The Wedding Quilt Read online

  After a honeymoon in Myrtle Beach, Anna moved across the hall into Jeremy’s apartment until his lease ran out, and then they moved into a third-floor suite of Elm Creek Manor. They seemed blissfully happy, Sarah often thought. The simple pleasure of working in the kitchen together seemed to bring them joy; Jeremy would read and take notes and write his dissertation in his favorite corner booth while Anna cooked and baked and worked magic with simple ingredients to create the most delicious meals Sarah had ever tasted.

  In April of the following year, not long after the twins celebrated their second birthdays, Anna gave birth to a daughter—more than a year after the wedding, which must have been enough to satisfy the elderly aunts and gossipy neighbors who had been counting. Two months later, Jeremy successfully defended his dissertation and earned his doctorate with the highest honors in his department. It was a day Sarah had long looked forward to for the newlyweds’ sake and dreaded for her own, because Jeremy’s graduation meant that his time at Waterford College had ended, and he, Anna, and their adorable dark-haired baby, Gina, would move on.

  In the months leading up to Jeremy’s graduation, he had applied for every relevant position published in The Chronicle of Higher Education and had participated in several interviews at universities scattered across the country. Anna confided to Sarah that she fervently hoped an assistant professor position would become available at Penn State’s University Park campus, not because their History Department boasted any extraordinary resources for his specialization, but because the commute to Elm Creek Manor would be long though not impossible, and she could remain their head chef. They all knew the odds were against it, and no one was surprised when Penn State posted no suitable openings that year. Jeremy considered remaining at Waterford College and doing a postdoc until a position reasonably close to Elm Creek Manor miraculously appeared, but he and Anna both knew that this perfect job might not ever come along, and his career would stall if he didn’t take advantage of more certain, more promising opportunities.

  In midsummer Jeremy received an offer from the University of Arlington, and after taking a few days to discuss his options with Anna and his graduate adviser, he accepted. Jeremy moved to Virginia at the end of July, but Anna remained behind with baby Gina so she could finish out the camp season.

  On the Sunday before Labor Day, the Elm Creek Quilters threw a farewell party for their departing friend. Jeremy returned for the cookout, which began as a picnic along the grassy shore of Elm Creek behind the manor until rain forced them to retreat to the front verandah. But the occasion wasn’t spoiled; Joe and Andrew managed to finish cooking all the burgers, steaks, and spareribs before the rain began to fall, and on the broad verandah there were comfortable Adirondack chairs for the adults to relax in and plenty of space for the children to play. The storm lifted as the sun set, and in the cool and misty evening the twins chased fireflies on the front lawn while Gina watched drowsily from her mother’s lap.

  At the end of the party, Sylvia presented Anna with a small but precious gift—a nine-block Winding Ways quilt, similar to those she had made for the founding Elm Creek Quilters years before, when Judy and Summer became the first to leave their circle of friends. Sylvia had chosen fabrics that represented each of her friends’ unique qualities. The mosaic of overlapping circles and intertwining curves, the careful balance of dark and light hues, and the unexpected harmony of the disparate fabrics and colors evoked the sense of many winding paths meeting, intersecting, parting, creating the illusion that the separate sections formed a single quilt. Sarah remembered the words Sylvia had spoken as she had presented the panels to the original Elm Creek Quilters a few years before. “The Winding Ways quilt will remind us of friends who have left our circle to journey far away,” Sylvia had explained. “When one of our circle must leave us, she’ll take her section of the quilt with her as a reminder of the loving friends awaiting her return. The empty places on the wall will remind those of us left behind that the beauty of our friendship endures, even if great distances separate us. When the absent friend returns to Elm Creek Manor, she will hang her quilt in its proper space, and the loveliness of the whole will be restored.”

  As there were eight founding Elm Creek Quilters and nine panels, Sylvia had dedicated the one in the center to all the Elm Creek Quilters yet to come. That section would always remain on the library wall, despite the comings and goings of the people it represented. “That way,” Sylvia explained, “as long as Elm Creek Quilts endures, no matter what becomes of the founding members, this section at the heart of the quilt will remain.” In this way, Anna, too, had been included in the original quilt even though she had joined their group later, but Sarah thought it was only right that someone who had contributed so much to the success of Elm Creek Quilts should at last have a section all her own.

  The next day, Anna, Jeremy, and Gina left early in the morning so that Jeremy would be back on campus when classes resumed after the long holiday weekend. The confluence of the end of camp season and Anna’s departure plunged Sarah into melancholy. She found herself wandering into the library and gazing at the Winding Ways quilt with its missing panels, a painful rather than fond reminder of her absent friends. Bonnie would return from Hawai’i in the spring, and the other friends would visit now and then, but it would not be the same, and she felt their absence keenly.

