“Which probably helps you,” Liesel pointed out.
“That’s what Theo said, too. When they first started dating, Theo reminded me that it was a good thing to have another adult around. It’d give me more free time. But he had ulterior motives.”
“Ulterior motives?” Liesel echoed, narrowing her stare briefly on Gretchen before resuming her sewing.
“What did you think he wanted me to have free time for?” Gretchen rolled her eyes.
Liesel frowned. “Spending time together?”
“Exactly. He didn’t necessarily care if I had free time. He just wanted my time. You know what I mean? It was self-serving, I think.”
Liesel considered this as the machine hummed along. There was something defensive in Gretchen. Something broken and untrusting. Something in her that was in stark contrast to Liesel… and yet so similar. That inherent suspicion about people and their motives. Still, she couldn’t help but point out the obvious. “Maybe so,” Liesel replied. “Maybe Theo wanted your time… but is that so bad?”
“Men always want something from women,” Gretchen answered. “I don’t care to be a part of that sort of relationship.”
“I think it’s natural for young people to want to spend their time together, Gretchen,” Liesel said delicately, pulling the freshly sewn stocking out from the machine and snipping the thread at the top. “That might make him self-serving, but how else do you become close to them? You both need each other’s time. And take it from someone who knows: you don’t have as much as you think.” Liesel’s face drew sad and thoughtful.
Gretchen clearly saw this, because she was quiet a beat. Liesel picked up the next project and started it through the machine.
“You know,” she went on, “speaking of time—you mentioned you’d like to learn to quilt. And I can surely show you. You’ve got a great space here. We could make a plan to start on a project together.”
Gretchen perked up, her eyes flashing and mouth pricking into a smile. “Really?”
Liesel grinned. “As long as you have… time.”
Step 4: Assemble the Shoo-Fly Block
“The next rule of quilting is to make the time,” Liesel’s mother said. “We’ll spend a lot of time on this. Hours each day.”
“Hours every single day?” Liesel wasn’t complaining. Just confirming.
Her mother smiled. “Put water on to boil. We can have some hot cocoa while we assemble the first block.”
“All right, Mom.” Liesel set about filling the kettle and searching for her mother’s tin of cocoa powder. “And how do we do this? Do we do each block individually then put them all together?”
“That’s right,” her mother replied. When Liesel returned to the table, her mother had laid out their patches in rows on top of the rubber grid. Each patch sat two grid squares apart from the next on each side, and Liesel could see plain as day what the block would look like. Nine patches. Three rows by three.
“We’ll stitch these units together by rows, first. Then we press the seams to set them flat toward the solid square, inwardly, you see.” Her mother drew her fingers together to indicate as much.
Liesel followed. “It’s not that hard.”
“It’s tedious, is what it is. And to lots of folks, tedious means hard.”
“True,” Liesel replied as they followed the next direction.
Once each row was stitched, Liesel guessed at the next step. “Now we stitch the rows together, right?”
“You’re a natural,” her mother complimented.
“Mom, come on. It’s obvious.” Liesel shook her head.
“There are a lot of little steps, though. For example, we’ll make sure the seam allowance nests together. See? Anyway, it’s not always obvious. Some people are too worrisome to be good at quilting.”
“What do you mean?” Liesel didn’t understand.
“They are so fretful they’ll miss something, that they freeze up. I was that way at first. Too scared to make any progress.”
“What’s there to be afraid of?” Liesel asked. “It’s a quilt. It isn’t life or death.”
“A quilt is the essence of life,” her mother answered, and Liesel found this reply to be dramatic.
“And,” her mother went on, “making an error, even early on can cost someone fabric and thread, and time, too.”
“I can understand wasting good fabric and thread, but time—you can always spend another hour here or there.”
Her mother laughed as the kettle sang out a sharp trill. Liesel went to take it off the flame and pour together the water and cocoa before she would dig around for an old bag of marshmallows, probably hard from sitting stowed for too long.
