Apart at the Seams (20 page)

“I
haven't gotten very far,” Margot said apologetically as she turned the piece of patchwork she was stitching outward so everyone could see.

“That's all right,” Virginia said. “The whole idea is to take our time and enjoy the process, right? You've got some beautiful fabrics here. Where did you find them?”

“That red silk piece is from one of my dad's old ties, and the blue paisley is from one of my mother's old blouses, but the green velvet is new. Mom made green velvet Christmas dresses for my sister and me when we were little. I don't have the dresses anymore, so I bought a scrap of velvet in the same shade as a stand-in. Does that count?” she asked, frowning a little.

“Of course it does,” I said. “Your quilt, your rules. I think it looks great so far. What else are you going to use?”

“I've got fabrics to add from Paul's, James's, and Olivia's old clothes yet. I found some extra lace from my wedding gown that I'm going to use for the trim later. Plus,” she said with a nervous giggle, “I unraveled the sleeve from one of Paul's sweaters so I could use the yarn. I hope he doesn't mind. He never wears it anymore, and it was just the perfect shade of gold for the vines I want to embroider along the border.”

“Bring it in to me, honey,” Virginia said. “I'll rework the sleeves and turn it into a vest. Chances are he'll never know the difference. Men don't pay attention to clothes.”

“Oh, would you? Thanks, Virginia!”

“Anybody else?” Evelyn asked, looking around the room. “Gayla? How is your project coming?”

“Slowly,” she said. “All I've really done so far is practice my embroidery, find a few fabrics that I want to use, and . . .” She hesitated and shifted her eyes to the floor before going on. “And decided it was time to let you in on some things.”

Gayla's words and the tone of her voice caught everyone's attention. One by one, we put our stitching aside and turned to look at her. The room was perfectly silent.

“I tried something new last week,” she said. “I went on a date—with my husband.” Her eyes scanned the circle of faces. “I'm sure you've figured it out by now, but I didn't come up to New Bern for a sabbatical. A few weeks ago, I discovered that my husband had had an affair. It was over before I found out about it, and Brian apologized and told me he wanted to salvage the marriage, but I didn't know what to do. I got in my car, started driving, and ended up here. I ran away.”

So I'd guessed right. The dish throwing, the midnight ditch digging, the crazy behavior that seemed so out of character with the calm, kind, and somewhat cautious woman whose kitchen I'd sat in while practicing embroidery; it all made sense now. She'd had her life turned upside down by a cheating husband and had come here, to New Bern, to our quilt circle. Funny how that worked. But maybe it was like Tessa said: People don't choose to become part of our circle as much as the circle chooses them, expanding to make room for the people who, whether they know it or not, need it most. As I looked at the faces of my friends, I realized that at one time or another this had been true of every one of us.

Evelyn ended up in New Bern almost the same way Gayla had. After her husband divorced her for another woman, she'd gotten in her car, drove all the way from Texas to Connecticut, and never looked back. I glanced at her, wondering if she would say something, but she kept silent, listening to everything Gayla had to say.

Gayla closed her eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath, as if she had absolutely decided not to cry, then opened them and went on.

“Maybe you're wondering why I'm telling you all this now.” She gave a mirthless little laugh. “I'm kind of wondering the same thing myself. I've never been one to confide in other women, but I've been watching all of you these last weeks, the way you support one another, and as I was thinking through some things, I realized that . . . well, maybe I need some help getting through this.”

“Of course.”

“Absolutely.”

Words of encouragement came from every corner of the room, and Evelyn said, “Tell us how we can help. Have you made any decisions about your future yet?”

Gayla nodded slowly. “I have, at least in the short term. Brian had this idea that we should try dating, sort of starting over from square one. At first I thought it sounded crazy and that things had gone too far for that. But,” she said, “I agreed to give it a try. I also promised I wouldn't file for divorce before the end of the summer—”

“As a kind of cooling-off period?” Tessa asked. “That seems like a smart idea.”

