An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler

by Jennier Chiaverini

  Elm Creek Manor was alive once more, just as Sarah had predicted, just as Sylvia had wished.

  This week Sarah’s work load kept her even busier than usual. Each day she promised herself she would spend time with her mother, but she always found more work to do, more tasks that simply couldn’t wait. Sarah felt guilty for repeatedly turning down her mother’s invitations to go for a walk or sit on the veranda and chat during free time, so she was relieved when her mother stopped asking. They did spend some time together, at meals and in the evenings, but always in the company of the other guests.

  “I was hoping we’d have some nice quiet time together,” Carol told her on Thursday evening as they went out the back door to the parking lot. That evening Gwen had arranged for everyone to attend a play on the Waterford College campus.

  “We will,” Sarah promised. “We still have another whole day left, and half of Saturday.” As if to apologize for her absence, she made sure they rode in the same car and sat next to each other in the theater. She knew it wasn’t what her mother had hoped for, but she couldn’t ignore her responsibilities.

  Later that night, as the quilters went off to their separate rooms to prepare for bed, Sylvia asked Sarah to join her in the library. “You haven’t been spending as much time with your mother as I had hoped,” she said, easing herself into a chair by the fireplace. No fire burned there now, and probably none would until autumn.

  Sarah shrugged helplessly. “I know. I’ve been swamped with work.”

  Sylvia folded her arms and regarded her. “Is that so?”

  “Well, yes.” Sarah ran through the list of tasks she’d accomplished over the past three days.

  Sylvia shook her head as she listened. “You know very well that most of that work could have been put off for at least another week. You had no pressing deadlines preventing you from enjoying your mother’s visit.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. You went looking for all that extra work, and so naturally you found it. You piled it up all around yourself—big, solid stacks of paperwork to keep your mother from coming near. I know you, Sarah McClure, and I know what you’re doing, even if you don’t.”

  Sarah stared at her. “Is that really what I’ve been doing?” As Sylvia’s words sank in, she recognized the truth in them. “I didn’t mean to. At least I don’t think so.”

  “Why are you distancing yourself from her, and after she said such nice things about you at the Candlelight?”

  “But that’s precisely why it’s so difficult to talk to her.” Sarah went to the window and drew back the curtain. Through the diamond-shaped panes of glass she could see the roof of the barn on the other side of Elm Creek. “Every time we’re together, we bicker. That’s been our way for years. Right now we’ve left things on a good note. I wouldn’t want another silly argument to spoil that.”

  “Perhaps I should have told you about her visit after all, so that you could have planned what to say to her.” Sylvia sighed. “It seems the element of surprise didn’t work as well for you and your mother as it did for me and Agnes.”

  Sarah whirled around to face her. “Is that what you were trying to do?”

  Sylvia nodded, no doubt thinking, as Sarah was, about that day almost two years before when Sarah had arranged for Sylvia to meet her long-estranged sister-in-law in the north gardens. Their reconciliation had encouraged Sylvia to remain at Elm Creek Manor instead of continuing her search for a buyer; if not for that, Elm Creek Quilts never would have existed.

  “But that day in the garden was only the beginning,” Sarah said. “You and Agnes didn’t rebuild your relationship all in that one day. You grew closer over time, over all those months planning Elm Creek Quilts.”

  Sylvia nodded. “You’re right, of course. I was foolish to believe your difficulties with your mother could be sorted out in a single week.”

  “Not foolish.” Sarah tried to smile. “Overly optimistic, maybe, but not foolish.”

  “Hmph.” Sylvia returned Sarah’s smile, but her heart didn’t seem to be in it.

  Matt was already asleep when Sarah climbed into bed beside him. She closed her eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. Sylvia was so disappointed that she had not been able to return Sarah’s gift in kind. She shouldn’t be. Sylvia and Agnes had been ready to reconcile. So many years of loss and regret had cleared their vision, had taught them how foolish the old squabbles were. In hindsight, it had been easy to bring them together, since they both ached for a reunion.

  If Sarah felt anything of that longing, it was buried deep enough to ignore. How many decades of estrangement would pass before she cared enough about reconciliation to give her whole heart to it?

