But the quilting rack before me was the other kind, the one that stood on supports placed on the floor. Victoria’s rack was obviously hand-made, of a rough-hewn but carefully sanded oak. Since the group moved from house to house for their bees it made sense that the rack would be portable, but the structure I was looking at appeared to be very heavy. I said as much.
Hannah said, “We have a travel version for anyone who doesn’t own their own. Do you think you can host a bee? I mean do you have a room we can use?”
“Sure. I think our walkout basement would be fine. I just need to shove some stuff aside. We mainly use it for storage now. And I don’t have a rack so I may need to borrow that portable, if that’s okay.”
“Absolutely.” Hannah smiled and I saw her shoulders relax for the first time that evening. I guess she was worried about how I was reacting to them.
Examining the rack more closely I saw that it consisted of two ten foot long wooden dowels placed parallel to each other, each suspended by two saw horse shaped supports. The dowels were padded and covered in muslin, and I knew from my reading that the quilt would be secured to these dowels, and then the whole thing was rolled up scroll-like and placed on the horses. The horses would be moved away from each other as needed to allow the continual expansion of the rolled quilt as the sewing progressed.
Now however, the rack stood empty, and the first job was to layer the three pieces of the quilt in preparation for pinning to the dowels. I stood watching as they worked, fascinated.
Two rectangular tables had been pushed together and four of the women began layering the quilt. First the backing (a solid beige cotton) was placed face down and carefully smoothed and made to hang evenly on all four sides. Then the quarter-inch-thick cotton batting was placed. This was the filler I used with my own quilts. It was closest in results to what women had used in early America. The youngest, Abigail and her buddy Andrea got down on their knees and, using yard sticks to check their progress, carefully cut around the bottom of these two layers to make them even. The patchwork top was then opened and placed very carefully and smoothed. The top was never trimmed as it held the design.
The final step, the border, usually a thin edging of material, was done after all the quilting. I assumed this would be done alone by Victoria as it was a one-person job. She would also apply a label listing her name, the date the quilt was completed, and her title for the quilt.
But this was the first of two times tonight I would see the entire top of the quilt and I found myself drawn to it, circling the table and the busy women slowly. It was a genealogy quilt. Sixteen houses in various bright solids of blues, purples, wines and dark browns placed four-by-four on a varied beige background. The houses had been constructed first as individual patchwork blocks.
Three different beige fabrics had then been cut into wide strips and sewn together to simulate the sky, far ground and near ground behind the houses. It took four sets of these three materials to form the whole background, and the sixteen individual house blocks were then carefully placed and sewn onto this. Victoria had done all this part alone. Tonight, we would sew the three layers of the quilt together as a group.
To add to the value of the quilt, Victoria had sewn sixteen paths leading up to each house, on which she had stitched the names of her family tree, some in black and some in white.
“Why did you use two separate colors for the names of your relatives, Victoria,” I asked.
“We’re members of the Daughters of the American Revolution….”
“Really? So am I.”
She smiled. “The names in white are the people in our family that lead back to our Revolutionary Ancestor.”
As the process of layering the quilt neared an end, Andrea and Abigail took to kneeling, and I was struck with how their attitudes--hands raised, pinning the three fabrics together--looked so like praying. Religious correlatives crept into my mind, the joining of the three to make the one. As in the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit--another name for the Holy Spirit being the Comforter.
The parallels were lovely.
I was grateful for the opportunity to watch and learn this time, but also wishing I could join in somewhere.
That was when Ruth said, “Help me lift a dowel, Rachel.”
It was beginning to get to me--her capacity to appreciate and articulate the inner thoughts of those around her. It’s possible she was just very observant of body language and so other-directed that she can guess accurately what others are thinking, but rarely have I seen it so keen or constant.
Together, Ruth and I held one of the padded dowels in position, down low along one side of the waiting quilt. We’d pulled up chairs to sit on. Hannah and Gerry began pinning the quilt to the padding on the dowel, and then together the four of us rolled the heavy dowel up and placed it on one side of the rectangular table while Andrea and Abigail leaned their weight on the other side to keep the materials from slipping out of position.
We repeated this process on the other side. A few minutes later, as a group we lifted the two rolled dowels, careful to keep the quilt taut, and placed the whole thing onto the waiting saw horses.
At this point the setup ritual was interrupted. Victoria, head bowed, hands clasped in front of her in an attitude of prayer, said, “A moment of silence for she who is gone from us.”
The others followed her lead. We stood for a full minute this way.
Then the women took what I assumed were their regular seats at the rack. I ended up in the seat across from Victoria, with my back to the windows.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the seat of the woman I’d replaced. If it was, she had held a seat of honor—directly across from the leader.
At either end of the frame and behind the two middle seats on each side were four small wooden tables. Sewing materials had been placed on these, but they were big enough to handle cups and plates of food as well.
The quilters had fallen into quiet side conversations as they prepared to begin sewing and the scene suddenly seemed like a timeless snapshot of women creating together and cementing bonds of friendship and family.
