Elm Creek Quilts [09] Circle of Quilters

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  She laughed, patted his cheek, and agreed to sew on the button. Unfortunately, she placed the shirt and the button on her worktable and promptly forgot about it. Eventually the shirt migrated to her stack of unfinished projects, and later he spotted it buried within her fabric stash. He knew any chance of having the shirt restored to its former usefulness had passed when his birthday came and she gave him a new shirt, identical in every way to the one trapped beneath an avalanche of cotton in her closet except that all of its buttons were intact.

  Russ enjoyed teasing her about her quilting, partially because in this, he, Carly, and Alex shared common ground. Her quilting actually did not bother him at all. She never ignored him in favor of a quilt project, and quilting seemed therapeutic for her, helping her to relieve the stress of her emotionally demanding job. He loved her for the joy she took in making quilts for each of his nieces and nephews, and he loved coming home from work to find that she had hung a new quilt on a bare wall “because the wall looked cold.” But it was when he overheard her on the phone with a friend from her quilting bee, marveling about how supportive he was of her quilting compared to her ex, that he vowed she would never hear a word of complaint from him about her quilting, no matter how many lost pins he found with the soles of his feet.

  They wanted children, and as Elaine’s thirty-ninth birthday approached, they decided not to wait any longer to start a family. “Continue the family,” Elaine corrected. “We’re already a family.”

  Russell agreed, for although Carly and Alex often seemed frustratingly indifferent to him, he loved them as if they were his own.

  He had shared more of the challenges and conflicts of their teenaged years than their own father had. After they had made the transition to college, the house seemed too big and quiet without a youngster around. Russ and Elaine understood they would face challenges as new parents at their ages, if they were fortunate enough to conceive at all, but they decided to try.

  A year passed. Elaine halfheartedly suggested they see a fertility specialist, but they had long ago discussed whether they would be willing to take extraordinary measures to conceive and had decided they would not. They had begun to investigate adoption when Elaine surprised him one morning with the exciting news that she had missed her period. When a home pregnancy test came back negative, her face twisted with unshed tears, but she said that perhaps it was too early for the test to detect anything. When she failed a second test a week later but her symptoms persisted, she made an appointment with her ob-gyn, because she felt bloating and pressure in her abdomen, and she was certain the pregnancy tests were wrong.

  When the diagnosis came back positive for ovarian cancer, Russ could not believe it. Elaine’s mother and an aunt had died of breast cancer, and she was meticulous about her self-exams and annual mammograms. It was breast cancer that had been stalking them, breast cancer she had been keeping at bay. Russ was so certain that the diagnosis was wrong that he stormed from the doctor’s office and went outside to sit on the curb until the dizzying blackness left his head. Before he was able to return, Elaine finished her appointment and joined him outside. He was ashamed that in her hour of horror and fear, she had had to comfort him. He knew he had failed his first real test as a husband.

  The women of her quilting bee rallied around her as she underwent surgery and discovered that her cancer was already at stage II. At least three times a week, a quilter stopped by with a casserole ready to stick in the oven, with explicit cooking directions for Russ to follow. Her Internet quilting friends sent packages of fabric, quilt blocks, and chocolate. Everyone who knew and loved Elaine—and Russ was proud of how many, many people this included—prayed for her.

  As she underwent chemotherapy, she began a new quilt. She took angry reds and sickening greens and blacks as deep as oblivion from her closet stash, cut jagged shapes, and pressed them to her design wall. She frowned at them from a chair, too weak to stand as long as she needed, a red polka-dot scarf covering her baldness, her eyes circled in dark shadows, her lips thin and pale.

  “What are you making?” he asked her once, gently, wishing she would put this garish project aside in favor of the quilt she had been working on before her diagnosis, a pattern of golden stars and log cabin strips. The warm colors and familiar motions of sewing would cheer her up, he thought. Staring at the design wall seemed so bleak and despairing that he wished he could take her by the arm, lead her from the room, and shut the door on that quilt.

