Apart at the Seams (12 page)

“Yes, but it seems to me that what you're proposing would simply add one more item to our already overcrowded to-do lists.”

“It wouldn't be like that,” Tessa insisted, shaking her head. “This wouldn't be something we
have
to do but something we
want
to do. We'd be carving out time for ourselves. Isn't there something you've always wanted to try but haven't had time for?”

Abigail considered this momentarily. “No,” she said. “Everything I've ever wanted to do, I have.”

Evelyn laughed as she placed the last of the folded fabric squares in a basket. “Oh, come on, Abbie! I know you've lived life a little larger than the rest of us, but nobody gets to live out all their fantasies. Not even you. I can think of a dozen new things I'd like to try. Surely you can come up with
one
.”

“Perhaps one.” Abigail gave a grudging shrug. “But I'm already certain I have no talent for it, and when I'm proven right and fail miserably, I'm not anxious to be the butt of everyone's jokes.”

Evelyn came out from behind the counter and leaned against it, crossing one arm over her waist, propping her elbow on that arm, and resting her chin in her hand.

“You know,” she said philosophically, “just the other day I was talking to a very busy woman and giving her a big speech about how she had to make time for herself. But it suddenly occurs to me that I'm guilty of the same thing. Maybe I need to take some of my own advice. Lack of time isn't the only reason we don't follow through with some of the things we dream of doing. Sometimes fear gets in the way too.”

“Well, I can understand how Abigail feels,” Madelyn said. “There's something I've been thinking about doing for the longest time, but it is a little daunting. But on the other hand, if I don't do it now, when will I? I'm not getting any younger.”

“You can say that again,” Virginia puffed. “I've had all kinds of things on my bucket list, things I always told myself I'd find time for one of these days. But time is running out, and before I kick it, I'd like to check a couple of things off my list. And you know something?” she said with finality. “I'm going to!”

“So am I!” Margot exclaimed. “I've got two things on my list. Well . . . maybe three,” she stammered and blushed a deep crimson and turned to Tessa. “Do we have to tell everybody what we want to do?”

“Not if you don't want to,” Tessa said. “But I do think we should all make a commitment to try at least one new thing this summer. We don't have to go into specifics, but we should all commit that no matter how it turns out, we'll tell the others about our experiences. We can share our experiences at quilt circle.”

Tessa obviously had a gift for organization and implementation—also for cheerleading. I could almost hear the shaking of pom-poms as she grinned at her friends and said, “What do you think, ladies? Should we do it? Who's with me?”

Virginia put her hand up first, quickly followed by Margot, Evelyn, Madelyn, and, of course, Tessa. Hands still in the air, the five of them stared at Abigail, who lifted hers as well but without enthusiasm.

“Ivy?” Evelyn said, turning to the younger woman, who was standing a little way from the others, with one arm wrapped protectively across her torso and her hand held near her mouth, chewing on the nail of her little finger.

“I'm thinking,” Ivy said. “Give me a minute.”

They did. When it had passed, Ivy raised her hand. Slowly.

“Great!” Tessa enthused, then turned toward me. “Gayla, the circle meets on Fridays. Is that good for you?”

“Yes. I mean . . . I'm sorry, but . . . what?”

Surely she didn't intend for me to be part of all this. We'd only just met.

“You're already doing the sabbatical anyway, so why not join in the fun?”

“Oh, you're nice to invite me, but,” I said, making my face an apology, “I'm not really a joiner.”

It was true. The only thing I'd ever joined willingly—more or less willingly—was the PTA. Over the years, I had reluctantly been a part of a couple of women's networking groups, and for a couple of years when I was working in the school, I had a weekly lunch with two of the other guidance counselors, but I didn't enjoy it. Women, I have found, can often be their own worst enemies—gossiping and snarking behind one another's backs. Who needs it? Lanie was my only real friend. Of course, she could be snarky, too, but never toward me. But I had to admit these women seemed different.

“Come on,” Margot urged. “It'll be fun!”

“Maybe she doesn't want to,” Abigail said. “She said she's not a joiner. Neither am I. Or at least I wasn't until I met you and Evelyn. But you shouldn't press her, Margot. She's only just met us. She may not even like us.”