  To those troubling thoughts, Sarah finally drifted off to sleep.

  The next day she forced herself to avoid the office. She sat by her mother’s side at breakfast, walked with her and Matt in the gardens during free time, and pushed two Adirondack chairs together on the veranda so that they could chat undisturbed during lunch. The time passed pleasantly enough, but Sarah felt restrained, as if at any moment she might say the words that would dredge up all those old animosities. Once, fleetingly, she wondered if that wasn’t exactly what they ought to do—bring out all those old hurts and subject them to unflinching scrutiny. But just as quickly Sarah decided against it. She couldn’t risk an enormous blowup that could take a long time to settle, not when Carol would be leaving the next day.

  To make the most of their time together, Sarah joined her mother for Agnes’s workshop that afternoon. At first Carol struggled to learn the appliqué techniques, but Sarah and Diane helped her. “I’m the expert on finding an easier way to do things,” Diane said as she demonstrated a different way to hold the needle. “I’ve never met a shortcut I didn’t like.”

  Carol laughed and assured Diane that she understood what to do now.

  As they worked, Agnes strolled through the room checking on her students’ progress and offering advice. When she reached Sarah’s table, she took Diane and Sarah aside to talk to them about the round robin quilt. So much had happened since Sunday’s registration that Sarah had nearly forgotten it.

  “The center motif will take me a while to complete,” Agnes said. “I think the rest of you should get started on the borders.”

  Diane looked dubious. “How can we add borders to something that isn’t there?”

  Agnes laughed and patted her arm. “Sarah can cut a piece of background fabric eighteen inches square and add her border to that. The rest of you can proceed as usual. When I’m finished, I’ll appliqué my section onto the center square.”

  Sarah nodded, but she was still uncertain. “But what about colors? We won’t want the borders to clash with the center. How can we pick coordinating colors if we can’t see what fabric you’re going to use?”

  A quilter on the other side of the room signaled to Agnes for help. “Use the colors of Elm Creek Manor,” Agnes called over her shoulder as she went to assist the student. “That’s what I’m going to do.”

  Diane made a face. “She could have been a little more specific.”

  Sarah laughed in agreement, but she thought she understood what Agnes meant.

  That evening the mood at Elm Creek Manor was nostalgic and subdued. It had been a special week for all, and though they had arrived mostly strangers, the quilters now felt they would be friends for life. In the midst of the many tearful hugs and promises to keep in touch, Sylvia whispered to Sarah that they ought to consider hiring a comedian to entertain them on future closing nights. “Anything to prevent such melancholy,” she said, hugging her arms to her chest as if to ward off a draft.

  The next morning their guests’ spirits seemed to have brightened with the sunrise. As Sylvia and Sarah had promised, they gathered on the cornerstone patio for their last meal together. Sarah and Sylvia covered the table with a bright yellow cloth and loaded it with trays of pastries, breads, fruit, pots of coffee, and pitchers of juice. After breakfast, they took
their places around the circle once again, this time for Show-and-Tell. Each quilter took a turn showing off something she had made that week and telling her new friends what favorite memory she would take with her when she left Elm Creek Manor.

  Everyone proudly showed their new creations, from the AIDS quilt segment Renée had begun to the simplest pieced blocks the beginning quilters had stitched. The Candlelight on their first evening together was remembered fondly, as were the late-night chats in their cozy suites and the private moments spent strolling through the beautiful grounds.

  Then it was Carol’s turn.

  She held up her first pieced block, a Sawtooth Star, and said that she’d like to start a baby quilt, if her daughter would cooperate by providing the baby.

  Everyone chuckled, except for Sylvia, who let out a quiet sigh only Sarah heard, and Sarah herself, who clenched her jaw to hold back a blistering retort that the decision to have children was hers alone—hers and Matt’s.

  “As for my favorite memory, I’m not sure yet.” Carol looked around the circle, everywhere but at Sarah. “My favorite memory might still be ahead of me. I’ve decided to stay on a while longer.”

  The other guests let out exclamations of surprise and delight, but Sarah hardly heard them over the roaring in her ears. “But—but—what about work?” she managed to say.