“Not everyone has a spare hour here or there. You, yourself, seemed a little hesitant to start, knowing that you’d have to commit so much time.” Her mother’s eyebrow rose meaningfully.
“That’s true. If we had to start all over, I’d be pretty annoyed.”
“But still you’ve got that instinct. That go-for-it-ness, my darlin’.”
“You have to have a respect for the time and a heart for starting. That’s what I always say about quiltin’.”
“You sure say a lot about quilting, Mom,” Liesel replied as she set two mugs of steaming cocoa onto the table.
“Ah,” her mother scolded lightly. “Not on our workspace.”
“Oh, right.” This was a rule Liesel already knew. If her mama had a quilt on the table, there was to be no food nor drink within an arm’s length. Same applied for other sewing projects, too. But quilting was particularly protected in the Hart household.
It really was The Quilting House, that much was true.
“For how long will we work today, Mom?” Liesel asked.
“Well,” her mother answered, “we’ve now finished one block. Would you look at that? Now we piece it into a baby quilt. Right? So that comes next.”
“Do we make more blocks first, then?”
“Yes. I reckon we do. Who knows? With the two of us working together, we might get this done in no time after all. That’s the beauty of a quiltin’ project. The more hands, the sooner it’s done. That is, if time is of the essence.”
Chapter 11—Gretchen
In less than two hours, they were done, which was a good thing, since Gretchen was running out of time. Gretchen thanked Liesel and they made a promise to get back together soon.
After, Liesel had taken her leave, heading to Little Flock to see about mass preparations, no doubt.
Liesel, Gretchen could see, was someone who was happy to give her time. Happy to have the time of others, too. Was Gretchen that way? Was she willing to share her life so easily? So quickly?
Gretchen had rarely felt selfish in her life, but with her new friend’s wisdom, she began to wonder if she hadn’t made a mistake when it came to Theo Linden and all things romantic entanglement.
Deep down, Gretchen cared quite a lot for Theo. And deep down, she knew he cared, too.
So, once she finished the stockings and decided to head into town to see if the corner market was open, she gave him a call. Maybe he could meet her. She could explain herself. They could be friends again.
Though not more. He still lived in South Bend, after all. He still had a year before graduation and then—two more years of law school. And who knew where that might take him?
“Louisville,” he replied easily as they settled in with a set of mugs filled to the brim with Malley’s famous hot cocoa and goopy marshmallows sogging on top.
“You mean—” she replied, her brows knitted.
“Yes,” he finished the sentence for her. “After next year, I’m going to Louisville for law school. Assuming I get in, that is. Zack thinks I have a good shot. And he knows people, too. My grades are good. Next up is the LSAT, and then I’ll have a sense, I think.”
“But why? Why Louisville?” Gretchen asked then took a slow sip. She’d allotted exactly one and a half hours for her excursion. After that, she needed t
o get home, help get the kids ready for supper, then the tree lighting, then mass—it never ended. The hustle and bustle.
Theo chuckled. “I’m going to apprentice with Zack, for starters. I can work as a paralegal soon. But mainly, I’m transferring to Louisville to be closer to the people I love.” He glanced down at his own mug, sheepish, then shook his head. “Like I said, though. I have to get in first.” He took a long pull from the drink, his eyes anywhere but on her.
Gretchen took her own sip, thinking about this revelation. It could change everything.
Or nothing.
She wouldn’t know, however, unless she asked. But how could she? Gretchen was the one to end things. If she went back on her word, how might Theo react? Maybe he already had a new girlfriend, anyway?
“Theo,” Gretchen started, her thoughts barreling down towards her mouth, like a semi-truck whose brakes had failed and needed a safety pull-out, “um.” She cleared her throat as he looked at her, his kind eyes supple. From her seat across from him, Gretchen could smell Theo. A hint of heavy cologne. What was it? Curve? Something nostalgic his mother had discovered in Grandbern’s back closet, maybe. Something old and musky and warm and inviting and delicious and—
“Is everything okay, Gretchen?” Theo asked, his face hardening at the edges—his jaw tensing and his eyes narrowing.
