The Beach Quilt

by Holly Chamberlin

  Adelaide felt a bubble of nervous laughter escape her. She knew she shouldn’t be thinking in these terms. They might have only one or two brief and awkward conversations before parting again for good. So much time had passed, so many questions must have accumulated. It might prove too much for Eric to handle. She hoped fervently that he wouldn’t come to regret their reconnecting.

  But, for Adelaide, the risk was worth the potential pain. Finally, she would hear her son’s voice, maybe even get to touch his hand, look into his eyes. There were moments when she felt unable to bear the joy and excitement. She thought that before now she had never really understood that phrase “bursting with happiness.”

  Adelaide went into the den. She would call her son from there, the most comfortable room in the house. That mattered somehow. She sat in one of the high-backed armchairs, her cell phone in her lap. It was one forty-five.

  Jack had asked his wife how Eric had found her. Adelaide had no idea. She would ask him when they spoke—or not. Did it really matter? Jack had also asked if she were going to look up her son on the Internet before contacting him. The answer to that was no, she was not, and for a variety of reasons, one of which was that she wanted to allow Eric to retain a degree of privacy for as long as he needed or wanted it.

  Finally, Jack had asked if Eric had mentioned his father. He had not, and Adelaide wondered if her son had searched him out as well. If he hadn’t—and there was a very good chance that he had not; Adelaide had given no one at the hospital or adoption agency his name—he might ask her about him. The thought worried her. She wasn’t sure if she was under a moral obligation to keep Michael Baker’s identity a secret. No, how could she be? Still, she wondered if it would be right to reveal his identity. Would it be right to refuse Eric this information? It most certainly would not be right to give Eric a false name or to tell him that his father had died long ago.

  And her parents . . . she didn’t want them to know anything about Eric—not that they would care to know! But again: Did Eric have the right to know who and where they were? One thing was for sure. If he did ask about other family, she would not paint Nancy and Tom Morgan as bad or malicious people. She would not burden her son with her own negative opinions, no matter how valid her reasons for having them.

  Adelaide looked at her watch. One minute until two o’clock. She lifted her cell phone. Her fingers were trembling so violently she could not hit the right keys and had to begin again twice. Finally, the call went through.

  “Hello?” The young man’s voice was pleasant and warm.

  “Hello, Eric?”

  “Yes?”

  Adelaide closed her eyes. “This is Adelaide Kane,” she said, with an immense feeling of pride. “Your mother.”

  Please turn the page

  for a very special Q&A

  with Holly Chamberlin!

  Q. Did you research the phenomena of teen pregnancy before writing The Beach Quilt?

  A. Yes, extensively. In the end, I chose not to include what I had learned in too informational a way. I did try to infuse the characters with some of the habits and thoughts and emotions found to be typical in the situation. The Beach Quilt is a novel, not a scientific study.

  Q. What was the most surprising thing you learned while doing research about teen pregnancy?

  A. The most surprising and disturbing thing I learned was that a huge number of women in the United States die in childbirth. I was, of course, aware of the dangers so many women around the world face during pregnancy and childbirth—disease, starvation, lack of clean water and proper medical care—but to discover that right here in my own country so many women don’t survive the birthing of their child, well, that set me to thinking.

  Q. How close to your heart is the experience of teen pregnancy?

  A. To be honest, I’ve never personally known a teenage girl who found herself pregnant. Well, if I did, I never knew about it. I grew up in a very Catholic environment, and much was never spoken about, especially in those days. But over the course of my life I certainly haven’t been unaware of the problem. It can break your heart, thinking of what young parents and their children might have to face. Life is hard enough when you have a full support system in place—a steady partner, a good job, a nice home, a network of family and friends. To—possibly—find yourself largely alone and reliant on social services ...

  Q. With that in mind, some readers might take issue with the fact that The Beach Quilt tells a very different tale of teen pregnancy, one in which the young mother-to-be is nurtured and cared for—one in which her child’s future also looks relatively rosy. In other words, your story isn’t quite as gritty as it might be.

