The Quilting House

by Elizabeth Bromke

And work they did. First, oiling the pews and setting up the elements of the nativity that Maggie had dropped off that morning.

  After that was finished, Fern needed help at her house for the tree lighting.

  “Theo should be there,” Becky confirmed as each woman headed for her vehicle.

  “And if Theo’s there, then we know Gretchen’s there, too,” Becky added with a smirk.

  “I thought they were old news? What, isn’t Gretchen too small-town for Notre Dame’s finest?” Fern eyed Liesel playfully. Liesel could see why Gretchen might have called things off. Small-town attitudes being what they were… it was a self-fulfilling prophecy that she didn’t see herself in the same light Theo might have seen her. The one that shone on Gretchen when Theo turned up at the Inn the evening prior.

  Becky just shrugged Fern’s point away. “Long distance. It can be a real pain.”

  Liesel knew little about long-distance relationships. She knew about living a long distance from her biological family. The family she was supposed to reconnect with that very day. Those who she didn’t know. That was about all. Not romantic entanglements of the distant sort.

  Still, when Liesel, Fern, and Becky showed up at Fern’s house to see Theo and Gretchen standing close—very close—on the front porch, the question was opened again.

  Once everyone was tucked away inside and Fern had finished doling out orders, she caught Gretchen’s elbow. “Theo?” she whispered as he and his mother left with Fern to dig out the tree trimmings from the garage.

  Gretchen reddened, but her smile stretched across the whole of her face, from her chin to her eyes and out to her hands as she shook them giddily at her sides. “We’re back together,” she whispered in response. “We went to lunch and talked. He’s here to help Miss Fern. I gotta get home to my mama and help with the kids and getting dinner on. We’re eating before children’s mass. Turns out Briar is playing the part of Mary. I think she’ll be the youngest Mother of Jesus in the history of Little Flock.”

  Liesel smiled and shook her head. She missed being involved in the children’s Nativity play. She’d bowed out under the assumption she’d be long gone, but still, she’d seen hints of their rehearsals on a few Sundays. She looked forward to it almost as much as she’d been looking forward to Michigan. Her smile faded as she recalled the most recent phone conversation she’d had with her kin back there. Another time. Hopefully soon.

  “That’s precious. She’ll make a good Mary. I just know it.”

  Theo, Fern, and Becky returned, and the five of them set about decorating. There wasn’t all that much to do, since Fern lived in the unofficial Christmas House of Hickory Grove. Mainly a few extra strings of lights and then the seating.

  The seating and heat lamps were the biggest deal. What with the snow to contend with, it was likely folks weren’t keen to hang around if there was little promise of warmth. And since it was an outdoor affair, they had to set up some warmth.

  Theo set about to start up the firepit, and the ladies started with chairs, their fingers frozen as they tugged plastic from plastic and went to work.

  An hour in, an SUV pulled up.

  “It’s my mama,” Gretchen said as she let forth a heavy breath. “Time to get back to the church, I’d reckon.”

  “Is there anything extra you’ll need?” Liesel asked as they added finishing touches on the refreshments table.

  Maggi descended from her SUV, then, all long legs and wild ringlets of red hair. For being buttoned up in a winter overcoat and boots, she could have stepped out of a style magazine. That was Maggie Devereux. Sleek and cool and everything that Hickory Grove wasn’t. And yet, she was a Hickory Grove mama, through and through.

  “Gretch, we gotta go. Briar doesn’t know her lines, and Greta is bringing the baby to the church for a quick rehearsal.”

  “Miss Liesel wants to know if we need anything else,” Gretchen answered as she squeezed Theo goodbye, their flagrant rekindled love as infectious and inspirational as Christmas spirit itself.

  “No,” Maggie hollered over. “We’re good, thanks, Liesel!”

  And off they went.

  Liesel spun around and took in the snow-blanketed front yard. Fern and Becky stood at the fire, warming their hands. Theo’s face was buried in his phone. He glanced up suddenly. “I gotta go somewhere.”

  “Where?” Becky called over, her mother’s ears ringing at panic in her son’s voice.

