Elm Creek Quilts [06] The Master Quilter

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Summer looked up as the bell over the front door jingled and two more shoppers entered carrying bulging totes. Three more women followed close behind. “Mary Beth is responsible for this?” asked Summer, thrilled but disbelieving.

  Diane snorted. “Seems like a guilty conscience at work to me.”

  Summer shot her a questioning look, but Diane said nothing more, so Summer let it go. Diane would never believe any good could come from her longtime nemesis.

  The bell over the door jingled again, and Summer felt a spark of hope kindle. With the donations, and with the support of the guild, they might be able to pull it off.

  She longed to tell Jeremy.

  Gwen suppressed her guilt as she raced through the last batch of papers, telling herself that at least she was reading and scoring them herself instead of dumping the job on one of her grad students. Between her day job, quilt camp, and volunteering at the whirlwind Grandma’s Attic had become, she was stretched to her limit.

  A knock sounded on her door. “Not now,” she called, glancing at the clock in annoyance. It was time for Jules’s weekly conference about his dissertation, but she had warned him to stay away.

  “Dr. Sullivan?”

  The voice was familiar; she halted in the middle of scrawling a pithy remark about a student’s disjointed syllogism and said, “Jeremy?”

  “May I speak with you, please?”

  She hesitated only a moment before telling him to come in. He entered, unshaven and grim, and took the chair she offered. “Unless you’re still looking for the required nondepartmental advisor for your dissertation committee, I assume you want to talk about Summer,” she said gently. “I should warn you I’m biased beyond redemption in her favor on every conceivable topic.”

  “I’d talk to Summer instead, but she won’t speak to me.”

  Me either, Gwen thought, but asked, “Did you have a fight?”

  “Yes. Maybe. It’s hard to say.” He ran a hand through his dark, unruly curls. “We were discussing the break-in when she started tearing into Craig—who deserved every word of it—but then she accused me of being just like him. She said I want to interfere with her career success just as Craig does Bonnie’s.”

  Gwen felt a pang. Jeremy was nothing like Craig, and Summer knew it. “I imagine you didn’t take that well.”

  “That’s a safe assumption. I defended myself, which was a mistake. When I tried to find out what was really bothering her, she ran to her room and starting throwing clothes into a duffel bag.” His frown deepened. “That’s the short version.”

  Edited, no doubt, for Gwen’s ears. “What would you have me do?”

  “I’m not asking you to be my advocate. I don’t expect you to plead my case. But if you could just get her to talk to me, I would be very grateful. Tell her that I would never ask her to leave Waterford. Tell her that I would never expect her to sacrifice everything she’s built with Elm Creek Quilts.”

  “But Jeremy,” Gwen said, “you know very well that one day you’re going to leave Waterford.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  Gwen frowned and shook her head. “We both know how the system works. If you want a tenure-track position, you have to look elsewhere.”

  “Then I won’t get a tenure-track position. I can still research and write no matter where I live, no matter what my day job is.”

  “Jeremy—”

  “I mean it. This is not the desperate plea of a lovesick kid. We both know there’s no one else like Summer in the world, and for some reason she loves me. I am not going to throw that away.”

  “It’s just as unfair for her to ask you to sacrifice your career as it is for you to ask it of her.”

  “Sometimes life isn’t about what’s fair. Sometimes it’s about what’s right. There are an infinite number of jobs in the world, but only one Summer. I’m not going to lose her.”

  Gwen studied him. She could wait a lifetime and never hear anyone make such an expression of love and commitment to her daughter. Summer at least ought to know that.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll talk to her.”

  Judy looked up from her computer at a knock on her office door. “Do you have time for lunch?” asked Gwen, oddly subdued.

  Judy quickly switched on her screen saver to conceal her letter of resignation. She was just toying with it; it wasn’t as if she had made up her mind. For every advantage to accepting the job she found an equally compelling reason to remain where she was. “I’m afraid not,” she said, but Gwen seemed so morose that she added, “I have to finish up some work before heading over to Grandma’s Attic, and then I’m teaching at Elm Creek Manor until evening. But I have time for a chat.”

