The Christmas Boutique

by Jennifer Chiaverini

And in her troubled son’s life as well.

  She yearned to see Brent, to take him in her arms as he had not really tolerated since middle school, to offer whatever comfort he would accept. He said he was doing fine and she wanted to believe him, but she would worry and doubt until she could see him and judge for herself. He had not been home since he had left for Penn State. They had spent the Thanksgiving holiday together, but not in Waterford. She and Roger had picked up Brent at Geary Hall, the family had spent the four-day weekend at Roger’s mother’s house in Johnstown, and they had dropped him off at the dorm on their return journey Sunday afternoon. He would be coming home soon, a week from Friday, after he finished his final exams. But as wonderful as it would be to have him home for the holidays, Mary Beth felt a pang of anxiety, knowing he would not be the same young man who had walked out their front door in August. Her friends had warned her to expect changes: more maturity, a new independence, perhaps frustration or annoyance if they expected him to follow the old household rules that had not bound him at college. Mary Beth would not mind any of that. What she feared to find in her son was a new despondency, insecurity, self-doubt.

  He needed rest and unconditional love. The latter she would gladly give, but although he would have weekends as well as Christmas Eve and Christmas, New Year’s Day, and the interim free, he would spend the rest of his semester break working off his debt at Elm Creek Manor. Although camp was not in session in the winter, Sylvia and her caretaker, Matt McClure, had assured her that there were plenty of other projects that needed attention on the estate. Privately Diane had told Mary Beth that Matt had fairly routine maintenance in mind, and Brent could expect to be very well fed at lunchtime, but Mary Beth still had misgivings.

  “It’ll be good for him,” Roger assured her. “He’ll feel better after he’s paid his debt to society.”

  “You make him sound like a hardened criminal,” Mary Beth said, choking up, but she admitted Roger made a fair point.

  She longed to accompany her husband when he drove down to Penn State to collect their son, but she had promised to help with the Good Shepherd Christmas Boutique, and the first day of the sale conflicted with the trip. And she could not shirk her duties, she told herself firmly as she pulled into the parking lot next to a red SUV she recognized as Nancy Reinhart’s despite the thin blanket of snow that had accumulated on the roof and the hood. Someone had shoveled the parking lot earlier, but evidence of the work was steadily disappearing.

  Shivering, she set the parking brake, climbed out of her car, and carefully made her way to the church’s side entrance that the custodian always left unlocked for the committee. Inside, she wiped her feet on the mat and shook snow from her hair and coat before joining the rest of the committee in the small meeting room just off the main vestibule. She returned Nancy’s nod of welcome and took a seat, exchanging brief greetings with the other women and the lone man on the committee. She was not the last to arrive; she had just settled in with her notepad and pen when Melanie Tibbs hurried in, breathless and red-cheeked. “It’s getting bad out there already,” she said, shrugging out of her coat but leaving her red wool scarf in place.

  “Then we’ll keep this brief and to the point,” said Nancy, and she called the meeting to order.

  They took care of the most essential items on the agenda first: documents that needed official signatures, pending issues that required a vote in quorum. Chairs of various subcommittees spoke next, presenting their reports efficiently since no one wanted to prolong the meeting with questions that could be addressed just as easily via email later. The snow continued to fall thick and fast outside the window, and sudden, strong gusts of wind whistled in the eaves and made the old building shudder.

  It was all very distracting, but Mary Beth’s attention snapped into focus when the agenda came to the Christmas Boutique. “Everything’s coming together beautifully,” said Nancy, with great satisfaction, “better than any year in recent memory. Contributions are up, and our volunteer list is nearly full.”

  “If you still need anyone to take extra shifts, I can manage a few any time Thursday for setup, and for sales or food service Friday and Saturday morning,” said Mary Beth, torn between wanting to help and needing to spend as much time as possible with her son.

  Nancy smiled. “Thanks, Mary Beth, but our only openings are when you’re already scheduled, a consequence of your signing up for more shifts than anyone else.” The others smiled indulgently at her.