  He looked over to her and Fern then at Liesel.

  “Just… somewhere. Somewhere on Main!” he hollered and jogged off. When he made it to his truck, he called back to the three women, “Wish me luck!”

  Liesel turned back to the others. Becky and Fern clicked their tongues and shook their heads.

  “That boy,” Fern said as they regathered and Liesel prepared to head over to the church, too.

  “He’s something,” Becky agreed. “Who knows the mind of a young man?”

  Liesel hid her own small grin. She figured she might. At least, she knew what was on Main Street. Intuition kicked in.

  Her face fell. It occurred to Liesel that this was the first time in the history of her making her own personal promise—her special little deal—that she was about to fail. She hadn’t made it to Michigan. Nor would she. And her whole mission that year was to get there. To her roots. To see about her biological parents and be there. In Michigan.

  She swallowed a lump down her throat and willed away the defeat, trudging to her car as she called back a farewell.

  Just as soon as she got there, though, Becky Linden shouted after her.

  “Liesel, wait!”

  The small blonde woman half-ran, half slid down the drive toward Liesel’s car at the curb. “What is it?”

  Becky waved her phone. “It’s Gretchen. They need something for the Nativity play.”

  “Oh, sure thing,” Liesel replied. “I can run to the market or—”

  Becky relayed this to Gretchen then put her on speaker, and she explained.

  “No, no need to run to the store. We just need a little blanket. Or something like that. For the manger.”

  Step 5: Piece the Blocks into Your Quilt

  “We still haven’t figured who we’re giving this quilt to,” Liesel pointed out one particularly chilly day. A fresh snow had fallen through the night, and the morning was silent and shimmery. A fresh pot of coffee brewed for the grown-ups and Liesel’s mom was mixing dough for cinnamon rolls. The boys were working to get a good fire set in the parlor before they did the same next door.

  “We still haven’t finished the quilt,” her mother answered, finishing the kneading and leaving the dough to rise before she rejoined Liesel at the table, a fresh mug of coffee in her hands.

  They’d been working on the blocks for over a week, and the job was nearing its end. Between baking and household chores, the quilt had become an obsession for Liesel and her mother. They spent the mornings on it. The afternoons. The evenings. One night, each found the other, sleepless and fidgety-cold, wandering to the kitchen at the same hour in the middle of the night, and they took to a block together. When they weren’t working on blocks, they were talking about shoo fly pie and the shoofly plant and how flies, as an insect, were maybe not so bad as people figured them for. Pesky, sure. But a bug that leant itself to such sweet treats couldn’t be all bad. After all, out in the country, in a small town like Hickory Grove, flies were as much the fabric of life as anything else. Then again, persistent to the core and particularly troublesome at summertime, it wasn’t any wonder that they were best shooed off, even if they were likely to return.

  “Do people ever give quilts back?” Liesel asked, frowning.

  “What do you mean? Like, return them to the quilter? My, I reckon, yes.”

  “It’d be a nasty thing to do, to give a quilt back. But maybe there are good reasons, too. Especially if the first rule of quiltin’ is all about charity and so forth. Right, Mom?”

  In a region of mamas, Liesel’s mom was
more of a Mom. Curt and practical, the woman cut a sharp image about town and in the home, both. Without an ample bosom or a thick waist, like lots of Liesel’s schoolmates’ mothers, Mrs. Hart’s hugs weren’t soft and suffocating. They were urgent and desperate. Like she was starved.

  She watched her mother lay out all the blocks they’d made. Her angular features a mirror of the squares. Her thin arms and long fingers framing the small blanket as she studied it.

  It was a force, that quilt. And it was just a baby blanket. For a baby they didn’t even know. Maybe even a baby who hadn’t yet been born. Now, that’d be something.

  “A quilt finds its way to the person who needs it and to whom the quilters need to give it,” her mother replied. “And if you make someone a quilt and they return it, then that doesn’t say anything about the quilt or how good of a job you’ve done. It’s just what needs to happen.”

  It was starting to make sense to Liesel. Like, perhaps they gave this quilt to someone with a baby, then one day, that baby grew up and the quilt was passed back to Liesel’s future granddaughter or something. That’d be a return, to be sure. And a good one, too.

