Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  It hurt unbearably to acknowledge that Grandma’s Attic was truly gone, but holding out hope that she might one day reopen the shop kept the wounds of her loss fresh. Her friends meant well when they asked her when she planned to take Sylvia up on her offer to open a shop within Elm Creek Manor; they could not suspect how much their innocent encouragement pained her. A small shop in the parlor might make a modest profit supplying notions and fat quarters to campers who had forgotten to pack all they needed, especially since Sylvia was unlikely to charge Bonnie any rent, but Bonnie recognized the offer for what it was: charity. All of the Elm Creek Quilters knew how Craig had left her in dire financial straits after draining their joint bank accounts, changing the locks to the condo, and bullying her into selling their home. Bonnie half expected them to pass around a collection plate with her name on it after every business meeting. Though Sylvia’s generosity moved her, still she balked at accepting the handout. Perhaps this was because of what came to mind every time she remembered her days at Grandma’s Attic—unpacking new stock while customers browsed, ringing up purchases and wrapping parcels, changing window displays to entice passersby indoors, chatting with new friends and old as they contemplated new projects. She knew it could never compare to what a small shop in the manor’s parlor could provide. She recoiled from visions of herself hovering hopefully nearby while campers with a break in their schedules looked over a few tables offering a limited number of goods. After knowing the pride of ownership and the joy of fulfilling a dream, managing a small room in the manor was too far to fall.

  Bonnie turned on the radio to crowd out the timorous voices whispering of loss and failure. Somehow they all sounded like Craig.

  She left the campus and downtown Waterford behind, driving quickly to make up for lost time, slowing her pace only when she turned off from the main highway and onto the narrow dirt road that wound along the forested southern border of the Bergstrom estate. Sunlight danced in the leafy boughs overhead and sparkled on the rushing waters of Elm Creek as it tumbled alongside her route until it split off and disappeared into the deeper forest. When her car emerged from the trees, Bonnie’s heart gladdened at the sight of the apple orchard, familiar and yet ever changeable. All through that most difficult part of her life, she had watched buds form on the bare branches, faint green leaves deepen and grow lush, blossoms burst forth and sweeten the air with their perfume, apples ripen under the sun. Every day as she drove past the orchard on her way to the manor, she had found comfort in the orchard’s promise that patience and endurance would be rewarded. One day, the breeze whispered as it moved through the heavily laden branches, she would taste sweetness again.

  As she passed the barn, she spotted Matt shoving the tall doors open, his worn, sun-faded baseball cap tugged low over his wild blond curls. Nearby stood Gretchen’s husband, Joe, but the men were too engaged in conversation to notice Bonnie’s wave. Was Joe planning to join Matt’s staff, or was he simply keeping the younger man company? Gretchen had mentioned that her husband had worked in a Pittsburgh steel plant until a serious injury left him bedridden for more than a year. Thanks to his union, Joe had received disability payments and a modest pension, which Gretchen had supplemented by working as a substitute teacher until she became part-owner of a quilt shop. From the scant, uncomplaining details Gretchen had let fall, Bonnie guessed that the Hartleys had struggled all their lives to make ends meet. They must have welcomed Sylvia’s job offer with great joy, especially considering that it included a generous salary plus room and board at Elm Creek Manor. Joe certainly seemed pleased with their new surroundings, and Bonnie often caught him watching his wife with proud affection.

  It never ceased to amaze her how adversity drew some couples closer together, while ordinary, uneventful times doomed others to drift apart. Was it boredom that had driven Craig from her? Had he grown impatient with her predictable, pleasant faithfulness? There was nothing dangerous or exciting or mysterious about her, nothing to intrigue him anew each day. She was just a good, ordinary woman who kept her marriage vows and raised her children to be decent members of society. That was the bargain: Be true, work hard, and retire contentedly. Or so she had believed. She had kept her part of the deal only to discover that somewhere along the way her husband had changed the rules.