  They were so friendly and kind, one would think they knew nothing of her family’s troubles, of her failures as a mother. “If anything opens up, let me know,” she said. If she could atone for what she had done and do everything right in the future, perhaps eventually everyone truly would forgive and forget. All she had to do was be extremely careful to make no more serious mistakes.

  Next, as chair of the environmental-impact subcommittee, Melanie reported that the church’s efforts to conserve energy and to be more environmentally conscious were yielding promising results. As an aside, and with a wary glance to the window, she added, “Since most church events will be canceled due to the storm, before we leave, we should be sure to turn out all the lights in the community hall and set the thermostat a few degrees lower. That’ll keep the building sufficiently warm without overheating empty rooms.”

  Everyone murmured agreement, and Nancy quickly moved on through the rest of the agenda as the thick snowflakes fell ever more swiftly past the window.

  Concluding in haste, the committee members rose and began pulling on their coats even as Nancy was adjourning the meeting. They hastened to the exit, warning one another to drive carefully, especially when rounding that sharp curve on College Avenue. Suddenly Melanie called out from the doorway, as a gust of wind nearly slammed the heavy door closed upon her, “Oh, we forgot—the community hall. The lights and the thermostat.”

  Mary Beth was at the back of the group, the farthest from the exit. Atonement, she reminded herself, although her heart thudded with dread when she glimpsed the scene beyond the doorway and she realized just how much snow had accumulated during the meeting. “I’ll take care of it,” she said over her shoulder as she turned back the way they had come.

  Minutes counted, she realized, quickening her pace. She abandoned her plans to return her books to the library, but she absolutely had to stop at the grocery store before she headed home. Her boots echoed on the old wooden parquet floor as she entered the community hall and crossed to the adjacent corner where the control switches were located on the wall. Although the room was bare at the moment, in a few days it would be bright and bustling with dozens of market stands offering everything from handcrafted items and antique collectibles to baked goods and colorful jars of preserves. Her quilts would be among them, all three, now that she had her delft-blue thread to finish the Dove of Peace wall hanging. She hoped it brought in a tidy sum. Every dollar counted and would be put to good use by the food bank.

  The grocery store would be mobbed, she thought ruefully, reaching for the switches and dials, turning down the lights and turning off the heat. If only she had started her errands earlier. But how could she have wrung another minute out of that already overscheduled, harried day?

  She hurried from the hall and back down the corridor to the exit, gasping as she stepped outside and the full force of the wind struck her. Already drifts had begun to cover the ruts in the snow where the other committee members’ cars had been parked. She hoped the weather cleared and the temperatures climbed out of their polar plunge before the Christmas Boutique opened. It would be very bad indeed for many struggling families throughout the Elm Creek Valley if anything prevented the fund-raiser from proceeding as planned.

  3

  Gretchen

  For nearly twenty-four hours, snow fell and the wind howled. Safe and snug within the gray stone walls of Elm Creek Manor, Gretchen marveled at nature’s fury and waited for the storm to pass.

  When the driving snowfall subsided, bi
tter arctic cold descended and dangerous wind chills kept the manor’s residents indoors except for the most essential chores. Gretchen layered herself with turtlenecks and cardigans and passed the time binding a crib quilt she planned to donate to a children’s charity, discussing plans for the upcoming quilt camp season with Sylvia, or reading by the fireplace while Joe studied woodworking plans. Everyone was content except for Sarah, who rested a hand on her abdomen and brooded, glancing out the windows and occasionally worrying aloud that the roads might not be cleared in time for Matt to return home on Friday evening.

  “He’ll make it,” Gretchen assured her on Wednesday afternoon as she, Sarah, Anna, and Sylvia kept warm in the parlor, where a fire popped and sparked cheeringly on the hearth. “It’s bitterly cold, but the storm is over and the snowplows are out in force. Take a deep breath, relax, and think cheerful thoughts. That’s best for baby.”

  “Find some work to distract yourself,” Sylvia urged. “What about your new marketing campaign for quilt camp?”

  “I finished that yesterday.” Sarah sighed and paced the room a bit awkwardly, a hand pressed to her lower back. “I still have to finish the binding on my Christmas gift for Matt’s father. I admit I haven’t felt inspired to work on it lately.”

