Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  As the campers dispersed through the estate, Sarah and Summer went to the kitchen to help Anna carry refreshments outdoors. “I remember that recipe,” said Sarah, spying two platters of sugar cookies decorated to resemble quilt blocks. Anna had brought a batch to her interview earlier that summer, and although she had not known the head chef job was available and had applied for a teaching position, after sampling her tasty treats, the Elm Creek Quilters were eager to welcome her to their staff. “I hope you made enough for your hungry coworkers, too.”

  Summer hefted a pitcher of lemonade in one hand and iced tea in the other. “Help yourself. You’re eating for two now.”

  “Three,” said Sarah, shaking her head in disbelief as she stacked napkins and plates in a basket.

  “Three,” echoed Anna with a laugh as she followed Sarah and Summer out of the kitchen, balancing a cookie platter on each palm without dropping a single crumb. “Let me know if you have any special cravings. When the babies are old enough, I’ll show you how to make your own baby food from organic fruits and vegetables.”

  “You do understand that you can’t ever leave, don’t you?” Sarah asked her. Then she glanced at Summer and wished she could make the same teasing demand of her.

  Teams of campers hurried past as Sarah, Summer, and Anna carried the treats back through the manor and outside to the front veranda. The other Elm Creek Quilters and the three husbands living in the manor—Matt, Andrew, and now Gretchen’s husband, Joe—had settled into Adirondack chairs and were observing the scavenger hunt with speculative amusement, pretending to place bets on favorites and calling out encouragement to teams that had fallen behind. Only then did Sarah learn that Diane had played a naughty trick on Andrew: Item number 14 on the list read “A kiss from Andrew.” After the first quilt camper planted a smooch on his cheek and demanded one in return, Andrew looked only mildly surprised. Three kisses later, his expression had changed to baffled alarm. When a half-dozen determined quilters charged the veranda, he scrambled from his chair, snatched Matt’s familiar baseball cap from his blond curls, planted it on his own thinning gray hair, and pulled the brim low over his eyes in a vain attempt at disguise. When Andrew’s cheeks were as red from lipstick smudges as from embarrassment, Diane took pity on him and handed him a bag of chocolate kisses. Relieved but still wary, Andrew tossed the foil-wrapped candies to any quilter who approached the veranda long before they came within arm’s reach. “I’m a happily married man,” he reproached Diane, lofting a chocolate over the balcony railing as his friends laughed. As his happily married wife, Sylvia laughed as merrily as anyone.

  “Watch out for him,” Gretchen warned Diane, leaning back in her Adirondack lounge chair and crossing her ankles. “From the look in his eye, I suspect he’s plotting revenge.”

  “He’s too busy dodging quilters to plot anything,” said Diane.

  Sure enough, as the Flying Saucer Sisters plus Marcia climbed the curved stone staircase, Andrew tossed chocolates their way and ducked behind Matt.

  “You must be Andrew,” teased one of the ladies as the four scooped up their kisses.

  “We’re completely mystified by number twenty,” said another. “The description seems open to interpretation. How do we know if we’ve chosen correctly?”

  “I’ll accept any answer you can make a persuasive case for,” said Diane. The Flying Saucer Sisters and Marcia mulled over her reply as they walked off toward the north gardens, disappearing into the deepening twilight.

  “Please tell me you didn’t ask them to find a unicorn or a four-leaf clover,” said Gwen. “They’ll be out there all night.”

  “Of course not,” retorted Diane. “I know better than that. They’d just turn in drawings or figurines.”

  Curious, Sarah wondered what the twentieth item was, but Diane had given all copies of the list to the campers and waved off Sarah’s questions with unconvincing protests that campers might overhear and gain an advantage. Sarah suspected Diane had other surprises in store for her friends, and she eyed Andrew’s bag of kisses to see whether he had enough for the campers who had not yet found him.

  “Smile, Sarah,” a voice rang out just as a camera flash blinded her.

