The Quilting House

by Elizabeth Bromke

  This was a classic Mama Hart-ism. She was service-oriented and charity-driven. Ever since Liesel could remember, they were volunteering for this or showing up to help with that.

  Liesel wasn’t too sure about giving away the first ever quilt she’d make, but then if that was her stance, she probably didn’t have charity at the forefront of her mind. And therefore, she’d be breaking the first rule of quiltin’.

  “You have a lot of leftover material,” Liesel pointed out, her eyes shifting to a secondary stack.

  “I buy off-season. If you have a passion for something, Liesel, you do whatever you have to do.”

  “So, what’s next?” Liesel asked, studying the third stack of fabric—white cotton, more supple than the other two stacks. Batting, Liesel knew. Beyond all the fabric were the other tools her mother commonly had out when she was quilting. Shears, rotary cutter, cardboard, needles, her pin cushion, prickly like a little cactus, and spools of thread. The thread she’d laid out for the day was a near match to the cream-colored cotton fabric. “Do we have to prewash and iron?” Liesel asked.

  Her mother smiled. “I don’t need to prewash this. It’s nice to have the fabric stiff to begin.”

  “Where’s your sewing machine?” Liesel glanced around, befuddled at its absence. An old Singer passed down from Liesel’s grandmother.

  “We’re not there yet. Not by a ways,” her mother smiled and drew the back of her finger down Liesel’s cheek. “Your patience will be key with quilting, Liesel.”

  Liesel took a deep breath. “I don’t have much patience,” she complained, rubbing her hands up and down her arms to generate a bit of warmth. “Can we just make some hot cocoa or somethin’?”

  The woman propped her hands on her hips. “Everyone has patience. Deep down.” She collected Liesel’s hair and plaited it loosely. “This is coming from the most impatient woman of all. Trust me when I say that waiting for somethin’ increases that somethin’s value. Always.”

  “If I’m patient, I’ll make a nicer quilt, I get it.”

  “Patience applies to much more in life than quilting, sweet girl.” Her mother finished the plait and lowered down next to Liesel. “I promise.”

  “All right then.” Liesel cinched the braid her mother had made into a tie from her wrist. “The shoo-fly quilt. Like the pie, then. Is that what the blocks will look like when it’s done? A pie? Or a fly…” She frowned, and her mother laughed.

  “Another name for this pattern is the Hole in the Barn Door. We’ll cut triangles and squares and position them into something like this.” Her mother twisted to a box of scrap fabric and pulled out several pieces, folding and smoothing them into a pretty display on the table in front of Liesel. “See?”

  “Hole in the Barn Door,” Liesel said dreamily, mesmerized by the pattern. A square sat prominently in the center. The top tip of a triangle kissed each corner of the square, abutted against a second triangle that matched those squares along the sides of the center square. Liesel didn’t quite see why it was called shoo-fly or hole in the barn door or anything.

  “I don’t see it,” Liesel said, cocking her head and peering hard to see an image that wasn’t there.

  “Well that’s the second rule of quilting,” her mother answered, sharing Liesel’s gaze. “It’s part patience, you see, and part artistry.”

  “And,” Liesel added pointedly, “part magic.”

  Chapter 1—Gretchen

  Gretchen Engel looked up from her sewing machine, an antique Singer she’d stationed by the window of the loft in her family’s barn. A year earlier, she’d claimed the space as her own makeshift apartment and crafting studio.

  Snow fell outside. Oversized, fluffy flakes of the stuff, surreal looking.

  Inches of white already blanketed the wooded forest beyond her window, padding the barn from outside noise. That of her family, who lived in the house next to the barn.

  Christmas music, tinny and somber, drifted from her CD player—yes, CD player. The one her mother had found at a yard sale the summer before. Gretchen didn’t mind being behind the times when it came to technology, though. She liked the comfort of a commercial-free listening experience, even if “Little Drummer Boy” skipped on the chorus.

  She returned her attention to the sewing machine, threading the bobbin with red, silken thread, and replacing the metal plate.

  Then, Gretchen reached for the white fabric, cut in the shape of a stocking and pinned inside out in preparation to be sewn up. She adjusted everything just so, lowered the foot, and set about running the would-be Christmas gift through, slowly, then quickly. Smoothly, the gentle whir lulling her into a trance.