  She rose from her chair with an effort, eyes fixed on the design wall. “This is my cancer quilt.”

  “This is what cancer looks like?”

  “This is what cancer feels like.” She shifted a red triangle to the right three inches. “This is what it feels like in me.”

  He held her at night when she cried. She exacted endless promises from him that he would take care of Carly and Alex, that he would show pictures of her to her future grandchildren, that he would not withdraw from the world after she had gone. He begged her not to ask him to plan for a life without her, but she insisted, and to placate her, he agreed to all that she asked.

  Then, unexpectedly, she began to feel stronger. Her hair grew back; she bought new running shoes and began taking morning walks through the neighborhood. She left the cancer quilt undisturbed on the design wall and joined a round-robin quilt project with her Internet friends. She talked about getting a dog and returning to work, and she suggested they spend a long weekend in California’s Napa Valley, enjoying some of the places they had discovered on their honeymoon. Most of all, she wanted the two of them to run in the Swedish SummeRun, a 10K race through Seattle and a fund-raiser for the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research. It was a serendipitous event for Russ and Elaine, she said, since they had met in a road race and she definitely supported the research.

  Russ was conflicted. He was thrilled that she felt well enough to begin running again and he was a fervent supporter of ovarian cancer research, but to run in a race with Elaine, especially for this cause, seemed to frame their relationship, putting a full stop at the end of their story. But if she meant to enter the race, he was determined to run beside her, to celebrate her triumph or to support her if she faltered.

  A few days after they sent in their registration forms, Elaine told him that she wanted to reschedule her follow-up appointment with the oncologist to an earlier date. When he asked her why, she shrugged and said, “Just a feeling.”

  He had learned to trust her intuition, but he refused to believe that it was necessary to see the doctor sooner than planned. If they did not believe in her remission, trust in it entirely, it would cease to be. Then he was filled with a terrible fear that cancer cells might be even then growing and dividing within her, and that his superstitious delay might kill her. “Call,” he urged her. “It’s probably nothing, but call.”

  When tests confirmed that the cancer had resurfaced in her lymph nodes, Russ was flooded with feelings of rage and betrayal and despair so intense it made his head swim. Elaine, in contrast, seemed to have expected it. She grew still in the chair beside him as the doctor spoke about trying to join a clinical trial, nodding silently and stroking Russ’s back to comfort him.

  Even in the worst days of their mother’s treatment, Carly and Alex had seemed certain that she would ultimately overcome the disease. Russ had marveled at their conviction and tried to follow their example once he saw how much their confidence heartened their mother. Now their certainty was shattered, and disbelief quickly shifted to despair. Carly, recently engaged, moved back home to help Russ care for Elaine. Alex drove down from his new job in Vancouver nearly every weekend. Even their father called once, near the end. Elaine wore a bemused expression as she listened on the phone, then laughed when he offered financial help and told him that if he really wanted to make a difference, he should give to Childhaven’s Crisis Nursery instead. Russ never learned if he did.

  The women of Elaine’s quilting bee surrounded her with love. They br
ought food, laughter, and hope into the house and always seemed to appear right when Russ felt the most helpless and exhausted. He had taken a leave of absence from his job to care for Elaine, but he still felt as if there was never enough time, never enough that he could do for her.

  Elaine’s oncologist called in some favors and got her enrolled in a clinical trial. Russ convinced himself that this would cure her. Even as Elaine contacted Hospice and got her affairs in order, Russ clung to his faith in the power of her new meds. Then came the day when Elaine told him she had placed all of her important papers in the fireproof box in the closet so he would not need to worry about searching the whole house for them.

  “I won’t need to search for them because if we need them, you’ll tell me where they are,” he said firmly.

  She looked at him with affectionate amusement. “I see. You’re still in the denial stage.”

