Round Robin (15 page)

“Don't say that,” Matt would respond. “You're the best thing that ever happened to me. It's being out of work, I swear. Once I get a job, everything will be different. Everything will be fine.”

She had believed him then because she wanted it to be true, because the alternative was unthinkable. And when he finally found the job that brought them to Waterford, it seemed that she had been right to believe him. For a long time after the move, their marriage had been happier and stronger than ever. Matt seemed to think so; he couldn't have faked contentment for such a long time. Why had things changed in the past few months, when she thought all those old dark times had been left behind in the move, when Matt had a job doing what he loved for a kind and generous employer?

She couldn't bury her worries, not this time, even though she and Matt went on their picnic after all and had a pleasant, if subdued, afternoon together. She had to talk to someone, but definitely not her mother. Not Sylvia, either; the older woman had been so happy ever since Andrew had arrived, and Sarah didn't want to spoil it. Summer was kind and sympathetic, but she had no experience with marriage; Gwen had been divorced for so long that she had little more marital experience than her daughter. Diane would probably give her a few wisecracks before blabbing her story to anyone who would listen, and Judy was so happily married that Sarah's problems would no doubt baffle her.

Bonnie. She had been married a long time. Maybe she could help.

Sarah managed to take her aside on Sunday afternoon during new camper registration. She grew tearful as she told Bonnie about Matt's behavior and her own helplessness in the face of his growing dissatisfaction. When she finished, Bonnie was silent for a while, her expression a mixture of concern and compassion. Sarah watched her and waited for her to speak, hoping for a solution—or at least a course of action—and dreading that instead she'd receive a confirmation of her worst fears, that all signs pointed to a marriage in jeopardy.

“The first thing you need to do is stop agonizing over this,” Bonnie finally
told her. “Matt loves you—that much is obvious. Even if you have hit a rough patch, you'll work it out.”

Sarah took a deep breath, relieved. That was what she had been telling herself, too, but it meant more coming from someone else, someone more objective.

Bonnie placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her an encouraging smile. “All marriages go through ups and downs. It's not like a movie, where everyone lives happily ever after. You're going to have times where you feel so close and loving that you'll think your marriage is invulnerable. Then you'll enter another cycle where everything you say is the wrong thing and the happy times seem over for good. But they won't be; they'll come back. You'll see.”

“But I don't want ups and downs. I just want the ups.”

“The only way to stay that consistently happy over a lifetime is for both of you to be heavily medicated,” Bonnie said dryly. “And that approach brings problems of its own. As a relationship grows, it changes. Sometimes those changes can create tension, maybe even pain, but that doesn't mean you love each other any less. The only way to avoid those growing pains is to stagnate, and that's far worse.”

Sarah nodded. Bonnie hadn't given her the panacea she'd hoped for, but she had given her hope. “Is there anything I can do to get us out of this bad cycle more quickly?”

“You could ask him to talk about how he feels. You might not have the answers he needs, but it sometimes helps to talk.”

Sarah smiled. “That's true.” She herself felt better after talking things out with Bonnie. Describing the problem helped her to better understand it, and putting it into words somehow gave it borders, made it finite. “Thanks, Bonnie.”

“Anytime. I mean that. Whenever you need to talk—”

“Talk about what?” Carol said.

They looked up, startled. They had been so intent on their conversation that they hadn't seen her approach, but there she stood, looking from one to the other, eager to be included.

“Nothing,” Sarah said automatically.

Carol's smile evaporated. “You must have been talking about something. You've been whispering in this huddle for at least twenty minutes.”

“Oh, you know,” Bonnie said easily. “The usual lover's quarrels. She just needed to sound off.”

Carol fixed her gaze on Sarah. “Are you and Matt having problems? Why didn't you tell me?”

Because you'd say you told me so, Sarah thought; you'd say you warned me about him and you'd gloat that you had been right all along. “We're not having problems. Everything's fine.”