  After finishing the length of the stocking foot and turning up carefully to head back toward the top of it, Gretchen let out a sigh of relief.

  This was the first one that hadn’t tangled the thread and snagged everything up.

  Her shoulders relaxed, she pulled the fabric out the back far enough to snip the thread and admire her work.

  Simple and clean, if a little bland. She’d doll the piece up, adding applique reindeer to the cuff, once she’d sewn that part by hand and added looping stitches around the whole of it—for a charming effect. For now, though, it was good progress. She was due at the Inn in half an hour, and she still needed to get ready.

  Gretchen drew the cloth cover over her machine, piled her fabric neatly to the side of her sewing table, and descended the ladder into the bottom level of her barn house.

  In the previous year, she’d managed to make the space cozy and homey, adding rustic touches from trips to various yard sales and estate sales around Hickory Grove and in neighboring areas.

  It wasn’t until her boyfriend broke up with her, however, that Gretchen had really settled in. Clinging to the belief that Theo Linden would eventually whisk her away to a shiny new apartment near Notre Dame, where he was on scholarship, proved to be little more than a pipe dream. Plainly put, the two were far too opposite to work. Gretchen was a beauty-school dropout who worked part-time at a diner and part-time at a bed-and-breakfast. She had three much-younger siblings to babysit and a mom with a new husband and an in-home business—hair, of course.

  Theo, on the other hand, was the only child of local sweetheart, Miss Becky Linden Durbin, who owned and ran a bookshop in town. Theo was up north, studying law, just like his stepfather before him, in one of the best private universities in America and on a full-ride academic scholarship, to boot.

  See? Opposites. Total opposites. And although opposites may attract… that didn’t necessarily mean their strength didn’t eventually putter away.

  But the silver lining to the end of that relationship was Gretchen’s newfound joy in making the barn behind her family’s farm a true home. Any extra time she had, she worked on it, sanding bare wood, staining or painting it, and filling the hollow and vast space with the perfect pieces to suggest she was much, much more than a beauty-school dropout with two part-time jobs.

  One day, Gretchen promised herself, she really would be more than that. She would, like her mother, own her own business, right there in that barn. And whether she had a smart boyfriend with a fancy college degree or a downhome boy with scuffed work boots and a rusty pick-up truck, well, that just wouldn’t matter.

  Because Gretchen would have her own thing going.

  A crafting business, ideally.

  Just as she tugged her down coat on and slung her handbag over her shoulder, her phone chimed. Gretchen snatched it from the arm of the sofa and made her way outside, where the snow had taken a break, but the sky was heavier yet—dark and wet and frigid.

  She glanced at the screen. A text message awaited her. One line. Simple. Timely. And aggravatingly cute.

  “I’ll be home for Christmas…”

  Gretchen did a doubletake of the sender’s name, surprised and yet unsurprised to confirm that, yes. It was Theo.

  Only in your dreams, she thought and shoved the device deep into her pocket.


  Chapter 2—Liesel

  Liesel stomped her feet on the front mat at the Hickory Grove Inn, where her nephew and his wife lived and worked.

  Liesel’s nephew, Luke, was at Hickory Grove High School, running the final pre-season track workout before the holidays. He was the sort of coach who could get away with hosting weight training sessions two days from Christmas.

  But that’s what made him good. That and his colleague, Mark Ketchum. Hickory Grove transplant and immediate town favorite. His easy manner and broken history—losing a wife years earlier—had endeared him to the locals. Not Liesel, though. She was a hard sell on coach types. Unless the man was her nephew, in which case, she made an exception.

  Liesel rang the bell at the front desk, a habit more than a courtesy, as she shook all thoughts about the sweet man who’d ushered her down the aisle the summer before. Not her aisle, mind you. Luke’s aisle. Luke and his wife, Greta.

  “Aunt Liesel,” Greta greeted her with a bouncing baby on her hip. Tabby, the apple of her parents’ eye.

