It was still on for the very next evening. She’d helped coordinate and plan for it. No, she hadn’t intended to go, of course, but that wouldn’t mean the Charitable Committee wouldn’t appreciate her appearance.
That was it. Liesel would attend the children’s mass then head to the tree lighting and call it a night. And the next day, instead of barreling into the family celebrations of her nephew, like a female version of Scrooge, she’d have her own engagement. Something near and dear to her heart and so full of Christmas spirit that she’d have her fill and then some. She could move on to her new project and to the new season and do just fine. She’d made it through another lonesome year. She could make it through another one after that. And then another, until one day—maybe not until she was seventy or eighty—but one day Liesel would find her one and true vocation. The thing she was meant for.
But somewhere deep down inside, Liesel knew that it wasn’t something she was meant for. It was someone. And by the time she found him, she wondered if she’d wasted all those years on silly deals with herself. Silly, useless projects. Like giving away the last quilt her mother ever made. Or planning an entire Christmas vacation to Michigan only to skip it all together.
Or, the notion that not only was she going to vacation to Michigan. She was going to stay there, too.
Maybe, Liesel thought, as she drove the slick, white-trimmed streets up and down slippery Hickory Grove hills, maybe she’d still find herself in Michigan. Soon. And for good.
The children’s mass was as precious as could be. Little Briar, Maggie’s youngest, making a fine—if premature—Mary. And Tabby, the little cherub, as Baby Jesus. It was too much to take, and Liesel wished she’d never planned to leave town on such a special day.
“Okay,” Greta said to Luke, scooping Tabby from him and rocking her gently as others made their ways from the parish hall. “You go ahead and get the turkey carved. Take Mark. I’ll be a little behind. I want to touch base with Gretchen, first.”
Luke bent and kissed his wife and daughter then turned to Liesel. “See you soon!” He spun and left, and Liesel realized that maybe, after all, she did get an invitation to the Hart Family Christmas. She didn’t even have to ask.
Still, it’d be rude to presume. “See me soon?” she reverberated to Greta.
Greta cocked her head. “Well, you’re coming over for supper, first, right?”
Liesel watched Luke head to the doors. She blinked and looked back at Greta. “Oh, that is very kind of you, sweetheart. But—don’t you need to ride together?”
“Oh, no, we came separately,” Greta answered. “I drove alone with Tabby. Mark and Luke came together. Late.” Greta’s eyes widened as if embarrassed. “They were finishing things up for the tree lighting, you see.”
“Mark?” Liesel still couldn’t quite come to terms with how much Mark Ketchum was around of late. Sure, she saw him every week at mass. And in the past few years, he’d become a regular at the Hickory Grove Community Christmas. But his passion was football and history. And Liesel’s was, well… well, she was still trying to figure it out. Though they found themselves running in the same circles, so to speak, they had nothing much to do with one another.
Other than the one thing that bugged Liesel to no end.
The quilt.
Her mother’s last quilt. Mark Ketchum technically owned it.
There was just one way around that problem. Liesel would have to make another. And maybe, what with the Michigan trip over for now, maybe Liesel had an opportunity to do just that.
And maybe she had someone to help this time around, too.
Greta lifted her voice across the room to where Maggie Devereux stood with her family, including, it would now appear, Theo Linden. “You all coming over?”
Liesel blinked. She figured Greta and Luke would invite Gretchen, sure. Gretchen might even be on duty at the Inn that night. However, for the whole family to come over? It’d be pure chaos. What about the guests at the Inn?
She swallowed, reconsidering her plan to accept the invitation and swing by the market to pick up an extra jug of eggnog and some fresh vegetables to chop up for Greta.
“Be there with bells on!” Maggie hollered back, tickling her little Briar into submission as the rest of the family cooed over the little girl’s all-star performance.
Gretchen appeared at Greta’s side and Tabby curled her little fist around Gretchen’s finger. Her swaddling clothes—that familiar shoo-fly pattern splayed around the child like flower petals, turned Liesel’s heart to mush.
