An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler

by Jennier Chiaverini

  But Vinnie was too joyful to dwell on the unhappiness of the past or the way her father had failed her. She danced with her father at the reception, but saved most of her dances for Sam, who had improved so much since that first swing dance they had shared that Friday night in spring, and who had since become her partner in so many greater things.

  As the hour grew late, her father kissed her good-bye and tried, in his own stumbling way, to apologize. “I never wanted to send you away when your mother died,” he said. “Boys I understood, but I didn’t know how to look after a little girl.”

  Suddenly she saw him not as her father but as a man regretting his mistakes, a man who had made unfortunate choices at a time when his reason was clouded by grief. He had not meant to hurt her, and ultimately, he hadn’t, because everything had worked out for the best. She embraced him, and in her heart, she forgave him.

  Several weeks passed before Sam was called up. She feigned bravery for his sake and pretended to believe him when he promised her he would return. He survived the Normandy campaign when many of his friends did not, but Vinnie ached for him, wondering how long his luck would last. She prayed, alone in their apartment, and her days grew darker and more bleak as the war dragged on.

  It was Lena who urged her to return to high school. At first Vinnie demurred, believing that as a married woman her place was at home, but then she began to long for her books and her friends, anything to ease the loneliness and fear of waiting. The school board rejected her application for readmittance, saying that married women were not permitted to attend classes with the unmarried girls.

  But Lena, who knew something of how it felt to have one’s last hope snuffed out, refused to allow Vinnie to give up. She stormed into a school board meeting and demanded that Vinnie be permitted to return. She cited Vinnie’s excellent academic record and argued that their obstinance was not only unreasonable and unfair, but also unpatriotic, considering that Vinnie’s husband was risking his life for his country. “You make a mockery of all the women fighting on the home front,” she accused them, and said she’d see that the whole city learned of it.

  They relented, and Vinnie resumed classes the next quarter. By the time Sam returned safely home from the war, she had her diploma and a job at the local library, a job she willingly gave up when their first son came along a year later. Two more sons followed, and then, at last, a daughter.

  She loved all her children deeply, and knew that a mother shouldn’t have favorites, but she couldn’t help herself. This precious girl child, the last of her babies, was the child of her own heart. Vinnie was fierce in her determination that her daughter would never know the grief and loneliness she had known. She would protect her daughter as best she could, as long as she could, and would lavish upon her all the love and attention she herself had longed for as a motherless—and fatherless—girl. She would love her daughter and all her children as her aunt had taught her to love.

  She named her daughter Lynn, and when her daughter married and bore a son and named him Adam after Vinnie’s own father, Vinnie extended her vow of protection to him. She wanted Adam to be happy, to know the blessing of love as his parents and grandparents had, and to be spared the loneliness that had been the burden of the great-grandfather whose name he bore.

  For she knew Adam was much like herself, unable to completely enjoy his life unless someone shared it with him. She had learned well in her eighty-two years that she could not guarantee her own happiness, much less that of someone else, but she would do what she could to care for the people she loved.

  Even when that meant meddling, she told herself with a laugh. Especially when that meant encouraging them down paths their hearts had already chosen to follow.

  The exacerbation struck when Grace was Christmas shopping. First she couldn’t feel her hand on the escalator rail, and then her legs went out from under her. If not for the man three steps below, who caught her before she could tumble to the first floor, she might have broken her neck in the fall.

  Hours later, after Dr. Steiner had examined her, the pins-and-needles sensations in her hands had not yet faded, and this time they were also in her feet. She tried to walk, but could only manage a sort of slow shuffle. Her mind, too, felt numb, as it had ever since the doctor had told her she might not have a complete recovery this time and that she might have to resort to a wheelchair sooner than they had hoped.

  When Justine arrived, her mouth tight with worry, Grace couldn’t bring herself to repeat the doctor’s bleak report, so Dr. Steiner took Justine into the hallway and explained. When she returned, Grace saw resolution in her eyes, but she also saw that her daughter was pushing a wheelchair.

  “You’re allowed to go,” Justine said, and patted the back of the chair. “Come on. I’ll help you.”

  Grace turned her face to the wall. “I’m not leaving in that.”

  “Then you’re not leaving at all. Hospital regulations. You have to be wheeled out of here. I can do it, or I can get an orderly. Your choice.”

  At any other time Grace would have smiled to hear her own stubbornness echoed in her daughter’s voice. Today she blinked back tears and allowed Justine to assist her into the wheelchair. She felt trapped and exposed as Justine wheeled her to the front desk to take care of her discharge forms and arrange to rent a wheelchair. She tried to stand, but Justine put a firm hand on her shoulder and gently held her back.

  “Where’s Joshua?” Grace remembered to ask as Justine drove her home.

  “He’s being watched,” Justine said shortly, and Grace knew this meant he was with his grandfather. Grace had forbidden Justine to mention Gabriel ever since the day after Thanksgiving, when Justine admitted that she had told him about the MS.

