An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler

by Jennier Chiaverini

  Grace had told Justine and her immediate family but had sworn them to secrecy. Not even her closest friends suspected what she was going through, and that was exactly how Grace wanted it. She would not have anyone treating her any differently than they always had.

  “Eventually they’ll know something’s wrong,” Justine had told her. She meant that eventually the disease would progress so far that Grace would no longer be able to conceal it. A wheelchair was a difficult contrivance to ignore.

  “So that’s when I’ll tell them,” Grace had said, and refused to discuss the subject further. Justine insisted that the support of her friends was what she needed most, but what Grace wanted most was her old life back. She wanted a sense of normalcy and ordinariness; she wanted the same blissful ignorance of the future most people enjoyed.

  She prayed for guidance, for serenity, for a miracle, but her sewing machine gathered dust and her fabric stash permanent creases from being left folded in the same positions for so long.

  Since returning from Sylvia’s nearly eight weeks before, Grace had tried to maintain her resolve to work through her creative block. She thought of how Sylvia had worked through the impairment brought on by a stroke and knew she had to keep trying. She went to her studio and sat on a stool, propping her elbows up on a work table and studying the shelves full of fabric. No matter how low she felt, the colors never failed to lift her spirits.

  After a while, she took out the fat quarter of the autumn leaf print Vinnie had given her. According to the loose rules the Cross-Country Quilters had established, she couldn’t begin sewing her block yet, but she could choose some suitable complementary fabrics. She spent a quiet hour searching through her inventory, comparing the colors in the fat quarter to the many shades in her collection. She had chosen a rich burgundy cotton with a visual suede texture and a purple floral print with striking blue highlights when someone buzzed her loft from the front door. When, a moment later, the elevator sounded, she knew her visitor was Justine, who had a key.

  Grace left the material on a work table and went to meet her daughter at the loft door. To her delight, Joshua was with her.

  “How did it go?” Justine asked after Grace had greeted her visitors with hugs and kisses.

  Grace shrugged. “Same as before.”

  Justine’s tense expression eased. “That’s good news, at least.”

  “I’d hardly call it that.”

  “It’s better than hearing that you’ve gotten worse.”

  Grace felt a flash of annoyance. “Little pitchers,” she said, tilting her head toward Joshua, who was playing with blocks on the floor.

  Justine gave her a look that said she was being ridiculous. “You don’t like to talk about it, but you should.”

  “I’ll talk about what I please, when I please.”

  “You’d feel better if you were more open and honest about this. Not just with me, but with yourself.”

  “The way you’ve been open and honest with me?” Grace shot back.

  Justine stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.” She leaned over to pick up a block that had tumbled away from Joshua’s pile and returned it to him.

  “No, you brought it up. Something’s obviously bothering you. Let’s air it out.”

  Grace took a deep breath. “I know you’re seeing someone.”

  Justine’s eyebrows rose. “What?”

  “I know you’re seeing someone, and I know …” She glanced at Joshua and lowered her voice. “I know it’s serious.”

  “Mom, you couldn’t be more wrong.”

  “Don’t give me that. Sondra saw you together at a restaurant back in July. Joshua was with you.”

  Justine set her jaw. “Your friends are spying on me?”

  “That’s hardly fair. Sondra happened to see you, and she asked me who the man was, and of course I had to tell her I didn’t know, since you didn’t have the decency to tell me on your own.”

  “Mom—”

  “And what’s worse than being the last to know about these important developments in your life—and Joshua’s life, I might add—is that your new boyfriend is my age.”

  “Mom, you have it all wrong.”

  “I most certainly do not. Sondra told me he’s old enough to be your father.”

  “That’s because he is my father.”

  “What?”

  “The man Sondra saw us with is my father.”

  Grace stared at her as the words slowly sank in. “Oh my God.”

  “I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d be upset.” Justine sighed. “Which, judging by the way you’re staring at me, you obviously are.”