  Startled, Sarah blinked away the spots dancing before her eyes. “What was that about?” she asked the other Elm Creek Quilters as a team of campers dashed off into the darkness, flashlight beams darting over the lawn.

  “I have no idea,” said Diane innocently. Too innocently. Sarah studied her, eyes narrowed, but Diane avoided her gaze.

  Sure enough, in the minutes that followed, four other teams approached the veranda and turned their digital cameras or camera phones on Sarah. Sometimes the teams posed with her, other times they asked her to stand up and point to her tummy. “I assume from all this that a photo of me is item number twenty?” she asked Diane.

  “Something like that,” she replied.

  As the night deepened, the song of crickets filled the air and fireflies glowed and faded in a silent dance over the lawn. More teams snapped photos of Sarah, while others plopped themselves down on benches and chairs and declared that they had found everything they could. They helped themselves to refreshments as Diane checked off the items on their lists.

  “…A spool of orange thread; a state quarter from Pennsylvania; a swatch of fabric with an insect on it—oh, I see, a ladybug on a leaf, that’ll do; a kiss from Andrew—hey, this is just a wrapper,” Diane protested.

  “All that running around made me hungry,” the camper explained, reaching for one of Anna’s cookies.

  “A wrapper doesn’t count—” Diane broke off as Andrew handed the camper a new kiss, which she added to her team’s pile. “Okay, then. With that, you have a total of twelve out of twenty items. You’re our new leader.”

  A team who had been lingering on the stairs waiting for the results to be tallied whooped with joy. “We can beat that,” one of their members declared, emptying a tote bag on the table in front of Diane.

  She checked off items one by one. “…a Jonathan apple from the estate’s orchard; a six-inch Friendship Star block—this is still warm from the iron. Did you just now make it?”

  “That was easier than trying to find one,” the camper said, quickly adding, “all the fabric and supplies came from the classroom scrap bag, so we didn’t break the Forbidden S rule.”

  “She has an honest face,” said Sylvia. “I’d trust her.”

  Diane nodded and made a check mark on the team’s list. “Then you have sixteen out of twenty items, and you’ve moved into first place. Can anyone do better?”

  By that time, two hours after the scavenger hunt had begun, all of the teams had returned to the veranda. One by one Diane went through their lists, occasionally listening skeptically as teammates pled their case for a particular object that did not seem to qualify. She accepted a cone of orange thread instead of a spool, but she rejected a swatch of black fabric with a silver spiderweb design on the grounds that the spider that had made the web was not shown, and spiders were arachnids, not insects. A few campers showed Diane images saved on their digital cameras or cell phones, and after a whispered conversation, she would nod and check off the twentieth item on their lists.

  Only two teams found all twenty of the items, so the one who had returned to the veranda earliest won the game. The winners and first-runners-up were invited to take a bow, and Diane, in an unusual act of spontaneous generosity, bent the rules and declared that all eight would win Elm Creek Quilts pins.

  The other quilters applauded, none too disappointed, for they knew other chances to win pins would come their way. As the quilters chatted and enjoyed refreshments, Sarah caught up to the winning team, one of the first to snap her photo. She asked to see their scavenger hunt list for a moment, and quickly read through the array of quirky trinkets until she came to the last: “A photo of a twice-blessed quilter.”

  “A few people submitted photos of themselves, if this was their second trip to camp,” sai
d Diane, coming up behind her. “I also accepted photos of a camper with two grandchildren, or with two new friends, and one who won the lottery twice. I had to draw the line at the woman with two divorces, though, since at best that’s only a mixed blessing.”

  “Depends who’s involved in the divorce,” Sarah replied in an undertone, nodding to Bonnie, happily engrossed in conversation with some of her students.

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Sarah returned the scavenger hunt list to its owner with her thanks and watched her hurry off to join her teammates. “Some people might argue that twins are a mixed blessing, too.”

