The Giving Quilt Read online

  After Nancy collected her keys and paperwork and headed off to her room with a promise to see Sylvia later, Sylvia returned to welcoming other guests, sighing with contentment. She had so much to do, so many new challenges to tackle, so many good times with friends and family to anticipate. That, she believed, was the secret to her longevity.

  The noise and activity brought James and Caroline running downstairs from the playroom, and they begged their mother to be allowed to help with registration. At first Sarah hesitated, but she soon relented and agreed that the twins could help hold the front doors open for the guests, welcome them to Elm Creek Manor, and direct them to the registration table—but they must not get in the way or try to lift any heavy suitcases. The youngsters took their jobs very seriously. Sylvia had to smile whenever she heard them greet newcomers with a sweet, enthusiastic, “Welcome to Elm Creek Manor!”

  Throughout the busy afternoon, so many familiar campers passed through the doors of Elm Creek Manor that newcomers stood out. Soon after Nancy arrived, a woman with smooth skin the color of deep espresso entered clad in a knee-length charcoal-gray wool coat and sensible shoes. As well as Sylvia could ascertain from a distance, she appeared to be in her late thirties, with short, glossy curls and soft, dark eyes. She paused in the entranceway, and as she set down her tote bag to loosen a striking scarf of what appeared to be black cotton imprinted with geometric designs of white and rust, she ran a guarded, appraising gaze over the women enjoying refreshments and chatting and laughing and welcoming one another from the foyer to the second-floor balcony. Something in her carriage suggested sorrow and steel, and a determination that kept a soul-deep weariness in check, and Sylvia found herself suddenly, inexplicably moved. At that moment, Sarah approached the woman, and when she smiled and shook Sarah’s hand, her face lit up with such warmth that Sylvia found herself smiling too.

  Sarah directed her to the registration table, where Sylvia met her. “Welcome to Elm Creek Manor,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Sylvia Bergstrom Compson Cooper.”

  “Jocelyn Ames,” the woman said, shaking Sylvia’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Most of it good, I hope.”

  “All of it good, I’m sure,” said Agnes stoutly.

  “All of it good,” Jocelyn assured them, and then, in a more confidential tone, added, “I signed up for the Giving Quilt course, but I wanted to verify that it is suitable for beginners?”

  “It most certainly is,” said Sylvia, indicating Gretchen’s sample quilt hanging from the balcony. “We do assume that you’ve mastered some basic sewing skills first.”

  “Thanks to my high school home ec teacher, I have,” said Jocelyn, accepting her key and information packet from Agnes. “The home ec teacher at the school where I teach gave me a refresher course last week too, just to make sure. Of course, we don’t call it home ec anymore. It’s Family Consumer Science.”

  Agnes’s eyebrows rose. “Do you mean that all those years I called myself a homemaker, I should have said I was a scientist?”

  Jocelyn smiled. “Apparently so.”

  “What do they call math class?” Sylvia inquired.

  “For the sixth grade, it’s Understanding Concepts of Everyday Mathematics.”

  “And what do you teach?” asked Agnes.

  “Social studies.”

  Sylvia was surprised to hear it was still called social studies. That name was ripe for revision if any a school subject was.

  “I enjoy all the topics I teach, but my passion is American history,” Jocelyn said. “I saw on your website that one of your evening programs later this week is a lecture on antique quilts from the estate. I’m very much looking forward to it.”

  “I am too,” said Sylvia. “I confess it’s pure self-indulgence on my part. I love to show off my ancestors’ quilts and brag about them. It’s generous of you and my other guests to humor me.”

  “Oh, Sylvia, that’s nonsense,” chided Agnes, but Jocelyn got the joke and promised Sylvia she would endure the program as best she could.