Greta indicated the old blanket. “I tried to untangle her from it after the play, but she cried and cried. Seems the only way to keep her content is to leave it be. I’ll get this back to you right away, though, Aunt Liesel.”
Aunt Liesel shook her head. “Oh, no.” She glanced up toward the pews, where Fern still lingered. Their conversation fresh in her mind. “That quilt is in want of a new owner. It’s Tabby’s now.”
Greta beamed. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Tabby cooed and gaggled and Liesel buzzed inwardly. As though her mother had predicted this all so many years ago, the blanket had made its rounds. And, with any luck, it’d continue on its journey, in that winding way that quilts often do.
“You’re coming with us, right Miss Liesel?” Gretchen interjected.
Liesel shook her head. “I have to help Fern.”
“Help Fern do what? She’ll be with us!” Greta cried. “Luke was supposed to tell you. We’re hosting half the town at the Inn. It’ll be crazy. It’ll be great. You’ve got to come.”
Furrowing her brow, Liesel considered the alternative: sit at home for a couple of hours until it was time for the lighting? Alone?
“I have a project. A new quilt I need to work on,” she said at last, realizing that’s exactly what she’d do.
“A new quilt?” Gretchen’s interest clearly piqued. “That’s just perfect! I’d love to see it.”
“I haven’t started yet,” Liesel confessed, her cheeks flushing. “And anyway, it’s hard to bring around an active project.”
“I could help you plan it. I hear that a lot of planning goes into quilt-making.” Gretchen wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Theo came up behind her. “Come on, Miss Liesel. Mark Ketchum will be there.”
Liesel’s cheeks grew redder, and she took a step back. “So?” She came across as cutting and defensive, but she couldn’t help it. What was it all of a sudden with Mark Ketchum?
“We can talk quilts tomorrow maybe. Or the next day when it’s less busy,” Liesel assured Gretchen.
Becky Linden and Fern Gale and their church dates appeared from the parish hall. “She’s coming all right,” Fern said. “Liesel, you work too hard not to enjoy a little merry-making, I’ll say.”
“Merry-making?” Liesel couldn’t help but allow a grin to curl across her face.
“That’s right,” Maggie chimed in, a spent and adorable Briar resting her head on her mama’s shoulder. “Christmastime merry-making. Drinks and food and great company. And then? The annual Christmas tree lighting at Hickory Grove’s own Christmas House.”
“Come on, Liesel.” Becky elbowed her. “You’re in town. What else do you have planned for the holiday anyway?”
“Tomorrow night’s supper. The charitable supper.”
“That’s tomorrow,” Fern replied, her tone sharp. “Tonight, you can relax.”
“Relax and talk shop with Gretchen. I’m telling you, Liesel,” Maggie went on, rubbing Briar’s back, “if you don’t help this girl get a little experience with quilting, she’s liable to open a crafting shop and not know a lick about it.”
“There’s more to crafting than just quilting,” Liesel pointed out. But they were now all walking to the cars, her agreement implied as she sidled up to Gretchen. “You know that, right?”
Gretchen nodded urgently. “Quilting is my main goal. I like sewing well enough. But I’m no se
amstress or tailor or garment maker. And as for crocheting and knitting—it’s not big enough. I need a real project. Something to get the feel for what fabric-shoppers and needle-buyers do.”
“And quilting is a real project, eh?” Liesel asked as she waved to Maggie and the others and Theo dawdled sweetly behind Gretchen.
Liesel glanced up at Little Flock parish as she stood near her car. The white steeple bled into the white-dusted trees in the landscape around it, as if the church was one with the town, which, really, it was.
Liesel glanced down at her own outfit—a white sweater dress over fleece-lined leggings, tucked down into snuggly brown, knee-high winter boots. Maybe she, too, was one with the town.
Or at least, one with her community.
Of course, quilting was a real project. And it would teach Gretchen everything she needed to learn.
Just as it had Liesel.
Step 6: Bind the Layers
“There are two ways to add binding. The right way and the lazy way. Turns out, however, that the lazy way will give your quilt added strength.”
