Quilted by Christmas (9781426796142)

by Bailey, Jodie

  Well, not exactly. In a normal year, most of them would be for Jemma. This year, there were more Ethan toys than Jemma gifts.

  Her lips curved around the rim of her coffee mug. It had been fun back in July when she’d impulsively started buying presents. Good thing since she certainly was not in the mood now. She toed a wrapped package farther under the tree. Maybe someone would cancel Christmas this year. Or postpone it until next year.

  Her great-grandmother’s grandfather clock gonged seven times. It might still be too early to go to Jemma’s. Yeah, her grandmother typically got up as soon as the sun peeked over the edge of the world, but after the stress of the past week, today might be an exception

  Eight. At eight Taryn would head over to the house and tell her grandmother she was sorry for racing out like she did. Jemma may have told her to leave, but she still shouldn’t have gone.

  Draining her coffee down to the bottom of the cup, Taryn walked across the room and twisted the blinds open just as Marnie’s little pickup eased into the short driveway. There was only one reason she’d be there this early in the morning. Jemma must have sent her.

  Taryn set her coffee cup on the end table and yanked open the front door. “Jemma made you come over?”

  “Shh.” Marnie laid a finger on her lips, slipped out of the truck holding a Styrofoam coffee cup in each hand, and eased the door closed with her elbows. “You’re going to wake the neighbors.” She took the first step and held out a cup.

  “I have coffee.”

  “I see, but this is a mocha with a double shot. I had a feeling you’d need a little extra get up and go this morning, so I drove all the way to Dalton for it. You’re going to drink it.” Marnie pressed the cup into Taryn’s hand and squeezed by her into the living room, plopping herself into the recliner near the fireplace. “So . . . ?” She arched her eyebrow like a question mark over her own coffee.

  Taryn sank onto the hearth beside the chair and took a cautious sip. Perfect. “I guess you being here and peddling caffeine to me answers my first question, huh?”

  “Yes, Jemma sent me to talk to you.”

  “How much did she tell you?” While Taryn had run to Marnie often, she’d hidden Sarah’s existence deep, even from her grandmother’s best friend. She’d felt too ashamed, had feared too much what Marnie would think if she ever found out what Taryn did.

  Marnie laid a hand on the top of Taryn’s head, letting it rest there until the warmth seeped from her fingers into Taryn’s heart. “Nothing. Mostly she wanted me to check on you.”

  “So she didn’t tell you she up and said Justin almost proposed to me a million years ago?” The coffee cup hit against the brick hearth.

  “What?” Marnie pulled her hand back so fast Taryn reached for her coffee to keep it from slinging across the room. “When?”

  It still hurt to say it out loud. “Like I said, a million years ago.”

  Marnie set her eye on Taryn and refused to look away.

  “C’mon, Marn.” Taryn was weary with the weight of everything. “You brought me mocha. With a double shot. You’re supposed to be cheering me up, right? Wasn’t your mission to be a ray of sunshine?”

  “We need to talk.” The way Marnie held her gaze was too penetrating.

  Taryn looked down at the cup in her hands.

  “Look,” Marnie finally sighed, turning the cup from side to side in her palm. “I know.”

  “Because I just told you. I guess he was going to—”

  “No.” She set the cup on the floor and angled toward Taryn. “I know everything.”

  “Everything?” Taryn’s voice was as thin and weak as the mews of the kittens they once found out in the barn, holed up in a stack of old apple baskets. “Even . . .”

  “Everything.”

  Taryn slid off the short hearth to the floor beside Marnie, wrapped her arms around her legs, and leaned against Marnie, looking for a strong place to land. “Jemma told you?”

  Marnie’s laugh was soft and sympathetic. “I’ve known you your whole life. In fact, I’d venture to guess the only person who knows you better than your grandmother does is me. I knew when you left for college something was up. Then when you didn’t come home for Christmas . . . You turned into a moping recluse. When you transferred back here to come to school, it didn’t take much to put it all together.”

  “You never said anything.”