  Bonnie shoved the thoughts away. She couldn’t dwell on where she had gone wrong or what she might have done differently. Retracing her steps to find that place where her path had diverged from Craig’s wouldn’t bring back the sweet, charming man she had married. Time had replaced him with a stranger, a man who was unkind to her, who could not love her. Her only option now was to stoke her courage and continue upon this new, unknown, winding way, though she had no idea where it might lead.

  The engine shuddered and coughed to a halt as she parked the station wagon behind the manor. “Hang in there,” she said grimly as she hurried up the stairs to the back door, her purse slung over one shoulder, her tote bag stuffed full of class samples over the other. She was speaking to the car, which she could not afford to replace, but also to herself. If she stayed in motion, if she did not pause too long to think about how her life was in shambles, she would be able to persevere until she figured out what to do next.

  As she passed the kitchen, Anna darted into the hallway, a long wooden spoon in her hand. “Bonnie,” she exclaimed, “do you have a minute?”

  “Not really. My class starts—” She glanced at her watch. “In thirty seconds.”

  “I’ll talk fast. Do you have any menu suggestions for Judy’s farewell party?”

  “Maybe you should ask Gwen.” Bonnie wanted to help, but she had run out of time. “All I know is that if you want Judy to eat it, make sure it’s low-fat and low-cal.”

  “Maybe some Asian-Venezuelan fusion cuisine,” Anna mused, tapping her palm with the spoon. “What do you think?”

  “Sounds perfect,” Bonnie called over her shoulder as she dashed off, though she had no idea what Anna was talking about.

  She made it to her classroom with seconds to spare, smiled brightly at her students, and unpacked her tote bag, smoothing out wrinkles in the reversible quilted jacket that was the subject of their weeklong workshop. Earlier that week, each student had completed the large, patchwork rectangles from which they cut their jackets’ pieces. Now came the difficult part, sewing them together. When Bonnie asked for a volunteer, a woman from the back row came forward to try on the jacket so everyone could see how the darts fit in back. Her students listened, leaning forward eagerly in their chairs or jotting notes, as relaxed and content as Bonnie was windblown and harried. Maybe Bonnie needed to follow their example and escape for a week at quilt camp as a guest, not a teacher. Maybe any vacation would do. After the last day of the camp season, she ought to plan a little getaway—except, of course, that she couldn’t afford one. She also couldn’t miss the divorce hearings, which her lawyer warned her would switch into high gear at the end of the month.

  Someday, she promised herself. When things settled down, when she had a little money set aside, she would treat herself to a day at a spa, dinner at a fine restaurant, and an evening with a good book and fine chocolates. In the meantime, she would enjoy simple pleasures wherever she found them—in her students’ flattering admiration of the quilted jacket she had designed and sewn, for one. In the late-summer beauty of the Bergstrom estate. In imagining the mouthwatering delicacies Anna would create as the apple harvest came in. In her belief, part determination and part hope, that things had to get better soon, because they couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  After lunch, Sylvia met Bonnie at the foot of the grand oak staircase where she had sat down to change into her walking shoes. “Going out for your daily constitutional through the orchard?” Sylvia asked, falling in step beside her as she crossed the foyer’s marble floor.

  “Am I that predictable?” said Bonnie lightly.

  “Daily exercise is good for body and soul. We would all do well to follow your example
.” But rather than accompany Bonnie outside, Sylvia placed a hand on her arm to bring her to a halt. “Before you dash off, may we chat for a moment?”

  With a sinking heart, Bonnie realized that Sylvia had not been following along, but rather guiding her to this precise spot. They stood just beyond the foyer where the original west wing of Elm Creek Manor intersected the south wing—right beside the doorway to the formal parlor. “I have a class at one-thirty,” Bonnie excused herself, but Sylvia firmly steered her into the room, a veritable tableau of Victoriana. The overstuffed sofas, embroidered armchairs, beaded lampshades, and ornate cabinets might have seemed stuffy if they were not so comfortably worn. Sylvia had once remarked that every antique piece of furniture remained in the exact spot where her grandmother had placed it when she married into the Bergstrom family. Aside from the electric lights, the only sign of the modern era was the large television in the corner, but even that was concealed by a late-nineteenth-century Grandmother’s Fan quilt unless someone was watching a program.