Liesel was surprised by this. Typically, the opposite was true. The harder way was the better way.
“The lazy way, we use the extra backing, flipping it over like so.” She showed Liesel what she meant. “The other way, we cut new binding and sew it on. Your choice, Liesel.”
Liesel’s eyebrows shot up. Nothing had been her choice yet. Not with this project. “The lazy way, then. If it makes the quilt stronger, why would anyone do it the other way?”
“Depends on the quilter. Remember, quilters are artists. Maybe there’s a fabric conflict, and you don’t want the backing material to be seen along your top. Maybe you were always taught to add binding separately.”
“I told the ladies at church they could use this quilt for the Baby Jesus’s swaddling clothes. Is that all right?” Liesel knew better than to do something like that without first asking her mother. She’d been nervous to bring up the matter and so kept her eyes downcast on the table.
“You want to give your quilt to Little Flock, then? For use in their Nativity play each year?”
Liesel shrugged.
“Or you want to give the quilt to little Fern?” her mother added.
She hadn’t thought that far ahead. All she’d thought about was the Boy Child’s swaddling clothes.
“I’m not sure. The church could probably use it. But what about Fern? What if she wants to keep it?”
“Good point,” her mother answered. “We can always make blankets for the church. It could become a tradition, even. Fern might like to have the quilt. Just wait and see. Sometimes, you don’t know a quilt’s destiny until it presents itself.”
Liesel gave a short nod, and off they went, binding the three layers together into what her mother called a sandwich, which Liesel felt was distinctly un-quilting-like language.
After a day, they’d finished the binding, and Liesel was worn out on quilting.
They admired the project together, looking for errors—there were plenty—and studying the blocks.
“It’s beautiful,” Liesel decided, folding her arms over her chest and grinning from ear to ear.
“You’ve done a great job, Liesel.”
“Should we wrap it? Like in brown paper?”
“And tie it up with strings?” her mother asked, laughing. “Well, we aren’t done yet.”
“Not done?” Liesel might faint. “What else is there to do?”
“Oh, my darlin’ child, the most important part! This isn’t even a quilt yet.”
Chapter 15—Gretchen
They were back at the Inn, and the dining room was packed, the parlor was packed, the kitchen was packed - with sweater-wearing guests, each holding a plate of food up to their chins as they laughed and swapped stories.
Gretchen’s heart was bursting at the seams with contentedness. In the past two years, she’d endured her fair share of hardship. Her parents’ divorce. Almost a week of vagrancy where she’d been right there, upstairs sharing a twin bed with Briar while her mother and brothers slept next door, fitful and fearful and distracted. That was a ways before Greta and Luke got together and took on the Hickory Grove Inn. Before they hired Gretchen. Before this Christmas Eve.
Now here they all were—Maggie with Rhett and the three younger kids. Gretchen’s mama was happy as could be, living, loving, and doing hair out of her farmhouse kitchen like a regular southern-style stay-at-home mama.
Miss Fern and Stedman were re-settled in the Christmas House, which had officially become the Hickory Grove Museum. They worked it together. They did almost everything together. Happy and connected.
Miss Greta and Luke and little sweet Tabby in her swaddling quilt had found success running old Mamaw Hart’s bed and breakfast and living in her home, the innkeeper’s house.
Miss Becky and Mr. Durbin married and shared his house in town. During the days, he had his law practice and she her bookshop, The Schoolhouse. Theo was now just a year out of graduating. A year away from coming back home. Or close to it, at least.
And here she was, Gretchen. With Theo now. Again. Maybe forever? And with her dream within grasp. That was, so long as she could get Miss Liesel alone and pitch the idea she had bubbling in her chest ever since she realized she was staying in Hickory Grove. And she was making something of her barn. And she was doing everything she set out to do, all she needed now was a guide. And Liesel was it!
Somebody in the parlor clinked their glass with a knife, the shrill bell effect drawing the friends and bed-and-breakfast guests together in a thick crowd.
It was Coach Hart, calling the crowd in to explain dessert.
“We’ve got four dishes, and each one was handmade by a Hickory woman.”