“Oh, it's not that,” I rushed to assure them. “It's just . . . I don't want to horn in on your club.”

“It's not a club,” Evelyn said. “It's a circle; it can expand or contract as the occasion calls for it. It started with me, Margot, Abigail, and Liza, Abigail's niece. She lives in Chicago now. Then we added Ivy to the circle, then Tessa and Madelyn, and then Philippa—she's one of the pastors at the community church. It's not open to the whole world, but it's not a membership thing either. When we find somebody interesting, we make room for them in the circle. Simple as that.”

“But I don't know how to quilt,” I protested. “I never even learned to sew.”

“Not at all?”

“Not even a button. I wanted to take home ec in high school, but my mother made me take calculus instead. But it's a funny thing,” I said slowly, realizing what a strange coincidence it was. “A couple of weeks ago, I was walking along Twenty-fifth and passed this quilt shop . . .”

“The City Quilter?” Evelyn asked. “I love that shop.”

“Me too. I saw this gorgeous red fabric through the window and ended up going in and buying two yards. I don't know what possessed me,” I said with an incredulous laugh. “I saw that fabric and just had to have it.”

Evelyn's smile widened as I spoke. She looked to Virginia, who gave her a wink and then looked at the others, who all started to laugh.

“What?” I asked. “What's so funny?”

“Nothing,” Evelyn replied with a knowing shake of her head. “But whether you know it or not, deep down inside, you're a quilter. It's only a matter of time.”

“Just because I bought a couple of yards of fabric?”

“I've seen it before,” she said sagely.

“But I told you, I don't know how to quilt. I don't even own a sewing machine.”

“Then it'll qualify as a new experience, won't it? And your timing is perfect: We're going to start a group project next week.”

Madelyn, who had been standing to one side, fingering a bolt of orange fabric with blue and white stars, looked up. “We are?”

“We are,” Evelyn confirmed. “All of us.”

B
ethany reached into the box and pulled out a purple terry-cloth baby bib with a little yellow duck appliquéd on the front.

“How about this?”

I smiled. I hadn't seen that bib in ages. It was one of the first things I'd bought after finding out I was pregnant. Both of the kids had used it; the pale orange stains testified to their love of strained sweet potatoes.

“Definitely,” I said. “Put it with the rest of it.”

Bethany tossed it to Bobby, who peered into the shopping bag we had filled with an assortment of old clothing, ribbons, buttons, and photographs. Bobby's old bear hat was inside too, the one that had earned him his nickname.

“What are you going to do with all this stuff?” he asked.

“I'm honestly not sure,” I said. “We're starting a new project at quilt circle and Evelyn said we should bring things that evoke strong memories for us.”

“Like when you made the log cabin quilt?” Bethany asked.

She was talking about my first quilt, the one I'd made when we were still living in the women's shelter.

Evelyn had been teaching a beginner's class to the residents and asked us to incorporate a piece of fabric that was important to us into our project. All the red center patches of my quilt were cut from pieces of the kids' outgrown clothes.

It's hard to explain, but somehow, making that quilt made me feel capable. It helped me realize that I wasn't the worthless, helpless, useless creature that Hodge had made me believe I was. That quilt changed me, changed everything. Without it, I might have taken Judith's path, returning to a man who had abused me so badly for so many years. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that quilting may have saved my life.

“I think it's similar,” I said, answering Bethany's question, “but she told us to bring a lot of different pieces and not just fabrics but anything that could conceivably be sewn onto a quilt.”

“What's this for?” Bobby asked, reaching into the bag and pulling out a photograph that had been taken a couple of summers previously during a picnic at Lake Waramaug.

Margot had come along. She took the kids down to splash in the water while I read a book for one of my classes. When they returned, I was asleep on the picnic quilt. The kids snuck up quietly, then jumped on me and tickled me while Margot snapped the picture. It shows the kids dripping water and squealing with laughter, their mouths ringed with a stain of purple Popsicle. I'm laughing, too, and my sunglasses are tilted sideways as I squeeze and tickle them back. It's my favorite family portrait.

“You can't sew a picture into a quilt,” Bobby said.

“No, but I can copy the picture onto a special kind of fabric. Then I'll be able to stitch it just like any other piece of fabric.”