  Gretchen and Sylvia exchanged a look. Sarah’s waning interest was perfectly understandable, considering that her father-in-law was responsible for Matt’s absence. “I’ll get it for you,” said Gretchen, setting her own quilt aside. “Where is it? In your bedroom?”

  Sarah nodded, but before Gretchen could rise, Anna bounded to her feet. “I’ll go. I need to stretch my legs. And after that, I’ll make us a batch of mulled cider. That will warm us up nicely.”

  “Sounds perfect,” said Sarah, sighing contentedly as she eased herself into a chair. Gretchen’s gaze lingered on Anna as she hurried off on her errand. The young chef seemed restless, and little wonder, considering that she was snowbound at Elm Creek Manor for the second time in as many weeks. Earlier that morning she had joked, half seriously, that she ought to keep a suitcase full of spare clothes and necessities in one of the guest rooms. Sylvia had offered her room and board in the manor when she was hired, the same perk that Gretchen had eagerly accepted, but Anna had declined. Gretchen suspected that she cared less about her apartment in downtown Waterford than about her neighbor across the hall, Jeremy, a graduate student in history at Waterford College. He drove her back and forth to work almost every day even though it was considerably out of his way. Anna referred to him as her best friend, but it seemed to Gretchen that they had recently become much more to each other.

  As the newest member of the faculty, Gretchen often felt as if she were still getting to know her colleagues, but in the weeks since she and Joe had come to Elm Creek Manor, she had gradually pieced together a good sense of their strong affinities and friendly rivalries. She barely knew Summer, who had participated in Gretchen’s job interview but had left for graduate school at the University of Chicago only a few weeks after she and Joe moved in. Back then, Summer and Jeremy were a couple, and before that they had briefly lived together until a disagreement of some sort had compelled Summer to move out of Jeremy’s apartment. Gretchen was not sure how any young couple could rebound and resume a normal dating relationship after living together, but she had seen couples with extraordinary devotion overcome even greater obstacles. For a while, Summer and Jeremy had apparently given it a try, and yet it was evident even to a newcomer like Gretchen that their relationship had become tenuous. It also seemed clear that while the course toward their inevitable breakup may have been set months before, Summer’s departure had moved them into a swifter current.

  From what Gretchen had observed, it seemed that they had drifted on inexorably until the Thanksgiving holidays, when, amid the fury of a nor’easter and the confusion of canceled travel plans, their romance had finally run aground. And what of Anna, who described Jeremy as her best friend so often and so emphatically that anyone who was paying attention would immediately guess that somewhere along the way, she had fallen in love with him?

  Anna would have been a terrible poker player. Gretchen only had to see her smiling and laughing whenever she and Jeremy were together to know she felt much more for him than friendship. Gretchen strongly suspected the feeling was mutual, but Anna and Jeremy were kindhearted and loyal, and neither would have acknowledged an attraction while one of them was involved with someone else. But if Jeremy was single, Anna’s restlessness and distraction could mean that she had finally confessed the truth to him. Her eagerness to get home to her apartment suggested that her confession—if there had been one, if Gretchen’s romantic imagination was not spurring her to jump to the wrong conclusions—had been warmly received.

  When Anna returned to the parlor a few minutes later to deliver Sarah’s unfinished quilt and sewing basket, there was a smile on her lips and a flush in her cheeks. Gretchen suspected she had squeezed in a quick phone call to her favorite neighbor on her way upstairs, but of course she would not tease her by saying so. Until Anna brought her burgeoning romance, if that’s what it was, out into the open, her secrets were safe with Gretchen.

  After seeing Sarah comfortably settled with her work-in-progress, Anna left again but soon returned with a tray of steaming mugs of mulled cider. “Thank you, Anna,” said Gretchen, accepting a cup, inhaling deeply the fragrance of cinnamon, anise, nutmeg, cloves, and orange. The first sip was heavenly, the second sublime. “Delicious,” she proclaimed. “I could definitely get used to being spoiled like this.”

  “That’s our plan,” said Sylvia. “We’re delighted to have you here and we hope you never resign—until you and Joe decide to retire, of course.”