  “Those people don’t know what they’re talking about,” said Diane. “I’m not saying you don’t have difficult days and sleepless nights ahead of you, but you already know that. In the months ahead, you’re going to hear from everyone how difficult parenting is, how you can kiss your social life good-bye, how you’ll stumble through the days in a fog of sleep deprivation, how it’s impossible to do everything correctly, how you’ll feel plagued by guilt half of the time and want to run away the other half.”

  “But that’s not true?” Sarah finished for her.

  “Don’t you wish. It’s true, all right, but it’s not the complete truth.” Diane took her by the elbow and steered her to the far end of the veranda, where they would not be overheard. “What people won’t tell you, because they can’t put it into words, is that children will bring you more joy than you ever suspected existed in the universe. Even when they’re driving you crazy, you’ll fall in love with them again and again. I’ve never laughed so hard or found so much beauty in simple things since becoming a mother. It’s an impossible contradiction. They’re frustrating and glorious. They throw your life into uproar and they teach you contentment. You’ll remember every mistake you make as a parent and yet your children will love you anyway. I’ll tell you something: Nothing on this earth can compare to a spontaneous, heartfelt hug from a toddler.” Tears filled Diane’s eyes. “I’m so happy for you, and I envy you. You have it all ahead of you, all those years with your children at home. In a few weeks, my youngest baby is going off to college. Now I have all the time in the world to myself, and I’d trade a year of my life now for one more day of finger paints and nursery rhymes. Enjoy them while they’re completely yours. Even when you think you’ll collapse if you have to change one more diaper or sing one more round of ‘Old McDonald’—enjoy them. The days are long, but the years are short. They pass much too quickly.”

  Sarah stared at her, breath catching in her throat. “Diane, in all the years I’ve known you, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you string together so many sentences without a single word of sarcasm to hold them together.”

  “Why do you think I brought you all the way over here?” Diane blotted tears from her eyes and checked her fingertips for smears of mascara. “Don’t you tell anyone I got all sentimental. Especially not Gwen.”

  “Your secret is safe with me,” Sarah promised, embracing her friend.

  But Sylvia’s ears were sharper than they suspected, and she caught every word. She hid a smile, amused by Diane’s reluctance to reveal her vulnerability to anyone but a friend apprehensive of what she might face in the months and years ahead. Although Diane’s sons had grown into fine young men, they had given her quite a time of it through the years, especially her eldest. Diane was not one to idealize the difficult road a mother walked. When a pragmatic realist like Diane spoke with such passionate longing about motherhood, Sarah would do well to take heed.

  Sylvia only wished she had personal experience of her own to share with Sarah, words of sound advice that might guide her young friend, but her own dreams of motherhood had been thwarted long ago. But perhaps Sarah would have more than enough advice from the experienced mothers among the Elm Creek Quilters. Sylvia could assume a different role, that of listener, helper, and friend.

  Later, when only crumbs remained on the cookie platters and every trace of the twilight hunt through the estate had been cleared away, Sylvia joined Andrew in the manor’s master suite, which they had shared since their wedding night. Before retiring, Sylvia lingered in her sitting room, resting her hand on the back of a chair as she studied the nine Winding Ways quilt blocks she had sewn for Sarah. Somehow she must have sensed the secret her young friend had been keeping, for she had chosen deep roses and clear blues for the narrow, arcing triangles and whimsical prints for the concave wedges. The light and dark hues created a secondary pattern of circles winding outward and back to the center, gathering in, protective.

  Sarah, too, worked upon a masterpiece, Sylvia thought as she turned out the light and climbed beneath the covers beside her dear Andrew. The pieces would lie just as Sarah placed them, sewed neat and fast, the blocks in orderly rows. But only when Sarah stepped back and gazed upon her handiwork in a moment of quiet contemplation would she discover the secondary patterns, circles upon circles, overlapping and unending. Only then would she marvel at the unexpected beauty her years of labor had brought forth and know that it sprang from a source much greater than herself.