I glanced across to either side of me taking in the open area of the quilt more closely. Visible now were parts of the central two rows of houses. Four paths could be seen, and I read the names in the middle of the quilt. They looked to be the parents of Victoria and Jake, and others from that generation. The quilt was facing me, so I would begin sewing at the bottom of Victoria and Jake’s house, and then finally over their children’s and grandchildren’s houses. There were no dates.
I can’t explain why I said what I did next—or the reaction my words drew.
“It looks like I’ll be sewing over your line of descent, Victoria, your children and grandchildren.”
All talking ceased and all eyes turned to me. Some of those eyes cast painful glances at me and at Victoria, others just looked away. Victoria’s fleshy face folded in a bulldog scowl and she looked down. I was painfully aware I had somehow misspoken. Was Victoria estranged from all of her children? Why would reference to them be so disturbing to the group? What was this dark secret I had unwittingly blundered across? My face turned beet red. I could feel it. Elixchel rescued me, with an explanation of how we would sew in a cross hatch pattern.
Chapter 5: Stitch by Tick
I was barely conscious of a clock striking seven times somewhere in the house. The women began to settle around the stretching frame, sipping and munching and threading their needles. Elixchel placed another log on the fire—an act so bizarre at the beginning of October I felt transported to some frozen Oz. But the chill night air was pressing through the windows behind me onto my back, so I was grateful.
On my side we sat Hannah, me, Gerry and Ruth. Across from us sat Andrea, Victoria, Abigail and Elixchel. The fit was tight at this stage, each of us having two and a half feet of space so we were shoulder to shoulder. The distance between the two rows of women was equally close, knee
to knee. The multi-colored quilt would be sewn in beige hand-quilting thread to match the background.
I found myself wiping my hands on my pants. I was nervous about my stitching. The others were silent, heads bowed. Were they readying themselves to begin or were they praying? I mirrored them.
Finally, Victoria broke the spell and placed her needle in the center, directly in front of me. Her gnarled hands were testaments to years of quilting and house work, and I caught myself looking down at my still relatively normal looking hands, wondering when mine would begin to swell and twist. When she had sewn about six inches of that line, Victoria secured the needle, and began another line of stitching on the left of the first. Minutes later she began a third line on the right. With each additional line Andrea and Abigail carefully smoothed the materials for Victoria. I watched in fascinated silence until she had sewn six inches toward herself on all twenty lines directly in front of her…and in front of me. At that point the two on each side of her began sewing their inner most line of stitching. Elixchel then smoothed the materials for Abigail, patiently waiting for her turn, as did the four of us on my side of the quilt.
“You can begin sewing now, Rachel,” Victoria prompted.
I did as I was instructed with my heart in my throat, following her stitching as closely as I could, and following the central line drawn on top of the material. As I sewed, Hannah and Geraldine assisted me by smoothing the material away from my work.
Hannah said, “Just so you have the big picture, Rachel, whenever we open the quilt another few feet we keep the fabric smooth by sewing sequentially like this. When we’ve finished the vertical lines, we’ll rewrap the quilt on the dowels and sew the horizontal lines. That direction will go much faster because the materials will have been well secured to each other, so we’ll be able to use the plastic stretchers on the sides. Don’t feel intimidated. Victoria sews faster than any of us. We have to wait for everyone to finish before we can open the quilt further, but the good news is those who finish earlier get longer naps. ”
I silently vowed not to be the slowest.
Eventually every woman was bent to the task, in silent concentration for the better part of an hour.
Chairs began scraping across the wooden floor as each woman reached a place where she could pull back, rest her shoulders and shake out her hands. Ruth pulled her chair slightly to one side, freeing up more elbow room for the rest of us. Andrea followed suit on her side of the quilt. It wasn’t until then that I realized everyone was right-handed.
Another hour passed. Through the large windows behind me I could hear the rain and wind battering the house as if trying to get in. The chill in the room testified to its partial success.
Ruth was fussing with the fireplace again. Elixchel was making the rounds with an old fashioned English teapot, refilling everyone’s cups. Very Colonial. Very romantic.
”She married badly, her husband is rich. She has way too much money. Too little to do with it.”
What? Who was Victoria talking about? I’d been lost deep in thought.
“Oh now, you’re not going to pick on me again, are you Victoria?” Geraldine Patrone whined good-naturedly. She’d just draped her leopard print jacket on the back of her chair, revealing a perfect figure. Underneath she wore a black spaghetti strap cami hemmed with lace that barely reached her leopard print pants. I wasn’t sure why, but she was getting away with this outrageous outfit and hair.
“Gerry, why don’t you share something about yourself so our newcomer can get to know us?” Ruth said.
Gerry looked at me and smiled warmly, “Okay, sure. So I’ll begin with the fact that Victoria is always picking on me because of where we live.”
“Rancho Santa Fe, yes. But not just where you live Gerry, how you live. And take that fool watch off before you snag something.”
My eyes went to her wrist. Good grief. The blond was wearing a pink mother-of-pearl watch with a gold lamé strap. The light playing on the face of the watch as she removed it and tossed it casually on the nearest tray, said diamonds. Right. So the Patrones were rich. Suddenly it hit me.
