An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler

by Jennier Chiaverini

  Emily was still too young, Judy decided. Someday she would tell her everything, but not tonight.

  “I’m going on a trip to see an old friend of Grandma Tuyet’s,” she finally said, picturing her mother tossing her head in scorn at the description. “When I get back, we’ll have lots of time together, okay?”

  Emily smiled. “Okay.”

  “You go to sleep now.” Judy kissed her good night and rose, turning off the light as she left the room and leaving the door ajar, the way Emily liked it.

  The next day Steve and Emily saw her off at the regional airport. As she went to board her plane, Judy waved good-bye to her family with a sinking heart, seized with a sudden urge to cancel the trip. It was a mistake. It was too soon.

  But instead she crossed the tarmac and boarded the plane.

  The eighteen-seat prop plane looked like a wind-up toy. It needed a bumpy ninety minutes to carry its passengers to Pittsburgh, where Judy breathed a sigh of relief and transferred to a jet. The second leg of her journey was smooth enough for her to retrieve her sewing bag from her carry-on and piece a few seams of her round robin border. As she worked her needle through the soft fabric, the familiar motions soothed her.

  There was a long layover in Chicago, but eventually she boarded another plane, the last, the one that would take her to Dane County Regional Airport and the family she dreaded meeting. This time she was too nervous to piece. For the rest of the flight she looked out the window, thinking.

  When the plane descended through the scattered clouds over Wisconsin, Judy caught a glimpse of sunlight sparkling on a large lake—no, two large lakes separated by an isthmus. As they drew closer, she saw that the narrow strip of land was crowded with buildings; the most prominent, a dome-topped structure with four wings, was in the center. Judy craned her neck to watch it as they passed. When she couldn’t see the building any longer, she turned her attention to the lake, a rich blue etched with the white wakes of boats.

  The plane lurched suddenly. Judy faced forward and clutched the armrests of her seat, but it was not the turbulence that wrenched her stomach. She wished they could stay up there in the clear sky above the blue water, circling, drifting, eventually turning around and heading back east toward home.

  The plane touched down.

  Judy gathered her things and left the plane, the strap of her tote slung over one shoulder, her garment bag in her other hand. In the terminal people were shaking hands, embracing, calling out welcomes. She felt invisible, alone.

  “Judy?”

  She looked in the direction of the voice. A tall, slender woman was weaving toward her through the crowd. Her straight blond hair brushed gently at her jawline as she walked, and she looked to be at least five years younger than Judy.

  The woman came to a stop in front of her. “Judy?” she asked hesitantly.

  Judy nodded.

  The woman smiled, delighted. “I’m Kirsten,” she said, embracing her. “Welcome to Madison.”

  Judy returned the hug awkwardly. “Thanks.” She wondered how Kirsten had recognized her, but after a quick glance around, she realized she was the only Asian-looking person who had gotten off the plane. She felt as if she had disembarked in the Land of Tall Blondes.

  Before she could react, Kirsten took the garment bag from her. “Do you have any more luggage?”

  “No, just this.”

  “Great, then we can get going. I’m so glad you’re here. How was your flight?”

  “Fine,” Judy managed to say. Her sister was smiling brightly and practically skipping with delight as they made their way through the airport, while Judy felt as if her legs had turned to lead.

  “My car’s right outside,” Kirsten said. “I’ll give you the nickel tour on the way to my apartment. I live downtown, near campus. I have the spare room all made up for you.”

  “Oh. Um, actually, I have a reservation—” Judy fumbled for the paper in her pocket. “At the Residence Inn on, um, D’Onofrio.”

  Kirsten stopped short. “You’re going to stay in a hotel?”

  “Well, yes, I mean—”

  “But D’Onofrio’s all the way on the west side of town. Don’t you—wouldn’t you prefer to stay with me?”

  Judy forced herself to smile. “I thought it would be better this way, you know, so that you can still have your privacy and we won’t fight over the bathroom.”

