A Quilter's Holiday: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (23 page)

Gwen had not spoken to Victoria for several months when they ran into each other at a conference and spent an evening catching up over supper. Eventually the conversation turned to Victoria’s health and her thwarted attempts to have a bone marrow transplant. Her brother, long hoped to be a suitable donor, had recently been eliminated after more thorough testing revealed previously undetected incompatibilities. “Now my hopes ride on a response from the national registry,” said Victoria. “If I remain healthy until a suitable match can be found, my doctor will proceed with the transplant. If I have a recurrence before a donor appears—” She smiled ruefully and shook her head.

Gwen felt a chill, but she declared that of course Victoria would remain perfectly healthy until a donor was found, which would certainly be soon. When Victoria smiled knowingly and said she hoped so, Gwen knew that her former mentor had seen through her false bravado, and she was ashamed. Victoria deplored perfunctory niceties and Gwen had always respected her too much to give her anything but the plain, hard truth. As they parted ways, Gwen silently chastised herself
and resolved that she would never again resort to cheery platitudes and deny Victoria the truth, no matter how painful it might be.

Back in Waterford, troubled by the thought of Victoria’s limited window of opportunity, Gwen searched the Internet for information about bone marrow transplants. What she discovered alarmed her even as it increased her respect for Victoria’s courage. Once a donor was found, Victoria would undergo radiation treatments that would destroy her own bone marrow. The stem cells taken from the donor’s bone marrow would be given to her intravenously, much like a blood transfusion. The donor cells would travel through her bloodstream into her bones, where they would engraft, or grow, and begin to produce healthy cells. She would have to take antirejection medication for the rest of her life and possibly endure a host of side effects, but if the transplant succeeded, her lymphoma would not return.

But the odds of finding a donor were daunting.

Suddenly Gwen knew what she must do to help her beloved mentor: She would volunteer to be tested and add herself to the bone marrow donor registry.

Intellectually, she knew that the larger the pool of donors, the more likely a match would be found. But more compelling than any calculation of the odds was her belief in fate. After all that Victoria had done for her throughout the years—teaching
her, guiding her, setting her on her way—it would be only right and just if Gwen could help Victoria now.

The histocompatibility antigen test was simple, virtually painless. Gwen made an appointment at the Elm Creek Valley General Hospital, where a nurse cleaned the inside of her elbow with antiseptic, wrapped an elastic band around her upper arm, inserted a needle into the vein, and collected a vial of blood, just like any other blood draw Gwen had had through the years. As she waited several days for the results, Gwen’s certainty that she would be a match for Victoria grew. When she was identified as a suitable donor, it would not be an astonishing coincidence but rather the sign of a benevolent presence in the universe, guiding their footsteps, bringing them together for a great purpose. Gwen loved and admired Victoria and considered her a friend as well as a mentor. No sacrifice was too much if it would free Victoria from the cycle of recurrence, increasing the quality of her life as well as extending it.

Gwen’s expectations had soared so high that when the news came that she was not a match for Victoria, she was sure that there had been some mistake, some mix-up in the lab, something. Told that the results were accurate, Gwen nevertheless had herself retested elsewhere—and was shattered to hear the same unhappy result.

“I’m sorry you can’t help your friend,” the nurse consoled
her as she left the clinic. “Don’t lose hope. New donors volunteer for the registry every day. A match for your friend is out there somewhere.”

Gwen wanted to believe her, but as she returned to her office on the Waterford College campus, she realized that she couldn’t wait patiently for that someone to appear, not when time was of the essence.

After consulting with the Waterford College infirmary and the Elm Creek Valley General Hospital, Gwen enlisted the help of the college premed and prenursing programs and organized a campus-wide bone marrow donor registration drive. Hundreds of students, faculty, and staff scheduled appointments or dropped by the basketball arena between classes to be tested. Local businesses donated prizes to be awarded to the various fraternities, sororities, and dorms that brought in the most residents. Campus bands entertained the volunteers and potential donors throughout the day, and College Food Services supplied tasty refreshments. At the end of the long, triumphant day, Gwen thanked her volunteers with tears in her eyes and a heart full of gratitude. Surely someone tested that day would turn out to be a lifesaving donor for someone—if not for Victoria, then for someone else whose need was just as great.

