The Quilter's Legacy

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  She entered the shop eagerly, pausing only to return a saleswoman's greeting. Over the shelves of fabric, notions, and books hung quilts of all different sizes and patterns. Her first glance took in Irish Chains, samplers, and children's appliqué quilts—and one Ocean Waves. Her heart quickened as she made her way through the aisles toward it, but she was still half a room away when she realized this was not her mother's quilt. While the ecru background fabric could have been mistaken for aged white cloth, the other triangles were green, purple, and black as well as blue, and the quilting had been completed by machine. She continued across the room with a sinking heart, knowing a closer look would reveal the same disappointing truth.

  “Do you like it?” asked the saleswoman. “It's available as a pattern or a kit.”

  “It's lovely, but no thank you, dear. You wouldn't happen to have any other Ocean Waves quilts, would you? An antique, perhaps?”

  She knew before the woman shook her head what the answer would be. Sylvia thanked her and pretended to study a nearby bolt of fabric as the saleswoman returned to the cutting table. How on earth could anyone have mistaken this modern quilt for her mother's? Even someone unfamiliar with the intricacies of quilting should not have missed the obvious differences. After all, blue was blue, not purple or green or black. Honestly.

  She soothed her indignation with a bit of fabric shopping, so by the time Andrew came back, her good humor had returned. When Andrew eyed her shopping bag askance as she climbed into the motor home, she protested, “I could hardly visit a new quilt shop without buying something.”

  “I guess not. By the look of it, you didn't do too much damage.”

  “That's because the rest of my bags are around back at the loading dock.”

  A look of such alarm appeared on Andrew's face that Sylvia burst out laughing. He grinned sheepishly. “You had me going there for a minute.”

  “Well, Summer's friend from the Internet had me going.” She told him what the search of the store had yielded. “I had such high hopes for this visit, much higher than warranted, obviously. I hate to think I'll be forced to investigate every single Ocean Waves quilt in the country simply because people can't read descriptions carefully enough.”

  “They're probably so eager to help, they'd rather raise a false alarm than pass over a potentially important clue,” said Andrew. “But if you buy consolation fabric each time we hit a dead end, we'll have to add another wing to the manor to store it all.”

  Sylvia laughed, and they drove on for a while, lost in their own thoughts.

  “What do you say we stop soon?” Andrew suddenly asked.

  “For supper?”

  “For the night.”

  “But it's only four o'clock.”

  Andrew shrugged. “If you don't want to—”

  “No, no, that's all right. You're the driver. If you're—” She almost said tired, but she caught herself. Andrew wouldn't like her to believe him so easily fatigued. “—bored, we can stop.”

  “I didn't say I was bored. Who could be bored with you around?”

  Sylvia decided to take that as a compliment—and to be direct with him. If they were going to be married, she had the right to straight answers. “Well, then, what is it? I like a leisurely drive with pleasant company as much as the next person, but you're dawdling, as much as it is possible to dawdle in a motor home on the interstate. Are you feeling poorly? The drive seems to be taxing you more than usual.”

  “The drive doesn't bother me as long as the weather's good.”

  “I see. Then the only logical explanation is that you don't want to get to California any sooner than necessary.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don't tease me with the innocent act. I know you too well. You're not in any hurry to tell your son we're getting married.” She sat back in her seat and folded her arms. “If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were getting cold feet.”

  “What? After I hung in there all those years, still hoping, still proposing, even though you kept turning me down and ordered me not to ask you again?”

  “You probably thought I'd never say yes, so it was perfectly safe to keep asking. It required absolutely no courage on your part.”

  “I'm not getting cold feet. They aren't even lukewarm. And you're wrong about my driving, too. This so-called dawdling is just your imagination.”

  “I can tell time and count miles,” she retorted, but Andrew just shook his head and smiled. Still, he drove on well into evening before asking her if she wanted to stop for supper. This time she was the one who had had enough of the road for one day, but he seemed more than willing to stop for the night after she suggested it.