“Yes,” she rushed to answer. “Yes, everything is… fine. It’s fine. Are you—Theo, are you, like… dating now?”
“Dating?” he asked, laughter at the back of his throat. “I mean, I go on dates. But nothing has stuck.” He dropped his chin. “You?”
Gretchen shook her head. “Of course not.”
“Why of course?” Theo asked. She felt his face move an inch closer to hers above the table. His elbows now rested atop it. His whole shape closed in on her, blocking out the rest of the restaurant—the rest of the world from her view. From her mind, even.
She could answer in a million ways. Of course I’m not dating because there are no good men in this town. Or: Of course I’m not dating because I don’t care about that stuff. Or: Of course I’m not dating because of you.
Without warning, the last notion fell from her lips, a whisper of a truth. “Because of you,” Gretchen said, managing the courage to meet his gaze. Images of their times together played through her mind. Fish frys together at Little Flock. Tailgating at the high school football games, sitting together at the edge of his pick-up truck’s bed, their feet dangling. Her red toes. His law school loafers—second hand but as nifty as the starched polos he wore. Theo didn’t care that he stuck out in Hickory Grove. That he wasn’t a good ol’ boy who’d played football for the school and could change a tire in ninety-seconds flat. He didn’t care about any of that.
Did Gretchen?
“Because of me?” Theo repeated, his lower lip trembling as his eyes danced to her mouth and his face inched closer to her above the table. She felt herself inching his way, too.
She nodded slowly.
There was just one thing to do.
One thing to give Theo his answer. To give Gretchen hers.
“There he is!”
The “answer” came on a chilly breeze as the restaurant door flew open, spilling Coach Ketchum and Coach Hart inside like a pair of frozen Nutcrackers, rigid and frozen in time and space, the latter pointing directly at Gretchen and Theo. Gretchen shrank back into her seat, her cheeks reddening like cranberry sauce.
They made their way over, gloved hands and knit-capped heads laden in puffs of white snow. “Theo, Miss Fern needs help to haul out the tree, if you have a mind,” Coach Ketchum said gruffly.
“Hate to interrupt you two,” Coach Hart added softly. “We had another question, too.”
Coach Ketchum took over, a bit less sure of himself as he went on. “Miss Hart? Liesel?” he asked Gretchen, particularly.
She frowned at first, but something inside her brain clicked on. A softly glowing bulb. “Yes, Miss Liesel,” she said, holding Coach Ketchum’s nervous stare.
Beneath the table, Gretchen felt something on her foot. It took a moment to realize it was Theo. Footsie. Classic Theo. She caught his gaze.
“Do you know where we might, um, find her?” Coach Hart asked, less nervous than Coach Ketchum but just as awkwardly.
Gretchen stole herself a moment. “Why?” Then, she blushed again. “Beg your pardon, Coach. But might I ask why you want to know?”
“Oh,” he coughed into his fist, contrived, then flicked a glance to Coach Ketchum. “Just curious about if she made it safely out of town. I wanted to make sure my aunt got to her destination in one piece. Haven’t heard from her.”
“Oh, her trip.” Gretchen nodded and began to explain that Liesel’s flight was grounded and that she’d stick around town for the holiday. But she was cut off.
The two men exchanged an unreadable look.
“Anyway,” Coach Hart went on. “You need a lift to Pine Tree Lane?” he asked Theo. “Your mama told Greta she was worried about the weather. You desert folks not having much experience and whatnot.” Theo and his mom, Becky, had lived in Arizona all of Theo’s life before college brought them back to Indiana. Still, the entire reason for the coaches’ visit there at the diner was clearly connected to something other than the tree lighting or Miss Fern needing help or whatnot.
“I got my truck,” Theo answered.
“And you’re all right, Gretchen?” Coach Hart asked, studying her more softly than he had Theo.