  “What does he want?”

  “What does he want? He wants to see his daughter. He wants to get to know his grandson. He’d even like to see you, if you’re willing. I told him you probably wouldn’t be, but he said—”

  “You’re right. I don’t want to see him.” Grace squeezed her hands together to keep them from trembling. Gabriel, back in their lives after so many years. “I don’t understand. How did he find you? Or did you go looking for him?”

  “He came to the legal aid clinic one day while I was working.”

  “Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  “He wasn’t coming for himself. One of his students was being abused by her live-in boyfriend, and he was investigating resources to recommend to her.”

  So Gabriel was teaching again. “He couldn’t have recognized you.” The last time he had seen Justine was when she was four.

  “No, but I recognized him from your pictures, and when he gave me his name, I knew.”

  Grace felt her face grow hot. Those pictures, that one album she had saved and had assumed was safely hidden in her closet. When had Justine seen it? “You should have told me you had met with him.”

  “I didn’t want to upset you.”

  Grace closed her eyes, nodded, and tried to still her churning thoughts. His abrupt departure twenty years before had torn out her heart, and it had taken her a long time to recover. For all intents and purposes, he had been dead to them. And now he had returned.

  Grace steeled herself and spoke the question she dreaded to ask. “Are you going to see him again?”

  She knew what the answer would be even before Justine nodded.

  Autumn was Vinnie’s favorite time of year. By mid-October, the days were still pleasantly warm but the evenings took on a slight chill—“good quilting weather,” Vinnie called it.

  In her last letter, Donna had written that nearly all the leaves were off the trees in her backyard and that she wouldn’t be surprised if it snowed by Halloween. Vinnie figured that was normal for northern Minnesota, although it seemed to her a bit early to be thinking about snow. No doubt Julia was still basking in the southern California sunshine; Vinnie couldn’t say for certain, since Julia had not responded to a single one of her letters. Since Vinnie had heard from the other Cross-Country Quilters several times already, she was beginning to suspect that maybe her letters were getting lost amid the piles of fan mail Julia probably received each day. Undaunted, Vinnie wrote another letter, but this time she decorated the outside of the envelope with little quilt blocks drawn in colored pen. As an extra measure, in the return address, she wrote her name as “Lavinia Burkholder, AKA Vinnie from Quilt Camp.” There. If that didn’t get through to Julia, Vinnie didn’t know what would.

  Writing letters was a habit she had picked up while living with Aunt Lynn—where, Vinnie reflected, she had also acquired the habit of writing letters without expecting a response. She had written three or four letters to her father for every one he sent her. Frankie had written more frequently; she had learned more about her father from her brother’s letters than from his own. She grew accustomed to her father’s indifference, which was made easier to accept by the love Aunt Lynn and Lena showered upon her.

  But although Vinnie felt secure and content in her new life with Aunt Lynn, she
had learned to expect change.

  She was too absorbed in school and her friends to pay much attention to the news of the stock market crash, but the trouble forecast by adults’ worried expressions and hushed conversations was soon confirmed. Aunt Lynn explained that they might face difficult times ahead, but Vinnie shouldn’t worry because Aunt Lynn had a secure job in a government office. Vinnie believed her aunt, but she soon realized that other families on their block were not as fortunate as they. Even the Pot-Luck Pals seemed to have to work harder to be cheerful, and they brought smaller covered dishes to their twice-monthly gatherings.

  For months Vinnie had overheard Aunt Lynn and Lena discussing the possibility of Lena’s losing her job at the factory where she worked as a secretary. She sounded confident that the boss couldn’t manage without her, but one night, long after Vinnie was supposed to be asleep, sounds came through the wall that separated her bedroom from Aunt Lynn’s. She could have sworn she heard Lena weeping.