  “I called the hospital. I told them it was a family emergency, and they agreed to let me have four months’ leave.”

  Four months. Sarah nodded, numb. A family emergency. It wasn’t exactly a lie.

  The woman beside her patted Sarah on the back and congratulated her for the good news. She managed a weak smile in return. Four months. Time enough to patch things up, or to rend them beyond repair forever.

  Sarah cut an eighteen-inch square from a piece of cream fabric. She chose green for the stately elms lining the back road to Elm Creek Manor, her home, which felt less like home with her mother in it. She picked lighter greens for the sweeping front lawn and darker shades for the leaves on the rosebushes Matt nurtured with such care in the north gardens. She added clear blue for the skies over Waterford, though she felt they should be gray with gathering storms. Last of all she found a richer, darker blue for Elm Creek, which danced along as it always had, murmuring and rushing regardless of the joy or tragedy unfolding on its banks.

  Using the same cream for her background fabric, Sarah created a border of blue and green squares set on point, touching tip to tip. Squares for the solidity and balance of the manor, for the dividing walls she and Carol had built over the years, for the blocks they had stumbled over on their journey toward each other, for the way Carol’s news had left her feeling imprisoned and boxed in, forced to face the inevitable confrontation that somehow she had always known was coming.

  Three

  Diane received the quilt top from Sarah after class Monday afternoon. “You must have worked on this all weekend,” she remarked, unfolding the quilt top and holding it up for inspection. “How’d you find the time? I thought your mother was still here.”

  “She is.”

  An odd note in Sarah’s voice pulled Diane’s attention away from the quilt. Sarah had shadows under her eyes and she kept glancing warily over her shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” Diane asked. Usually, Sarah was calm and self-assured, but she had been snappish and edgy all day.

  “I’m fine.” Sarah snatched the quilt top and began folding it. “I just don’t want Sylvia to see this. It’s supposed to be a surprise, remember? Keep it out of sight.”

  “Okay, okay. Relax. She’s in the kitchen. She can’t see through walls.” Diane took back the folded quilt top and tucked it into her bag. Honestly. More and more Sarah reminded Diane of her eldest son, Michael, but he was a teenager and such behavior was expected. What was Sarah’s excuse?

  Diane waved good-bye to Gwen, who had led that afternoon’s workshop, and left the classroom. It had been a ballroom once. The dance floor remained, but quilters now practiced on the orchestra dais, where work tables had replaced risers and music stands. She had never seen an orchestra there, but Sylvia and Agnes had, and their stories were so vivid that Diane sometimes felt as if she had witnessed the manor’s grand parties herself.

  On her way to the back door, she stopped by the kitchen to bid Sylvia good-bye. Sarah’s mother was helping Sylvia prepare supper, and they were laughing and chatting like old friends. Maybe that explained Sarah’s moodiness. Maybe she wanted Sylvia all to herself and thought Carol was getting in the way.

  Diane drove home to the neighborhood a few blocks south of the Waterford College campus where professors, administrators, and their families lived. Sarah had once told her that the gray stone houses with their carefully landscaped front yards reminded her of Elm Creek Manor, but Diane didn’t see the similarity. The houses on that oak tree–lined street were large, but not nearly as grand as Elm Creek Manor, or as old—or as secluded, to her regret. Diane willingly would have parted with a neighbor or two—namely, Mary Beth from next door, who had perfect hair and perfect children and had been president of the Waterford Quilting Guild for eight years.

  Diane parked in the driveway and walked up the red-brick herringbone path to the front porch, to the door with its brass knocker and beveled glass. The house was quiet, but she couldn’t enjoy the peace and solitude, not when she was due to pick up Todd from band practice in fifteen minutes. Diane dropped her bag on the floor of the foyer, draped her coat over it, and yanked off her ankle boots. They used to call her a stay-at-home mom before she began working for Elm Creek Quilts, but a stay-in-car mom was more like it.

  She padded to the kitchen in her stocking feet to check the answering machine. There was one message—Tim, she supposed, as she waited for the tape to rewind. He usually called her in the afternoons from his office in the chemistry building on campus to let her know what time he’d be home from work.