But Gwen would leave nothing to chance. She wrote impassioned letters to the history departments of Cornell and Harvard, Victoria’s alma mater, to remind them of Victoria’s
heroic ongoing battle, and she encouraged them to organize their own bone marrow donor drives. To her delight, they took up the challenge in admirable fashion, arranging a friendly competition between the two universities to see which could register the most donors. Between the three schools, more than three thousand potential bone marrow donors joined the registry, offering hope for a transplant and renewed good health to patients across the country.

Gwen’s intention at the outset was to find a donor for Victoria, but she celebrated each announcement that a match had been made—a student at Waterford College to a child in Michigan, a professor at Cornell to a young mother in Iowa, an executive assistant with the Department of Biology at Harvard to a teenage boy in Dallas. “We’ll find someone for you,” she assured Victoria, and then, remembering her vow not to paint bleak truths in rosy hues, she added, “If our drives don’t turn up a donor, someone else’s might.”

And that was what finally happened. A month after the last results came back from those tested at the university events, a woman in Georgia participated in a donor drive at her church organized on behalf of a fellow parishioner. She was an ideal match for Victoria. As Gwen rejoiced for her friend, she hoped that a donor would be found for the Georgia churchgoer. That was how it usually worked, she had discovered. Volunteers who signed up hoping to help someone they cared about ended up helping distant strangers, keeping their
hopes alive that someday soon a stranger would be found to help their loved one.

One part of Victoria’s ordeal had ended and another had begun. She underwent radiation treatments to destroy her bone marrow and prepare her to receive the donor’s stem cells. Gwen waited apprehensively for updates from Victoria’s son during the long months of her hospital stay, wishing she could visit, but understanding the need to limit Victoria’s exposure to germs while the donor stem cells rebuilt her immune system.

Again Victoria’s indomitable spirit and optimism carried her through. As time passed, she regained her strength and was permitted to return home. After taking a year’s sabbatical, she was able to resume her duties at Cornell. She attended her son’s wedding and was present at the birth of her first grandchild. From time to time she returned to the hospital for brief stays to deal with anemia or perplexing infections, but her doctors said she showed no sign of rejection. The bone marrow transplant had cured her cancer.

Yet it seemed to Gwen that the battle waged on. She had not expected Victoria to be hospitalized so frequently so her doctors could track down the cause of a fever or unexpected fatigue. She had not expected Victoria to have to deal with inconvenient, uncomfortable side effects of her essential medications. But whenever she saw Victoria, active and self-assured, she took heart. Her mentor had been given a new lease on life, and she was clearly making the most of it.

As the years passed, Gwen grew accustomed to Victoria’s wry emails announcing that she was in the hospital yet again. She was relieved when Victoria mentioned that she planned to retire soon, for she worried that Victoria had been pushing herself too hard to make up for time lost to convalescence. Victoria told Gwen she planned to resume quilting in her retirement, for the demands of academic life had prevented her from “nurturing her inner artist” for too long. Her first project, she told Gwen, would be a quilt for her bone marrow donor, whom she had met two years after her transplant and had quickly befriended. Victoria and Kathryn had met in person three times and spoke on the phone weekly. “It’s remarkable how close we’ve become,” Victoria remarked. “She’s saved my life, and for that I’ll be forever grateful, but she’s also become as dear to me as a sister just because of who she is.”

Victoria wanted to thank Kathryn for her generous gift of life, and she could think of no more perfect gift than a quilt she made herself. She was out of practice, but she thought with a bit of effort she would remember her old skills. She had found a perfect block, too, a pattern that resembled an unusual forked star superimposed upon a square and named after Kathryn’s hometown, Augusta. If she applied herself, Victoria speculated, she might be able to finish the quilt in time for Christmas.

Through spring and summer, Gwen followed Victoria’s progress with delight, enjoying the amusing reversal of their
old teacher and student roles. With Sylvia’s blessing, she invited Victoria to spend a week at Elm Creek Quilt Camp so she could work uninterrupted on her labor of love. She and Gwen spent so much time chatting and strolling through the lovely gardens of the estate that Victoria did not accomplish quite as much work as she had planned, but upon her departure, she declared that she had enjoyed herself thoroughly and might make Elm Creek Manor the spot for an annual getaway. Gwen, happy to have spent a week nurturing their long and enduring friendship, assured her she was welcome to return anytime.