  Gwen took her usual chair, unzipped the quilted batik jacket she had completed in one of Bonnie’s workshops, and frowned at the floor. Suddenly she looked up and said, “Do you think I’ve held Summer back?”

  “Held her back? What do you mean?”

  “Do you think I’ve frightened her away from life? From leaving Waterford, from having an enduring relationship with a man, from, well, everything?”

  Carefully, Judy said, “I think Summer has accomplished quite a lot considering she’s still in her twenties. And it’s not unusual for a child of divorce to be wary of commitment.”

  “I know that.” Gwen shifted in her seat, and for a moment she seemed close to tears. “But sometimes I look at her and I see someone just going through the motions, someone who’s finished what she set out to do and is now just marking time.”

  “She seems as enthusiastic about Elm Creek Quilts as ever.”

  “I’m not so sure. She puts her whole heart into her work because that’s her nature. She never does anything indifferently. But sometimes I think her enthusiasm is largely manufactured because she doesn’t want to feel like she’s letting the rest of us down.” Gwen hesitated and said, “Did I ever tell you I persuaded her to go to Waterford College instead of Stanford?”

  Speechless, Judy shook her head.

  “I did, and you’re the only one who knows it but me. And maybe Summer, but I’m not sure. I manipulated her so carefully that even now she might not realize that the decision was more mine than hers.” Gwen inhaled deeply. “I felt so horrible afterward, even as I rejoiced in knowing I would have her another four years, that I swore I would make it up to her for graduate school. Then when the time came, she turned down a full ride to Penn.”

  “That was her choice,” said Judy. “She wanted to stay at Elm Creek Quilts and Grandma’s Attic.”

  “But I’ll never know if she made that decision because it’s what she truly wanted or because I had finally convinced her that she couldn’t survive anywhere but here.”

  Judy shook her head. “Summer seems too confident for those sorts of doubts.”

  “Maybe.” Gwen did not look as if she believed it. “I’d like to think so. But even if remaining in Waterford was the best place for her at the time, that doesn’t mean it still is. What troubles me most is that she seems afraid to find out.”

  “It’s never easy to leave the people and places you love,” said Judy softly. “Even to pursue a dream. Change can be frightening. Severing ties with friends and family can be worse.”

  “Summer would never sever her ties with me or with anyone at Elm Creek Manor,” said Gwen. “They would stretch, but they would never break, no matter how far away she goes.”

  “That doesn’t make it any easier. What if she takes a risk and realizes it was a terrible mistake? A place that seems so perfect from a distance might be filled with dangers she missed at first glance. She might find that she’s not as capable as she thought, and fail utterly at the job she’s longed for.”

  Gwen barked out a laugh. “I can’t imagine Summer failing utterly at anything. She would find a way to succeed even if it didn’t come as easily as she had anticipated. All the Elm Creek Quilters are like that. We couldn’t have built Elm Creek Quilts otherwise.”

  “But we had
one another.”

  “Summer will have us in her heart and mind wherever she goes. Besides, if she leaves Waterford, I doubt she’ll be going alone.” Gwen rose and zipped up her jacket, her familiar grin restored. “And if it doesn’t work out, if she does fail utterly, she can always come home. She’ll always be an Elm Creek Quilter.”

  “You’re right.” Judy returned her smile, tears in her eyes. “It’s a lifetime position. We can’t quit, or retire, or be disbarred. And thank goodness for that.”

  “Don’t get all misty yet. We’re talking about my kid, not yours. You won’t have to go through this for years.”

  Judy laughed. “You never know.”

  “I don’t even know what Summer’s going to do,” admitted Gwen, “but I want her to follow her heart, even if it leads her away from me. Telling her so will be the least selfish thing I’ve ever done. I hope I can withstand it.”