  The next morning, Lena and Aunt Lynn met her at the breakfast table with somber expressions and bad news. As it turned out, Lena hadn’t been fired after all. The company had gone bankrupt and the entire factory shut down, which meant that all the employees—including Lena and her boss—were out of work. Until she found another job, Lena could no longer afford her room in the boarding house across town. Aunt Lynn hesitated before asking Vinnie if she would mind if Lena came to live with them.

  “It’s fine with me,” Vinnie said, surprised that they would need to ask her. Lena spent the night so often that it was almost as if she lived there already. “Do you want my room?”

  Aunt Lynn and Lena exchanged a quick look. “No, honey. Lena will stay with me,” Aunt Lynn said. “That’s very nice of you to offer, but you need a quiet place to do your homework.”

  That seemed reasonable to Vinnie, so the following weekend, Lena moved in. For the first few days her presence made the house seem festive, but before long Vinnie began to wish she could do more to help. Aunt Lynn went to work every day and took all the extra hours her employer would spare, while Lena took care of the home. Although they never complained, at least not in front of her, Vinnie knew both women were tired from overwork and worried about money. Once Vinnie asked Aunt Lynn if she should quit school and find a job.

  “Your job is to go to school,” Aunt Lynn said. “You help us by doing well with your studies.”

  “And keeping your room picked up,” Lena added, tweaking her nose.

  Vinnie wasn’t satisfied. She wanted to contribute something to the household, enough so that Aunt Lynn would relax and be cheerful the way she used to, enough so that Lena would crack jokes and smile again.

  Since she knew of no other way to contribute, Vinnie devoted herself to her schoolwork. She often stayed after class for extra help, which her teachers were willing to provide, pleased to have such a diligent pupil. One afternoon, as she worked through some long division problems on the blackboard, Miss Kelley leaned over her desk to check her work and caught her dress on a rough edge.

  Vinnie heard fabric tear. “Oh, no,” Miss Kelley groaned, bending over to free her hem. As her teacher examined it, Vinnie glimpsed a three-inch-long tear in the fabric. “Of all the days to rip my dress.”

  “You can sew it when you go home,” Vinnie said.

  “That’s the problem. I’m not going home. I’m going straight to my fiancé’s parents’ house for supper. I can see his mother’s smirk already. Wouldn’t she just love to catch me walking around with a hole in my dress!”

  “Why would she love that?”

  Miss Kelley caught herself. “Never you mind,” she said sternly, then added, “When you have a mother-in-law, you’ll understand.”

  “If you have a needle and thread, I could sew it for you,” Vinnie offered. At first Miss Kelley demurred, but when Vinnie insisted, she retrieved a nee-dle and thread from her purse. Vinnie studied the tear. It was a simple rip right along the grain of the fabric, and soon Miss Kelley’s dress was mended, the seam almost invisible.

  Miss Kelley, much relieved, offered to pay her, but Vinnie grew embarrassed and refused. “I hate to sew,” Miss Kelley said. “Won’t you take something for saving me the trouble?”

  “You don’t take anything for helping me with my math.”

  Vinnie had never spoken so boldly to a teacher before, and she felt her face growing red-hot. She expected Miss Kelley to scold her, but instead she looked thoughtful. “If this had been your job, would you have allowed me to pay you?”

  Uncertain, Vinnie could only nod.

  “Then do you suppose if I brought you some other mending, I could hire you to complete it? As long as your aunt agrees, of course.”

  Vinnie promised to ask, and she ran home, her spirits soaring.

  Aunt Lynn seemed dubious at first. “Will you have enough time for your schoolwork?”

  “How much mending could one teacher have?” Lena said, giving Vinnie a wink. “The kid looks like she’ll pop if you say no, Lynn.”

  At that Aunt Lynn laughed and agreed that Vinnie could try it for a while, but if her grades suffered, she would have to stop. The next day Vinnie raced to school with the news and returned home with a bag full of stockings that needed darning. When she finished, Miss Kelley paid her five cents for each pair. Vinnie triumphantly presented the money to her aunt.

