The Wedding Quilt Read online

  The road through the forest was paved now, and wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other safely at low, cautious speeds. Matt’s sunlit apple orchard filled the once grassy clearing, but the manor still captivated Sarah whenever it came into view—three stories of gray stone and dark wood, its unexpected elegance enhanced by the rambling, natural beauty of its surroundings. Most important of all, it was home.

  James parked in front of the solar charging station and plugged in the car. “Looks like Anna and Gina aren’t back yet,” he said, noting the absence of the other shuttle as they climbed the four stone stairs to the back door.

  “Anna said they were going all the way to her favorite specialty market in Harrisburg.” There, Sarah suspected, Anna and her daughter, Gina, had probably spent far more than they should have on delicacies for the wedding week. Soon after Caroline and Leo had announced their engagement, Anna and Gina had offered to cater the entire celebration as their family’s gift to the bride and groom. At first Caroline had reluctantly demurred, since Gina was also the maid of honor and Caroline didn’t want to burden her with too many responsibilities, but she couldn’t withstand the combined persuasive power of the two Del Maso–Bernstein women. And thank goodness for that. Sarah couldn’t imagine anyone else doing the job half as well—or with a quarter of the care and affection—as Gina and Anna would. Anna was Sarah’s best friend, and their daughters, who were two years apart in age but had grown up together in the manor, were as close as sisters.

  Together they went upstairs to the library, where Sarah put away her pad and James checked his personal messages and then those for Elm Creek Quilts. A breeze fragrant with ripe apples stirred the long cotton curtains hanging in the west windows, and Sarah jumped at the sound of wheels crunching fallen autumn leaves on the road they had just traveled. “At last,” she cried, hurrying to the window and drawing back the curtain, but instead of Caroline and Leo’s car, she spied the other Elm Creek Quilts shuttle. After it came to a halt in its usual place at the charging unit, Anna emerged from the driver’s side and plugged it in, her long gray French braid slipping over her shoulder as she chatted merrily with her daughter. Then Gina appeared, climbing out the side door and reaching back inside to fill her arms with grocery bags, laughing at something her mother said. Gina’s black, close-cropped curls were as dark as Anna’s had once been, but she was petite and slender, whereas Anna was taller and had always carried a few more pounds than she preferred. Sarah was about to suggest that she and James hurry outside to help Anna and Gina when she heard the back door squeak open and bang shut. It was Jeremy, calling out a greeting to his wife and daughter as he descended the back stairs. The three made short work of distributing the bags among themselves, and within moments they had brought everything inside, the back door banging shut again behind them.

  When Sarah sighed and let the curtains fall back into place, James joined her at the window, wrapped Sarah in a hug, and rested his chin on the top of her head. “Poor Mom, waiting by the window for her baby. You know Caroline wasn’t planning to get here until suppertime.”

  “I know that’s what she said, but I thought maybe they were able to set out earlier.”

  “I’d bet money that Caroline stayed at her desk studying until the last possible moment before they had to leave.”

  “She could study on the way, if Leo’s driving.” Sarah wondered if she should encourage Caroline to leave her pad at the manor instead of taking it on her honeymoon, but Caroline had been reading for twenty-two of her twenty-five years, and she wasn’t likely to be parted from her beloved books now. That’s all the twins were, twenty-five years old. Sarah recalled feeling quite mature and adult at that age, but from her new perspective, twenty-five seemed shockingly young to make a lifetime commitment. If only Caroline would have taken Sarah’s advice and—

  Sarah inhaled deeply and forced her misgivings out in the exhaled breath. Leo was a wonderful young man, and he and Caroline were very much in love. They were both reasonable, responsible young people, and Sarah had to trust that they knew what they were doing—and if not, that they would accept the consequences with maturity and grace.

  Sarah didn’t want Caroline to wait forever to marry, just until she finished medical school. Just until she had her degree and a job and a bit more security. But Caroline had pointed out that Leo had recently earned tenure at the elementary school where he taught second grade, and they could live very comfortably on his salary while Caroline finished school. “It’s not like the days of yore when you were young, Mom, when teachers weren’t respected and well paid,” Caroline had said, a pleading tone in her voice. She wanted Sarah to be happy for her, to accept her choices wholeheartedly, and Sarah, remembering all too well how her mother had objected to her marriage to Matt, couldn’t bear to voice objections that could be misinterpreted as dislike or disapproval. On the contrary, Sarah thought Leo was a wonderful young man, but he would be just as wonderful in a few years, after Caroline graduated from medical school, completed her residency, and had a job, an income of her own, and her independence. So what was the rush? And if Caroline was in such a hurry to marry, why hadn’t she come home to Elm Creek Manor yet, so the week of preparations and festivities could begin?

  “I know you miss her, Mom, but don’t be sad,” said James, giving her one last quick hug before letting her go, although she gladly would have held him longer. “Someday Leo might get an offer from a school in the Elm Creek Valley, and Caroline might set up her practice here in Waterford.”