  She said it so comically that Kirsten smiled, and the tension eased. Kirsten resumed walking, keeping up a steady stream of questions about Judy’s trip as they left the airport. Kirsten’s car was parked just outside at the curb, its hazard lights flashing. They loaded Judy’s luggage into the trunk and drove off. Kirsten described the various sights they passed—the large domed structure, which turned out to be the capitol building; the University of Wisconsin; and State Street, a row of shops and restaurants between the capitol and campus.

  “We’ll go there tomorrow, after the Farmers’ Market on the capitol square.” Kirsten gave Judy a quick glance. “Unless you’re hungry. Would you like to go to the hotel and rest, or do you want to get something to eat?”

  Judy hadn’t eaten on the plane, and she was famished. They pulled into a parking garage—Kirsten called it a parking “ramp,” which made Judy picture a large wedge jutting into the sky—and walked down the street to a small Turkish restaurant. The spicy aromas from the kitchen enticed them inside, and soon, over an appetizer of tabouli and hummus with wedges of pita bread, they were finally able to talk.

  By the end of the meal, Judy felt more relaxed than she had since her mother told her about the letter. To her relief, Kirsten was friendly and talkative, accepting Judy’s reserve for what it was—natural shyness, not a reluctance to be with her. For now that Judy was there, she found herself glad she had come and pleased by how well she and her sister got along. Kirsten was an intern at University Hospital, where her father had practiced before his retirement. She skimmed over their father lightly, but still Judy felt a fluttering in her chest at the mention of his name.

  “What about your brother and sister?” Judy asked. “Are they still in school, too?”

  “No.” Kirsten took a hasty swallow of iced tea. “Daniel and Sharon both finished school a while ago.”

  Judy nodded. That made sense. Kirsten was twenty-eight, and Daniel and Sharon were probably only a few years behind her, beyond college age.

  She had so many questions, but Kirsten was so eager to hear about Judy, her mother, and her life in Waterford with Steve and Emily that Judy barely learned anything about the other Scharpelsens. Kirsten answered questions about herself readily enough, but she evaded inquiries about Robert or her siblings. She did it so subtly and with such friendliness that it wasn’t until the meal was over and they were walking back to the car that Judy realized she knew little more about her family than she had before the plane landed.

  A shadow of doubt crept into her mind as they drove to her hotel, on the west side of the city. Judy gave Kirsten a hard look, but Kirsten was driving along, smiling and chatting happily, and suddenly Judy felt ashamed. She was paranoid to think Kirsten was hiding anything more than nervousness. This visit had to be as emotionally grueling for Kirsten as it was for Judy, perhaps even more so, since she had initiated the contact.

  When Judy was finally alone in her hotel room, she kicked off her shoes, fell onto the bed, and closed her eyes, drained. Kirsten was as nice and as welcoming as Judy could have hoped, and yet their few hours together had wrung her dry. Tomorrow afternoon, when she would meet the rest of the family at Robert Scharpelsen’s house, would be worse. She stretched out on the bed, soothed by the quiet darkness of the room, glad that she’d refused Kirsten’s invitation to stay at her apartment.

  Before getting ready for bed, she called Steve to tell him about her day. She spoke to Emily, too, or tried to—either her daughter had been struck by sudden shyness or she didn’t quite grasp that the phone, unlike the television, allowed for two-way communication. Still,
Emily’s presence on the line cheered her, even if the only response was the sound of her daughter’s breathing.

  The next morning she woke feeling rested but jittery. Kirsten picked her up at eight-thirty, and they drove downtown for breakfast. The square around the capitol building had been closed to traffic, and the sidewalks were lined with booths and tables offering everything from fresh produce and baked goods to houseplants and cheese. Judy and Kirsten bought pastries and coffee at a stand on the corner and walked down the sloping street to a modern structure overlooking one of the lakes. They found seats on a stone bench and enjoyed the scenery as they ate and talked. Emily told her the building was the Monona Terrace, a convention center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Judy listened, nodding as Kirsten pointed out various sights along the lakeshore, glad for the cardigan she had worn over her long skirt and blouse. The sun shone brightly in a cloudless sky, but the breeze off the lake was cool.