  Reluctant to contemplate Anna’s impending departure, Sarah had postponed the search for a new head chef throughout the summer, making the excuse that she was too busy with the demands of the current camp season to contemplate staffing needs for the next. But with Anna gone, she could delay no longer. Earlier that summer, Anna had compiled a list of former culinary school classmates and student interns from her days as a chef with Waterford College Food Services, but when Sarah, Sylvia, and Gretchen contacted them, those who were interested in the job lacked the proper experience or didn’t seem like a good fit, and those who might have worked out quite well declined their offer for one reason or another. The job didn’t pay enough, or the location was too remote, or the prospect of limited advancement was too discouraging. Throughout the winter, they advertised the position, collected résumés, and interviewed dozens of candidates, but they found no one worthy of Anna’s kitchen. As March approached and the search became more urgent, Sarah finally realized why they had failed thus far. “We’re never going to find someone as perfect for Elm Creek Quilt Camp, as perfect for us, as Anna was,” she told Sylvia and Gretchen. “Anna is one of a kind, and we’re not going to find another Anna. At this point, we need to stop dismissing candidates simply because they aren’t Anna and find someone who can do the job well and be pleasant enough to work with.”

  Once they set their sights lower, they found someone. Maeve, who had worked at the Hotel State College for a year after her restaurant in Altoona closed, seemed like a good, if imperfect, fit. She prepared three delicious meals for fifty campers five days a week, and her welcome banquets and farewell breakfasts possessed an air of elegance without being too fussy. Sarah wasn’t thrilled that Maeve created only seven menus, one for each day of the week, and repeated them every week throughout the summer, but she could tolerate that because the lack of variation affected only the permanent residents of Elm Creek Manor. Most campers attended only for a single week’s session, so they had no idea that the chicken cordon bleu they enjoyed on Monday tasted exactly like the chicken cordon bleu Sarah had eaten the previous Monday and the Monday before that. What Sarah couldn’t tolerate, and had to speak privately to Maeve about far too frequently, was her brusque manner with campers who wandered into the kitchen between meals in search of a cup of tea, a glass of lemonade, or a quick snack. The kitchen was for the chef and her assistants, Maeve insisted. Guests should remain outside. Sarah pointed out that the very reason they had installed eight booths when they remodeled the kitchen was so that campers would be comfortable if they wanted refreshments outside of regular meal hours. She reminded Maeve that part of her job was to welco
me their guests, and if she couldn’t interrupt her work to fetch them a snack, she should delegate that task to an assistant or leave a bowl of fruit on the wooden table so campers could help themselves. After one of these conferences, Maeve’s behavior would improve for a while, but her aloof, unwelcome demeanor inevitably returned.

  It was a relief when, on Labor Day, Maeve thanked Sarah for the rewarding experience but announced that she wouldn’t be returning the following summer. Henry took over after her, but his habitual lateness obliged Sarah to start breakfast without him several days a week until he finally wandered off for a smoke after lunch one July afternoon and never returned. His replacement, a recent culinary school graduate named Marjorie, was friendly, hardworking, and energetic, but she couldn’t break an egg without dropping the shells in the bowl or bake cakes without singeing them or use the gas burners for any purpose whatsoever without scorching the pan and filling the kitchen with billowing clouds of smoke. When guests began complaining about the frequent false alarms from the smoke detectors, Matt ruefully suggested that they remove the batteries, invest in a few more fire extinguishers, and take out a second insurance policy. Sarah and Sylvia adamantly refused, so Marjorie had to go. A retired elementary school lunchroom cook filled in for the rest of the summer, and although she was something of a curmudgeon, she tolerated campers in the kitchen, and her meals were nutritious, if bland and institutional.

  Every winter after Anna left, Sarah confronted the same nerve-racking challenge of finding a suitable chef in time for a new season of quilt camp. Her heart sank when the good chefs were ready to move on after a single summer, and she spent countless hours searching for last-minute replacements when one employee after another didn’t work out. If Anna had not eventually returned to Elm Creek Quilts, out of sheer frustration Sarah might have gone into early retirement—but to her eternal gratitude, Anna had returned. If she had not, Sarah suddenly realized, not only would Elm Creek Quilts have suffered, but Sarah would have missed out on many years with the woman who had become her best friend, and James probably would not have fallen in love with Gina.

  Sarah was sure it was love, although she had only observed a few stolen kisses, overheard a few murmured endearments. When James gave his heart, he gave it completely, and he had known and cared for Gina almost his entire life. Gina was a compassionate young woman and wouldn’t trifle with any man’s feelings, least of all James’s. Surely they were in love, although why they went to such trouble to conceal a relationship that would inspire rejoicing in the hearts of everyone who knew them, Sarah and Anna could only speculate. Whatever their reason for secrecy, Sarah knew James loved Gina.

  She hoped Gina loved him in return.

  Chapter Four

  As the day unfolded, Sarah delegated wedding preparation tasks to her friends and family, prepared for the arrival of Caroline’s future in-laws, and contemplated the paths her children had chosen. Caroline’s had taken her far from Elm Creek Manor, while James’s had kept him close to home—and she dared hope, albeit selfishly, that his love for Gina would ensure that he would remain at Elm Creek Manor always.

  Then Sarah caught herself, and had to laugh. She knew her children as well as anyone could, and she had faith in their potential to find their own places in the world, to embark upon meaningful work that would become as satisfying and rewarding to them as Elm Creek Quilts was to her. When they did, she would celebrate those successes, even if they took Caroline and James far from home. She knew they would always return, if not to stay.