  Bonnie

  Bonnie slowed the car as she turned onto Main Street, but all of the metered spaces were full and the surging traffic did not permit her to stop in the middle of the street. That was reason enough to continue straight ahead, but her hand automatically went to the turn signal, her gaze to the rearview mirror. With a sigh, she changed lanes, drove around the block, and came to a stop in an alley where the view through the windshield was only partially obstructed. She shut down the engine without glancing at the clock, annoyed at herself but unable to drive on without taking measure of her former home.

  The construction company had filled another whole Dumpster since the previous day. A few water-stained ceiling panels stuck out through the rubble at awkward angles, and with a painful flash of recognition, Bonnie spotted a broken plane of oak wainscoting that had once adorned her dining room. At this rate, in a few weeks her former building would be an empty shell, with no sign of the cozy quilt shop that had once occupied the first-floor storefront or the condo above it where she and Craig had raised their three children, built a life, and watched their marriage fall apart.

  In retrospect, Bonnie wished she had thrown Craig out after discovering his first betrayal, the “cyberaffair” he had carried out with a woman he had met in a Penn State football chat room. Bonnie had thwarted their attempt to meet and bring their romance from the virtual world into the physical, and when Craig begged for a second chance, Bonnie had forgiven him—until he tried to sell their home and Grandma’s Attic without her consent after a real estate developer made plans to turn their building into student housing.

  She held out as long as she could, but she gave up the fight when she knew she couldn’t win. She agreed to sell the condo and allowed the shop’s lease to lapse, signing away her home, her livelihood, and her marriage with a few strokes of the pen. She wasn’t sure which of them she missed most. Craig’s transformation into a belligerent stranger colored all of her memories of their married life, so it was impossible to remember even the happy, early years without finding signs of its inevitable demise. As for the condo, though her children had learned to walk and had blown out candles on birthday cakes there, it was also the place where Craig had spent hours at the computer, sending passionate e-mails to another woman. Only her beloved quilt shop had remained a haven for her throughout the upheaval of the past few months, until the day she unlocked the front door, discovered it in a shambles, and realized that she was gazing upon the beginning of the end.

  The simultaneous loss of her home, her business, and her marriage had nearly broken her. Preparing for the divorce proceedings, struggling to avoid financial ruin, and wrestling with her children’s varied responses to the collapse of their parents’ marriage had piled on more stress and confusion than she had known she could bear. If not for Elm Creek Quilts and her friends, Bonnie wouldn’t have endured the summer.

  She
sighed and turned the key in the ignition. The Elm Creek Quilters had always been there for her, and this was how she repaid them. Glancing at the dashboard clock, she pictured campers finishing breakfast, or coming in from morning strolls through the apple orchard, or gathering their supplies for the first classes of the day. Once again Bonnie would be late for work, but her friends would not rebuke her. If they knew that her ritual observations of her former home and not the commute from her Grangerville apartment were to blame for her tardiness, they would worry. They would be even more concerned if they saw the state of her apartment, if they knew she had unpacked only the necessities. Most of her belongings remained stored in cartons from the move, lined up against the wall of her living room as if she didn’t intend to stay in the apartment long enough to justify unpacking.

  She wasn’t sure what her intentions were anymore, but she did know that putting dishes in cupboards and clothes in closets wouldn’t transform that apartment into a home.

  She pulled back onto Main Street, sparing a glance for the empty storefront in passing. Her heart cinched at the sight of the faint discoloration of the stone above the door where the red-and-goldGRANDMA’S ATTIC sign had proudly hung for so many years. She had kept the sign, of course; it lay under her bed wrapped in an old tablecloth, treasure salvaged from a happier epoch. Bonnie had not laid eyes upon it since moving from Agnes’s house to the apartment in Grangerville, and she was not sure why she had saved it. As a souvenir of past success, a talisman promising the return of prosperity in better days? As a symbol of her failure, cautioning her not to risk too much or dream too grand a dream too soon? Or in a place so deep in her heart that she could avoid subjecting it to reasoned scrutiny, did Bonnie believe that as long as she kept the sign, someday it would once again beckon quilters into a cozy shop full of delights and marvels?