  It was not her night to check in, but Sylvia called home anyway to report that their search of Fiddlesticks Quilts had turned up nothing. Sarah thought that the search might be made easier if Sylvia had pictures of the quilts to show, so she offered to send several printouts of Summer's computer illustrations to Andrew's son's home.

  When Sylvia asked if they had received any more responses to their posts on the Missing Quilts Home Page, Sarah told her that they had—two more sightings of the whole cloth quilt. “Mary Beth Callahan phoned this morning, too,” she added. “She gave us the name and address of the auction house that bought the Elms and Lilacs quilt from her mother.”

  “That's wonderful news,” said Sylvia. “And very welcome, too, after today's disappointment.”

  “Mary Beth said her grandmother also bought quilts at a consignment shop in downtown Waterford. She thought Claudia might have sold some of your mother's quilts through them, too. The shop closed in the sixties, but the owner's son still lives in Waterford. He runs the coffee shop on the square in downtown Waterford.”

  “I'll get in touch with him as soon as I return,” said Sylvia. “I wouldn't have believed it of Mary Beth, but she turned out to be quite helpful after all. Don't tell Diane or she'll be terribly disappointed.”

  The next morning, they continued their journey at the usual pace, and Andrew gave Sylvia no more reason to suspect him of deliberately delaying their arrival. A few days later, they drove through the rocky, sun-browned hills of the Santa Monica Mountains into Santa Susana. They left the freeway and passed neighborhoods of houses with stucco walls and red tile roofs. Sylvia had visited Andrew's son and his family several times before, but she still had not become accustomed to the small lots separated by high fences, and the houses seemed rather crowded together.

  Andrew parked the motor home in the driveway of his son's ranch house and sat for a moment before rousing himself and helping Sylvia down from her seat. “Don't look so grim or they'll think we have bad news,” she teased as they carried their suitcases to the front door. They heard happy shouts from within, and before they could knock, the door swung open.

  “Grandpa,” cried ten-year-old Kayla as she burst outside, her strawberry blond ponytail streaming out behind her. She flung her arms around Andrew. “What took you so long?”

  Andrew gave her a hug so strong Kayla's toes lifted off the ground. “I missed you, too, sweetheart.”

  “Be careful, Kayla.” Andrew's daughter-in-law appeared in the doorway, a red pencil tucked behind her ear as if she had been interrupted while grading papers. “You'll knock Grandpa over.”

  “No, I won't.” Kayla released her grandfather and peered shyly at Sylvia. “We have more oranges so you can pick your own for breakfast, like last time.”

  “How thoughtful of you to have them ready for me,” said Sylvia. “I've never had better oranges than those you grow here. You've spoiled me for anything from the grocery store.”

  Kayla grinned as another strawberry-blond girl squeezed past her mother. “Hi, Grandpa.”

  Andrew's eyebrows shot up, and Sylvia suspected hers had, too. When last they saw Angela, she had worn her hair cut short, and it was all her parents could do to get her to wear anything but gym clothes and basketball shoes. In the few months since their last visit, Angela h
ad gained at least two inches in height, had grown her hair past her shoulders, and had discovered lip gloss and nail polish. She wore a silver ring around one of her bare toes, tight white Capri pants with the waistband folded down to expose her navel, and some sort of halter top that had more in common with a bathing suit than any blouse Sylvia had ever worn.

  “Angela, that is a sports bra, which means it belongs under a shirt, not in place of one,” said Cathy wearily. “And pull up your pants or I'll do it for you.”

  Grumbling, Angela took Andrew's and Sylvia's suitcases and disappeared into the house. “What happened?” asked Andrew in a low voice as Cathy ushered her guests inside.

  “An unfortunate collision of interests in boys and Britney Spears. Honestly, I don't know what to do with her sometimes.”

  Sylvia figured any young woman thoughtful enough to carry their suitcases without being asked was far from a truant, but she refrained from saying so. She had not raised any children, so it was not her place to offer unsolicited observations.

  Cathy led them through the house and out a sliding glass door to the back patio, which overlooked the steep, scrub-covered sides of Wildwood Canyon. Kayla brought them both tall glasses of lemonade—freshly squeezed, with lemons from their own tree, she told Sylvia proudly—and a more modestly attired Angela soon joined them, carrying a flat cardboard mailer. “This came for you yesterday,” she said, and handed the parcel to Sylvia.