  Soon other teachers learned of the arrangement, and within a month Vinnie had added two other teachers to her list. Then Mr. Borchard from English class became a client; a bachelor, he soon had recommended her to several of his unmarried friends. Before long Vinnie had sewing projects every night and was making more money than she had ever dreamed possible.

  But her success kept her up late and away from her books. When her term report card showed a slight dip in her grades, Aunt Lynn worried that she was spending too much time working. “I can do both,” Vinnie insisted. She knew her earnings made a difference to the family and couldn’t bear to quit, not until Lena found work. Eventually Aunt Lynn agreed to let her continue, but no more than one hour on school days and four on the weekends.

  Dismayed, Vinnie nodded and carried her sewing basket into the other room so Aunt Lynn wouldn’t see how upset she was. On Aunt Lynn’s schedule, she wouldn’t have enough time for more than two or three clients. Blinking back tears, she set herself to work, determined to finish as much as she could.

  After a while, Lena sat on the sofa beside her and watched her hemming a skirt. “That looks difficult.”

  Vinnie didn’t feel like talking. “It’s not.”

  “I haven’t sewed since high school home ec. Would you show me?”

  Her heart still heavy, Vinnie demonstrated the stitches. Lena caught on quickly and asked for a scrap of fabric so she could practice.

  All that week and the next Vinnie taught Lena what she knew. Lena practiced, sometimes on scraps, sometimes on the clients’ garments under Vinnie’s close scrutiny. Then one afternoon Vinnie returned from school to discover that Lena had finished reattaching three loose collars and hemming two suits.

  Lena was obviously proud of herself, but her voice was hesitant when she said, “What do you say you and I become partners, kid?”

  Delighted, Vinnie agreed. The next day Lena dusted off Aunt Lynn’s sewing machine and set about teaching herself how to use it. She visited the library and checked out books on sewing and dressmaking and tailoring. Together she and Vinnie were able to take on more work for more money. Before long, Lena’s skills surpassed Vinnie’s own, and she made plans to expand their business into making custom-made garments. One of the PotLuck Pals printed up advertisements, which Lena distributed around the city. She modeled her creations at Dayton’s fine boutiques, whose clientele had thrived despite the Depression. With her striking blond good looks and professional manner, she impressed the boutique owners as well as their customers, and soon Lena began receiving regular orders for everything from casual attire to gowns. Within a year Lena’s enterprise h
ad become so successful that her earnings equaled her previous salary.

  Looking back, Vinnie marveled how Aunt Lynn and Lena had managed to see their little family through the Depression unscathed. Even now she admired Lena for transforming loss into opportunity, and she was proud of herself for her role in it.

  Sometimes all people needed was a little nudge in the right direction, and they would go far. Vinnie picked up the phone and dialed Adam’s number. Her grandson could use a little nudge right about now.

  A few days later, Megan received a letter from Vinnie:

  Dear Megan,

  I was tickled to get your last letter. I’m sorry to hear your ex is being such a louse. But don’t worry. I know you’ll figure out something and you’ll get to make your quilt block yet.

  Do you and Robby have any plans for Halloween? I hope not, because I’d like to invite you for a visit. Meadowbrook Village has a Halloween party and trick-or-treating every year, and I would be honored to have you two as my guests. My grandson, Adam, is coming too, but since he’s a little old for trick-or-treating, I thought it would be much more fun if you brought Robby.

  If you don’t wear a costume, you’ll be the only person there who doesn’t. I’m going as Raggedy Ann.

  Hope to see you soon!

  Love from your quilt buddy,

  Vinnie

  Megan considered the letter thoughtfully. Vinnie’s invitation was an answer to a prayer. The boy next door, who had been Robby’s playmate until a year ago, was having a Halloween party, too, and Jason had invited all the boys in the class—except Robby. Jason’s mother spotted Megan raking leaves in the backyard, came outside, and made an awkward apology over the fence. “You know how kids are,” she said, shrugging and trying to smile.