  “Perhaps you’ve been much too busy this summer to think about setting up shop here,” said Sylvia, scrutinizing the room, hands on her hips, “but as soon as camp wraps up for the season, I believe we should begin planning in earnest.”

  “Do you think so?” asked Bonnie weakly.

  “If we want to be ready for the first day of camp next season, indeed I do. Gretchen tells me that her husband is quite a woodworker. Perhaps he can help you design some custom-made shelving to make the most of this small space.”

  Bonnie seized her opening. “Itis a very small space, isn’t it? Quilters hate browsing in cramped shops. Maybe we should give it some more thought before we make any permanent changes to your parlor.”

  Sylvia laughed and patted her arm, a gesture of reassurance that made Bonnie feel worse. “We’ll have all winter to think and plan, and I’m sure Joe will contrive something so your customers won’t feel crowded.”

  “But what about your grandmother’s furniture? I couldn’t ask you to displace your family heirlooms.”

  “Nonsense! We can find another place in the manor for these pieces, and once we do, the room will seem much larger. You’ll see.” Sylvia gestured to the wall adjacent to the doorway. “In my opinion, this would be the best place to set up the cash register, and perhaps Joe could build a cutting table for the center of the room.” She indicated the other walls in turn. “Fabric bolts there, wall racks for notions there, and bookshelves here.” Nodding to a narrow wall right beside the door frame, she added, “And this would be the perfect spot to hang that framed photograph you used to keep on your desk in your office. The woman in the portrait is your grandmother, and the inspiration for your first store, if I’m not mistaken?”

  Bonnie nodded and tried to smile. “I can see you’ve given this a lot of thought.” She forced a laugh. “Much more than I have.”

  “Perhaps too much thought.” Sylvia peered at Bonnie over the rims of her glasses. “Perhaps I’ve overstepped my bounds, telling you how to arrange your shop when I don’t have a single day’s experience to compare to yours.”

  “Oh, no, no, that’s not it,” Bonnie hastened to explain. “It’s not that I have to do it my way. I just don’t know if I should do it at all.”

  Sylvia studied her, the fine lines of her face gathering in a worried frown. “Surely you’re not worried that Grandma’s Parlor will suffer the same fate as your first shop. You needn’t fear any vandals here.”

  “Grandma’s Parlor.” Bonnie’s laugh, though soft, was genuine. “You’ve even chosen a name.”

  “You don’t have to keep it,” said Sylvia. “You’ll be in charge, of course, so the choice should be yours. I hope you won’t think me presumptuous, but Grandma’s Parlor seemed fitting to me. It acknowledges the new location while calling to mind its origins, both the place and the person who inspired it.”

  “It’s a good name,” Bonnie assured her. “I’ll think about everything you’ve said. We’ll talk more soon.”

  Then Bonnie hurried off, crossing the distance between the parlor and the back door as quickly as she could without breaking into a run, leaving more than one camper speculating that in all the time they had known her, Bonnie had never seemed so eager for exercise.

  Grandma’s Parlor. Bonnie mulled over the name as she strode through the orchard, pumping her fists, feeling the first beads of perspiration forming on the nape of her neck. Sylvia had no idea how perfectly it suited, or how much it would have delighted the woman in the photograph Bonnie had once kept on her office desk.

  Grandma Lucy, her first quilt teacher, her tutor, her most steadfast champion. Sometimes the peal of a camper’s laugh, a glimpse of a brunette flip, or a carefree woman dancing onstage at the campers’ talent show reminded Bonnie of her grandmother. How Grandma Lucy would have enjoyed quilt camp, and how proud she would have been to know that her granddaughter was one of its founders.

  Grandma Lucy had always told Bonnie that she could accomplish anything if she set her mind to it. “The world is full of possibilities,” she liked to exclaim, throwing her arms open in the backyard and twirling around as if to embrace the sunlight, the warm breezes, the grass, and the open sky.