  Sarah regarded him levelly. “You know, it’s scary sometimes how easily you read my mind.”

  “It comes from working side by side so many years,” James teased. “I know all of your quirks, all of your secrets.”

  Sarah’s shudder was not entirely feigned. “I hope not all of them.”

  James merely laughed, and then he announced that he was going to help put away groceries and hurried off to the kitchen. Never before had a young man been so eager to help unpack grocery bags, Sarah thought wryly. James and Gina thought they had everyone fooled, but Sarah and Anna knew their friendship had recently developed into something more. How recently and how much more, they could only speculate, and as their hopes rose, they privately congratulated each other on their children’s excellent judgment.

  She reached for the curtain but, at the last second, resisted the temptation to peer out the window again and adjusted the tieback instead. Soon friends and relatives from near and far would descend upon the manor—cousins and classmates, in-laws-to-be and strangers-to-be no more, former Elm Creek Quilters, cherished friends—but it sometimes seemed to Sarah that if she closed her eyes and wished hard enough, she could climb the stairs to the nursery and find the twins sleeping in the crib, snuggled beneath the quilts Grandma Carol had sewn for them.

  Twenty-five years had come and gone with a swiftness that might have been cruel except for the sweet, beloved memories of the days that had filled them.

  They had been winter babies, longed for and cherished even before they were born. After Sarah got over the shock of discovering she was carrying twins, the pregnancy had proceeded uneventfully. She followed a healthful diet and exercise plan, the babies reached all of their prenatal benchmarks on schedule, and her friends were always nearby to reassure her when she worried or to help her relax when she became stressed. She planned her maternity leave with what only years later she realized was astonishingly naïve optimism. Though there were good days and bad, her pregnancy went along as well as she could have hoped—until that day in late November when Matt threw all her carefully wrought plans into disarray.

  It was the Friday after Thanksgiving, a day Sarah and her friends always set aside as their very own annual quilter’s holiday. While others throughout their rural central Pennsylvania valley were sleeping in or embarking upon the Christmas shopping season, the Elm Creek Quilters always gathered at the manor for a marathon of quilting to work on holiday gifts for loved ones or decoration
s for their homes. One might have expected Sarah to stitch quilts for her unborn twins, but she left that project to her mother while she sewed Twin Star Log Cabin blocks into a quilt for her father-in-law, Hank. Although he had often declared that he had no interest whatsoever in quilting, she hoped that if he had a quilt of his own, he might develop a greater appreciation for the creative and artistic work that Elm Creek Quilts fostered. If he did, he might stop pressuring Matt to quit his caretaking job and come to work for Hank’s construction company. Later, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson Cooper—master quilter, Elm Creek Quilts founder, heart and soul of their circle of friends—remarked that it had been unfair to expect one quilt, however beautifully and lovingly made, to accomplish so much, but that was a lesson Sarah had yet to learn.

  In the company of her friends, Sarah spent the snowy morning working on Hank’s gift. At noon she and her friends set their quilts aside and gathered in the banquet hall for a potluck lunch of dishes made with leftovers from their family feasts the previous day. That year, in keeping with the season’s spirit of gratitude, Sylvia had also revived a cherished Bergstrom family tradition. While remodeling the manor’s kitchen earlier that autumn, she and Anna had discovered a long-forgotten cornucopia that had once served as the centerpiece of the Bergstrom family’s Thanksgiving table. Into it, each member of the family, from the eldest patriarch to the youngest granddaughter, had placed an object that symbolized something he or she was especially thankful for that year. After the feast, each had drawn their item from the cornucopia and had explained what it signified. On that quilter’s holiday, Sylvia had invited the Elm Creek Quilters to continue the tradition by sewing quilt blocks that represented their thankfulness and gratitude. Not to be left out despite their inexperience with needle and thread, the husbands in attendance found squares of fabric in the classroom scrap bag and contributed those to the cornucopia instead.

  Even as they had climbed out of bed that morning, something in Matt’s manner, something Sarah could not define, had warned her that something weighed heavily upon his thoughts. Even so, she completely missed his discomfort and embarrassment at lunchtime when she explained to one and all that the Twin Star block she had placed into the cornucopia represented her gratitude for her unborn children, and also for Matt, who had been by her side faithfully every day of her pregnancy, offering support and encouragement. The square of fabric he had placed into the cornucopia would have offered another sign, had she known to watch for signs. As the square cut from a landscape print of green trees on rolling hills was passed around the table, Matt explained that he was most thankful for his family. “I’m thankful for their support, their loyalty, their understanding, and most of all, their love,” he said. “I owe my family everything, and it’s a debt I doubt I’ll ever be able to repay in full, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try.”

