Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt (17 page)

“Oh, Gwen, you sure haven’t changed. The cream hasn’t even cooled your coffee and you’re already talking politics.” Vicky gazed heavenward as she untangled a long strand of honey-blonde hair from PJ’s fist. “He tried to enlist, but he’s stone-cold deaf in his right ear. Too many tackles, the doctor said, so he obviously doesn’t follow sports because he’d know Pete hardly ever got sacked. It wasn’t how many times he got hit, but how hard. You remember that game junior year against Greenup County?” She waved a hand dismissively. “No, of course you wouldn’t. You never cared about the team. Anyway, I think that’s the tackle that did it. And all that time I thought he was just ignoring me, when it turned out he couldn’t hear a word I said if he was facing the wrong way. Isn’t that funny?”

“Very,” said Gwen, determined to be agreeable. “Who would have guessed?”

“Not me, that’s for sure. But how about
you
? How have you been? I heard you got married.”

“I was married. I’m not anymore.”

“Oh, my. What a shame.” Vicky tsked her tongue as she carefully selected one of Gwen’s mother’s cookies from the plate. “At least you’re still young enough to find someone else, and since your ex isn’t from around here you won’t, you know, run into him at the post office or something. Thank goodness you don’t have any kids.”

“I will in about seven months.”

Vicky’s eyebrows formed perfectly plucked arches. “Oh.” She sank back against the white velour. “I see.” She held PJ a little closer, then fixed Gwen with a bright smile. “If you need to know the best places to get diapers on sale, or which girls you can trust to be reliable baby-sitters, all you have to do is ask.”

It was the kindest gesture anyone from Vicky’s crowd had ever shown her. “Thank you.”

“Isn’t it funny how things turn out?” Vicky stroked her son’s downy hair. “You were always so smart, getting that college scholarship and thinking you were too good for everyone. You couldn’t wait to shake the dust of this town off your feet and never look back. Now here you are, right back in Brown Deer with the rest of us—knocked up, no husband, no job, no fancy college degree. I can’t imagine what you’re going to do next.”

“Neither can I,” said Gwen, although her inclination was to turn the coffee pot over Vicky’s shining blonde head.

During the next two weeks, Gwen left home only to drive an hour away to the nearest library—escorted by her mother, of course—or to pick up necessities at the grocery store, or to attend church services with her parents. She didn’t want to go; she believed less than half of what the priest droned, although she was drawn to the idea of Mary as an iconic mother goddess figure. Still, she went because she appreciated what it meant for her father and mother—who were head usher and leader of the Altar Society, respectively—to sit beside her in all her shame. She was their daughter, and despite her mistakes they intended to stand by her, dragging her out in public if necessary to prove that she had no need to cower inside ashamed. Touched by their faithfulness and impressed by their determination, Gwen resolved to give the neighbors nothing else to gossip about. After all, there was only so much they could say about a divorced pregnant former valedictorian, and Vicky had already said most of it.

Since Gwen was obviously making no effort to build her own circle of friends, her mother cajoled her to join her quilting club, the Brown Does. Gwen laughed off her invitations until she realized her mother was sincere—and resolved. Gwen had absolutely no interest in quilting, growing flowers for the Altar Society, or planning bake sales to support the volunteer fire department, and she was not about to pretend that she cared. She also didn’t need all those matrons, including Vicky’s mother, carrying home cautionary tales about Gwen’s rapidly expanding waistline.

Then her father took her aside and offered his stern opinion. “These are your mother’s friends,” he told her. “They stood by her all those long years when you were gone. They held her when she cried. They prayed for your safe return home. The least you can do—the very least you can do—is show up for one meeting, put on a pleasant smile, and show them that you were worth it. It’s nothing to you, but it would mean the world to your mother.”

Chagrined, Gwen agreed to join the Brown Does for one weekly meeting in the church basement, but only after promising her father that she would keep her opinions about quilting to herself. It wouldn’t be easy. She couldn’t stand to see otherwise intelligent women waste their time on pointless busywork, trivial distractions that prevented them from devoting their time and energy to work that might actually make a difference. Registering women to vote, for example. Speaking out against injustice. Pursuing an education—not that Gwen had much credibility in that regard anymore.