  Bonnie and her younger sister, Ellie, adored their grandmother. They didn’t mind that their mother worked as a secretary instead of staying home like their friends’ mothers, because it meant they could spend a few hours after school and every long summer day at Grandma Lucy’s house. When the weather was fair, they would explore Erie, Pennsylvania, on bicycles, go hiking along the lakeshore, or play marathon games of croquet on the front lawn. On rainy days, Grandma Lucy would take them for a “machine ride” to the library, where they would check out armloads of books and pass the day reading on the shaded screen porch, safe and dry while thunder rolled overhead. But what Bonnie and Ellie liked best of all was when Grandma Lucy beckoned them up the creaking attic stairs, where they would throw open old trunks and play dress-up with clothes from the olden days, when Grandma was a young lady. Feather boas, high-heeled shoes, fringed dresses, and white satin gloves that reached almost to the girls’ shoulders—such lovely, beautiful things. “If I had such pretty clothes, I would wear them every day,” Bonnie had often declared. When Ellie chimed in her agreement, Grandma would merely throw her head back and laugh.

  Dressed in their grandmother’s finery, they would play marvelous games of make-believe. They were glamorous movie stars traveling to exotic locales to shoot a new feature; they were secret agents posing as a singing group in order to outwit a gang of notorious bank robbers; they were princesses and queen battling an evil sorcerer intent on destroying their kingdom. While rain pattered on the sloped roof or winter winds swirled icy snow crystals against the windowpane, their grandmother’s attic transformed into a place where anything they imagined could come to pass.

  Their mother’s voice calling up the narrow staircase would break the spell, and Bonnie and Ellie would scamper downstairs and watch as their glamorous ensembles worked their own magic upon their mother’s face, as laughter erased the weariness around her eyes. Sometimes, as they changed back into their ordinary clothes, the girls begged to stay and have dinner with Grandma Lucy and Grandpa Al, but usually their mother scooted them outside to the car, to race home and prepare their own supper before their father came home from work.

  Grandma knew how to tap dance, and she had saved every dance costume she had worn since she was eight years old. She taught Bonnie and Ellie the jitterbug and the fox-trot, and sometimes she and Grandpa Al would waltz around the living room while the radio played. They had met at a dance at the Lakeside Pavilion when she was seventeen and he was nineteen. Grandma was very popular and danced with many young men, unaware that Grandpa, who attended a different school, had taken notice of her. When the bandleader announced a contest, Grandpa strode across the dance floor and took her hand just as she was about to take a classmate’s brother’s arm. “You’re the best dancer here,” he to
ld her, leading his astonished partner to the middle of the dance floor. “Whoever has you for a partner is going to win, and I need to win.”

  “The prize was a new pair of shoes,” Grandma would explain. “He might not have been so bold except he really needed those shoes.”

  “How did Grandpa know the shoes would fit him?” Ellie always interrupted at that point of the story.

  “The prize was a gift certificate to a shoe store, dearie. The winner would get to pick out whatever he liked.”

  Grandma helped Grandpa win first prize, and they danced every dance together for the rest of the evening. “We’ve been partners ever since,” Grandma would conclude the tale, and if Grandpa was in the room, she would throw him a teasing glance and add, “I think he kept me around in case he ever needed to add to his wardrobe.”

  As the years passed, marriage and family did not change Grandma’s popularity. Her circle of friends evolved as their husbands’ jobs took them to distant towns and as their common interests waxed and waned, but she was never without companions. By the time Bonnie and Ellie came along, Grandma Lucy’s favored circle was her quilting bee, the Stitch Witches. Ever since she was a young bride, Grandma Lucy and nine friends had met once a week to sew and chat. They had seen one another through marriages and births, illnesses and disappointments, and there were very few secrets they did not share around the sewing circle. “They’ve got the goods on me, all right,” Grandma Lucy told Bonnie once as she mixed batter for a pineapple upside-down cake to serve at a Stitch Witches’ bee. “If we ever had a falling out, and they told the world my secrets…” Grandma Lucy shook her head, imagining the disastrous result. But of course, the Stitch Witches would never betray her, and not only because Grandma Lucy knew their secrets, too. The years of shared confidences had forged a bond between them that nothing would ever shatter. Bonnie knew that Grandma Lucy’s secrets, whatever they were, were safe.