  “But the treatment,” he said. “Your new medication. Why would they keep treating you if you weren’t getting better?”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” she said, pressing her thin cheek to his.

  “Clinical trials aren’t for the patients in them. You know that.”

  He knew it.

  Elaine was determined to participate in the Swedish SummeRun. Russ saw to it that she did. He pushed her the entire route in a wheelchair, but even this exhausted her. “All of this effort is going to pay off someday,” she told him as they approached the finish line, smiling despite her fatigue. He nodded, unable to speak out of fear that he would start sobbing. It would pay off someday, but not soon enough to save Elaine. He remembered how full of life and happy she had looked running just ahead of him on the day they met. Now she was again moving ahead of him, away from him, but this time he could not follow.

  Elaine died surrounded by Russ, her children, her sister, and her dearest friends. Her last words were for her children, gentle whispers for them alone that left them sobbing and smiling and choking out assurances. But before she turned to them, she asked Russ to hold her. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “What do you mean?” he said. He meant, what in the world was she apologizing for? He was the one who was sorry, sorry that he could not save her, sorry that he had not been a better husband, sorry if he had ever disappointed her in any way for even a moment.

  “Thank you for loving me,” she answered. “Thank you for loving my children. They didn’t always make it easy. They’re going to need you. Their father will try to comfort them, but he’ll just upset them.”

  Gently, his voice barely above a whisper, he asked, “Why did you say you’re sorry?”

  “I’m sorry I’m leaving you. I’m sorry we didn’t have a baby together. I know how much that disappointed you.”

  “Oh, Elaine.” He wanted to press her hard against him, but she was so delicate in his arms, like a broken bird. “You have never disappointed me. There’s not a minute of any day since I’ve known you that I would change. Not one single minute.”

  He had so much more he wanted to say, but he was fighting back tears, trying not to let her see his anguish. She wanted him to be strong for Carly and Alex. He must let her think he could be, though he was convinced his grief would kill him.

  It was not a relief when she finally passed. He had heard some families from the Hospice say that in the end it was a relief when their loved ones were finally released from their pain. For Russ, Carly, and Alex, nothing could be further from the truth.

  Elaine had planned well. “That’s Mom,” said Carly when they discovered that she had planned her own funeral down to the last note of music and the suit she wanted Russ to wear. Somehow word got out on the Internet that she had died, and dozens of mourners introduced themselves to Russ and the children as friends from one quilting list or another. Even if they had not come, the church would have been full, as coworkers, residents of the Catholic Worker House where Elaine had once lived, and an astonishing number of young mothers with babies came to pay their respects.

  “See how many lives your mother has touched,” Russ said to Carly and Alex. They looked and saw through their tears, and they nodded.

  After the Mass, Russ and the members of Elaine’s quilting bee fulfilled her final request. They held up her quilts one by one as Bach cantatas played in the background, carried them down the aisles so that all could witness her artistry, then draped the quilts over the few empty pews until the back of the church was awash in color. Russ took in the quilts hungrily, seeing them as a reflection of Elaine’s affectionate nature, her boundless humor, her compassion for the less fortunate—everything she was and had become over the span of more than twenty years the quilts had captured.

  Afterward, Russ distributed the quilts as Elaine had instructed: one to a college roommate, another to her sister, one each to the members of her quilting bee. Her friends were grateful, and they hugged their quilts with eyes closed against tears or held them reverently as if cradling Elaine herself. Russ should have been comforted by their gratitude and appreciation, but each giving pained him as if pieces of Elaine were being carved from his memory.

  The weeks passed, and somehow Russ endured them. His family leave ran out and he returned to work, where he went through the motions of his job and nodded numbly when people told him how sorry they were for his loss.

  Carly had put her wedding plans on hold, but she decided to return to her own apartment so she could be closer to work and her fiancé. “You don’t have to leave,” Russ told her, dreading an empty house.