  Still, there had to be rotten souls out there the likes of which didn’t deserve a Hart Family Quilt.

  “Have you ever given away a quilt and wanted it back?” Liesel pried. Her passion for the artform was so earnest, that Liesel could imagine just how many souls had earned a special quilt from her mother. Folks who didn’t deserve one, probably.

  “Never,” her mother answered sharply. “Where’s the charity in that?”

  “You spend all this time on something, and then what if the person just says, ‘thanks’ and tosses it into the bed of their truck for a fish fry?” Liesel asked, getting the iron ready.

  “Oh, Liesel,” her mother answered, and suddenly, she looked older. Her face drawn, her hair silvery at the temples. “If we get to the end of this thing, and you’ve missed the point, then what?”

  “So, you’re saying then that’s what the quilt was always for? A pick-up-truck-fish-fry blanket?”

  “Maybe,” her mother said on a breath. “And anyway, we’ve still got a ways until we get to that point.”

  “Aren’t we almost done?” Liesel asked.

  “Not quite. We’ve just got the blocks finished. Next we piece them together. Then add the batting and backing. Then we bind. Then there’s one last step. At our pace, we’ll finish in a week or two.”

  Liesel didn’t mean to be obstinate, but if they finished in a week or two, they’d finish ahead of schedule by a ways. “I thought it would take us clear to Christmas. All your quilts take you forever. And you said one of the rules was time.”

  “We’re making a small quilt, and we’re working together. And,” she added, giving Liesel a sharp glance, “you’re good.”

  Liesel flushed under the praise. It never grew old, acknowledgment from her mother. Never.

  “And anyway,” Liesel said in agreement, “we’ve definitely spent time on it.”

  “Now, then,” her mother went on, guiding Liesel to her seat. “Next step is to combine the blocks. We’ll have four blocks to a row. Five rows.”

  Liesel followed her mother’s directions, and by the time they finished joining together one row, Liesel’s pancakes had cooled. Still, she gobbled them down. Quilting made her hungry.

  After a load of laundry, they returned to the next row, then the next. In a couple of days’ time, they’d had the top all done, and Liesel could see plain as day what the thing would look like.

  It was a pretty wonder, that quilt. And still, she couldn’t picture where it would wind up. Who would need it.

  It was the Sunday before Christmas by the time they’d finished the batting and backing, and Liesel was due half an hour before mass.

  She’d star as Mary in the Nativity play, and rehearsals were in full swing. Her lines were few, but staging and running through the lines and scenes with a hodgepodge of children of varied ages made for a mess for the Sunday school teacher who was in charge of corralling them into something resembling that special night in Bethlehem.

  Once there, the teacher took stock of costumes and props. “Just five days!” Marguerite Devereux had trilled. “Five days, and we’re still missing a Baby Jesus.” The poor old woman clicked her tongue and shook her head as one of the Wise Men tripped on his robe and fell into a haystack.

  Liesel didn’t know any babies, so she was no help, there.

  “What about that weird little girl who comes to Mass and sits in the front with her mama?” one of the older kids suggested—the innkeeper.

  Liesel knew the girl. She reminded Liesel of a little angel. White blonde hair and transparent skin and a bizarre mother who, to Liesel’s knowledge, had never once missed a Sunday in all of Little Flock’s history. Liesel’s own mother sometimes sent her quilts over to the mother—Monroe, something or other.

  Liesel had even met the child and offered to babysit.

  “Fern. Her name is Fern,” Liesel said.

  The teacher snapped. “Mrs. Monroe would be thrilled. Fern it is.”

  “And what about the Boy Child’s swaddling clothes?” the girl who played the donkey asked. It was as good a question as any.

  Something occurred to Liesel just then. She snapped her fingers, happy to be helpful twice in a row. “I have something that would work.”

  “What do you mean, Liesel?”

  “For swaddling clothes. I have something I can bring.”

  Chapter 13—Gretchen

  As soon as she arrived at Little Flock, she’d regretted not dragging Theo with her. Now that they were back together, with the promise of his eventual transfer to Louisville, she didn’t want to be away from him even for a moment.