She vowed to keep silent for her mother’s sake as she pulled up a metal folding chair and joined fourteen of her mother’s quilter friends around a long table usually reserved for potluck dinners, wedding receptions, and yard sales. To her surprise, she was not the youngest present. Two of the Brown Does had brought their daughters, who were affectionately referred to as Fawns. Everyone seemed surprised to find Gwen among them, but when an older lady inquired if she was their newest Fawn, Gwen shook her head vehemently.

While the others worked on their own projects, Gwen sat idle, listening. To her relief, after asking how she felt and clucking sympathetically when she admitted to lingering morning sickness, they steered the conversation away from her pregnancy and left her blissfully alone to join in, or not, as she saw fit. The chat wasn’t as dull as she had expected it to be, which shouldn’t have surprised her, considering that she had known them and the people they discussed all her life, and she had a lot of catching up to do. She took a bit of guilty comfort in discovering that she was not the only resident of Brown Deer whose life had taken an unexpected and embarrassing turn; it wasn’t schadenfreude so much as a dawning comprehension that others had recovered from worse downturns in fortune, and in time she might, too.

The next week, she told her mother she was willing to give the Does another try, almost regretting it when her mother greeted the news with unconcealed delight. Gwen had no intention of making the visits a habit, but she had finished her last library book and had nothing better to do. Upon her return to the church basement, the eldest Doe, a mother of twelve, greeted her with a box of gingersnaps, which she promised could cure even the worst morning sickness. Another Doe sought her opinion regarding a selection of fabrics for a new quilt, since, as she said, Gwen had such an “iconoclastic style.” The women included her in their circle as if she belonged there. It was only later that Gwen learned that daughters were considered Fawns from birth regardless of their own inclinations.

As the weeks passed, Gwen grew tired of sitting around while the others pinned and sewed, so she began assisting the others on tasks that required little technical skill—tracing templates for one Doe, cutting pieces for another. When asked when she planned to start a quilt of her own, Gwen laughed and said she didn’t have time.

“Seems to me you have little else but time,” a Doe remarked.

“What are you afraid of?” teased the youngest Fawn, a senior at the high school. “That you’ll make a quilt so ugly that you’ll have to dump it in the lost and found?”

The others laughed so heartily that Gwen looked around the circle in surprise. Were they referring to her notorious refusal to take home ec? Why would they assume her quilts would be ugly? Just because she didn’t
want
to learn to quilt didn’t mean that she
couldn’t.

Sensing her bewilderment, her mother patted her arm reassuringly. “It’s an inside joke,” she explained. “There’s been a Pineapple quilt sitting in the church lost-and-found box for ages. Whenever we’re dissatisfied with one of our projects, we threaten to abandon it there.”

“But we always let the other Does talk us out of it,” another chimed in.

“That Pineapple quilt is perfectly nice, or it would be if it weren’t wadded up and stuffed in a cardboard carton,” said Mrs. Moore, Gwen’s former fifth-grade teacher. “So our joke doesn’t really suit.”

“Why hasn’t someone returned the quilt to its rightful owner?” asked Gwen, still perplexed. “Maybe she thought she misplaced it somewhere else, and she doesn’t know to look for it here. You know all the quilters in Brown Deer. Don’t you recognize the handiwork?”

“If we knew who made the quilt, we wouldn’t have left it to gather dust in the lost and found, now, would we?” said Vicky’s mother.

“Honey, when I said the quilt has been in that box for ages, I meant
ages,
” said Gwen’s mother. “It was there when I rummaged through the box looking for the glove I lost at my First Communion.”

“For crying out loud, even a person can be declared dead after seven years,” said Gwen. “If it’s such a nice quilt, why would you leave it in the lost and found instead of taking it home?”

The Brown Does stared at her, shocked. “Because it isn’t ours,” the eldest said, fixing a sharp, accusatory stare upon Gwen as if she had suggested pilfering from the collection baskets.