The air was thick around them. Liesel and Mark Ketchum. Becky’s concern for Theo. Luke Hart’s concern for Gretchen…
On a whim, she rubbed the toe of her boot along the back of Theo’s calf, a small smile curling on her face before she answered, “I’m great, Coach Hart. I’m with Theo.”
Chapter 12—Liesel
Liesel arrived at Little Flock in time to catch Fern Gale and Becky Linden leaving.
“Liesel!” Fern greeted. Of everyone in Hickory Grove, Liesel found herself closest with Fern. They were close in age, and their families intertwined at certain points. Plus, they were both the only pair of childless women around. Hickory Grove wasn’t much for spinsters. Then again, Fern was no spinster. And anyway, she had her cat.
Liesel was a spinster and had no cat.
She smiled. “Hi, Fern. Merry Christmas.” The two shared a tight hug, then Liesel offered the same to Becky.
“Merry Christmas, darlin’,” Becky answered, kissing her on the cheek. “So, you’re sticking around town, then?”
Liesel cocked her head. Her trip to Michigan wasn’t exactly public knowledge. In fact, nothing Liesel did was really public knowledge. She didn’t necessarily live in the public eye like some of the other locals did.
Fern must have caught her surprise. “Mark Ketchum came around looking for you.”
“Mark Ketchum?” Liesel frowned. “Looking for me?”
Becky nodded. “And Coach Hart was with him. We were—are looking for my Theo, too. We traded info with them. They’d hunt down Theo for me—that kid never answers his phone—and we’d keep an eye out for you.” Becky smiled. “Well, here you are.”
“Did they say what for?”
Fern and Becky exchanged a look.
And by then, Liesel had an idea.
Still, it made no sense.
She and Mark Ketchum were already well enough acquainted. And they had exactly nil in common. For him to show sudden interest wasn’t only out of the blue but also beyond reason.
“It’s the tree lighting,” Fern said at last, as if letting out a breath she’d held for a second too long.
“What about the tree lighting?” Liesel asked, now irritated. “It’s tonight, I know. You moved it this year.”
“Right,” Fern went on, again casting a brief glance at Becky, gaining some unseen moral support. “He… he asked if you were in town, if you would go.”
“If I am in town, if I would go? He wants to know if I’ll be there?” Liesel shook her head,
bewildered. “Why?”
Fern shrugged, this time without looking to Becky for guidance. “Who knows the minds of men?”
But Becky interjected. “Well, he doesn’t have family in town, you know. He’s alone at Christmas.”
“He is?” Fern seemed flabbergasted.
“Oh yes,” Becky confirmed. “Mark Ketchum is a hanger on, you see.”
An image came to mind. Something from years before. Not many years. But a few. Mark. The Little Flock Community Christmas Dinner.
Her quilt.
“Not really,” Liesel pointed out, surprised at herself for defending the man. Her nephew’s colleague. Someone she hardly knew. Someone who she hoped was a hanger-on. At least, Liesel hoped he’d hung on to the quilt. She frowned, returning to her line of defense. “He has Luke.”
“Who counts their coworkers?” Becky asked, a touch scornful.
Fern tsked. “Plenty of people count their coworkers as friends or even more!” she declared. “Especially those of us who have so few relatives left on this earth.”
Becky winced, and Liesel’s face softened. “They’re good friends. Luke says so, at least. And I see Mark from time to time at the Inn. Pitching in here or there.”
“It’d be nice if he swung back by here later tonight,” Becky pointed out. “We’ll need help with the Nativity set.”
“Nativity set?” Liesel asked. “You’re having the play at the candlelight mass?”
“No, earlier,” Becky replied. “Maggie’s directing it. It’s a crazy day, I tell you.” She shivered and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “First the five o’clock mass. Then the tree lighting. Then back for the candlelight service.” She frowned at Fern. “How’d I let you talk me into this?”
Fern hooked a thumb at Liesel. “Because the Queen of Little Flock was supposed to be out of town.”
Liesel grinned. “Well, I’m here now. Put me to work.”
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