Gayla shrugged. “Maybe. I didn't think for a minute it would work. Honestly, I think I mostly agreed to it because of the kids. I don't want Maggie and Nate to be able to say that I hadn't even tried to save the marriage. I don't want to be the bad guy in all this. Sounds pretty selfish, I know, but that's the truth.

“Anyway, we went out on Saturday. A lot of it was awkward, but some of it was great—much better than I'd hoped. But”—she shook her head—“things didn't end well. He did something—I don't even think he realized he was doing it—but it reminded me of everything that had happened, all the lies he'd told me, and I just . . .”

Gayla took another deep breath, but this time it wasn't enough to keep her emotions in check. She moved a hand to her face, covering her eyes, and took several more big breaths, trying to collect herself.

“It was like finding out about the affair all over again. I spent the whole day crying and brooding and smoking cigarettes. I went through a whole pack. I hadn't had a cigarette for twenty-six years before this happened; now I'm smoking like a chimney.” She sighed and lowered her hand from her face. “I've got to stop.”

Virginia reached over and patted her hand. “You will. But maybe one problem at a time, hmm? Once your divorce is final, you can—”

Gayla shook her head. “No, you don't understand. I'm not sure I want to divorce Brian. I know it sounds crazy, but . . . I had this dream. Dreams never make sense when you try to explain them, but when I woke up, I knew that I could never feel about anyone else the way I felt about Brian.”

“So you've decided to take him back?” Madelyn queried, giving Gayla a skeptical look.

“No, I haven't decided that either. But what I
have
decided to do is to give him a chance, a real chance. Not for the kids' sake or just so I won't look bad. But because I know in my heart that if I can't resurrect my love for Brian, I'll never be able to love anyone else. At this moment, I honestly can't imagine how we can move past this, but I'm going to try. The reason I wanted you to know all this is because I think it will help if I have some . . . some friends I can talk to and who will cheer me on.

“Although,” she said with a little laugh, tipping her head toward the ceiling and blinking back tears, “now that I've heard myself saying all this, I realize it sounds completely nuts. You must think I'm some kind of spineless idiot to consider taking him back.”

“No, we don't,” Evelyn said, handing Gayla a box of tissues. “This is one of those things that every woman has to answer for herself. My first husband cheated, too, you know. Later, after the divorce, he came to Connecticut and wanted to reconcile, but not until after his girlfriend had dumped him. He didn't want to be with me; he just didn't want to be alone. But, if he'd made that offer early on, who knows what would have happened? I might have taken him back. I certainly would have thought about it. You're not being spineless, Gayla. None of us sees you that way.”

“Actually, I think you're pretty tough,” Madelyn said. “Much tougher than I was in your shoes. My late husband, Sterling, was a serial adulterer. I knew about it, but I put up with it because I didn't think I could survive without him. Talk about spineless.” She rolled her eyes. “I let him treat me like a doormat. But you've made a declaration about what you will and won't put up with, and you've stated, very clearly, that you're ready to walk away if he can't change his ways. That takes some guts, especially if you really love him.”

“But I feel like such an idiot,” Gayla said, taking a sip from her wineglass, which had been sitting untouched. “How could I not have known what was going on? How could I have ignored the signs? I keep thinking that I should have—”

“Don't!” Tessa said. “Don't beat yourself up like that. It happens. A lot more often than people think.”

Tessa's sentences were clipped, her voice uncharacteristically sharp. Everyone turned to look at her. She pressed her lips together into a thin line before speaking again.

“Nobody knows about this,” she said. “So I'm going to remind everyone of our rule: What's said in the circle stays in the circle. About twenty years ago, Lee had an affair.”

My eyes went wide and my hand flew to my mouth, covering my shock. Lee Woodruff had cheated? I couldn't believe it! Lee and Tessa seemed so happy together. They still held hands when they went walking. I've seen them, watched them cross Cobbled Court hand in hand when they thought no one was looking. He brings her coffee in bed every morning, and every year on her birthday, Lee buys an entire truckload of manure and spreads it over Tessa's lavender patch. Okay, maybe that doesn't sound romantic, but shoveling manure requires a lot more effort than buying a present or making dinner reservations, and Tessa, feeling the way she does about her lavender, appreciates it a lot more. I completely get that.