  A. To those readers I would say, remember, this is a novel. The Beach Quilt tells the story of two particular families in a particular time and place, making a particular set of choices. If the Bauers’ ready acceptance of their daughter’s pregnancy strikes some as odd, well, so be it. If they had thrown Sarah out of the house, other readers would have protested. Others might argue that life as a single parent anywhere, city or country, and in any circumstances, nurturing or not, can be difficult, and I would never deny that. The suspension of disbelief is essential to the experience of a fiction, be it novel or TV show or film! Besides, at bottom what I really wanted to write was a story of love triumphant—and I hope that I did.

  Q. Are you a quilter?

  A. I am not. Unfortunately, my dexterity—and eyesight!—is increasingly poor, so I’ve given up any kind of detailed work I had once enjoyed, like embroidery or beadwork. But I love quilts and the fact that they are an art form pretty much owned by women. I’ve never forgotten one stunning exhibit of quilts made by African American women at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City way back in the eighties. And my husband’s mother, Janet, was gifted at weaving and needlework; we’re lucky to have some of her pieces still.

  Q. Can you offer a clue as to your next book?

  A. Well, I’ve got a rudimentary idea in mind. There’ll be a family of three quirky, creative sisters, between the ages of thirteen and twenty. Their mother is either long dead or long gone off on some adventure. Their father is very much present and beloved. One summer the sisters, who live in the fictional town of Yorktide, Maine, encounter a girl who appears seemingly from nowhere. The girl turns out to be homeless. I’ve yet to construct the circumstances of her backstory. The dynamics among the members of the family and this homeless girl will be the focus of the book. And, of course, there will be a cat character!

  Q. So is Clarissa, the cat in The Beach Quilt, based on a real animal?

  A. Yes! Betty, our fourteen-year-old tortoiseshell, exhibits amazing physical and mental talents. Plus, she’s my gallant protector. Which is taking nothing away from Cyrus, fifteen, who although blind and almost entirely deaf, lives life as if he’s the king of the house. Which, of course, he is. Plus, he likes to hold my hand, which is heaven.

  Q. What was the first book you read after completing The Beach Quilt?

  A. In rapid succession I caught up on the latest in the Ian Rutledge and the Bess Crawford series, both by Charles Todd. And then I went on to a Charles Todd stand alone, The Walnut Tree. I’m now eyeing Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending and a rereading of A Room with a View.

  Q. What do you do to celebrate the completion of a book?

  A. Sleep.

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  THE BEACH QUILT

  Holly Chamberlin

  ABOUT THIS GUIDE

  The suggested questions are included to enhance

  your group’s reading of Holly Chamberlin’s

  The Beach Quilt!

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  Sarah’s sudden vulnerability awakens vulnerabilities in Adelaide, Cordelia, Cindy, and Stevie. More than ever each feels the need for succor, attention, support, and sympathy. Talk about how closely we adopt our friends’ pain and experience it as somehow our own. Do you think this is something women experience more than
men, a sort of sympathetic engagement in the lives of those we love? Do you think this tendency is something taught or inherent—or, perhaps, both?

  Courageous actions come in many forms. Talk about the acts of courage each of the main characters perform. For example: Stevie’s coming out to Cordelia and later, to her parents; Cordelia’s care of Stevie, her habit of standing up to bullies, her willingness to share parts of her true self (Pinky with Stevie and her foolish thoughts about losing her virginity to John Blantyre with Sarah); Sarah’s decision to keep the baby (was her brief attempt to offer him for adoption an act of courage or desperation?); Cindy’s attempts to have a family and her willingness to adopt Henry; Adelaide’s decision to give up her son and then her willingness to welcome him back into her life.

  Do you think that Cindy’s refusal to sell the quilts is an act of selfishness? If her original idea of selling them was made in haste, is she justified in changing her mind? The quilts are hers, though their sale would benefit her family. When is one justified in not making a sacrifice for loved ones?