  As soon as Matt appeared and offered to carry Jocelyn’s bags upstairs to her room, a pair of quilters hesitantly approached Sylvia, pens in hand, and asked her to autograph their 1982 American Quilter’s Society calendars, which featured her best-known work, Sewickley Sunrise, as the quilt for May. Thus she was preoccupied and witnessed only from across the room the reunion of the two sisters who had narrowly escaped being assigned to separate suites thanks to Agnes’s intervention. They arrived separately but only minutes apart, so one sister, tall, blond, and sturdily built, had only just reached the top of the staircase when the other—blond, a trifle more slender, and a few inches shorter—crossed the threshold. “Linnea,” the newcomer called out, and her sister promptly set down her suitcase and plastic sewing tote, raced down the stairs, and hustled across the foyer to embrace her sister. They laughed and rocked from side to side as they greeted each other, which told Sylvia that they did not live in the same town, or perhaps even the same state, and they saw each other far less frequently than they liked. Sylvia was well pleased that Elm Creek Manor could be the site for such a happy reunion, and she resolved to chat with the sisters later to find out if she had interpreted the joyful scene correctly.

  After the initial cluster of arriving guests, the pace slowed, with one or two campers entering the manor every quarter hour or so. A few lingered near the refreshments table making the acquaintance of other guests over coffee and cookies, but otherwise the foyer was left to the Elm Creek Quilters. With too little activity to entertain them, the twins grew bored and ran outside to play on the front lawn under the watchful eyes of Matt, Joe, and Andrew, who had run out of registration work to occupy their time. For their part, the Elm Creek Quilters filled the lull with chat, and they were engrossed in conversation about their friend Bonnie’s upcoming Maui wedding when a hesitant clearing of a throat caught their attention. Unnoticed, a guest had slipped in through the front double doors and had halted a discreet distance away from the registration table, as if she were reluctant to interrupt them or approach uninvited.

  “Oh, hello,” Sylvia said, greeting the newcomer brightly. “Here we are gabbing away when you want to register. Please forgive us for this poor welcome.”

  “It’s really okay.” The newcomer smiled shyly and shifted her backpack on her shoulders. She was of medium height, slender but somewhat pear shaped, and blue eyed, with chestnut-brown hair falling in a soft pageboy to her shoulders. “Who could ever feel unwelcome at Elm Creek Manor?”

  The corners of her smile quivered as if she might be the rare individual who could, and something about her discomfiture struck Sylvia as familiar. “Karen?” she said as the name came to her unexpectedly, like a windfall apple rolling downhill and coming to rest at her feet. “Karen Wise?”

  The woman’s smile turned upward again in relief. “Yes, that’s right. You actually remember me?”

  “Of course I do.” Sylvia glanced over her shoulder to Agnes, Sarah, Diane, and Gwen, who were nodding. Gretchen and Maggie, who stood some distance away helping a camper interpret the estate map, were unaware of the exchange and thus did not nod or even glance their way. Nevertheless, Sylvia added, “We all do.”

  “You made quite an impression on your last visit,” said Diane.

  Wryly, Karen replied, “So did you.”

  Diane winced at the memory. More than five years before, when the Elm Creek Quilters had sought new teachers to replace two founding members who intended to leave their circle to pursue other dreams, Karen had been one of the five applicants invited to interview at Elm Creek Manor. What the other Elm Creek Quilters did not figure out until later—and what Karen had probably never learned—was that Diane had tried to sabotage the interviews under the misguided hope that if suitable replacements couldn’t be found, Judy and Summ
er would feel obliged to stay. Apparently Karen and her husband had miscommunicated about their child care arrangements, for she had arrived for the interview a few minutes late, harried and apologetic, pushing her youngest son in a stroller and desperately trying to persuade his older brother to sit quietly while she convinced the Elm Creek Quilters that she was the ideal candidate. Distracted by her children and caught off guard by Diane’s belligerent grilling, Karen responded as well as she could have done—as well as anyone could have done under such circumstances—but she was given little opportunity to truly shine.