  Liesel sort of hated that Greta called her aunt. It felt… contrived. Still, she was the picture of sweetness, Greta. She and her little baby girl, each bundled in snow-white sweaters, black leggings, and red knit beanies—a gift from Liesel ahead of what was turning out to be a cold and wet winter. That they matched so impeccably might have annoyed Liesel too, but they wouldn’t be matching if she hadn’t knit them matching winter hats, probably. It was Liesel’s own fault, then. Still, she couldn’t suppress a smile as she let Tabby curl her chubby little baby finger around Liesel’s. It drove a pang to the middle-aged woman’s heart. The sort of pang that a woman in her circumstances could do little to temper. More volunteering at the hospital nursery. A rejuvenation in attitude toward her Sunday school classes. Yes. Those would have to do to fill the longing Liesel couldn’t seem to shake every time she laid eyes on darling Tabby.

  “Greta, hello.” Liesel greeted the young mother with a kiss on the cheek after duly tending to Tabby’s attention. “How’ve you been?” Liesel was stopping by on her way to the airport. She had long ago planned a holiday trip to Birch Harbor, Michigan, where she had some business needing attending. Family business, sort of. Maybe something more.

  “Great. Cold, but great. We’re doing our grocery shopping later today—that is if the weather holds out. Maybe you’d like to join me?” Greta’s eyes danced desperately. Liesel felt sorry for the girl. Greta had yet to make ins with the local housewives and mothers. It could be hard for an outsider in Hickory Grove, especially one of the female persuasion. Sometimes too hard. Maybe that was why even Liesel had been shopping for a new life. To shake loose the small-town claws that had long ago sunk into her skin, pulling her back instead of pushing her forward in life.

  Then again, she couldn’t blame Hickory Grove for her own shortfalls. Anything Liesel lacked had entirely to do with something engraved much deeper down. Even deeper than one’s hometown.

  “Oh, no,” Liesel replied. “I’m here and gone. Just wanted to deliver gifts, since I’m not staying in town this year.” She narrowed her gaze at her niece-in-law, awaiting a fuss to be made over Liesel’s controversial choice to leave town for the holidays. Liesel could hear it now, across church pews at Little Flock and in line at the corner market: Did you hear? Liesel Hart isn’t in town for Christmas! Such drama.

  Greta blinked. The baby fussed in her arms.

  “Tabby, sh. Shh,” the young mother cooed. “Oh, Aunt Liesel, I thought you weren’t going until after Christmas. This is just terrible news.” She frowned and shook her head.

  Liesel smiled. “That’s kind of you to say, but I have family there. Family I haven’t… I haven’t spent much time with, you see.” Liesel was thoughtful on the matter. She gestured over her shoulder. “Will you hold the door for me while I shuttle everything inside?”

  Greta pressed her mouth into a line, Baby Tabby gurgling contentedly. “Oh, it’s biting cold outside. Here, let me help. I’ll just put her in her bouncer and be right there.”

  Liesel went out ahead of Greta, careful on the sidewalk. Salt had melted the ice well enough, but with a schedule to keep, it wouldn’t do for Liesel to be reckless.

  She walked toe-heel down the path, mentally playing out her plans. First, the drive to Louisville. Then the flight. From there, a car service would collect her. They’d drive down to Birch Harbor, where she’d stay for an entire week at the Heirloom Inn. She’d reconnect with relatives she’d never known. She’d research her parentage. Learn more about from whom she’d come and why.

  Her flight wasn’t for a few hours, but still she planned to arrive at the airport as early as possible, to be safe. After all, what with the looming storm, the sky was dark and roads treacherous. She’d have to drive slowly.

  As she arrived back at her car and opened the hatch, she caught a glimpse of the figure of a younger woman walking down from behind the property, where the parking lot was situated, and toward the front of the Inn.

  Liesel knew it was Gretchen Engel, Maggie Devereux’s sweet-natured bookworm. Gretchen was the sort of small-town girl who everyone knew and no one knew. Liesel had seen her everywhere, from waiting tables at Malley’s, to doing odd jobs for the seamstress up by Hickory Grove High, and down here, at the Inn. For being so ubiquitous, however, Gretchen kept to herself, just as she did now. Her head ducked low under a chunky knit cap, her hands tucked deeply into the pockets of her down jacket. An oversized boho bag hung along her side. Boots to her knees. She half-jogged along the slick walk and ducked inside, nearly colliding with Greta, with whom she exchanged a few brief words before the latter closed the door.