  Consider the notion of what it means to “act out of character.” For example, Cordelia tends to underestimate her strengths and abilities, almost playing to an image of the silly young girl. Why do you think she engages in this sort of self-deprecation? How much of it is conscious or chosen? How much of it is the result of an image she has allowed others to create for her? Sarah wonders if she was ever really the responsible person people thought she was, or if she had been like an actor assuming a role written by someone else. Cindy feels resentment at having been placed in her current situation and is surprised to discover there are limits to her willingness to sacrifice for her family. We see mild-mannered Joe express the desire to kill Justin. Does anyone ever achieve a perfect harmony between the person inside and the person perceived? Or is there always tension between two perceived halves—halves that are really one complicated whole?

  Adelaide briefly contemplates cutting all ties with her parents. Do you think she would be justified in doing so? After all, she feels she gets nothing positive from the relationship. But how can she really know what (if anything) her mother gets from it—good or bad, conscious or unconscious? When is someone justified in saying, “I appreciate the good things you have done for me, but I cannot forget or forgive the bad things”? Do blood ties require loyalty, or is loyalty a choice?

  At one point Jack reminds Adelaide that Cordelia is a typically naive and self-righteous teenager, for whom the world is black and white and actions right or wrong. How do Cordelia and Sarah and Stevie mature (become more nuanced) over the course of the book? After Sarah’s death, Cordelia and Stevie are convinced that they will never be happy again. If they were older, do you think they would feel so sure of a dark future? How does age and experience change the process of grieving and recovery? Consider Cindy. Though devastated by the loss of her older daughter, she knows she has a duty to her remaining daughter, husband, and grandchild—as well as to herself—to carry on. Consider Adelaide’s process of recovery from the loss of her first child. How complete or successful has her recovery been, and how does Sarah’s pregnancy affect her healing?

  “No person is an island.” How does Sarah’s pregnancy affect the lives of each of the other main characters, in ways both mundane and psychological or emotional? Is anyone better off for the changes wrought by Sarah’s getting pregnant? Is anyone worse off for having spent the final months of her life by her side? Stevie and Cordelia tell us they see no rhyme, reason, or good having resulted from Sarah’s death. Could an argument be made against that opinion?

  Consider Cindy’s keeping secrets from Joe—the call from Mrs. Morrow; her decision to sell the heirloom quilts; and Sarah’s offer to put her baby up for adoption. In the first case, Cindy feels she is protecting her husband from further grief. In the second and third cases, she is afraid that he will oppose her opinions and thwart her will. How do you think Joe would feel if he knew his wife was withholding information, thoughts, and feelings from him? How does stress cause a person to act in unexpected and perhaps less than fully honest ways?

  Cindy has trouble remembering that Sarah’s baby is not her own. Adelaide has trouble distancing her remembered teenage self from the pregnant teenage Sarah. Talk about why each woman might have difficulty establishing emotional boundaries in this situation. On a related note, Adelaide, tempted once again to search for the father of her son, suddenly rejects the notion as a betrayal of her relationship with her husband. Do you think this feeling of guilt is justified, given the fact that Jack knows all about her past? Or is something else keeping Adelaide from pursuing her former lover?

  How might Sarah’s being pregnant have influenced Stevie’s decision to come out to Cordelia as gay? If Cordelia hadn’t become a friend, do you think Stevie would have been able to come out to her friends from school? Would she have chosen to confide in Sarah instead?

  Do you think the Bauers should have attempted to hold Justin accountable for his actions regarding Sarah? Do you think it would have been worth the time, effort, and emotional cost to urge him to take responsibility for his child? Do you think they acted against the best interest of their daughter and grandson? Or do you think that the Bauers, given their strong sense of independence, made the right call? (On a related note, what do you think of their decision not to have an autopsy?) What do you think the Kanes, given Adelaide’s past and their own somewhat different character as a family, would have done if Cordelia had been the one to get pregnant?

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  Copyright © 2014 by Elise Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-7537-0

  eISBN-10: 0-7582-7537-4

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: July 2014

  ISBN: 978-0-7582-7536-3