge of her annoyance softened. “I see you’ve made some new friends,” she said as her mother joined her at the cutting board.

  “They’re my nearest neighbors upstairs.” Carol pulled open drawers until she found a knife. “Linda’s a physician’s assistant in Erie and Renée is a cardiac specialist at Hershey Medical Center. We have a lot in common.”

  “That’s nice.” Sarah watched as a puddle collected beneath the bundle of celery on her mother’s side of the cutting board. Carol had neglected to shake the water off, as usual, and now the salad would be soaked. Sarah held back a complaint and concentrated on the carrots.

  They worked without speaking. Sarah tried to concentrate on Sylvia’s conversation with Renée and Linda, but she was conscious of how Carol kept glancing from her celery to Sarah’s carrots. Finally her mother’s scrutiny became too much. “All right. What is it?” Sarah asked, setting down the knife.

  Her mother feigned innocence. “What?”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Nothing.” Carol’s brow furrowed in concentration as she chopped away at the celery. Water droplets flew.

  “You might as well tell me.”

  Carol paused. “I was just wondering why you were cutting the carrots like that.”

  “Like what?” Sarah fought to keep her voice even. “You mean, with a knife?”

  “No, I mean cutting straight down like that. Your slices are round and chunky. If you cut at an angle, the slices will be tapered and have a more attractive oval shape.” Carol took a carrot and demonstrated. “See? Isn’t that pretty?”

  “Lovely.
” Sarah snatched the carrot and resumed cutting straight, round slices. First the hair, now this—artistic differences over carrot slices. It was going to be a long week.

  When the meal was ready, Sarah, Sylvia, and their helpers carried plates, glasses, and silverware across the hallway through the servants’ entrance to the banquet hall. The other guests soon joined them, entering through the main entrance off the front foyer. Sarah steeled herself and took a seat at Carol’s table just as Matt hurried in from the kitchen, where he had scrubbed his hands and face. He smiled at Sarah as he pulled up a chair beside her, smelling of soap and fresh air.

  “How’s everything going with your mom?” he murmured.

  Sarah shrugged, not sure how to answer. They hadn’t fought, but that same old tension was still there. She swallowed a bite of chicken and forced herself to smile across the table at her mother. One week. Surely she could manage to be civil for one week.

  After supper, everyone helped clear the tables and clean up the kitchen, so the work was finished in no time at all. The quilters went their separate ways for a time, outside to stroll through the gardens, to the library to read or write in journals, to new friends’ rooms to chat. As evening fell, Sarah and Sylvia returned to the kitchen to prepare a snack of tea and cookies, which they carried outside to the place Sylvia’s mother had named the cornerstone patio.

  Sarah summoned their guests, encouraging them to don warm coats. It was time for her favorite part of quilt camp, when the week still lay before them, promising friendship and fun, and their eventual parting could be forgotten for a while.

  The quilters who had remained indoors followed Sarah across the foyer toward the west wing of the manor. One room after another lay behind closed doors, and the quilters buzzed with excitement at the mystery of it all. Past the formal parlor, at the end of the hallway, Sarah held open one last door, allowing the guests to precede her outside to the gray stone patio surrounded by evergreens and lilacs just beginning to bud. After gathering the other guests there, Sylvia had arranged the wooden furniture into a circle and had placed the tea and cookies on a table to the right, where she waited, hands clasped and smiling.

  Sarah caught Sylvia’s eye and smiled as she closed the door behind her. Soon, she knew, one of the quilters was bound to ask why this place was called the cornerstone patio. Sylvia or Sarah, whoever was nearer, would hold back the tree branches where the patio touched the northeast corner of the manor. The quilter who had asked the question would read aloud the engraving on a large stone at the base of the structure: BERGSTROM 1858. Sylvia would tell them about her great-grandfather, Hans Bergstrom, who had placed that cornerstone with the help of his wife, Anneke, and sister Gerda, and built the west wing of the manor upon it.

  When everyone had helped themselves to refreshments, Sylvia asked them to take seats in the circle. “If you’ll indulge us, we’d like to end this first evening with a simple ceremony we call a Candlelight.” The quilters’ voices hushed as Sylvia lit a candle, placed it in a crystal votive holder, and went to the center of the circle. The dancing flame in her hands cast light and shadow on her features, making her seem at once young and old, wise and joyful.

  “Elm Creek Manor is full of stories,” she told them. “Everyone who has ever lived here has added to those stories. Now your stories will join them, and those of us who call this place home will be richer for it.”

  She explained the ceremony. She would hand the candle to the first woman in the circle, who would tell the others why she had come to Elm Creek Manor and what she hoped the week would bring her. When she finished, she would pass the candle to the woman on her left, who would tell her story.

  There was a moment’s silence broken only by nervous laughter when Sylvia asked for a volunteer to begin.

  Finally, Renée, one of the women Carol had befriended, raised her hand. “I will.”

  Sylvia gave her the candle and sat down beside Sarah.