  “Summer's pictures, I presume,” said Sylvia, noting the return address as she opened the package. Inside she found computer-generated illustrations of the five missing quilts, ten copies of each. She told Cathy and her daughters about the search, but despite her own pessimistic predictions about the likelihood of finding even one of the quilts, she found herself painting a much rosier picture for her listeners. She managed to recast her disappointment in Boulder City as an opportunity for sightseeing they otherwise would have missed, and made pursuing the other Internet tips seem like an intriguing quest.

  Cathy was not convinced. “Isn't that a lot of driving around for something you might not find?”

  Andrew shrugged. “We like to travel, so we'd be on the road anyway.”

  “Maybe now, but it's going to be winter soon. What if you don't find the quilts before then?”

  “They've been missing a long time,” said Sylvia with a laugh. “I'm certainly not going to quit looking for them after only a few months.”

  At that, Cathy seemed even less at ease, but she smiled when Andrew teased her and promised they wouldn't risk their lives in a blizzard or any other natural disaster for a quilt.

  Sylvia set the pictures aside and admired the view of the canyon as they caught up on the news since their last visit. Kayla's inquisitive sweetness was thoroughly charming, and once Angela forgot her affectations of adolescent disinterest, she became as friendly and engaging as her sister. Sylvia suddenly realized that soon she would be related to these girls, and to their parents. For so many years she had mourned the passing of her family, but once she married Andrew, she would gain another. She would be a stepmother, of all things, and a stepgrandmother. She wondered if Kayla and Angela would call her Grandma or if they would feel that would dishonor their real grandmother's memory. Sylvia thought she would like to be called Grandma, and she wondered how she would go about suggesting it.

  When Bob returned home from work, he greeted his father with a joke and a hearty embrace and had a hug and kiss for Sylvia, too. Andrew's son was a taller, sturdier version of his father, with the same warmth and gentleness, the same ready grin. He pulled up a chair, eager to hear about their trip, but before long Cathy reminded him that Andrew and Sylvia were probably hungry after their long drive. Bob promised them a home-cooked meal that would beat anything they could whip up in that motor home. “Would you believe he sold our childhood home to buy that thing?” he asked Sylvia. “All so he could wander the country and make us look bad.”

  The girls laughed, and Andrew said, “Make who look bad?”

  “Me and Amy, of course.” Bob crossed the patio to light the grill. “People think we won't take in our homeless father.”

  “I'm not homeless,” Andrew called after him. “My home's in Pennsylvania.”

  “But, Dad …” Cathy hesitated. “That's Sylvia's home, isn't it? And you can't really call your RV a home.”

  Bob added, “What Cathy means is—well, we know we've been through this before, but it can't hurt to try again. You know we'd be honored if you'd consider making our house your home.”

  Cathy leaned over to Sylvia and confided, “We hoped you would help us convince him.”

  Speechless, Sylvia could only raise her eyebrows at Cathy. Before she could fumble for a response, Kayla squealed, “You mean Grandpa's moving in?”

  Cathy reached over to settle her down. “We have to discuss it first.”

  “There's nothing to discuss,” said Andrew.

  Bob returned to the table and rested his hands on his wife's shoulders, his handsome face creased in concern. “Dad, you know you can't stay on the road forever, and when that time comes, you'll want to be with family.”

  “Sylvia's home is my home,” declared Andrew, missing Sylvia's warning look, “and she's going to be my family, too, as much as you are, so you can stop this nonsense about moving in. I love you very much, but I already have a home and I like it just fine.”

  Bob and Cathy stared at him.

  Sylvia sighed and gazed heavenward, wishing Diane were present to break the shocked silence with a witticism.

  Andrew shifted in his seat and reached for his lemonade, but did not drink. “This wasn't how I planned to tell you.”

  A slow smile of delight spread over Angela's face. “Grandpa, are you getting married?”

  Andrew took Sylvia's hand, glanced at his son, and said, “Yes, sweetheart, we are.”