“Really? Wow, that is so cool! Hold on a second!”

Bobby jumped to his feet and ran to his bedroom. I heard him opening drawers and digging around, the sound of objects being dumped onto the floor.

“Bear? Don't go leave stuff on the floor!” I shouted. “I've got to vacuum in there later!”

“Do you think he heard me?” I asked Bethany, who was still sorting through the box of old keepsakes.

“Oh, he heard you. But that doesn't mean he's going to listen to you,” she said matter-of-factly, like the miniature adult she was.

How can two children from the same genetic pool, raised by the same mother, be so different?

Bethany spied something at the bottom of the box. Her mouth opened into an “O” of delight, and her eyes lit up like blue beacons. Suddenly she was a child again, just eleven, and I was her mom.

“Look! Mom, look! My old hair ribbons!”

She held them up so I could see. They were frayed at the ends, skinnier in the middle, and creased from the hundreds of times they'd been tied into bows at the base of her pigtails.

“Do you remember?” she asked excitedly. “Do you remember how I wouldn't leave the house without them?”

I nodded. “One blue and one green.”

“Because I couldn't decide on just one favorite color.” She giggled at the foolishness of her younger self. “Can these go in the quilt?”

“Oh, I think they have to.”

I dropped the ribbons into the bag, one blue and one green, as Bobby came thundering down the hallway.

“I found it! It was mixed up with my baseball cards!” he exclaimed, waving the picture over his head before handing it to me, facedown. I turned it over.

It was a photo of Hodge and me, taken before we were married, soon after I found out I was pregnant with Bethany. Hodge had his arm around my shoulders. I looked up at him with adoring eyes. We smiled at each other.

“Where did you get this?”

“In a box next to the trash can. I found it a long time ago and put it away and lost it.

“Now you can copy the picture onto some fabric and sew it into your quilt. Then we can all be in it,” he said excitedly. “The whole family!”

 

The picture ended up in the bag with the ribbons, the bib, the buttons, and other memorabilia.

Bobby was so excited and so insistent. I didn't know how to say no to him or how to explain why I'd rather not include that picture in my quilt, that I didn't want to think about the foolish girl I had been back then or be reminded of the terrible things that came after. I wanted to forget all that. Up until recently, I'd done a pretty good job of it. And then Hodge got time off for good behavior—one of the more ironic ironies in the history of the world—and ruined everything. Yet again.

I couldn't explain that to my son, a seven-year-old child who didn't know about any of that and shouldn't have to. Instead, I told him that since I really didn't know what Evelyn had in mind and how the project was supposed to come together, the items in the bag were just things I
might
end up using.

“It's good to have a lot of options,” I said casually as I stowed the box of keepsakes on the closet shelf and put the shopping bag on the counter, “but I'll just have to wait and see what turns out to be useful and what doesn't. I probably have way more stuff in here than I need.”

I could feel Bethany's eyes on me as I talked. I knew that she knew I had no intention of including Hodge's picture in my project, but she didn't say anything.

We've gotten pretty good at keeping secrets.

S
abbatical or no sabbatical, I still had to work. Thankfully, telecommunications made telecommuting easy, even in a location as centrally isolated as New Bern. So in the morning I booted up my laptop, answered my e-mail, and made a few calls.

Tyler Mattox, a rising senior with procrastination issues, promised to get in contact with William and Mary, Washington and Lee, and the University of Virginia and make appointments for campus visits during his family's summer vacation to Williamsburg. Jen Wells, Blake Neidermeyer, and Zachary Allen all confirmed that they had, as promised, enrolled in summer SAT-preparation courses. And Sandy Tolland, as I'd predicted, was now singing the praises of St. Michael's College. Her attitude had undergone a rapid adjustment after she received a call from the gymnastics coach, who offered Emily a significant athletic scholarship. St. Michael's might not be the Ivy League, but the promise of a scholarship would supply Sandy with the bragging rights she craved. More important, Emily would fit in beautifully there. Problem solved. I was happy for them both.

With my most pressing work wrapped up by eleven, I decided to reward myself with a visit to the demonstration gardens of the famous White Flower Farms in Litchfield, something I'd been meaning to do for years. I could tick another item off my sabbatical wish list and garner some inspiration for my own garden.