  “I do have to,” she told him. “If I don’t move back in soon, my roommate will find a replacement for me. Besides, this is your house. It was never really ours.”

  That pained him. “Yes, it was. It was to me. I wanted you and Alex to feel at home here. I thought you did.”

  Carly looked away, and Russ recognized her indifferent shrug from her teenage years, the gesture with which she tried to disguise shame. “It was more of a home than our father’s house ever was.”

  And Russ was grateful.

  Before Carly moved out, she helped him go through her mother’s belongings, sorting heirlooms and cherished keepsakes from items to be donated to one of Elaine’s many causes. Carly took her mother’s jewelry and a leather jacket Russ had given to her one Christmas. She divided family photographs into a set for herself and one for her brother. They folded her clothes carefully and placed them in paper sacks to deliver to the women’s shelter. Russ had a sudden vision of himself walking in downtown Seattle and spotting a stranger standing in a doorway, carrying a bag of groceries, wearing Elaine’s favorite sweater. He had to force himself to continue packing the clothes.

  Last of all, they went to her quilt studio. When Russ opened the door, the sight of the cancer quilt staggered him. He could almost see Elaine there, arranging the red of blood, the green of disease, the black of oblivion. He couldn’t bear it. He pulled the door shut and leaned against it as Carly stared at him.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “No,” he muttered.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I can’t, he thought, but said, “I’m too worn out to tackle that room today.”

  “Okay.” She studied him, concerned. “But I’m leaving tomorrow. I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back to help.”

  “I’ll take care of it on my own.”

  Carly followed him downstairs. “But there’s so much to sort through. It’s too much for one person.”

  “I said I’ll take care of it,” he said harshly. Carly raised her hands in a small gesture of surrender and shook her head as if to say it made no difference to her.

  Carly returned two weeks later with a carload of boxes and garbage bags. Russ was pleased to see her and agreed that they should get started on the quilt studio, but he was actually just about to leave for Pike Place Farmer’s Market. He would be glad for her company if she wanted to join him. Carly assented, and they spent the day seeing the sights and shopping for ingredients for their
supper, which they prepared together. Russ asked her about work and her fiancé, and circumspectly asked if they had resumed planning their wedding. Although Russ had long privately considered Carly too young to get married, Elaine would not have wanted Carly to postpone her happiness for the year of mourning Carly seemed to believe was necessary. For his part, Russ saw no point in observing a symbolic year of mourning to suit social conventions. They would always mourn Elaine. One year or two years or ten years later, they would still mourn. To pretend that everything would be resolved on some arbitrary date was ridiculous.

  “If you’re postponing the wedding because you’re having second thoughts, that’s one thing,” said Russ, after Carly gave a tearful account of her fiancé’s bewildered unhappiness at her reluctance to set a new date. “You should take that time. But if you’re doing it for your mother, I really think you ought to reconsider.”

  “I know I want to marry him,” said Carly. “I just can’t imagine getting married without Mom there. How can I celebrate when she’s gone?”

  “We’ll have to figure out a way,” said Russ quietly. “Your mother would be very annoyed if we never celebrated anything ever again just because she’s not here to enjoy it.”

  Carly actually managed a laugh. “She’d be furious. Can you imagine what she’d say?”

  “All too well.”

  They laughed together. Carly wiped her eyes and said she would call her fiancé as soon as she got home so they could choose a new wedding date.

  They washed the dishes side by side. Afterward, Russ walked Carly to the door to say good-bye. Unexpectedly, she hugged him.

  “I never thanked you for marrying my mother,” she said, her voice muffled as she buried her face in his shoulder.

  “Well …” Russ patted her on the back. “It’s not something you need to thank me for. I was glad to do it. Thank you for letting me marry her.”

  “It’s not like I could have stopped her.” Carly lifted her head so he could see that she was teasing. “I’m glad she was married to you when this happened. If she had still been married to my dad—well, he would have been totally useless. But you saw her through. You eased her way.”