  When they had finished eating, they returned to the Farmers’ Market and joined the orderly, steady flow of customers moving counterclockwise from stall to stall around the square. Every so often, Kirsten would stop at a stand and purchase something for the evening meal. On an impulse, Judy bought flowers to give to her father. When they had gone all the way around the square, they stowed their purchases in Kirsten’s car and toured the capitol building. From the observation deck, Judy looked out over the lake and enjoyed the fresh smells of spring in the breeze, wishing that Steve and Emily had come with her. Everything was going so well that her earlier doubts seemed foolish.

  Afterward, Judy and Kirsten walked down State Street window-shopping and people-watching. A little before noon they stopped at a restaurant for sandwiches, and as they ate, the conversation turned to Judy’s journey from Vietnam to America. Judy told Kirsten the little she remembered; she had pieced together the rest from her mother’s stories. Not wishing to offend, Judy glossed over the most difficult part of her history, in which she and her mother waited to hear from Robert Scharpelsen only to be disappointed by his cold response.

  When Judy reached the part where her mother met John DiNardo, Kirsten shook her head in admiration. “Your mother sounds like an amazing person,” she said. “How did she manage to land that hospital job?”

  Judy shrugged. “Her experience on the army base helped, I suppose, and they were impressed by her fluency in so many languages. They really wanted someone who spoke English and Spanish, but she convinced them that someone who could speak Vietnamese, English, and French could easily pick up Spanish if she studied on her own. She did, too.” Judy thought back to those nights when she and her mother would sit side by side at the kitchen table, Judy with a picture book, her mother with a Spanish text.

  “I can understand why she would need English in the bar because of the GIs, but how did she happen to pick up French?”

  “Vietnam was a French colony before—” Then Kirsten’s words fully registered. “What do you mean, in the bar?”

  “You know, the bar where your mother worked.”

  The skin on the back of Judy’s neck prickled. “What?”

  “In Saigon. Where they met. Where your mom met my dad.”

  “He told you they met in a bar?”

  Kirsten nodded, confused.

  “He said my mother was a bar girl?” Kirsten nodded again, color creeping into her cheeks. “My mother worked in the hospital on the army base with your father.” Each word came out as sharp, as clear, and as cold as a splinter of ice. “She was a translator for the doctors and nurses and anyone else who needed her. My mother has never set foot in a bar except as a paying customer, and only rarely has she done that.”

  “But he said—” Kirsten fumbled for the words. “He told me—”

  “And even if she had been a bar girl, what difference does that make? Bar girl or translator, he loved her enough to live with her.”

  “What are you saying? What do you mean, live with her?”

  Judy stared at her, hard, the blood pounding in her head. Then she understood. “He told you she was just a one-night stand at a bar, didn’t he?” This time Kirsten couldn’t even nod, but Judy saw in her face that it was the truth. “He lied to you, just as he lied to my mother. They lived together for more than two years. He promised to marry her and bring her to the States. Then one day he didn’t come home from work. She asked at the hospital, and you know what they told her? He had shipped out that morning. He had known about it for months, and yet he never saw fit to mention it. But she trusted him. She thought that if she could just get to America, he would take care of her—of us, because I was born a month after he left. She thought if he saw his child, if he saw me, he would marry her.”

  “But he couldn’t,” Kirsten choked out. “You don’t understand. He couldn’t marry her.”

  “Why? Because she was a bar girl?” Judy snapped. “No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand. He used my mother and abandoned us. Then he scurried off here and found himself a new wife, a white wife, someone he wouldn’t be ashamed of at cocktail parties and neighborhood barbecues. That’s the man your father is.”

  “No. No, you—you don’t understand.”