  Renée studied the flame in her hands for a long moment without speaking. Around them, unseen, crickets chirped in the gradually deepening darkness. “My name is Renée Hoffman,” she finally said, looking up. “I’m a cardiac specialist at Hershey Medical Center. I was married for a while, but not anymore. I have no children.” She paused. “I’ve never quilted before. I came to Elm Creek Manor because I want to learn how. Two years ago—” She took a deep breath and let it out, slowly. “Two years ago my brother died of AIDS. Two years ago this month. I came to Elm Creek Manor so that I could learn how to make a panel for him for the AIDS quilt.” She shook her head and lowered her gaze to the flickering candle. “But that’s why I want to learn to quilt, not why I came here. I guess I could have taken lessons in Hershey, but I didn’t want any distractions. I want to be able to focus on what my brother meant to me, and for some reason I couldn’t do that at home.”

  The woman beside her put an arm around Renée’s shoulders. Renée gave her the briefest flicker of a smile. “When I walked around the gardens earlier today, I thought I could feel him there with me. I started thinking about the time when we were kids, when he taught me how to ride a two-wheeled bike.” Her expression grew distant. “I told him once, near the end, that I wished I had gone into AIDS research instead of cardiac surgery so that I could fight against this thing that was killing him. He took my hand and said, ‘You save lives. Don’t ever regret the choices that brought you to the place you are now.’ ” She stared straight ahead for a long, silent moment. “Anyway, that’s why I’m here.” She passed the candle to the woman on her left.

  The candle went around the circle, to a woman who was going through a painful divorce and needed to get away from it all, to the young mother whose husband had given her the week at quilt camp as a birthday present, to the elderly sisters who spent every year vacationing together while their husbands went on a fishing trip—“Separate vacations, that’s why we’ve been able to stay married so long,” the eldest declared, evoking laughter from the others—to the woman who had come with two of her friends to celebrate her doctor’s confirmation that her breast cancer was in remission.

  Sarah had heard stories like these in other weeks, from other women, and yet each story was unique. One common thread joined all the women who came to Elm Creek Manor. Those who had given so much of themselves and their lives caring for others—children, husbands, aging parents—were now taking time to care for themselves, to nourish their own souls. As the night darkened around them, the cornerstone patio was silent but for the murmuring of quiet voices and the song of crickets, the only illumination the flickering candle and the light of stars burning above them, so brilliant but so far away.

  Carol was one of the last to speak, and she kept her story brief. “I came to Elm Creek Manor because of my daughter.” Her eyes met Sarah’s. “I want to be a part of her life again. For too long we’ve let our differences divide us. I don’t want us to be that way anymore. I don’t want either of us to have regrets someday, when it’s too late to reconcile.” She ducked her head as if embarrassed, then quickly passed the candle as if it had burned her hands.

  Sarah’s heart softened as she watched her mother accept a quick hug from the woman at her side. They exchanged a few words Sarah couldn’t make out, then listened as the next woman told her story.

  I will try harder, Sarah resolved. They would have a week together to sort things out. She wouldn’t let the time go to waste.

  But as the days went by, she learned that promises were more easily made than kept.

  The quilt camp schedule was designed to give the guests as much independence as possible to work on their own projects or do as they pleased. After an early breakfast, Sylvia led an introductory piecing class, lectured on the history of quilting, or displayed the many antique quilts in Elm Creek Manor’s collection. After some free time, the quilters gathered at noon for lunch. On rainy days they met in the banquet hall, but when the sun shone they picnicked outdoors, in the north gardens, near the orchard, on blankets spread on
the sweeping front lawn, or on the veranda. Requests to lunch on the cornerstone patio received polite refusals and the promise that they would gather there once more before camp ended. No other explanation was given, no matter how the guests wheedled and teased.

  After lunch one of the other Elm Creek Quilters would teach a class—Gwen on Monday, Judy on Tuesday, Summer on Wednesday, Bonnie on Thursday, and Agnes on Friday. Diane didn’t feel ready to lead a class of her own, so instead she assisted at each class. The arrangement pleased everyone. Sylvia was spared the task of teaching two classes a day, the other Elm Creek Quilters could keep their involvement at a level that didn’t interfere with their jobs and other responsibilities, and the guests could enjoy a variety of teaching styles and techniques.

  More free time followed the afternoon classes until the evening meal. Afterward, Sylvia and Sarah usually planned some sort of entertainment, a talent show or a game or an outing. All activities were voluntary, at Sylvia’s insistence. “Our guests are here to enjoy themselves,” she said. “This is their time. If they want to do cartwheels on the veranda all morning instead of taking a class, more power to them.”

  Despite all the free time available to the quilters, Sarah rarely found any for herself. She spent the days working behind the scenes—balancing accounts, designing marketing plans, ordering supplies, making schedules—to keep Elm Creek Quilts operating smoothly. Her hours were busy and productive, and she had never been happier in her work, perhaps because could see the result of her labors in the smiling faces of their guests, feel it in the quilts created there, hear it in the laughter that rang through the halls.