  Angela and Kayla burst into cheers. They bolted from their chairs and showered Andrew with hugs and kisses. “Can I be a bridesmaid?” asked Kayla. “Please? My best friend was one in her mother's wedding, and she got to wear the prettiest dress.”

  “Don't ask me. I'm not in charge of the bridesmaids. Ask the bride here.”

  Kayla turned to Sylvia, hopeful. “Can I? Please? I'll do a good job.”

  “I'm sure you would,” said Sylvia, wanting to add that she wasn't certain she was any more in charge of the bridesmaids than Andrew. Likely that role now belonged to Diane or one of the other Elm Creek Quilters. She wanted to assure the girls that they would play an important role in the ceremony, but at the moment she was more concerned about Bob and Cathy, who sat silent and immobile in their chairs.

  “I suppose this comes as a bit of a surprise,” said Sylvia.

  “Maybe a little,” Cathy managed to say.

  Andrew's expression grew serious. “Thank you for your good wishes, girls,” he said to his granddaughters. “Sylvia and I know this is unexpected, but we also know you care about us and our happiness, and so even if this is unsettling, you're going to be happy for us.”

  “It's not unsettling,” said Kayla.

  Bob patted Cathy lightly on the shoulders until she also rose. “Congratulations, Dad,” said Bob, rounding the table to hug his father. As Cathy embraced Andrew in turn, Bob hugged Sylvia and lightly kissed her cheek. She thanked him, but as he drew back to allow Cathy to hug her, Sylvia thought she saw tears shining in his eyes. When Bob abruptly announced he was going inside for the steaks, Cathy stammered an excuse and hastened after him.

  Sylvia smiled brightly at Andrew. “That went well.”

  Andrew managed a rueful smile. “Now you know why I wanted to tell them in person.”

  “Oh, my, yes. The look on your son's face when he heard the news is sure to become one of our fondest memories of our engagement.”

  “I like the part where they ran into the house better,” said Angela. When Andrew and Sylvia looked at her, she added, “What? It's not like I don't know why they're freaking out.”
/>
  “They're not freaking out,” said Kayla, a trifle too forcefully, then asked, “Is everything going to be okay?”

  “It will be,” said Sylvia, when Andrew said nothing. “Once everyone has a chance to get used to the idea.”

  They all turned at the sound of the screen door sliding open. Cathy and Bob returned to the patio, their expressions somber, and the steaks nowhere to be seen. “Girls, will you please go to the kitchen and fix the salad?” asked Cathy. The girls nodded and hurried inside.

  “Dad.” Bob sat down beside Andrew. “I'm sorry for my reaction. Really. I'm very happy for you. For both of you.”

  “We should have known you two would have other plans,” added Cathy, with an apologetic smile for Sylvia. “You've grown so close over the years.”

  “We also should have known you wouldn't want to move in with us,” said Bob. He forced a laugh. “In a way I'm glad. We won't have to give up the computer room.”

  “But—” Cathy hesitated.

  Andrew's eyebrows rose. “But?”

  Cathy steeled herself with a deep breath. “This isn't easy to say—”

  “Then maybe you should keep it to yourself.”

  “Dad, have you really thought this thing through?” said Bob. “I mean, you and Sylvia are both in good health now, but what if she—if either of you—well, what if your circumstances change? Have you thought about what that will mean?”

  Andrew looked from Bob to Cathy and back, his expression darkening. “Are you trying to say we're too old to get married?”

  “No,” said Cathy. She and Bob avoided looking at Sylvia. “Of course you're not.”

  Sylvia heard the inadvertent emphasis on the word “you're,” and stiffened.

  “Our wedding vows will say ‘in sickness and in health,’ same as yours.” Abruptly Andrew rose. “We're going to make those vows, and keep them, the same as you. Whether you like it or not.”

  He stormed into the house, closing the sliding door with a bang.

  “I wish I could put your minds at ease,” said Sylvia. “Your father and I visit our doctors regularly and we're both fit as fiddles. I certainly wouldn't marry Andrew if I thought I would become a burden to him.”