  “I understand perfectly.” Suddenly, Judy couldn’t bear the sight of Kirsten, stricken and confused, struggling to speak, to make sense of the new information. She wanted to storm away from the table, to her hotel, to the next plane home. It would have been so easy, but something kept her in her seat, watching, listening, waiting to see what Kirsten would do next.

  Suddenly, in a flash of insight, Judy realized that she was enjoying this. Seeing Robert cut down in Kirsten’s eyes filled her with grim satisfaction. Let no one—least of all the daughter he had loved instead of herself—think of Robert as a good man, as a loving father. Let Kirsten know him for what he truly was.

  Kirsten sat in silence, staring at the table, her face flushed, her eyes shining with tears.

  Suddenly Judy was flooded by shame. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “No. You meant every word.” Kirsten took a deep breath. “But you don’t know the whole story.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.” She thought of what Andrew had said, and reminded herself that Robert had been a young man when he knew her mother, a young man far from home in tumultuous times. Judy didn’t know his side of the story, and though she doubted he could say anything to win her sympathies, she had no right to take out her anger on Kirsten. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” Kirsten said, still not looking at her. She took another deep, shaky breath and fell silent.

  They sat at the table without speaking until the server began clearing away their dishes. Then they paid the bill and left.

  Judy wished she had not confronted Kirsten. She had ruined everything, just when they were getting along so well. Three times she tried to strike up a conversation as they walked back to the car, but Kirsten seemed unable to respond.

  As they pulled out of the parking garage, Kirsten finally spoke. “Should I take you back to the hotel?”

  Judy shot her a look. “I thought we were going to your apartment.”

  “I thought … I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to anymore.”

  Kirsten looked very young as she stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the busy street crowded with cars and bikes and darting pedestrians. Judy reminded herself that she was the elder sister. She had started the argument; it was up to her to put Kirsten at ease.

  “I don’t want to go back to the hotel,” she said. “I didn’t come all this way to leave without meeting the rest of the family. We have to expect these kinds of bumps along the way. We can’t just give up the first time we run into difficulties.”

  Kirsten said nothing for a long moment. “You’re right.” She glanced away from the road to give Judy a pleading look. “I want you to know that I never intended to hurt you. If I could do it over …” She shook her head and drove on.

  They went to her apartment, a smal
l, one-bedroom flat on the third floor of a seventy-year-old building across the street from one of the lakes. Long ago, the building had been a pump station; though it had been remodeled for housing, the large steel pumps remained in the lobby. Kirsten came out of her silence to tell Judy this history, and by the time they reached her place, much of her earlier animation had returned.

  Kirsten offered Judy a seat in the living room, a cozy place with a comfortable sofa, brick walls, and a sloped ceiling. They spent the afternoon talking over cups of tea. Judy finally began to hear more about life in the Scharpelsen family—their house on Lake Mendota, the misadventures of the three kids, Kirsten’s mother’s slow and painful death from cancer. As the hours passed, Judy finally began to feel as if she was getting to know these strangers. Sometimes, Kirsten broke off in the middle of a story as if to collect her thoughts; other times, she seemed vague or unwilling to reveal too much. Judy couldn’t blame her. No wonder Kirsten was careful now, even tentative; neither one of them wanted to say anything that would spark more anger.

  As evening approached, they went to the kitchen and prepared a large tossed salad using the produce they had purchased at the Farmers’ Market. Then it was time to go to their father’s house.

  Judy’s throat felt as if it were constrained by a fist, clenching ever tighter as they drove west, then north through a thickly wooded neighborhood of large homes on small lots. Through the trees, Judy could see the sun glinting off water, and she realized they were driving along the lakeshore.

  They pulled into the driveway of a large, modern house on the lake. “This is it,” Kirsten said, turning off the engine.

  Judy fumbled with the seat belt and got out of the car. She followed Kirsten through the garage to a door leading into the house. Kirsten opened it and led her into the kitchen.