  “I went to Jemma and asked her. She might be a lot of things, but she’s never been a good liar.”

  Taryn’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling, and she pulled her knees tighter to her chest. “Yes, she has. Just not to you.”

  “Honey, she did what she thought was best.”

  “Doesn’t make it right.”

  “No, it doesn’t. And I’m not going to condone it.” Cool fingers rested on Taryn’s neck, stealing some of the heat from her frustration. “But put yourself in her shoes. Your dad was horrible to your mom, to you . . . the two most important people in her life.”

  “Justin wouldn’t be like that.”

  “You know he wouldn’t now because you see him all grown up. But, Taryn, your grandmother had no way of knowing, and she was too scared to take the chance. You know how she’s talked about your dad. They treated him like a son. Your grandpa went hunting and fishing with him. He was good people. Then you came along. Maybe your mom did it on purpose to keep him here and maybe she didn’t, but he resented you from the moment he heard about you. It used to break my heart, watching you as a little girl, looking for his approval. I think he’s the reason why you and I got so close because the mama-hurt in me just wanted to make up for what he wasn’t giving.” She let her hand drop to Taryn’s back and rubbed a small circle there. “What you don’t know is, when your father turned ugly, your mama was planning to walk away and raise you on her own. Jemma talked your mother into marrying him, into doing the right thing. She thought things would change, and once you were born your daddy wouldn’t be able to resist you. He’d see giving up a job wasn’t worth giving up a family.”

  “She was wrong.” This was the worst part, the hardest pill of all to swallow. Jemma had never been wrong. All of Taryn’s life, she’d been the dispenser of wise advice, the one who always knew just what to say to make it all work out. Now she’d been wrong. Hugely, tragically, horribly wrong twice, in life-altering, unchangeable ways.

  “It’s why she went the opposite way with you and Justin.”

  “It didn’t work.” Taryn shoved off the hearth and fingered the ornaments on her tiny Christmas tree, the one she’d decorated with Justin only a few days ago. Her mom’s baby handprint forever molded in clay dangled from a branch just above her own tiny handprint, an empty space beneath. Justin had tried to hang a red ball there, but she’d moved it. The space was empty. Always.

  “She was trying to help. Taryn, honey, she didn’t want to see you suffer.”

  The empty branch whipped back and forth as Taryn flicked it. “But I did. I do. Maybe I was just being selfish, and she con-vinced me it was the best thing for me, not necessarily for the baby. Everything turned out okay for Sarah, but what if it hadn’t?”

  “I kind of thought you might be thinking about everything this morning.” Marnie appeared beside her. “Think about your cousin and Ethan.” She sniffed, looked at the ceiling, smiled. “Crazy timing if I ever saw it. Mark and Rachel are more ready to start a family than anyone I’ve ever seen. It was a blow to her when she found out she might not be able to have kids, but before she could even grieve . . .” Marnie shrugged and grinned. “Along comes Ethan, before they can even get the house finished and get married. Perfect and wonderful and an answer to prayer, just not quite when they were expecting the answer. They could have told Ethan’s birth mother no, the timing was wrong, but it would have been sort of telling God they knew better, don’t you think? God took care of Sarah. Let go of this guilt, and let Him take care of you now.”

  Taryn brushed away the last of Marnie’s sentence. “Ethan�
�s different. His mother was totally unable to take care of him.”

  “Could you have raised a baby? At eighteen? With a high school education and no job and totally incapable of accepting or giving the kind of unconditional love your daughter needed?”

  “What?”

  “Listen.” Marnie pushed herself out of the recliner and reached for Taryn, pulling her close in a soft embrace. “You were just about as broken as any human being I’ve seen. People as hurt as you go looking for something to fill the spot, only instead of turning to drugs or alcohol or work, you turned to people. Justin was your addiction, and you were always afraid he’d vanish.”

  “He did vanish. And I wasn’t addicted to him.” The words muffled into Marnie’s shoulder.

  “You were, and you shoved him away. Your dad had your head screwed on so backward, you wouldn’t know love if it slapped you sideways.”