“It doesn't sound fine.” The familiar worry lines appeared around Carol's mouth. “I would think this was something a daughter would want to discuss with her mother.” She glanced at Bonnie as if to say that Bonnie's intrusion pained her as much as Sarah's neglect.

If Bonnie noticed, she didn't show it. “You'd think that, wouldn't you?” she said, shaking her head and casting her gaze to heaven. “That's never how it works, though. Sarah's willing to talk to me, but my own kids would run screaming from the room rather than listen to my opinion.”

Carol gave her a tight smile. “I see we have a lot in common.” Her eyes met Sarah's briefly as she turned to rejoin the others, long enough for Sarah to see she had been deeply hurt.

“Mom, wait,” Sarah called after her, but Carol kept walking.

Bonnie put her arm around Sarah's shoulders as they watched Carol return to the registration table. “Don't worry. She won't stay angry. You can talk to her later.”

Sarah nodded, but she felt as if at any moment she'd collapse beneath the growing pile of worries. It was as if the stitches holding the scraps of her life together were unraveling faster than she could put them in, and if she didn't work quickly enough, a gust of wind would send the unsewn pieces scattering in all directions, whirling in the air around her, just beyond her grasp.

B
onnie woke to find Craig's side of the bed empty. She listened for the sound of the shower, but instead she heard the faint clattering of fingers on the computer keyboard in the family room. He had risen early to check his E-mail before work again. It was becoming a habit with him. She preferred his old habit—lying in bed with her as they held each other and planned their day—but as she had told Sarah the day before, relationships changed.

She kicked off the covers, drew on her robe, and padded into the family room in her slippers. Craig was sitting at the computer, his back to her, a cup of coffee and a doughnut within easy reach on the desk. He had already dressed for work.

“Morning,” Bonnie greeted him.

He jerked upright as if she had sent an electric current through his chair. “You startled me.”

“Sorry.” She hid a smile and joined him at the computer just as he quit the application. “Any interesting mail?”

“Not really.” He shut down the computer. “The usual memos, you know, reminders about meetings, things like that.” He picked up his breakfast and carried it into the kitchen.

Bonnie followed. “Doesn't sound like anything worth getting up early for.”

“Just wanted to get it out of the way.” He poured the rest of his coffee into the sink and left the mug on the counter. “I'd better get going.”

“So early?” It was only seven o'clock.

He nodded and wrapped his doughnut in a napkin. “Bob called an emergency meeting about graduation.”

“Oh, dear. What is it this time?” Bonnie went to the sink, rinsed the coffee down the drain, and placed the mug in the dishwasher. “Not the floor again, I hope?”

Three years before, heavy rains had flooded the auditorium only days before commencement, warping the wood parquet floor into a series of small hills. The Office of the Physical Plant staff had to scramble to rearrange stages, seating, and enough microphones and speakers for a modest rock concert. It had made for several exhausting days and late nights, but they'd pulled it off in time for the ceremony.

“No, nothing like that, fortunately,” Craig said. “Just the usual logistical snarls. You know how it is.”

“Will you have to change your plans for the weekend?”

He shot her a quick look. “What?”

“Your trip to Penn State. Don't tell me you forgot.”

“Oh.” His features relaxed. “No, I didn't forget. And no, it won't be a problem. We'll have everything sorted out by then.” He took his sack lunch out of the refrigerator and kissed her on the cheek on his way out of the kitchen. “I'll see you tonight.”

She trailed after him. “Craig?”

He paused at the door. “What?” He had picked up his briefcase and was waiting for her to speak, his hand on the doorknob.

Suddenly she felt tired, as if it were the end of the day rather than the beginning. “Nothing. Never mind. Have a good day.”

“Sure, honey. You, too.” He hurried out the door. She heard him lock it behind him, then the faint sound of his footsteps going downstairs. She felt rather than heard the heavy door to the back parking lot slam shut, and then silence, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator and the odd clicking noises of their automatic drip coffeemaker as it cooled.

Bonnie sighed.