  Her mom reined the kids together for a quick rehearsal, calling orders here and there of the older ones and of Gretchen. Briar didn’t know her lines, but her Joseph did, and he helped, giving Gretchen a chance to slip away.

  “Hey,” a voice came up behind her from the front doors.

  She swiveled, hoping to see him there. Instead, it was Coach Hart and Coach Ketchum. The latter nodded up. “Looking forward to watching this.”

  “You’re coming to Mass?” Gretchen covered her mouth as soon as the words were out. “Sorry, Coach. Didn’t mean to be rude, I just—”

  “I don’t always go,” Coach Hart confessed, grimacing. “I guess Gretchen here assumes you wouldn’t either.”

  “Sundays are for God and football,” Coach Ketchum answered. “God first.” He winked at her.

  Gretchen frowned. If Coach Ketchum was a Little Flock regular, how come he and Miss Liesel didn’t seem to be on closer terms? Hickory Grove was close to begin with, and folks were only made closer by the church, no doubt.

  Unsure why the two were even there at the church presently, Gretchen decided it wouldn’t hurt to dig a little. Then, she’d need to skedaddle home to get her gifts all set for the morning. Stockings for all, and goodies inside. No coal this year, unless her little brothers pulled something funny during the play that night.

  “You have kids, Coach Ketch?” She used his nickname from when she was in school and he was a history teacher there.

  He shook his head. “Didn’t quite get the chance to have my own. But my athletes are like my sons now. And my students like my daughters.” He smiled at her.

  “I came by to collect Greta and Tabby. She’ll need a bottle and a change before we come back later for mass. Then the lighting.” Coach Hart nodded toward the group assembled at the front of the parish hall.

  “Oh,” Gretchen answered. Something in her deflated. Hope, maybe, that they were bringing some word about Theo. That he was looking for her. Sort of like Miss Fern had been looking for him. It sure seemed like the two men had a little extra time on their hands as the women scrambled around town tying Christmas together. Men. Gretchen smirked inwardly.

  “I gotta head out,” Coach Ketchum murmured. “I promised Fern and Stedman I’
d bring a few tables and chairs over from the high school. Gotta pick him up from the house there on Pine Tree and head over.”

  “You’d better hurry,” Gretchen said, imagining Liesel still there with Miss Fern. Her pretty red nails and done-up hair and Christmas sweater on display and for what? For who?

  Could it be… for him? Mark Ketchum?

  No, Gretchen realized flatly. Opposites to that degree would probably never attract.

  Chapter 14—Liesel

  Liesel needn’t have worried if Fern had held onto that baby quilt from so, so long ago. Of course, she had. It wasn’t even stowed away, either. It was laid out neatly on the edge of her guest room bed, a pretty homage to her earliest days in Hickory Grove. Her very first friend, too. A friend she wouldn’t quite connect with until years later. Indeed, Liesel and Fern were still working on that connection now.

  “I’ll bring it back,” Liesel told Fern, admiring the red and white fabric she’d tended so carefully with her mother. She ran a hand over a block, the half-square triangles tugging her sorely to the past. Liesel hadn’t made another shoo-fly quilt ever since this one. She’d never make another, either. Too hard to revisit the memory now, now that her mother was gone.

  Fern grabbed Liesel’s hand. “I don’t have children, Liesel,” she said, stating the obvious.

  Liesel blinked. “Neither do I.”

  They laughed together, softly, then Liesel thanked Fern. She didn’t know she wanted the quilt back.

  Until that very day.

  Stedman called up the stairs to his wife. He’d finished his chore: half a cord of chopped and split wood for the bonfire. Liesel thanked Fern and took her leave.

  She had to get dressed and ready for mass and the lighting and, somehow, come up with dinner plans. Maybe the priest would take her in? Or Greta and Luke? Liesel could cook for them at the Inn to keep things convenient. She could just kick herself for not having the forethought to make some sort of arrangement.

  Then it dawned on her: the Hickory Grove Community Christmas Dinner.