  She was so wrong. “I loved Justin.”

  “Think about what you’re saying. Did you ever truly believe he loved you back, so much he’d give almost anything for you?”

  “He didn’t stay.”

  “You never should have asked him to.” Marnie huffed her exasperation and set Taryn away, planting warm hands on her shoulders and forcing Taryn to look at her. “And you never believed he truly loved you. You forget I was there. You came over to my house quite often and talked to me. There was always your fear inside, certain he’d find someone prettier, smarter, better. You gave and gave and gave, trying to keep him until you snapped inside and couldn’t give anymore. It wasn’t love. Not the kind God intended. It was this desperate closed-handed love, like you kept thinking you had to earn it, as if you could will it into existence and into lasting.”

  The words Taryn had said to Chelsea chased Marnie’s in a circle. Love isn’t something you earn. It’s not something you have to be good enough for. Real love is freely given, not taken away because you trip and fall.

  The mirror Taryn had always looked into cracked. Marnie was right. She was right. And she’d always known better. “No matter what I did, I was never good enough for my dad to love me.”

  “So you assumed the same of everyone. Even God.” Marnie angled around to get directly into Taryn’s field of vision. “God is not going to punish you for giving up your baby. He’s not going to make Jemma die because you did some horrifically wrong thing. Stop expecting Him to.”

  The tears pricked behind Taryn’s eyes, dug into her throat, pushed themselves out to leak down her cheek. “You think I’ve been expecting God to punish me?” But she didn’t have to ask. It was true. She’d lied. She’d made excuses for the lies, believing them herself. And all those years, she’d waited for punishment. Discipline came in the form of her lie’s consequences, not in the form of a God waiting to fling flaming arrows at her.

  Marnie pulled her close. “Go to Jemma. Tell her you forgive her.”

  Taryn nodded. There was a lot needing to be said there. And most of it should have been said years ago.

  Backing away, Marnie pressed her palms to Taryn’s cheeks. “Go to Justin. Tell him you’re sorry.”

  Asking for forgiveness would be beyond impossible. “It’s a huge thing to ask.”

  Marnie smiled slightly and shook her head. “Taryn, my love, you might be surprised.”

  16

  What are you doing New Year’s . . . New Year’s Eve? Harry Connick Jr. crooned to Taryn through Jemma’s back door.

  Well, Harry, I’m going to a wedding in a couple of weeks. The one that started this whole mess because the stinking quilt had to be ready just in time. Thanks for asking. Oh, and I’ll be going alone too. Just in case your happily married self was thinking I might need a plus one.

  Laying one hand against the wood frame of the old white screen door, Taryn gripped the handle and felt for the first time that she should knock before entering her own grandmother’s house, the house she’d practically grown up in. She’d fallen so far in the past twenty-four hours.

  Only twenty-four hours. Even less, since they stepped in the house and everything changed. Taryn had spent the night staring at her ceiling, praying, wanting to call Jemma or come over but wanting to know the forgiveness bubbling in her wasn’t just going to be words. It had to be real. If she lost Jemma, she lost everything, but the last thing either of them needed was for Taryn to forgive her for the wrong reasons or in a half-hearted, incomplete way.

  It had taken Marnie’s wisdom to show her what forgiveness was. Now, after some serious God time, Taryn made the choice to forgive Jemma. Maybe someday, Justin would forgive her, even if he never loved her again.

  All prepared to let out a world-weary sigh, Taryn inhaled and stopped. It smelled like . . .

  It was. Cake. Jemma was making cake.

  One-handed.

  At nine o’clock in the morning.

  The door handle twisted in Taryn’s hands, responding to the siren’s call of warm cake and the coffee bound to be waiting in the carafe on the counter.

  “You going to stand out there all day, or are you coming in?” Jemma’s face appeared in the curtains by the door. “It’s colder than the inside of the Grinch’s tiny little heart out there.” She disappeared, then the door popped open and there she was, eye-to-eye with Taryn one step down from her, the only thing between them the flimsy screen and every past secret that came to light yesterday. The events of the past day lay heavy on Jemma’s face, her eyes scanning Taryn’s warily.