  Despite those mishaps, which at the time had clearly bothered and embarrassed Karen much more than her interviewers, the Elm Creek Quilters had been quite impressed with her. No other applicant had so perfectly articulated the spirit of Elm Creek Quilts, which was why she had been invited to interview at the manor although she had never taught even so much as a single class at a quilt shop. Karen had taught undergraduate business courses in the chapter of her life before children, but she had never taught quilting, while the other four candidates had such experience in abundance. Elm Creek Quilt Camp students expected a great deal from their classes and workshops, and it would have been unfair to them—and to Karen—to give them a novice teacher.

  Sylvia had volunteered to take on the unpleasant task of calling the eliminated candidates with the bad news, and when she had spoken to Karen, she had encouraged her to bolster her résumé by teaching at her local quilt shop, so that the next time Elm Creek Quilt Camp sought new faculty members, Karen would be a more viable candidate. Karen had agreed that this was sound advice, but whether she had followed through, Sylvia did not know. She did know that Karen had never returned for another session of quilt camp—until now.

  Karen collected her keys and papers from Agnes, thanked her, and indicated Gretchen and Maggie with a self-conscious tilt of her head. “I see that you hired Gretchen Hartley and Maggie Flynn. I have Maggie’s book. It’s wonderful.” She smiled, a little shakily, and Sylvia smiled sympathetically back, imagining how the younger woman must have felt running into the two people who had been selected for the job she had wanted so badly. “I was hoping you had hired the cookie lady.”

  Sylvia and Sarah exchanged a puzzled look, but it was Diane who asked, “The cookie lady?”

  Karen nodded. “I met her on the day of my interview, but I never got her name. Ethan and Lucas—my sons, I’m sure you remember them—were a little wound up after napping in the car all the way from State College, and another finalist who was waiting to speak with you distracted them with homemade cookies.” Her smile grew steadier as she remembered. “They were beautifully decorated like quilt blocks—and they were, without a doubt, the most delicious cookies I’ve ever tasted.”

  “Anna,” said the chorus of Elm Creek Quilters around the registration table. “And I second your opinion about the cookies,” added Sarah with a wistful sigh.

  “Anna,” echoed Karen, nodding. “She was so generous, and so helpful when Lucas got fussy. I’d hoped that all that good karma would ensure she got the job.”

  “Oh, but she did get the job,” said Agnes, her blue eyes wide and earnest.

  “Not the teaching job,” Sarah clarified. “We hired her as our chef.”

  “But she doesn’t work here anymore,” said Diane, sighing. “Her husband found a job in Virginia and stole her away from us.”

  “I suppose that’s one way to interpret events,” said Gwen, shaking her head.

  Karen’s brow furrowed, and her cheeks flushed faintly pink. “Oh. That’s too bad.” With another quick glance at Gretchen and Maggie, still indicating important sites on the estate map for the other camper, she nodded to them all, smiled briefly, and carried her luggage upstairs.

  “That makes eighteen and nineteen,” Gwen remarked soon after another pair of quilters arrived together, a retired nurse from Waterford and her elderly mother, whom Agnes gave a quick, appraising glance and surreptitiously reassigned to one of the few accessible suites on the first floor. The room next door to it had been assigned to another camper who had not yet arrived, so Agnes quickly scanned her registration form, nodded to herself, and switched the sets of keys so the daughter and mother would be next-door neighbors.

  Maggie peered over Agnes’s shoulder to check the list. “Only five more to go, unless someone cancels.”

  “Who would dream of doing that?” scoffed Diane. “Unless they heard that Anna is no longer cooking for us. No offense, Sarah.”

  “None taken,” said Sarah as she began tidying up the registration table before turning over her clipboard to Maggie and hurrying off to the kitchen. Gretchen inspected the refreshment table and reported that the plates of cookies and crudités had been fairly well depleted, but since the banquet would begin in little more than an hour, she would refill the coffeepot one last time but not worry about replenishing the sweets. Just then, Matt returned from the last scheduled shuttle run to the airport, where he had picked up three additional campers, women from small towns scattered across the Midwest who had never met before but had become fast friends on the ride over.