  “Okay!” Greta arrived next to Liesel and chirped through the frigid air, her breath visible in white puffs. “Gretchen just got here, so she’ll take over with Tabby. Let me help you, Aunt Liesel.” Greta always overemphasized the second syllable in Gretchen. A way to help distinguish the two with uniquely similar names but one of those off-putting things about her. Probably one of the things that turned some locals against her, too. Liesel felt for Greta. She tried hard. Really, she did.

  Liesel forced a smile. Maybe it was the travel anxiety putting her so on edge. Or the weather. Too cold for before Christmas. Usually, Hickory Grove didn’t see harsh winters at all. And when it did, it was January or February by then. She hauled a cardboard box from the back of her car, neatly wrapped packages snugly organized inside like a game of Tetris.

  Liesel didn’t actually know that reference. Luke had used it when they were moving him into the house behind the Inn. He considered himself a “Tetris master” due to his ability to perfectly organize furniture, boxes, and everything else into the hollow chamber of a moving trailer. She’d shelved the reference for her own future use. It was Liesel’s way of trying to preserve her own edge. Her modernity. This was becoming harder and harder, though. To keep up with it all—all the social media apps, all the apps period- Liesel couldn’t do it. So, when she did learn a new term or phrase, she shelved it.

  Liesel was fashionable and nice looking enough and everything that a woman of a certain age needed to be to earn some modicum of respect. Still, those little truths didn’t stop the gray hairs. Nor did they reverse the past and change the fact that while Liesel stayed up on her manicures and hair appointments, and while she ate well and exercised, she could never retrace her steps. She could never be the young temptress that Greta, for example, surely was. She would never garner the attention of a young male. Or even an old one. She’d never known a man’s romantic love nor would she likely get that experience now.

  It was simply too late.

  Anyway, Liesel had more important things. Like figuring out how in the world she was going to make it to the airport with the increasingly blustery wind and a fresh round of fat, whirling snowflakes.

  Greta’s flouncy blonde hair blasted back from her face, and her pinkish lips turned purple. “Let’s get this inside!” she called through the loudness swirling aroun
d them as she took the box. “This is crazy!” she cried.

  Liesel grabbed the second box, managed to will her hatch shut with her elbow then followed the girl inside to where Gretchen was bouncing Tabby on her hip like a little mother.

  “Whew,” Greta remarked, carrying the box through to the parlor where her Christmas tree stood in all its glory.

  The lights flickered on and off. Liesel’s stomach clenched as she looked around. “What was that?”

  “Power,” Greta answered mildly. “It did that a little while ago. The snow is so heavy on those lines.”

  A chill coursed through Liesel, though she couldn’t tell if it was her stress or the cold. She heard the furnace kick on and relaxed. “Do you all have a back-up generator here?” She worried about Greta and Luke. They sometimes seemed ill-prepared to be so… on their own. Even though her nephew was self-sufficient and strong, that didn’t always translate to grown-up stuff. Certainly not to being head of a family. She worried about this quite a lot.

  Greta blinked. “No. But we’ve got the fireplace, of course. And loads of candles. Generators are expensive,” she added, as if to reassure Liesel that she knew what she was doing, just couldn’t afford any frills. Greta was sensible that way, and Liesel did appreciate this. When she’d lived for a season at Saint Meinrad’s, she, herself, had come to appreciate the simple life. They had no generator, either. If the power went out in summer, you opened the windows. In winter? You stoked a fire.

  Surely, Luke had stocked plenty of wood.

  And anyway, if Greta’s décor was any indication, the little Hart clan and their Inn were well prepared for the winter. Beautiful Christmas decorations filled the foyer and the parlor.

  For scrimping by on her husband’s teacher’s salary and an innkeeper’s wage, Greta knew how to make the most of the holidays. They’d cut their own fresh tree from the forest, Liesel knew. Greta had made the garland herself—painstakingly stringing popcorn down lines of thread and singling out individual strands of dollar-store tinsel until the whole of the tree glowed puffy white and shimmery.