“We do,” I said and swallowed back my tears. “I’ll try my best to keep up my end of the bargain.”
Liza smiled at me, then looked up and smiled at Garrett, who was standing on the opposite side of the bed, still holding my other hand.
“Well, in that case,” Charlie said, trying hard to sound cheery, which was what we were all trying to do, trying to sound pleasant and ordinary, as if we were actors carefully repeating lines in an overrehearsed, overwritten script. It wasn’t their fault. This is what people do when they are faced with an awkward situation; they try to pretend that everything is perfectly, wonderfully normal, which, of course, makes everything more awkward and abnormal than it was in the first place. “I think it’s time for the presents, don’t you?”
Everyone murmured agreement. Charlie went over to the windowsill, opened up a giant shopping bag that was sitting on the ledge, and pulled out a white bakery box.
“These are my famous butterscotch macadamia-nut cookies. I made a double batch so you’ll have some for yourself and some for visitors.”
“What do you think I’m going to be doing while I’m in here, having tea parties?”
He made a face. “No, of course not. But you’re going to have guests. You should have something to serve. I left off another box at the nurses’ station—a bit of a bribe,” he said with a wink. “Just to make sure they take proper care of you. I know what a difficult patient you can be.”
“Thank you, Charlie. That was sweet of you.”
He bobbed his head, uncomfortable as always in the face of praise. “And I’ll be bringing in your meals too, while you’re here. I brought a chicken soup for your lunch, and I’ll be back with poached salmon for dinner. Unless you’d rather have the lamb?”
“Charlie, you don’t have to do that. Really. Besides, if I eat your food for every meal, they’ll have to cart me out of here in a wheelbarrow. I’m fat enough as it is.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “You look beautiful. If anything, you’re too thin. We Irish prefer women with a little meat on their bones. Oh!” he exclaimed before I could protest further. “And one more thing. I almost forgot.”
He reached into the bottom of the shopping bag and pulled out another brown paper bag with a piece of red string tied around the neck in a bow. “Didn’t have time to wrap it properly,” he apologized. “But here. Go ahead and open it.”
I pulled on the red string, reached inside the bag, and pulled out an enormous box of crayons. “One hundred and twenty! I didn’t even know they came in boxes that big! I love it. How’d you know?”
Charlie grinned broadly. “And I brought you a big pad of graph paper to go with it. Thought maybe you’d want to work on a few quilt designs while you’re laid up.”
I smiled, and this time it was genuine. “Thanks, Charlie. This is perfect. You’re perfect. You cook. You bake. And you know exactly the right present to bring. You’re the best friend a girl could hope to have,” I said.
Still smiling, Charlie nodded again, but there was a flash in his eyes, a look of disappointment that I didn’t quite understand, but, then again, it was so brief I might have imagined it.
“And I brought you those,” Garrett said, indicating the vase of bright Gerbera daisies that was sitting on the nightstand. “Thought they’d brighten up the place a little.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. They do.” He leaned down and gave me a peck on the cheek.
“And this,” Margot said, holding out a box wrapped in violet-covered paper with a sage green bow, “is from the three of us.”
“It’s heavy. What is it?”
“Open it and find out.”
Usually, I’m careful about how I open gifts, not because I save the paper, but when someone goes to the trouble to wrap a package, it seems to me that you ought to treat it with respect. But I was so weak, and my arms were so sore, that I couldn’t keep my hands from shaking. I accidentally ripped the edge of the paper.
“That’s all right,” Liza said. “Just open it. Do you want some help?”
I nodded, and together we tore the paper off the box. Liza pulled off the lid. When she did, my hand instinctively rose to my mouth to cover my surprise. “Oh!” I breathed. “It’s lovely! Oh, girls! I don’t know what to say. It’s just the most beautiful quilt I’ve ever seen in my life. And you made it? The three of you?”
All three were beaming, but Abigail spoke first. “It was Margot’s idea, but we all worked on it together. We had a few secret circle meetings without you, but we didn’t think you’d mind.”