  But the voice on the tape, though much like her husband’s, was years younger.

  “Mom?” Michael said. “Uh, don’t be mad.”

  An ominous beginning. Diane closed her eyes and sighed.

  “Um, I kinda need you to come pick me up.” He hesitated. “They won’t let me go until you pay the fine.”

  “Pick you up from where?” she asked the machine—an instant before his words sank in. Pay a fine?

  “I’m at the police station. Don’t tell Dad, okay?” Without a word of explanation, he hung up.

  Diane shrieked. She ran to the foyer, threw on her coat, and stuffed her feet into her boots. She dashed outside to her car and raced downtown, her heart pounding. What had he done? What on earth had he gotten himself into this time? After the vandalism at the junior high last fall, she and Tim had put such a scare into him that he vowed never to get into trouble again. Their family counselor had warned them to expect ups and downs, but this—She felt faint just thinking about the possibilities. He must have done something horrible, just horrible, for the police to lock up a fifteen-year-old until his parents came to bail him out.

  Sarah was wise to avoid having children, Diane thought grimly as she pulled into the parking lot behind the police headquarters.

  Diane hurried inside, her heart pounding. Michael could be injured, ignored by the busy police officers as he slowly and quietly bled to death in a lonely cell. She gave the first officer she saw Michael’s name. “Is he all right?” she asked, breathless. “Is he hurt?”

  “He’s just fine, ma’am.” The officer looked sympathetic. Maybe he was a parent, too. “He’s just in a little bit of trouble.”

  “Can I see him? What kind of trouble? How little? How long has he been here?” She took a deep breath to stem the flow of questions. She had gone to Elm Creek Manor at noon; Michael could have left the message any time after that. He could have been locked up for hours with violent offenders. The last thing Michael needed was that kind of influence.

  The officer raised his hands to calm her. “He’s been here less than an hour. H
e’s waiting in an interrogation room.”

  “What exactly did he do?”

  “He was skateboarding in a marked zone. We wouldn’t have held him except he didn’t have the money for the fine.”

  Diane gaped at him. “Skateboarding?” Her voice grew shrill. “You locked up my child for skateboarding?”

  The officer squirmed. “In a marked zone, yes.”

  “Why didn’t you call me at Elm Creek Manor? Why didn’t you call my husband?”

  “Your son insisted. He wanted you to get the news rather than his father, and he didn’t want to interrupt your class.”

  Diane smothered a groan. Of all the times for Michael to get considerate. “I can’t believe this.” She rooted around in her purse for her wallet. “Well, it certainly does my heart good to know that the citizens of Waterford are being protected so heroically from skateboarders. Now, if only you could do something about all those thieves and murderers and terrorists running loose, well, then I’d really be impressed.”

  “We don’t get many murderers and terrorists around here, ma’am.”

  “How much is the fine?” she snapped.

  “Fifty dollars.”

  Diane counted out the bills, gritting her teeth to hold back the tirade she was aching to release. She’d save it for Michael. Oh, would he ever rue this day! “Here’s your ransom,” she said, sliding the bills across the desk. “May I have my son back, please?”

  A few minutes later, the officer brought out her son. As usual, his skinny frame was enveloped in oversized clothes, so large and baggy that they could have been his father’s, except Tim never wore black jeans and Aerosmith T-shirts. Along with his skateboard, Michael carried his jacket wadded up in a ball under his arm, and his baseball cap was turned backward.

  “Is that my earring?” Diane gasped when she saw the flash of gold in his earlobe.

  He nodded.

  “Where’s the other one?”

  “In your jewelry box.” He paused. “You never said I couldn’t wear your earrings.”

  “I didn’t know I had to.” She hadn’t wanted him to get his ear pierced in the first place, but Tim had pointed out that they ought to reward him for asking permission, to encourage him to do so more often. Besides, it was only one ear he wanted, thank God, not his nose or his eyebrow or his tongue. “I also never said you couldn’t set the house on fire or run a counterfeiting ring out of the basement, but you knew you weren’t allowed, right?”