  His talk of debts and repayment puzzled her for a moment, but she quickly forgot it in the happiness of the quilter’s holiday. Her joy was to be short-lived. As they cleared away the dishes, Matt took her aside and explained that his father had again pleaded with him to take over the construction company while he recovered from a flare-up of an old back injury. Hank couldn’t afford to turn down jobs during such poor economic times, nor could he manage without someone he trusted on-site supervising the work. Sarah was surprised and hurt to discover that Matt had already agreed to go, without first discussing it with her, though it meant he would be a three-hour drive away for most of the winter, though it meant she would spend the rest of her pregnancy without him. But what could she do? Although he should have consulted with her before making any promises to his father, she knew he had weighed his decision carefully. If she asked him not to go, he would probably stay, but he would blame her if his father’s business failed—and she didn’t want to disappoint him.

  So she consented, but not without exacting from Matt a solemn promise that regardless of any other consideration, he would not miss the birth of his children. She also warned him that if Hank decided he couldn’t manage without Matt after the twins arrived, and if Matt agreed to stay on rather than allow his father’s company to fail, she would not leave Elm Creek Manor to go with him.

  They were at an impasse, and they knew it, and their inability to promise each other what they most wanted to hear left them bereft and unhappy.

  Matt packed a bag and left on the Monday morning after Thanksgiving, promising to return late Friday afternoon. Restless, Sarah spent their first day apart in the library designing brochures for the next season of quilt camp and in the ballroom layering and basting Hank’s quilt top. On Wednesday she attended her weekly childbirth class with Gretchen Hartley, who, before accepting a teaching position with Elm Creek Quilts and moving into the manor, had spent many years volunteering at a shelter for homeless pregnant girls in Pittsburgh and had assisted so many of them through labor that she probably could have moonlighted as a midwife. Matt phoned every evening, but Sarah was not really interested in his perfunctory reports about hanging drywall and scheduling inspections, nor did he seem particularly enthralled by her accounts of the babies’ kicks and her weight gain. They were both tired and preoccupied, and Sarah’s surging hormones occasionally sent her careering off on mood swings that Matt, understandably, found difficult to handle. She told herself that everything would be fine between them again when he came home for good.

  On Friday evening, she was so relieved to hear his pickup truck pull into the back parking lot that she nearly ran down the stairs to greet him. He greeted her at the back door with a hug and a kiss, and then he dropped to his knees and pressed his cheek against her ample belly to tell the babies how much he had missed them. On Saturday she had hoped he would help her paint the babies’ room, but he was so exhausted from the week on the construction site that after attending to his caretaker’s duties around the estate, all he wanted to do was relax, and she felt guilty asking him to do anything more. On Sunday he packed his duffel bag again, and on Monday morning he left. The next week wasn’t as bad as the first, as she grew accustomed to his absence, but she missed him with a hollow, aching loneliness that compelled her to count and recount the days until her due date when he would come home for good.

  The Christmas season rekindled some of her joy. Matt agreed to take off work from Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day, and she felt relieved and happy to have her husband close again, even though Hank spent the holidays with them also and all too frequently sat Matt down in the kitchen with cups of coffee and blueprints. Fortunately, Gretchen’s husband, Joe, was a woodworker, and he kept Hank happily distracted in his wood shop from time to time, leaving Sarah and Matt to themselves. While Sylvia and Gretchen decked the halls and Anna prepared apple strudel and other delicious Christmas treats her friends loved, Sarah and Matt prepared the nursery. While they worked, they talked and laughed, dreamed and planned, and it was almost as if the conflict that had begun on the quilter’s holiday had never happened.

  Almost, but not quite. Hank’s lukewarm response to the beautiful quilt to which she had devoted so much time, effort, and creativity disappointed her. “Well, isn’t this a nice blanket,” he said after unwrapping the gift. “It looks as nice as anything you could buy in a store.” Less insulting but more annoying were his frequent reminders that he and Matt needed to depart before dawn on January 2. All week Sarah forced smiles to mask her irritation and offered cordial replies rather than spoil the holidays with complaints, but she reached her limit by New Year’s Day, and she wished they had never invited Hank to join them for the holidays.

  The next morning, Matt and his father threw their bags into the back of Matt’s pickup and left soon after sunrise. After a week of Matt’s company, Sarah felt the loneliness of his renewed absence as keenly as she had upon his first departure in November.

  Winter was supposed to herald a seasonal slowdown in the construction business, but for McClure Construction, January seemed to be as busy as ever. Twice Matt had so much work that he couldn�
�t afford to take the weekend off, and once a dangerous winter storm prevented him from making the trip home. Sarah comforted herself with the knowledge that the babies were healthy and that in a matter of weeks, they would be born and Matt would come home to stay, as he had promised. She didn’t know what that might mean for McClure Construction, and she couldn’t help worrying that in the end, despite Hank’s assurances that he understood Matt couldn’t work for him indefinitely, he might try to persuade his son to stay on.

  “Matt wants to be with you and the children,” Sylvia reminded her whenever her worries became too great a burden to bear alone. “He knows his most important duty is to care for you and those babies. Surely Hank will respect that and not ask him to spend so much time away from home. He can hire a foreman if he can’t do the work himself. As fine a worker as Matt is, he isn’t absolutely essential to his father’s company, but he is essential to his wife and children.”