  Judy hugged her and wished her luck, and then Gwen left. Alone again, she sat down at the computer and thought.

  Then she touched fingers to keyboard and finished the letter.

  Hours after her mother left, Summer sat looking out the window of her guest suite at the moonlit lawn of Elm Creek Manor. She did not like to think of herself as afraid, just as she did not like to accept that her mother had persuaded her to stay in Waterford out of her own fear of loneliness. But as much as she might like to, she could not ignore the plain and heartfelt truth of her mother’s words.

  There was so much Summer longed to accomplish, so much of the world she longed to see. She still loved Elm Creek Quilts and was proud of all she had done there, but she felt as if she had finished the task she had set out for herself and was impatient to move on to the next.

  She touched her forehead to the glass pane and smiled ruefully. She loved quilting, she enjoyed teaching, and she had relished the challenge of nurturing a business from a dream into reality. Why did she feel something was missing? Why did she keep wondering what was next and feeling disappointed at the thought of a settled, pleasant routine? Sure, as long as she stayed at Elm Creek Manor it would be more of the same, but wasn’t that a good thing?

  Wasn’t she crazy to think of giving this up for something that might not be as good as what she already had? Even if that meant—or especially if that meant—leaving Waterford with Jeremy?

  Summer sighed and left the window. She pulled a hooded sweatshirt and pair of sweats over the long T-shirt she usually slept in and padded down the hallway in her stocking feet. Muffled laughter came from behind closed doors as campers gathered with their new friends to share quilting secrets and confidences. A light shone from the crack beneath the library door; inside Sarah was working on the computer, as Summer had expected. They were all keeping late hours to compensate for their shifts at Grandma’s Attic.

  Sarah looked up and smiled sympathetically. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “No.” Summer curled up on one of the sofas in the center of the room in front of Sarah’s desk.

  “Worried about the sale?”

  “Not really. We saw more customers today and yesterday than in the last two months combined, and our inventory is fine. The donations from the quilt guild members have filled half the shelves and they’re still coming in.”

  “So are the quilt blocks, I hear.”

  Summer nodded. In a few months, if the Elm Creek Quilters made several blocks each, they might even be able to make Sylvia and Andrew a nice lap quilt. The loss of the quilt blocks and their stories from Sylvia’s friends and admirers worldwide, though, could not be remedied. No one yet had thought of how to tell the contributors about the theft. It was an unpleasant task they were all willing to postpone. Eventually it would probably fall to Sarah, who was typically the one among them most willing to plunge ahead with necessary work they would rather avoid. Summer wished she possessed a fraction of Sarah’s determination.

  “Sarah,” she asked, “how did you decide to leave your job in State College to follow Matt to Waterford?”

  “It wasn’t that difficult. I wasn’t terribly enamored of my old job.”

  “You thought enough of it to keep it. You weren’t looking for a new job in State College.”

  “That’s true,” admitted Sarah. “Well, Matt had been out of work for months and was growing more depressed every day. How could I say no when he finally found something?”

  “Because it meant giving up your career without knowing if you’d find anything in Waterford. That’s a fairly big chance to take for someone else.”

  “It wasn’t just for him. It was for me, too. I wouldn’t have felt happier if I had chosen the certainty of my old job over what Matt needed. Safer, yes, but not happier.” Sarah shrugged. “It’s just something you do when you’re married.”

  “You mean it’s something women do for their husbands when they’re married.”

  “No, not in our case. He would have done the same for me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Sarah considered. “Yes. I am. That probably made my choice easier. I won’t pretend I didn’t have misgivings occasionally. There were times I was sure I had made the worst mistake of my life moving to Waterford. I’m sure Matt felt the same way when we first moved into Elm Creek Manor and tried to launch the quilt camp.”

  Summer thought back on some of the couple’s all-too-obvious arguments during the early years of Elm Creek Quilts and had to agree.