“No,” I said. “Not at all.”
It was a beautiful quilt. Knowing how I love strong colors, they’d chosen a palette of bright greens and vibrant pinks with surprising accents of a white and black fabric that enhanced the depth and richness of the colors. Such happy colors. The design was bold, using a traditional theme—hearts—but giving it a fresh, modern interpretation. The theme blocks were patchworked hearts, strip-pieced in varying shades and patterns of pink and then outlined, first in spring green and then again in the black fabric. There were eight complete hearts in all, scattered over the pieced green backing in an unpredictable pattern. Most interesting of all, there were several half-heart blocks, again sprinkled around the backing at irregular intervals, some isolated and lonely, floating in a field of green, others set near but not quite next to another half-heart, slightly off center, as if the broken halves were moving toward each other in varying stages of becoming whole again.
I traced the stitching on one of the hearts with my finger. “It’s just so incredibly beautiful. Where did you find the pattern? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.”
“You haven’t,” Margot confirmed. “Liza was the designer. Isn’t it gorgeous!”
Liza ducked her head modestly. “It’s just something I drew up one day,” she said. “You can’t call me a designer; more of a doodler.”
“Well, of course you can,” Abigail said a little impatiently. “You sat down, thought of a theme, then took up your pencil and created a design that expressed what you were trying to say. That’s what a designer does. Don’t be so silly. There’s nothing that irritates me as much as false humility.”
Liza turned slightly and made a face. “Whatever,” she said with a shrug.
“Anyway, I was thinking about us, you know, about our quilting circle and what it is that we all have in common. That’s how I came up with the idea. In one way or another, we’ve all had our hearts broken. But at the same time, we’ve helped each other get through it. It’s not like everything is better yet. We’ve still got problems to work through, but slowly we’re helping each other heal. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I know what you mean.”
Realizing that everyone in the room, including Garrett, had been listening as she described the inspiration behind her design, Liza blushed. “Well. That was the idea anyway. I decided to call it Broken Hearts Mending.”
“I love it,” I said sincerely, looking at all three of my friends. “Besides your friendship, this is absolutely the nicest gift I’ve ever received. Thank you all so much.”
There was a warm, almost a burning feeling in my chest, but it wasn’t caused by my incision; it was the warmth of gratitude. Liza had hit the nail on the head. We’d all had our hearts broken, but together, with each other’s help and support, we were on the road to recovery, each in our own way and at our own pace. I felt truly blessed to have found such friends at the time in life when I most needed them.
My poor, ravaged body was too sore for hugs, so I reached out and clasped my friends’ hands. “You’re the best,” I said.
The door to my room swung open, and a nurse came in carrying the biggest, most ostentatious, and, quite frankly, ugliest bouquet of flowers I had ever seen in my life—there were three shades of pink carnations, at least a dozen blood red roses, grouped with some enormous orange lilies, all topped off with one large, garish bird of paradise. T
he moment I saw them, I knew who’d sent them.
I turned to Garrett. “How did Mary Dell find out I was in the hospital? I told you I didn’t want to worry her, not when she’s getting ready to shoot her first television show.”
“Don’t blame me,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. “She called and started asking all these questions, and, well…it just sort of slipped out. Sorry.” The nurse put the bouquet on the windowsill. It was so big that it blocked out the light. “Wow. Until this minute, I never realized flowers could be ugly.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Howard must have been too busy to go to the florist with her,” I said. “She definitely picked these out herself.”
The nurse stood back from the flowers with her hands on her hips. “Well, I’ve never seen anything quite like them, that’s for sure.” She turned to look at me. “How are you feeling? Do you want some more pain medication?”
With everyone standing there, I didn’t like admitting how much I hurt, but I definitely needed something to ease it. “Maybe that would be a good idea.”
“As soon as I take your vitals and check the dressings, I’ll get you another pill. Then you can get some sleep, all right?” I nodded gratefully. I was so tired.