  By that time, most of the campers had dispersed to settle into their rooms or to explore the estate’s grounds, so some of the Elm Creek Quilters began packing up the registration materials while the others reported to the kitchen to assist Sarah. The penultimate camper arrived just as delicious aromas began to waft into the foyer from the west wing hallway. “I’m so glad I didn’t miss the banquet,” the quilter breathed, snatching up her keys and papers and hurrying upstairs with her luggage to freshen up before supper.

  Five minutes passed, and then ten, and then the grandfather clock in the corner struck half past five. Alone in the foyer, Sylvia and Agnes exchanged a look, a wordless question. Airline delays or traffic on the toll road could have delayed their last camper, but it was also possible that she had changed her mind and wouldn’t be coming. Registration had officially ended a half hour before, and Sylvia and Agnes could be forgiven for abandoning their vigil and joining their friends in the kitchen to help prepare for the Welcome Banquet. But Sylvia was reluctant to let any guest, however overdue for whatever reason, arrive to an empty foyer, especially if she had never visited Elm Creek Manor before. Sarah always indicated new campers by placing an asterisk beside their names on the guest list, and when Sylvia scanned the page on the table in front of Agnes, she spotted the telltale mark.

  That settled it. “You go on,” Sylvia told Agnes. “I’ll stay here to welcome our last arrival.”

  “Heavens, no,” exclaimed Agnes. “Our friends can manage just fine without us. I’ll keep you company.”

  Sylvia smiled her thanks and settled more comfortably in her chair. It would have been lonely to wait alone in the empty foyer knowing how much fun her friends and guests were having elsewhere in the manor.

  The sisters-in-law agreed to wait until they had just enough time to hurry to the banquet hall before the feast began. Their other campers expected them to attend—Sarah always made the opening remarks, but it was Sylvia who led everyone from the banquet hall to the Candlelight welcoming ceremony, a revered Elm Creek Quilts tradition—and it wouldn’t do to disappoint them because of one latecomer.

  With five minutes to go, Sylvia and Agnes heard a strange thumping and scraping outside the front double doors. They exchanged a quick, puzzled glance before looking back just in time to see the door on the left open the barest of inches, then close again, then swing open a bit wider as if nudged by someone unseen, then slowly close again, coming to an abrupt stop on something thrust in the way at the last moment, a metal, rubber-tipped stick.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Sylvia murmured, bolting to her feet as she recognized the metal stick as the end of a crutch. “Just a moment,” she called out as she hurried across the foyer. “I’m coming.”

  Before Sylvia could reach the entrance, a petite y
oung woman wedged herself into the narrow opening between the door and the jamb and shoved it open wider with her shoulder, and wider still with her backpack. “Hi,” she called back brightly, balancing carefully on her crutches as she scooted sideways through the narrow passage. She wore a flattering A-line red wool coat with six large black buttons in pairs down the front, black knit gloves, and a matching rolled-brim red hat over a profusion of long, blond curls. The coat flared just above her knee, revealing a knee-high black leather boot on her left leg and a cast on her right. A cold gust of wind followed her inside, and in the moment before the door closed behind her, Sylvia glimpsed a whirl of small, icy snowflakes in the darkening sky.

  The girl—because to Sylvia she indeed seemed no more than that—frowned prettily at the closed door, then glanced hopefully back at Sylvia. “Could you do me a favor? Would you please hold the door open so I can go back for my suitcase?”

  “I can do more than that,” declared Sylvia, reaching to take the girl’s overstuffed black, red, and white plaid backpack from her shoulders. Where on earth were the Elm Creek husbands, and why hadn’t one of them helped the poor dear inside? “Did you drive yourself? Oh, never mind. What a foolish question. Of course you didn’t.”