“Whoever made that quilt, after all this time, she probably isn’t coming back for it,” Gwen pointed out, pushing back her chair. Behind her, the Brown Does broke into astonished murmurs that faded as Gwen climbed the stairs and made her way to the ushers’ closet, where the water-stained carton sat where it always had, on the floor beneath the ushers’ coat hooks. She knelt beside the box and dug through the assorted single mittens, Sunday school art projects, eyeglass cases, and hand-knit scarves, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell of rotten cardboard and wet wool, until her fingers brushed soft patchwork. Unearthing the quilt, Gwen shook it free of dirt and crushed bits of brown autumn leaves and held it up for inspection. It seemed as well sewn as any quilt that her mother had made, as far as Gwen could tell, with narrow strips of cotton prints sewn in an alternating dark and light diagonal pattern around a central square. The navy blue, brick red, and forest green color scheme was old-fashioned, but not unattractive. Gwen counted twelve rows of eight blocks each, and, measuring with her hand, she estimated that the blocks were six inches square. The quilt felt oddly stiff to the touch—not the top and the backing, which were soft cotton, but something within the layers that gave it a strange crispness. When Gwen gave the folds an experimental squeeze, they made a muffled crinkling sound.

Gwen brushed off as much of the dust and dirt as she could and carried the quilt back downstairs to the basement. Brown Does were busily quilting in silence, which told Gwen they had broken off talking about her when they heard her footsteps on the stairs.

“Oh, so you found it,” said Vicky’s mother, her voice ringing with false brightness.

“Listen to this.” When Gwen shook the quilt, several of the Does nodded knowingly at the rustling sound.

“It’s foundation paper pieced,” said Mrs. Moore. “She left the papers in.”

“That might explain why she got rid of it,” remarked Vicky’s mother. “She was embarrassed by her mistake, or it was too stiff and uncomfortable to sleep beneath.”

Gwen draped the quilt over the table and looked to her mother to decipher the quilt terminology. “This sort of quilt doesn’t use templates,” Gwen’s mother explained as the Does and Fawns leaned forward to inspect the quilt, so eagerly Gwen surmised that most of them had never before seen the subject of their long-standing inside joke. “The block design is drawn in reverse on a foundation, a piece of paper or thin fabric. The quilter sews the block’s pieces directly to the foundation, usually working from the center outward and sewing over previous seams. It’s a useful technique for patterns like the Pineapple that are constructed Log Cabin style.”

“The paper foundations are carefully removed afterward,” added another Doe. “It’s a tedious process, and it’s easy to rip out stitches as you tear off the paper.”

“Which is why some quilters prefer using muslin instead of paper,” said Mrs. Moore. “Muslin foundations don’t have to be removed. They make the top slightly thicker and more difficult to quilt through, but also a bit warmer.”

“Not so you’d notice,” said Vicky’s mother dismissively. “If you leave paper foundations in, well, as you can see, you end up with a quilt that’s noisy and uncomfortable.”

The eldest quilter sniffed. “Whoever left those paper foundations in either didn’t know what she was doing or she was lazy.”

Several Does nodded their agreement, but Gwen shook her head, unconvinced. “She knew enough to piece all these tiny little blocks, and she wasn’t lazy when it came to matching up all of these seams.”

“Said the girl who doesn’t quilt,” teased one of the Fawns.

“I live with a quilter. One picks things up,” said Gwen defensively. “Maybe she left the foundations in intentionally.”

“Yes, to cut corners,” said the eldest quilter. “Lazybones.”

Before Gwen could rush to the unknown quiltmaker’s defense, her mother spoke up. “It’s a mystery, isn’t it, one we’re not likely to solve if we stuff the quilt back in that old carton and never give it another thought except in jokes. Gwen’s taken an interest in it, so why not let her keep it? Maybe she’ll find some clue to the quilter’s identity that the rest of us missed.”

Before Gwen could object that she was only mildly curious, the other Brown Does chimed in their agreement and Gwen found herself the owner of a long-abandoned, cryptic quilt that may or may not have been stitched by the laziest woman in Brown Deer, circa 1900.

Back home, Gwen draped the quilt over her vanity and pondered it for a few days before deciding how to proceed. Her mother recommended searching the quilt for a signature or a bit of embroidery that might offer a clue to the quiltmaker’s identity, but although Gwen examined every inch of each of the ninety-six blocks as well as the backing, she found nothing. When she asked her mother if the Pineapple pattern had any special significance, her mother mused that the pineapple was a traditional symbol of hospitality, but the quilt block pattern didn’t have any symbolic meaning as far as she knew.