“Marshall Patrone?”
She looked at me with languid green eyes and a serene smile. “Yes.”
“My husband Matt has apoplexy watching your soccer team. He loves them.”
“Wonderful.”
I couldn’t wait to get home to Matt and tell him who I was sewing with. He’d be green. Emerald.
I would run to the bathroom and call him on my cell right this minute, but I didn’t want to violate the rules within my first three hours of knowing them. And apparently modern electronic conveniences were taboo.
Then again, he might be worried. Wondering if I’m safe. Okay, I must confess at this point that I broke the rules. That’s me.
Took a bathroom break. Took my purse. Called Matt.
“I knew you’d be worried, honey, so I called to let you know everything is okay. You won’t believe who’s a member of this sewing group.”
“Uh, we’re busy here, Rache.”
It was his night to host the poker players.
“You and the boys. Right. But just in case you’re bored, can’t think of anything to talk about, I’m sewing a quilt with the wife of Marshall Patrone.”
I waited.
“The Marshall Patrone?”
“Yes, the!”
“What’s that echo?” He never misses anything.
“I’m in the bathroom. We’re not supposed to use electronic equipment. Don’t ask.”
“Whatever. Just be sure to get an invite to dinner….”
“Rachel?” It was Elixchel at the bathroom door. “Uh-oh, I’ve been caught.” I hung up.
But all thoughts of meeting the billionaire owners of a major league sports team flew out the window when Ruth said, “This is a good choice as your last quilt, Victoria.”
Abigail gasped and looked around helplessly. Elixchel stared at the fireplace, her back arching. But Victoria’s only response was a sad nod of acceptance.
I saw this exchange as two old friends helping each other prepare for the inevitable. I saw it as the two older women preparing their young friends. I wasn’t really surprised at the remark, or the fact that it was indicating Victoria was going to die soon. Victoria was very old. And she was clearly suffering from some muscle or nerve disorder. Nevertheless, my mood sobered.
“How‘s your mother, Gerry?” Victoria said, turning us back to Gerry.
“She’s fine, still getting over the cold my four kids gave her on Labor Day, but otherwise fine. I wish she’d stop working, though. She comes home exhausted.”
“She loves nursing. Why should she stay home?”
“For one thing to help me with my kids,” the wild haired Geraldine answered, and grinned.
“You have tons of money. Hire some more people if you need to,” Victoria said. “And Tom, has he made Detective grade yet?”
“He’s working on it, maybe a little too hard,” Gerry said.
I asked, “Whose Tom?”
“My younger brother, Tom Beardsley. He’s an investigator with the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Department, on the cold case homicide team. He wants to break out of that into Homicide which means making grade to detective. But he needs something special to move him up.”
I made a mental note of the name, knowing Matt and I might run into him. It was always good to have a connection in the local Sheriff’s.
My mind began to wander, my focus narrowing to the fatigue in my fingers and thoughts of my mother when she was elderly. Until Abigail’s voice woke me.
“Now’s a good time to tell your story, Gerry.” Abigail said.
“I’m not sure I’m in full agreement with this,” Gerry began, “it could be uncomfortable…”
“What could be uncomfortable?” I asked.
“Abigail thinks we should modify our secret sharing this month, in honor of your joining us. Instead of telling our usual more current secrets, she suggested
we search our early childhoods for a secret, something we think helps to explain who we are. I’m frankly a little intimidated by the idea, however.” Gerry.
“Secret sharing?” I was sure my mouth was hanging open.
“That’s why we call ourselves The Quilted Secrets…didn’t Hannah explain? It helps to pass the time if we get really into each other’s secret lives…private tidbits about lovers and husbands. The low-down on our jobs and how miserable we all are in them.” Andrea.
“We’re not all unhappy with our jobs. I loved being a teacher.” Gerry.
“…and health problems, recent alcohol and drug abuse episodes, any strange rashes we may have…”
My attention slid back to Andrea. She was really a little devil, wasn’t she? I smiled at her.
“That’s not true!” Abigail said. “Really all we do is catch each other up on the events of our recent month. But you’re just starting, so you can’t really play catch up can you, Rachel?”
“Oh, I don’t know…feels like I’m playing catch up right now. Are you still teaching, Gerry?” She shook her head no.
A butterfly briefly launched in my stomach. What kind of a story could I tell about my childhood? At least I wasn’t going first.
“It’s more because…” Abigail looked quickly at Victoria, who was sewing with her head down, pretending she didn’t know they were glancing at her.
“It’s because our group is…changing. And the way you guys talk about the group, of being really tight and sewing together for so many years.
“I’d like us to become friends, become a band of sisters…like Victoria had.”
Ruth and Victoria continued to pretend they were deaf. And I got it. It wasn’t such a bad idea really. I must have smiled.
“Okay, she’s cool. So stop stalling, tell us a secret from when you were little, something terrible,” Abigail said to Gerry.
“Terrible? Wow, something just popped into my head.” She paused for effect. “My mother bit me when I was little, only three, I think. I remember it vividly.”
Ada Unraveled Page 4