The attendants laughed good-naturedly.
“Well, they were. And if I’ve remembered right, Maggie made the pecan pie. Fern the double chocolate chip cookies. Becky the bread pudding. And Greta the Christmas Crack, a Hart Family favorite, I might add. Dig in, everyone. Go on. Then we’ll all leave for the lighting within half an hour. Can’t be late to that.”
As he lowered his glass of eggnog and the crowd began to disperse back toward the kitchen buffet, the front door creaked open, the bells above it clanging jingle jangle to life.
“Speaking of late,” Theo whispered to Gretchen, and her gaze flew to the door.
Coach Ketchum ambled in, a nervous wince to his face as he drew the attention of those lingering around the edge of the foyer.
Gretchen smiled at him and took a step his way. “Coach Ketchum, glad you could make it.”
“Sorry I’m late. I—” he held up a casserole dish and peeled back one corner to reveal the burnt crust of something that looked vaguely like meatloaf. Then he dipped back through the front door and tugged in two oversized paper bags, corner market issue.
“No, no. Lots of us are still working on supper.”
Coach Ketchum gave a nod to Gretchen. “Theo, hi there. How’s school? Your mama was telling me just one year left. That right?”
“Yessir,” Theo answered. Though raised in an area where few youth ever used sir or madam, Theo had caught on quickly enough when he was in town.
“You know I intended to make my way to law school one day, too,” the older man revealed. As he said this, something cracked open in the façade of a teacher who Gretchen thought she had pegged. A small-town high school teacher by day. Football coach by night. Misspent youth being what it was, Gretchen, somewhere deep down, had always just figured him for a would-be athlete type. Someone who yearned for the good old days of locker-room hijinks and championship weekends.
“Law school?” Gretchen asked, her stare sliding to Theo. “Just like you.” When she looked back at the middle-aged teacher, she thought she saw him as Mark for a fleeting second. Rather than Coach or Coach Ketchum or Mr. Ketchum. She saw, well… Theo in him. And she wondered if that isn’t what could become of her boyfriend, too. A local teacher who coached t
o make ends meet or relive his glory days or whatever. But, then, Theo was no jock, and that had been a point of interest for Gretchen. A difference about him. Something that set him distinctly outside of Hickory Grove and in the greater world. Something that Gretchen liked about Theo.
“That’s right. I took the LSAT. Got a decent score, but by then I’d started student teaching, and—I just couldn’t see myself ever doing anything else.”
“You felt stuck?” Gretchen asked, dancing dangerously close to a personal line she had no right to cross. She wasn’t even asking for herself at this point, though. She was asking for Liesel. Another person who Gretchen considered to be, well, stuck.
“Not at’all,” Coach answered earnestly, jauntily, even. “I fell in love.”
Gretchen couldn’t help but let her eyes bulge. She’d known Coach Ketchum was married once, but it wasn’t something he spoke of. She’d died, that wife. And it had left its mark. Figuring the wife was what he meant, she nodded respectfully and murmured an apology.
“No, I mean with teaching. I worked at a Catholic School for years, you know. Loved it there. St. Agatha’s up north. I learned a lot about snow and a lot about God in those days. Then I met my wife, we moved here, and I took up locally. And that was just fine, too.”
Surprised that his love had more to do with his career than the woman he’d married, something tightened in Gretchen’s chest, like a cinch. Discomfort.
“I know what that’s like,” Theo cut into the conversation and wrapped his arm around Gretchen’s waist. She flushed and frowned at him. He smiled at her. “Realizing that as humans, we make plans, but then along comes God, turning them into paper airplanes on a breezy day.”
The room shrunk in on them, but Gretchen realized Coach Ketchum had left, and gone, too, were those other guests who’d been chatting between the foyer and the parlor. It was just Theo and she there, now. And his eyes were on her, intense and unmoving.
“Your plans are changing now, too?” she asked him, confused. Was he or wasn’t he going to Louisville? What? Was this all a game to Theo? Was Gretchen stupid to think they’d ever be anything other than a couple playing house?
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