  “It was a risk giving up security for the unknown,” said Sarah, spreading both arms to indicate the entire manor and everything the Elm Creek Quilters had established there. “But if I hadn’t taken that risk, I never would have found my dream. I never would have known how much more I was capable of doing with my life.”

  “You took a leap of faith right off a cliff,” said Summer.

  “But I eventually landed on my feet.” Sarah smiled. “And you will, too.”

  On Friday evening, Bonnie waited two hours past the usual closing time for the last customer to leave before locking the door and turning the sign in the window to CLOSED. Judy and Diane, the last volunteer shift of the last day of the sale, had already begun cleaning up, although the store was so bare there was little to do except sweep the floor and carry empty boxes outside to the recycling bins.

  Judy and Diane wanted to stay and celebrate the success of the sale. Indeed, thanks to the windfall of donations from the Waterford Quilting Guild, Bonnie estimated that they had earned at least twice the amount of her most optimistic projections—and that was without selling the lightbulbs and bookcases. Until she completed her final calculations, though, she would not know if a celebration was in order.

  She sent Judy and Diane home and, from their disappointed expressions, she knew they had hoped to stay and wait for the results of her accounting. She understood, but she guided them to the door and told them she would let them know at the Farewell Breakfast the next morning.

  Then she filled her mug with the last of the coffee and set herself to work.

  It took hours, but eventually she tallied the entire income from the sale and deducted all her outstanding expenses. She double-checked her calculations to be sure she had arrived at the correct figure.

  She was tempted to check them a third time, but it was nearly midnight and her eyes were tearing from lack of sleep and too much time at the computer. Besides, the first two totals matched.

  There was no mistaking it: After paying off her last creditor, she would have exactly $56.48 left. She would not have to declare bankruptcy.

  But she would have to close Grandma’s Attic.

  Agnes was the first to know, and Bonnie didn’t even have to tell her. All she did was walk in the front door and Agnes understood. Agnes hugged her and offered her a cup of tea, but Bonnie reminded her of their early appointment at Elm Creek Manor the next morning and went off to bed.

  She told the others in passing as she saw them at the Farewell Breakfast the next day. Some, like Judy, seemed heartbroken; others, like Sarah, were angr
y. All asked if she was absolutely sure, if the last option had been exhausted, if there was not some chance, however small, that she could keep the shop open. Her reply was always the same: Unless some miracle struck within the next few hours, Grandma’s Attic would not reopen for business.

  No miracle came, and it was not until she left Elm Creek Manor in her reclaimed car that she remembered she could still turn in Michael to the police and collect the insurance money. Grandma’s Attic would remain closed while she waited for their check to clear, and she would still need to find a way to cover that exorbitant rent, but eventually she would be back in business.

  If she could bring herself to do it.

  Instead she drove downtown to the University Realty office building. She went inside and asked to speak to Gregory Krolich. Upon learning he was in a meeting, she left a message: Bonnie Markham will not be renewing her lease. She was halfway down the front stairs when Krolich bounded after her and invited her back inside for coffee and a doughnut while they took care of the paperwork.

  The transaction was less painful than she had anticipated. Indeed, she felt numb; she realized that the pain would hit her later, preferably when she was back at Agnes’s house, where she could cry and rant and rave, and dear Agnes would sympathize and allow her to drown her sorrows in infinite cups of tea.

  Next she drove to her old building—already it seemed a part of her past—and parked in what had once been her usual spot. Craig answered the buzzer so quickly that he must have heard her pull up.

  The door buzzed and unlocked; he met her at the top of the stairs, blocking the doorway to the home they had once shared. “So, you brought the car back?” he said, eyeing her warily.

  She shook her head. “Not until the lawyers say I have to.”

  Craig scowled. “What do you want, then? If you’re here to divide up the rest of our stuff—”

  “I’m here to sign the papers.”

  At first he just gaped at her. Then a light of immense satisfaction arose in his eyes. “Wait here and I’ll get them.”