As it happened, my visit coincided with the opening day of TomatoMania. I'd never heard of it before, but apparently it was an annual and highly anticipated event. The parking lot was absolutely packed. Three men wearing neon-orange vests directed traffic and tried to keep the chaos to a minimum. After finally finding a place to park, I followed the line of people, chose a little red wagon from one of the many parked near the end of the lot—apparently these were to take the place of shopping carts—and trudged up a little hill to a grassy field, where literally thousands upon thousands of tomato plants in scores of different varieties were offered for sale.

People were loading up their carts as quickly as they could, choosing plants by the dozen and lining up to purchase them at a white tent that housed outdoor checkout counters. It was all a little crazy, but after a long cold winter and a long cold spring, I guess people were just anxious for the start of summer.

I moved on to the flower gardens and greenhouses, which were even more incredible than I could have imagined. There were acres and acres of flower beds, some planted with late-blooming tulips in big blocks of color so beautiful they took your breath away, others that included a greater variety of plants—for example, clumps of lavender next to white roses just coming into bloom with green clusters of lamb's ear to provide texture and balance—but were laid out in a way that made you appreciate and notice each individual plant.

The greenhouses were lovely too. My favorite was devoted entirely to begonias, hundreds of them, with succulent, waxy green leaves and brilliant blooms of scarlet, purple, flaming orange, and canary yellow. They were stunning.

One thing I learned from my visit to White Flower Farms is that using a smaller variety of plants but placing them in groups would provide a greater visual impact than mixing them up, and I knew that was something I wanted to do in my garden. But other than that, I was a bit overwhelmed. In the end, I just ended up buying six tomato plants and going home. I just had no idea where to begin.

Fortunately for me, that question sort of answered itself.

When I returned to the cottage, there was a blue Prius parked in the driveway. It belonged to Tessa Woodruff.

“Hope you don't mind me dropping by unannounced,” she said, opening her trunk to reveal three big plastic gardening flats filled with potted plants. “But I thought I'd bring over a few herbs to help you get started on your gardening.

“That's Lavender Goodwin Creek,” she said, pointing to one of the pots. “It withstands heat better than some of the other varieties and makes a wonderful sachet, has a kind of rosemary scent to it. This variety is called Lavender Silver Mist. You can recognize it by the silvery shimmer of the leaves. It blooms a little later in the summer and is very pretty in fresh arrangements. And over here, you've got Lavender Grosso, so named because it gets to be very, very big. It doesn't look like much now, but you'll want to put that near the back of the bed; otherwise, it'll end up blocking the view of the other plants.”

She leaned closer to the plants and breathed in. “Don't they smell wonderful?”

“They do,” I agreed. “It's awfully nice of you to bring these, but you shouldn't have gone to all this trouble.”

She waved off my comments. “I had to do a little thinning in my own garden. Where should I put these?” She grabbed one of the flats, lifting it out of the trunk.

I took the box that held my tomato plants out of my own car and led the way. When we rounded the corner of the house and Tessa caught site of my still plantless garden, her eyes went wide.

“Wow! Are you putting in a garden or planting crops?”

Seeing it the way she did, an absolutely enormous patch of dirt with undulating edges that testified to my inexperience in the use and control of rototillers, I felt a bit embarrassed.

“I told you, I got a little carried away.”

She nodded. “I get it. How do you think I ended up with a quarter acre planted in lavender? I had to go into the soap business simply to justify it. I brought you some other herbs too,” she said, nodding to plastic pots filled with small but vigorous-looking plants.

“There's rosemary, sage, bergamot, verbena, basil, and mint. Keep an eye on that and cut it back frequently; mint can take over your whole garden if you're not careful. It's so hardy it's practically a weed. The rest of these are pretty sturdy too, and I think we're finally past the threat of frost, so you can plant them today if you want.

“This one is English thyme. Gives a wonderful flavor to chicken and vegetables, or in soup. I cook with it so often that I keep some in the kitchen window, but this one needs a bigger pot. See?” She set the flat on the ground, picked up one of the plastic pots, and yanked out the plant so I could see a tangle of straw-colored roots, wrapped around the soil like a tight-woven bird's nest.