  Sarah, Maggie, and Emily had suites ready for Leo’s family by the time his mother and stepfather arrived at half past ten along with his two half sisters, one a senior in high school, the other a sophomore, both dark-haired, pretty, and given to sighing and exclaiming that it was all so romantic. Anna waited to serve lunch until after Leo’s father and stepmother arrived about two hours later. Sarah watched for animosity between the two couples, but just as Caroline had assured her, they greeted one another cordially and chatted pleasantly throughout the meal.

  Soon afterward, other guests arrived, in pairs and in groups—a few aunts, uncles, and cousins of Leo’s; Ayana and her husband; Matt’s childhood best friend and his wife; and several others who came so quickly one after the other that they must have been on the same flight. Sarah, Caroline, and Emily helped everyone find and settle into their rooms, and after everyone was settled, Sarah corralled the bridesmaids in the parlor and put them to work filling gift bags and tying bows on small boxes of chocolates that would serve as the wedding favors.

  Once Sarah stopped by the kitchen to admire the final sketches Gina had made of the wedding cake, which was sure to delight the eyes as well as the taste buds. The bottom tier of the rich, luscious almond cake would be shaped as a square, the second a hexagon, the third a circle, and fourth a small square. Caroline had requested a chocolate-almond filling, and after much testing and sampling, Gina had invented one for her. Gina abhorred the taste of rolled fondant and had recommended a Swiss meringue buttercream flavored with Kahlúa instead. After frosting the entire cake smooth and glossy, Gina planned to adorn each layer with a different piped design: a crosshatch with marzipan dragées placed at the junctions for the bottom layer, elegant swirls for the hexagonal second tier, tessellated diamonds for the third, and vertical stripes for the top. A band of smooth marzipan would encircle the bottom of each tier like a satin ribbon, and a bouquet of gum paste lilies and roses in autumn hues would cascade from the top. The cake would be lovely and unique, just like the bride for whom Gina would create it.

  As Gina put her sketches away, Sarah glanced out the window and spotted Matt in the parking lot helping Leo’s elderly great-uncle carry luggage indoors. Hurrying outside to assist, Sarah slung a garment bag over her shoulder and led the way to the first-floor suite Leo’s great-uncle and great-aunt would share. In the early days of Elm Creek Quilt Camp, all guest rooms had been on the second and third floors, but the building had no elevator, so everyone had to brave the grand oak staircase. Sarah had thought nothing of it until one of their annual campers, a longtime friend of Sylvia’s named Grace Daniels, remarked that her MS made it difficult to climb all those stairs, but quilt camp was worth the effort. After that, Sarah began to wonder about the many quilters for whom stairs were not merely difficult but impossible. It troubled her to think that they had been excluded from the enriching experience of quilt camp all because Sarah had not considered their needs. By the next season, Joe had installed a ramp to complement the stairs to the back door, and Matt had remodeled three unused rooms on the first floor into accessible suites. They were available upon request, and during the camp season, they were never empty.

  By late afternoon, Caroline and her bridesmaids had finished all the tasks Sarah had assigned them and were relaxing on the verandah, reminiscing and catching up on all that had come to pass since their lives had taken them in different directions. Caroline was in medical school; Ayana worked on Wall Street; Cameron was a barista and part-time musician in Chicago; Rachel was taking time off work to care for her seven-month-old in Boulder, Colorado; Mariah was attending Yale Divinity School; and Gina—Gina, of course, was the assistant chef at Elm Creek Manor, and if she had any other plans for her immediate future, personal or professional, she didn’t mention them within Sarah’s hearing. When the other young women mentioned their husbands or boyfriends, Gina engaged in the conversation without saying a word about her own affairs of the heart, and Sarah couldn’t help wondering why.

  By evening, her curiosity got the better of her. After supper, Sarah managed to get her son alone for a few moments as they helped clear the table. “Sweetheart,” she began, “can we talk for a moment?”

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” he said, smiling knowingly as he stacked plates dangerously high. “I’ve talked to Leo. He and Caroline have definitely ruled out eloping.”

  “Well, of course they have. I never really thought they would. That’s not what I want to talk about.
” She hesitated. “I know about you and Gina.”

  Startled, he set down the plates on the table with an alarming rattle of china. “Know what about me and Gina?”

  “That you two are involved, or seeing each other, or whatever people your age call it these days. In my day, we would have said you’re dating.”

  “Oh.” He gathered up knives and forks. “You’re okay with that?”

  “Okay? I’m delighted. I adore Gina, and I can see that you two make each other very happy.” She gripped the back of a chair and steeled herself. “I don’t want to pry, but I was hoping you would tell me why you’re keeping your relationship a secret.”

  He shrugged as if he had assumed their reasons were obvious. “This time should really be about Caroline and Leo. We didn’t want to steal their spotlight.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” Sarah protested. “We would have given you your own spotlight.”

  James laughed. “A spotlight, our own or anyone else’s, is the last thing we want.” He piled the knives and forks on the stack of plates and hefted the whole thing with a cheerful tinkling of china.