But with autumn came news from Victoria’s son that she had been hospitalized again, and something in his tone warned Gwen that this visit was not routine. Her lungs and kidneys were inexplicably shutting down, and her doctors were fighting to halt her decline. She drifted in and out of consciousness, her son said, his voice breaking, but she had asked to see Gwen.

Immediately Gwen arranged for a graduate student to cover her classes and raced to Victoria’s side, painfully reminded of the many times she had covered for Victoria so she could be with her dying sister. But Victoria could not be dying, she told herself firmly as she drove through the rolling, forested Pennsylvania Appalachians, insensible to their breathtaking autumnal beauty. Victoria had survived the bone marrow transplant and countless infections and adjustments to her
meds. Surely this was just another setback—more serious than the others, perhaps, but nothing she could not overcome.

On the day of her arrival, Victoria was too ill for visitors, but Gwen was permitted to see her the next morning. Donning scrubs, mask, hairnet, and booties, Gwen sat at her bedside and forced back tears as Victoria weakly questioned her about her research, her ongoing battles with her department chair to investigate subjects he considered beneath notice, and her plans for the next season of Elm Creek Quilt Camp. “I don’t think I’ll be able to finish Kathryn’s quilt,” she said, after Gwen had run out of things to say that avoided the obvious matter of greatest concern.

“Of course you will,” said Gwen vehemently. “It’s your quilt, your gift. You’ll finish it on your own, and Kathryn will cherish it.”

Victoria replied with a look of mild reproach, too exhausted to manage the words. Gwen understood: Even now Victoria loathed false pleasantries, especially now, but Gwen could not bring herself to say what they both suspected was true.

“You won’t be able to finish the quilt in time for Christmas,” Gwen amended. “Not unless they let you bring your sewing machine here.” She frowned in mock disapproval and waved a hand to indicate the medical equipment surrounding her beloved mentor. “Frankly, with all these contraptions, I doubt there’s a spare outlet to plug it in anyway.”

Victoria smiled faintly. “Then you’ll finish the quilt for me and give it to Kathryn with my gratitude and deepest affection?”

“I’ll work on it while you’re in the hospital to keep things on schedule,” said Gwen. It was the most she could bear to promise. “It’ll be finished by Christmas.”

“Don’t let Kathryn blame herself for my death,” said Victoria. “The bone marrow transplant worked. I’m free of cancer. Her gift gave me more years, better years, than I would have known otherwise. I saw my son marry. I held my first grandchild. I won that NEH grant—”

Gwen choked out a laugh. “Well, thank goodness you lived to see that NEH grant.”

Victoria smiled, clearly pleased at the return of Gwen’s sense of humor.

“Don’t give up,” Gwen implored. “It’s not done until it’s done.”

“You should know better than to think you need to tell me that,” said Victoria. “I’m not one to stop fighting.”

“I know,” said Gwen. She reached out and held Victoria’s hand, feeling her lingering strength and undiminished love through the thin fabric that separated them.

Gwen returned to the Elm Creek Valley, where she awaited news from Victoria’s son and hoped for the best. Memories flooded her as she worked upon Victoria’s gift for Kathryn—her first months as Victoria’s student, their many
discussions about history and jokes about department politics, the times Victoria had offered guidance as an experienced single mother, their ongoing professional relationship in all the years since Gwen left Cornell and forged her own path, their enduring friendship. Gwen couldn’t imagine what her life would have been if Victoria had not been a part of it. She did not want to learn what it would be without her.

Victoria died at the end of October. Gwen took a week’s leave of absence from Waterford College and told the Elm Creek Quilters she would be out of town to attend her mentor’s funeral. They offered sympathy and comfort, as she had known they would, but although she had mentioned Victoria throughout the years and they had met her during her visit to Elm Creek Quilt Camp, they did not understand all that Victoria had meant to her or the depth of her loss. Even Summer did not fully understand.