The nurse smiled sympathetically and then addressed the group. “Folks, I’m afraid I’m going to shoo you out of here for a while. Ms. Dixon needs to rest right now.”
Charlie clapped his hands together like a teacher trying to get the attention of a group of unruly fourth graders. “All right, gang. You heard Nurse Ratched. Clear out.” The nurse shot him a look, but he gave her a wink. “Now, don’t be like that. I’m the one who baked those delicious cookies and left them at the nurses’ station.”
“Trying to bribe the hospital staff?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
“It’s working,” she deadpanned. “Now take your own advice. Clear out and let this lady get some rest.”
She turned to me again. “Is he always like this?”
“Yes.”
“Gee, that’s too bad. At least he can bake.”
Charlie grinned and started shooing everyone out the door. They all filed by the bed to say a quick good-bye. “Come on. Let’s go. Come on over to the Grill, and I’ll buy you all lunch.”
Garrett was the last to leave. “’Bye, Mom. I’ll come back tonight. Think you’ll feel up to having a visitor by then? You look a little tired.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine after I get a few hours of rest,” I assured him. “It was so good to have everybody here, especially you, sweetheart. But I really do need to get some sleep now. I didn’t realize having visitors could be so exhausting.”
“It’s all right, Mom. Don’t worry. Just rest and I’ll be back later. I love you.”
“I love you too, Garrett.”
Garrett walked toward the door while the nurse put a blood-pressure cuff on my arm. I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling completely drained.
I heard the door swing open as Garrett started to leave and then the whisper of a familiar but unexpected voice.
“Hey, Garrett. How’s your mom? Is she asleep?”
“Dad? What are you doing here?”
My eyes flew open. Rob stood at the foot of my bed holding a dozen red roses.
30
Abigail Burgess Wynne
Though Evelyn was still in the hospital, we decided to hold the quilt-circle meeting as usual on Friday night. We had quite a bit of work to do. The three quilts that Cobbled Court was contributing to the Quilt Pink project had to be bound so they could be sent off to the auction by the deadline.
The three of us had worked in the shop all day, Margot and I waiting on customers while Liza and Garrett took inventory. At closing time, Garrett took his laptop computer and went upstairs to Evelyn’s apartment. Liza said he was working on some new ideas for the Web site. It’s not every young man that would leave a lucrative career on the other side of the country to come home and take care of his ailing mother. I liked Garrett. Too bad his father was such a louse.
After we locked up, we reconciled the register. Unfortunately, that didn’t take long. With Evelyn in the hospital and unable to teach any classes, sales had been very weak. Once everything was in order, Margot went into the break room and took a tray of sandwiches she’d made out of the refrigerator, while I sliced up a plate of oranges and Liza popped a bag of popcorn in the microwave and poured some diet cola into three glasses. That was dinner.
We carried everything into the classroom and sat down to sew the quilt bindings, using the blind stitch that Evelyn had taught us so that, when the quilts were completed, it would be all but impossible to see the threads that joined the binding to the quilt edge. We arranged our chairs in a circle so we could talk while we worked. There was certainly a lot to talk about.
“Honestly,” I said. “I don’t know how he found the nerve. Waltzing into Evelyn’s hospital room with flowers in hand after he’s taken up with another woman and then divorced poor Evelyn. I never heard of such bad taste. The man is utterly déclassé.”
Liza frowned at me and then bent back over her sewing. “Abigail, not so loud. He’s staying right upstairs in the apartment. He might hear you.”
“Oh please! As if I care. Besides, I doubt he knows what déclassé means. He doesn’t look like the sort of fellow who has studied a great deal of French.” Liza glanced up quickly from her work, unable to suppress a little smile.
“Well, the cowboy boots are kind of interesting,” she commented. “I can see them in Texas, but you’d think he would have thought to switch to snow boots or loafers once he hit the Connecticut border. Not that I want to dictate anybody’s fashion choices, but they aren’t very practical around here. I was looking out the window yesterday and saw him walking through the courtyard and next thing I knew, bam! He slipped and fell on the ice.” Liza paused a moment to put the end of a piece of thread into her mouth to wet it, then slipped the pointed end through the eye of a needle before continuing.