  “You promised to tell no one outside the family,” Grace had shrilled into the phone. After her abrupt departure from Helen’s house, Justine had been phoning Grace’s loft all evening, leaving one message after another as Grace listened in on the answering machine. Grace eventually picked up only because Justine declared that if she didn’t, Justine would assume she was injured and couldn’t reach the phone, and would summon the police. “How could you have told him?”

  “I needed to talk to someone. Can’t you see that you’re not the only one hurting?”

  “You could have talked to your cousins. You could have talked to me.”

  “I can’t talk to you, Mom. You won’t talk about it.”

  Grace hung up before Justine would know she was crying. She turned off the ringer to the phone, turned down the volume on the answering machine, and went to bed, where she lay awake for hours, her thoughts in turmoil. Gabriel knew. Was that why he had been so eager to see her again, to apologize before it was too late to obtain absolution?

  He was twenty years too late, Grace had told herself. Her MS had nothing to do with that.

  Even with the rented wheelchair, Justine struggled to maneuver Grace from the underground parking lot to her third-floor loft. In the elevator, Justine slid the metal gate shut and reached for the lever, but then she pulled her hand away and said, “You do it.” Grace didn’t like the new bossiness in her daughter’s voice, but she obeyed—or tried to. From her seat in the wheelchair, she couldn’t reach the controls to operate the elevator.

  “You’ll have to do it,” Grace said, her face burning.

  “Who manages this building?” Justine asked. “Don’t they know we have wheelchair accessibility laws in this state?”

  “This building was grandfathered out.” Grace wondered how she remembered that. It had never mattered to her before.

  When they reached the third floor, Justine urged Grace to open the gate herself. With some difficulty Grace managed, but when Justine told her to wheel herself off the elevator, she found that the elevator had stopped just below the floor of her loft, the gap just wide enough to block forward motion. Justine had to tip the chair onto its rear wheels and give it a good shove to lift her over the barrier. Justine then pushed her into the kitch
en and asked her to reach the sink, which she couldn’t; then it was on to the bathroom, to the quilt studio, to the bed, with Justine growing more determined, and Grace ever more humiliated.

  “All right, you’ve made your point,” she said when she couldn’t bear any more. “I’m helpless in this chair. Do you think I don’t know that?”

  Justine’s face softened. “That’s not what I’ve been trying to say at all.” She gestured around the roomy loft. “It’s this place, not you. You live in a converted warehouse. It won’t meet your needs anymore.”

  At last Grace understood. “I’m not moving.”

  “Mom—”

  “I mean it. I’m not leaving my home.” Abruptly she pushed herself away from her daughter. Didn’t Justine know her at all? Wasn’t it enough that she had to sacrifice her pride, her art, her livelihood, without Justine wanting her to give up her home as well?

  Justine followed and for more than an hour argued the merits of moving to a newer, more convenient apartment, but Grace refused to listen. Over the next few days, Justine persisted, bringing her brochures for attractive condos and even scheduling an appointment with a real estate agent, but Grace rebuffed every attempt to persuade her. She had lost too much of the old Grace to abandon the quirky loft and its eclectic neighborhood for some shiny new condo with smooth floors and no personality. The loft held too many memories, and she would not part with them.

  By that time Grace had recovered enough to forgo the wheelchair, and on her follow-up visit to the hospital, she returned it and canceled the rest of the rental contract. She waited for Justine to tell her she had made a mistake, but Justine didn’t, nor did she say anything more about leaving her home.

  The next day, Grace was in her studio sketching the central motif for a new pictorial quilt when the buzzer sounded. Usually interruptions of her work frustrated her, but today she was glad for the excuse to take a break. This new quilt, a thematic interpretation of the Twenty-third Psalm, had been begun in a burst of inspiration that had since dissipated, like the seven other quilts she had tried to design since returning from Elm Creek Quilt Camp. She was almost tempted to make something using a pattern from a magazine just so she could finally begin her block for the Challenge Quilt—and have something positive to tell the Cross-Country Quilters when they asked about her progress.

  Since she wasn’t getting anywhere with her quilt, she gladly buzzed back, and soon heard the elevator rising to the third floor. She expected Justine or Sondra or another friend, and so she could only stand there in shocked amazement when Gabriel pushed back the gate.

  “Morning, Grace,” he said, hesitating in the elevator. On the floor beside him Grace saw a large toolbox, and behind him was a stack of assorted pieces of wood and metal. “May I come in?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you about this place.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “I know. Justine told me.” Gabriel stepped out of the elevator and slowly turned around, scanning the loft. Then his eyes met hers. “Want to show me the kitchen?”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s where I’ll start. Then the bathroom, the bedroom, and your studio. I might not get it all done today.”

  Grace stared at him, exasperated. “What are you talking about?”

  In response, Gabriel began unloading the elevator. When she didn’t move, he walked past her and found the kitchen on his own. Grace followed, only to find him measuring the height of the countertops and the width of the aisles. “What are you doing?” Grace asked, although she was beginning to suspect.

  “I’m retrofitting your loft.”

  “The whole building was retrofitted for earthquake safety years ago.”

  “Not for an earthquake; in case you need that chair again.”

  Grace felt hot anger rise in her chest. “So Justine told you about that, too?”