“It's root-bound. When you replant it, just pull those apart. Don't worry—you won't hurt it,” she assured me when she saw the look of horror on my face as she tore into the straw-colored knot, pulling so hard and in opposite directions that they actually made a ripping sound. “It looks savage, I know, but tearing at the roots helps break up that old growth and forces the plant to send out more roots. It's the same thing with the lavender. Once it's mature and established, you've got to prune it way back, cut out the dead wood so it'll have room to spread, and you'll get new, hardier flowers the next season. Now, with the rosemary, you'll want to—”

She stopped in midsentence and laughed at herself.

“Sorry. I'm talking too much. Here,” she said, and placed the thyme plant, wounded roots and all, in my open hand. “Take it. You'll figure it out.”

“Tessa, this is so generous of you.”

“Well, the plants would have gotten thrown away otherwise, and you've got plenty of space. These should fill up”—her eyes twinkled as she looked over my shoulder, assessing the ginormous swath of turned soil—“a tenth of your garden.”

I turned around to face my would-be garden and shook my head. She was right. I could plant ten times the amount of herbs Tessa brought, and I still wouldn't have enough to fill up even a corner of the ground I'd torn up.

“What am I going to do with all this? I mean, how many tomatoes can one person eat?”

“Gayla, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but this area is too shady to grow tomatoes. If you want to do that, you're going to have to till up another bed, over on the south side of the house.”

“Another? You've got to be kidding.”

Tessa shook her head and laughed. So did I.

“Am I a mess or what? Seriously,” I said, spreading my arms to encompass the enormous patch of naked ground, “what am I going to do with all this?”

“Anything you want,” she said, walking into the middle of the patch. “You've got all the room in the world to work with. The fact that you're starting from scratch is a plus. You won't have to tear anything out, just plant it, water it, weed it, and watch it bloom.”

“Still seems like a lot of work.”

“It won't be so bad once everything is established, but the planting is going to be a big job. Plus,” she mused, “you'll need to install some hardscape—stone footpaths, edging for the beds. And maybe an arbor, right over there. As kind of an entrance. And you'll really need to put in some larger plantings—maybe boxwood hedges?—something to define the space that stays green year-round. The best-designed gardens are pretty in winter and summer. But that will involve some heavy work. You'll need some extra pairs of hands. I'd help you myself, but this time of year, I'm so busy with my own garden, and Lee needs my help with the farm.”

“I've got help,” I said. “I'm hiring the neighbor boy, Drew Kelleher, to help take care of my lawn this summer.”

Tessa's face brightened. “That's right! I forgot you live next door to the Kellehers. Well, there's your answer right there. Dan Kelleher is one of the best landscape designers in town, and he grows his own nursery stock. You are going to need a
lot
of plants, and Dan's prices are very reasonable.”

“Oh . . . I really don't think I'll need to bring in Dan,” I said, recalling my embarrassing encounter with my neighbor. “Drew and I can handle it.”

“Drew is a hard worker, but he's just a kid. You need somebody who really knows what will and won't grow in this soil. Nobody is better than Dan. Lee consults him all the time. The fact that he lives next door to you is just icing on the cake, makes everything easier.”

“Oh, I don't think so,” I said hesitantly. “I don't think Dan likes me.”

“Doesn't like you?” Tessa's eyes widened in disbelief. “You must be kidding. Dan likes everybody. Wasn't he the one who lent you his rototiller?”

“Yes, but—”

“See what I mean? That's Dan all over. He's the first person to help out a neighbor or donate his time for a good cause. Did you know that he installed all the landscaping around the library for free? And he gave them the plants at cost.

“Dan is kind of quiet around me,” she went on, “but he talks to Lee with no problem. Maybe he's shy around women. I don't know the details—it happened a long time before Lee and I moved here—but his wife walked out when Drew was just a baby. He never remarried, not even after all these years.”

Dan Kelleher was divorced? I had no idea. Of course, I'd never bothered to ask. Drew had worked for us for three years, but I knew almost nothing about him or his dad. Some neighbor I was.

“Maybe you're right,” I said. “Maybe I should give him a call.”

“I would,” Tessa replied, casting her eyes from one end of the enormous brown expanse to the other.

“It's either that or buy a bag of grass seed. A really big one.”