“And I mean, he’s from Wisconsin originally! You’d think he’d know that snow and cowboy boots don’t go together.”
I shifted my reading glasses down the end of my nose so I could see my seams better. I hated those glasses. They made me look old. I’d never have been caught dead wearing them in public, but they were a necessity when I was quilting, especially after dark; besides, Margot and Liza didn’t care how I looked.
“That’s exactly my point,” I added. “Everything about that man is affected. I don’t like him, and I don’t trust him. What’s he doing here anyway?”
Margot, who eschewed what she called gossip and I called a simple exchange of viewpoints, had been listening quietly and working diligently during this whole exchange. Now she finally broke in. “It does seem a little strange,” she admitted. “Him coming here after the surgery and then just moving in to Evelyn’s apartment even though they’re divorced. She didn’t ask him to come, did she?”
Liza shook her head. “No. Definitely not. Garrett told me that Evelyn had called him a few weeks ago, told Rob about her cancer, and that they’d had an argument. Evelyn hung up on him. The apartment is so small that Garrett overheard the whole thing. He wouldn’t say so, of course, but I think that even Garrett is wondering what his dad is doing here. It must be a little awkward for him.”
“Exactly! And it’ll be a lot more awkward when Evelyn is discharged from the hospital tomorrow.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. In spite of what I’d said to Liza, I really didn’t want Rob Dixon to overhear our conversation. “Evelyn only has one bedroom, which, I assume, Rob is using right now. Garrett is sleeping on the sofa.” I peered meaningfully at the others over the tops of my reading glasses. “Where do you suppose Rob is planning on sleeping after Evelyn gets home?”
“Abigail, stop that,” Margot clucked with a disapproving wag of her head. “Evelyn and I already decided that she’s going to stay with me for a while. That way she won’t have to clim
b the stairs and will be able to rest better without all the noise from the shop. Rob can stay on in the apartment if he likes.” Margot took the pair of snips that she had hanging on a ribbon around her neck and cut the end of a thread.
“Of course, I’m sure he’ll be leaving soon,” she continued. “His presence seems a little strange to us, but, after all, he was married to Evelyn for close to thirty years and they still have a son together. I’m sure he must have some kind of feelings for her. Maybe he just felt like he ought to show up to support her. No matter what happened between them, I think he genuinely wants to help. Yesterday he gave me a hand carrying and shelving the new spring fabric bolts. That was nice of him, don’t you think?”
Liza just shrugged in response. I decided to keep my thoughts to myself as well. I supposed Margot could be right, but I really didn’t think so. Margot was an innocent, always trying to see the best in everyone, so much so that at first I’d doubted her sincerity. I mean really, how could anyone be that sweet? But Margot was. I had to admit, she’d grown on me. And sometimes, I’d discovered, she was right. There were people in the world who truly did operate from good intentions, with Margot leading the pack. I just didn’t happen to believe that Rob Dixon was one of them. In her heart, I could tell that Margot didn’t think so either. Margot might be an innocent, but that didn’t make her a fool.
Margot picked up the now-finished quilt she’d been working on and took it to the ironing board for a final press. “Still,” she said, tipping her head to one side as if trying to see the situation from a different angle, “you’d think he’d have gone home by now. Why hasn’t he?”
Liza gave voice to the exact thought that was going through my mind. “Because he wants something, that’s why.” I lowered my head over my quilt and smiled to myself. It was good to know that my niece had inherited some of the Burgess common sense.
“Well,” I said, “one thing is for sure. If he left right now, it wouldn’t be a second too soon for Charlie. Did you see the look on his face when Rob breezed past him in the hospital corridor and barged into Evelyn’s room? He didn’t introduce himself, but the cowboy boots were a dead giveaway. I thought Charlie was going to chase him down, rip those roses out of his hand, and shove them down Rob’s throat.”
A Single Thread (Cobbled Court) Page 25