  Face-to-face with her grandmother, all of Taryn’s planned apologies died before they even hit her tongue. “You made cake.”

  “Of course I did.”

  “You only have one working arm right now.”

  “And I have a nice stand mixer to hold the batter bowl for me. I’m behind on baking. Seriously behind. Got cookies in the oven. And a caramel cake on the counter. But you know . . . the cake. I couldn’t get the icing the way it needs to be, so somebody’s just going to have to eat it.”

  Taryn sniffed, tears pricking the back of her eyes. Jemma worked when she was upset. And she made caramel cake as a big ol’ giant I love you. “Only if there’s coffee, Old Woman.”

  Jemma smiled at the familiar nickname, used so often in gentle rebuke. She knew she was doing so much more than the doctor had given her permission to do and, likely, she didn’t care. “There’s always coffee.”

  The words were barely cleared out of the air before somehow, the door was open and Taryn was pressed tight in the kind of hug only her grandmother could give. “I’m so sorry, baby girl. I wanted to tell you about the letter, but it just got harder and harder. And I always knew the longer I waited, the angrier you’d be. You don’t know how many nights Justin’s letter kept me awake, how many prayers have been said over it.”

  Taryn took her first deep breath since the day before and relaxed into her grandmother’s one–armed hug. There was no anger left. Just relief. Jemma still loved her. “It’s me who’s sorry.” Taryn kissed the top of her hair.

  “For what?” Jemma edged her back, holding Taryn’s upper arm with her one useful hand. Her forehead wrinkled. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

  “Leaving you here yesterday the way I did.” Guilt was the other thing keeping her up all night. “I was angry.”

  “And you should have been.” She squeezed Taryn’s bicep tighter. “I told you to leave. You needed time to yourself to think through everything. You have to stop apologizing when you haven’t done anything wrong. Save your sorrys for when you need them.”

  “But—”

  “You had every right to be angry. Every right. I was wrong. I lied to you. I hurt you. For you to bust out of here would have been justified, and I’m downright surprised with your McKenna temper, you didn’t take my screen door off the hinges on the way out. Think about it. What would have happened if you’d stayed?”

  All of the ugly words bouncing around in her head as she’d sped home yesterday scrolled back through, but Jemma didn’t need to hear them then
or now. Taryn shrugged.

  Chuckling, Jemma patted her arm. “Taryn, you are cut from the same cloth as your grandmother. I know the things you were thinking ought to have you facedown at the altar on Sunday morning.”

  Finally, Jemma managed to drag a smile to Taryn’s face.

  “Besides, Marnie was here and was just what the doctor ordered. She follows me when I get spun up and need to work it through.” Jemma reached for Taryn’s hand and pulled her into the house. “Come here. You need to see this.”

  Following Jemma through the house, Taryn’s head turned as they passed the kitchen where the buttery rich smell of fresh caramel icing tugged almost harder than Jemma. Cookies cooled on racks all over the counter, and several tins were filled and stacked by the sink. “How long have you been up?”

  “Watched the sun rise this morning. It was beautiful. You know, I couldn’t see either sunrise or sunset out my blamed hospital window? I missed it.”

  The guilt stabbed Taryn again. Jemma should be resting. Her heart—

  “And don’t you apologize again either. I know you’re thinking it. My heart is just fine, and trust me, I got plenty of rest in the hospital. My medicine’s all fixed, and my heart’s happy to be home. With my granddaughter.” She squeezed Taryn’s hand and pulled her into the den, stopping and stepping aside for Taryn to step around her.

  It looked like a fabric triage. The two old plastic card tables from the barn dominated the room, topped with Jemma’s good sewing machine and her smaller travel model. Blue-and-white fabric spilled out of plastic shoeboxes, and strips lay folded neatly along the back of the couch.

  Taryn’s heart beat faster. “What is this?”

  “I told you. Marnie followed me while I worked things through. We sewed until almost one in the morning.”