  Without a word, Gabriel stepped past her and returned to the elevator for some tools and two-by-fours, and before she knew it, he had set himself to work.

  “I didn’t ask for your help,” Grace snapped.

  Gabriel snorted but never paused. “If I waited for you to ask …” He shook his head.

  “Did Justine put you up to this?”

  At that Gabriel looked up. “No, this was my idea, and frankly, I don’t think Justine will approve. She wants you to move, and if I adapt the loft, you won’t need to. So do you want me to keep working or not?”

  His directness startled the anger right out of her. “What do you know about retrofitting a loft?” she said, disguising her confusion with scorn.

  “I’m a licensed carpenter. I’ve been working as a contractor for more than eight years.”

  Grace didn’t know what to think. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises,” she managed to say. Gabriel made no reply but continued working as she stood there trying to make sense of him, wondering what to do. She didn’t want to talk to him, and she felt foolish standing there watching him, so eventually she returned to her studio to complete her sketch. But she could not focus her thoughts knowing he was in the other room, so instead she toyed with her colored pencil and listened to the sounds of hammer, drill, and saw.

  After two hours of this, she shoved herself away from the drafting table and went to the kitchen. Gabriel had begun widening the aisle by removing part of the countertop and was now partially hidden, his head and shoulders inside a lower cupboard. “What are you doing?” Grace asked.

  “Adjusting the shelves so you can reach them from a seated position with a grabber. I thought you could move your plates and cups down here, and put some of the lighter things in the top cupboards.”

  Grace admitted to herself that wasn’t a bad idea, but she wouldn’t say so. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Grace held back an exasperated sigh and glanced at the clock. “I was going to fix myself some lunch. Do you want something?”

  Gabriel came out from the cupboard, an electric screwdriver in his hand. “I would. Thanks.”

  As Gabriel washed up, Grace heated some leftover bean soup and made ham sandwiches. A distant memory came to her, of standing at the kitchen counter of the home that had burned, fixing him sandwiches to eat during his breaks between classes. She pushed the thought aside and set the kitchen table, clearing away some of Gabriel’s scattered tools. She started eating without him, but he joined her a few moments later, his hands and face clean, his hair combed.

  “Delicious,” he said, tasting the soup. “You always were a great cook.”

  She refused to allow his flattery to move her. “I do appreciate what you’re doing.”

  “You’re welcome.” Gabriel savored a bite of his sandwich. “I know what it’s like to lose a home. I’ve lost several. I wouldn’t want that to happen to you.”

  To happen to me again, Grace almost corrected him, thinking of the fire, but she managed to hold it back. “What made you take up carpentry?”

  “When I started to get sober, a man from my AA group was looking for someone to help in his contracting business. He offered me a chance to learn and to make some money at the same time. I was living in a shelter at the time and wanted to get a room somewhere, so I took him up on it. He said if I showed up drunk, that would be my last day of work. He was a good motivator.”

  “You lived in a shelter?”

  “I’ve lived in several.” Gabriel gave her an indecipherable look. “What did you think I did after I left you?”

  “I … I assumed you stayed with friends or family.”

  “I did, for a while, but eventually I used up my last favor. I traveled around, stayed in LA for a while, but when my money ran out, I ended up on the streets.”

  He said it matter-of-factly, but Grace was transfixed with horror. In all of her frantic and lonely wondering about him, about where he was and what he was doing, she had never imagined him homeless—a homeless alcoholic on some filthy city stre
et. “How did you ever … ” But then she could say no more.

  “How did I get back?” Gabriel prompted. Grace nodded. He sighed and sat back in his chair. “I hit rock bottom, as they say, after some long, ugly years I’ve been blessed with a selective memory about. The short version is that I went to a mission one day hoping for a hot meal and stumbled into an AA meeting. I thought it was a joke, at first, but eventually it started to sink in that I wasn’t a lost cause. As soon as I believed that, I wanted to get better. I had a lot of setbacks, but I made it. I’ve been sober for ten years, and each day, I have to remind myself where I’ll end up if I take another drink.” He shrugged and resumed eating with a nonchalance she knew to be false, from the way he couldn’t look her in the eye.

  Softly she said, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  Gabriel looked up, and his eyes were full of pain. “I’m sorry this happened to you.” He closed his hand over hers, where it rested on the table, and said, “No one deserves a disease like this, Grace, least of all you. When I think of all I must have put you through, it kills me. I want you to know, I let you down then, but I won’t now. I’m here, and I’m going to help you in every way I can. If you let me.”

  His hand was warm and strong around hers, but it was not the soft scholar’s hand she remembered. She thought then of how easy it would be to allow herself to accept his help, not only in retrofitting the loft so that she could keep her home, but in all the other ways she would need assistance in the future. She knew her prognosis; she knew the ultimate course of her disease; she knew that the independence she had fought so hard to win would, in the years to come, grow ever more difficult to keep. Every time she held off relying on her daughter or his sisters or her friends was a triumph; every bit of dependence she acquiesced was like losing a piece of her soul. But with Gabriel it would be different. With Gabriel it wouldn’t be a matter of accepting charity because she was an invalid. Gabriel owed her.