  “But if your retirement looks anything like Sylvia’s, you’ll be almost as busy as before,” said Sarah with a smile, the tension around her eyes relenting for a moment.

  “If you keep pampering me like this, I’ll be good for another twenty years,” said Gretchen. Her new friends laughingly assured her that they were counting on it.

  How wonderful if it could be so.

  Joining the Elm Creek Quilters had already proven to be a dream come true. A year before, Gretchen never could have imagined herself thriving, able to teach, quilt, and enjoy the work that she loved without worrying about overdue bills and unknown calamities lurking just around the corner. She and Joe had a beautiful new home at Elm Creek Manor, and Joe had set up a workshop in the barn so he could continue his woodworking and furniture restoration, as much a form of artistic expression for him as Gretchen’s quilting was for her. In all her life, she had never felt so prosperous, blessed by the riches of good health, fulfilling work, and precious new friendships.

  How far she had come from where her immigrant forebears had begun only two generations before.

  When Gretchen’s grandmother first came to America from Croatia in search of a brighter future, she lived with a cousin’s family and worked at a butcher shop in the Strip District in Pittsburgh. Because Marija was pretty, tidy, and good with sums, she was often assigned to ride along on deliveries to the fine houses in Sewickley on the other side of the river. On one occasion a wealthy matron sized her up as a quiet, industrious girl and hired her to replace her second housemaid, whom she had recently fired for theft. The work was hard, but no more so than at the butcher’s, and in the Albrechts’ house, Marija had her own bed in a small, third-floor room she shared with the other housemaid.

  Years later she married the butcher’s teamster, the same handsome Polish immigrant who had shown her all around Pittsburgh on their delivery route. To help make ends meet, she continued to work for the Albrechts until well into her first pregnancy. Years passed, and when her own children were old enough, Marija returned to work as a housekeeper for her original employer’s daughter, now married with a baby of her own. Marija’s eldest daughter left school after the eighth grade to work alongside her, eventually taking over her position when the arduous labor became too diff
icult. Marija’s daughter had married a steelworker and moved into a small house on a hill in Ambridge, where Gretchen was born a year later.

  Gretchen was only twelve years old when she earned her first wages minding the Albrechts’ six-year-old daughter, Heidi, after school and during summer vacation. It was clear from Mrs. Albrecht’s occasional offhand remarks that she assumed Gretchen would enter domestic service like her mother and grandmother before her, and that when Heidi married and started a family of her own, Gretchen would serve in her household. Gretchen had other plans. She was a bright, diligent student, and when she confided to her parents that she wanted to become a teacher, they urged her to save every dollar she earned for her college fund, and they would make up the difference.

  At eighteen, she graduated from high school and won a partial scholarship to Margaret Morrison Carnegie College, where she majored in elementary education. Two years into her program, she discovered much to her surprise that her home economics courses were among her favorites. She already knew how to sew, but now she learned to design stylish garments for a fraction of what a similar outfit would cost at the department store. She also enjoyed the creative outlet her quilting class provided. The instructor, Sylvia Compson, an alumna of the college’s art education program, spiced her lectures about patterns and stitches with stories of the etymology of quilt block names, the role of the quilting bee in the lives of early American women, and commemorative quilts that promoted justice and social change. Gretchen took to quilting with a passion, ignoring the good-natured teasing of some of her more sophisticated friends, who disdained sewing as an old-fashioned pastime one resorted to out of necessity rather than pleasure, an unwelcome reminder of the limitations of their mothers’ and grandmothers’ lives.

  But quilting was not Gretchen’s only passion. By the time she finished her first course with Sylvia Compson, she had fallen head over heels in love with Joe Hartley, a handsome young man she had met at church. He was a machinist at one of the steel mills, a wonderful dancer, polite and respectful to her parents but lively and fun when they were out with friends. He wanted to marry her right away but they agreed to wait until she had earned her degree and had taught for a few years. Sometimes, though, after he walked her home and they had to tear themselves away from each other, breathless and dizzy from fervent kisses, Gretchen considered abandoning her education and marrying him that very night, because the wait seemed unendurable when he held her in his arms.