She threw out the used grounds and filled the coffeemaker with fresh grounds and water, then went to take a shower while she waited for the pot to fill. As she showered, she thought about the advice she had given Sarah the previous day. Was it sound advice, and was Bonnie the right person to give it? She had never considered herself an expert on relationships, but then again, she and Craig had been married for nearly twenty-eight years. That had to count for something.

Their marriage fit the usual pattern, she supposed. Newlywed joy, followed in turn by the challenges of raising kids, the relief when they went off to college, and the pride mixed with loneliness when they found jobs and spouses and lives of their own. Bonnie hoped that their youngest son, still a junior at Lock Haven University, would find a job close to home after he graduated, unlike his brother, who now lived in Pittsburgh, and his sister, who had moved to Chicago.

Their home seemed so quiet now, even though it was over a store downtown and right across the street from the Waterford College campus. Bonnie used to fear that without the daily business of raising their children, she and Craig wouldn't be able to find anything to talk about for the rest of their lives. Fortunately, that hadn't been the case. Craig talked about his job and Penn State football, Bonnie talked about Grandma's Attic and Elm Creek Quilts, and they both wondered aloud when they would have their first grandchild. Maybe they weren't as romantic as they used to be, but they were both so busy, too busy to carry on like love-struck teenagers. Craig had never been the love poetry and red roses type of man, anyway, and Bonnie liked him too much to demand that he change. What was most important was that they were comfortable together. Over the years they had settled into an easy friendship illuminated by increasingly rare but intense flashes of passion, reminding them why they had come together in the first place and why they had remained together so long.

After breakfast, Bonnie dressed in a comfortable pair of slacks and a quilted vest she had finished over the weekend. The pattern had come from a new book she was stocking in the shop; if customers complimented her on her attire, she could direct them to the book so they could
make vests of their own. Then she finished reading the newspaper, tidied up the kitchen, and began her two-minute commute to work.

She smiled to herself as she went downstairs to the shop, remembering a joke she and the kids used to share. “This is the only house in town where you go downstairs to get to the attic,” Tammy would say.

On cue, Craig Jr. would chime in, “You should have called it Grandma's Basement.” Then they would all laugh.

It was a silly joke, but it was theirs, and they enjoyed it. How noisy and cluttered and bustling the house used to be, and how quiet and tidy it was now. Craig didn't seem to mind, but Bonnie missed the mess.

At least the shop was the same—as cozy and friendly as ever. Grandma's Attic was the only quilt shop in Waterford, and over the years its steady and loyal customers had become her friends. The business had not made her rich—in fact, some years it was all she could do to break even—but it meant the world to her. She was her own boss, and her success depended entirely upon her own efforts. She also knew that in addition to selling fabric and notions and pattern books, she was providing Waterford's quilters with a gathering place, a sense of community. How many other people could say that about their jobs?

Her only disappointment was that none of her children had ever wanted to work at Grandma's Attic; not even the promise that they would own the shop someday had tempted them. Summer Sullivan enjoyed her part-time job there so much that Bonnie once thought she might want to go full-time after graduation and eventually take over the entire business, but when Summer was accepted into graduate school at Penn, Bonnie decided not to bother asking her. Summer was a bright young woman with a promising future, one she wasn't likely to abandon for a small-town business. Bonnie had put her heart and soul into Grandma's Attic, but when the time came for her to retire, she would have to close it down or sell it to a stranger. Neither option appealed to her, but fortunately she wouldn't have to think about that for a while. Sylvia's energy inspired her; if Sylvia could start up a new business in her golden years, Bonnie could certainly keep hers going for another few decades.

At least that's what she'd thought before the chain fabric store opened
a branch on the outskirts of Waterford six months ago. They didn't carry the specialty quilting fabrics found in Grandma's Attic, but they sold calicoes and other cotton prints at nearly wholesale prices. They could afford to; their buyer ordered bolts of fabric for the entire national chain, winning enormous discounts because of the bulk orders. Bonnie couldn't match their prices without going into the red—but as the months passed, she slipped gradually nearer to that mark anyway.