When I was a little girl, I used to daydream about a man who'd bring me flowers or buy me jewelry. Nothing against candy and flowers, but these days, the man who'd really make me swoon would be the man who'd mow the grass or do the dishes or fold the laundry. Funny how your ideas of romance change as you get older.

But Lee Woodruff was that man, the solid and steady kind, the kind who'd do anything for his wife, who'd never cheat. That's what I'd always believed.

“It didn't last long, but I found out about it while it was still going on,” Tessa said, her eyes fixed on Gayla's. “I was completely crushed. I couldn't eat or sleep or work. I lost nine pounds in two weeks.

“Lee ended the relationship immediately,” Tessa went on. “He apologized, said he'd been a fool, and promised it would never happen again, but I threw him out of the house and changed the locks on the doors anyway. A few days later, he showed up on the doorstep and begged me to give him another chance, and I did.”

There was a murmuring of sympathy throughout the room. Tessa was always so cheerful. Even when she had to close her shop, For the Love of Lavender, because she and Lee were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, she'd kept up a brave face. It was impossible to imagine her falling apart.

Madelyn frowned. “You never told me any of that. I'm your best friend, and you never told me. How could you keep that from me all this time?”

“Because it was over and done with by the time you and I renewed our friendship,” Tessa said with a shrug. “So why bring it up? I wouldn't want you to think badly of Lee. He did a bad thing, but he isn't a bad man. He bent over backward to regain my trust. It wasn't easy, let me tell you. It took a long, long time before I felt able to trust him again. If I didn't know where he was every minute of every day, I'd panic.”

Gayla nodded, as if she understood exactly what Tessa was talking about. So did Evelyn.

Tessa brought her empty glass to the table and refilled it before carrying the bottle around to the rest of us.

“I think this kind of thing happens a lot more than people realize. If a couple decides to stay together and work through the pain of infidelity, the affair becomes a secret. If the marriage is to survive, it almost has to.”

She stopped in front of Gayla and topped off her glass. “The only reason I'm talking about this now is because I want you to know that you're not alone. If the person who did the cheating is genuinely repentant, and the couple is willing to make a serious effort to reconcile their relationship, people
can
get through this, Gayla. It's not easy, but they can. Sometimes,” she said, lifting her own glass to her lips, “they even come out better on the other side. It's possible.”

Gayla forced a smile. “I hope you're right.”

“Can I call you tomorrow?” Tessa asked.

“That would be nice. Thanks. Anyway,” Gayla said, and slapped her palms against her thighs, indicating she had said all she was willing to say for the moment. “I didn't intend to hijack the conversation. Did anybody else make progress on their sabbatical project?”

“Well,” I said slowly, “I wasn't really planning on talking about this—not yet—but since Gayla opened the door . . . I went on a date this weekend too. My first ever.”

“You did! Who with?”

“Really?”

“Oh, Ivy! Good for you!”

My cheeks felt hot in the face of their enthusiasm, but I couldn't keep from smiling.

“Actually, I ended up going on four dates. The first three were absolute nightmares. But the fourth . . .”

Amid much laughter, I told them all about Kieran, Captain Smythe-Jones, Trace, and even poor, frustrated Mandy. Then, amid much oohing and awing, I told them about Dan.

“Oh, Ivy! That's just wonderful!” Margot exclaimed, jumping up from her chair to give me a big hug. “I'm so happy for you!”

“Don't get carried away,” I laughed. “It was a milk shake, not a proposal. Dan and I are just friends. But dating turned out to be a lot more fun than I figured it would be. I've decided to take another leap of faith too. I'm going to apply for that job at New Beginnings. I probably won't get it, but I've got nothing to lose by trying, right? Dan says you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take.”