Sister's Choice (16 page)

Jamie and Elisa took the girls out to the play yard to meet their friends, and Grace pulled a chair into a space two women made for her.

She nodded and chatted as they welcomed her. The woman on her right had retired to Toms Brook from Washington, D.C., and the woman to her left, Kate Brogan, had grown up here, moved away, then come back to raise her family away from city life. Two of the children outside belonged to her.

“It’s funny,” Grace told her, “that what I took for granted and never really appreciated when I was young is worth searching for now.”

“Did you want a different life when you were growing up here?” Kate asked.

“Oh, I wanted to be anywhere but here.”

“You finally got your wish, didn’t you?” Helen was three chairs down, but that didn’t stop her from responding. “Lit out of here like you’d been let out of a cage.” She didn’t add “once that husband of yours died,” but she might as well have.

“How have you been, Helen?” Grace smiled sweetly. “Still living in the old Stoneburner place?” She restrained herself from asking if Helen had been any farther away than Mauertown—just a few miles down the road—in all the years since they’d last seen each other.

“Who, me? I’m not like some folks. I know a good thing when it’s right in front of my nose.”

“Of course, if it’s the only thing in front of your nose, it’s hard to say whether it’s good or not, isn’t it?”

If Kate Brogan picked up on the tension, she didn’t let on. “So you went off to see the world a little.” She directed this to Grace. “How did you like California?”

“It’s breathtaking. Amazing. I had no idea there could be so much to do in one place.”

“I’m surprised you’re not still back there doing it,” Helen said.

“It was time to come home. I’m needed here.”

Helen looked as if she had a lot of responses she was sifting through. Grace could almost hear them.
Not by us, you’re not
was undoubtedly at the head of a long list.

A middle-aged woman with tightly curled gray hair and a softly padded body stood and introduced herself to the newcomers as Cathy Adams, the bee chairman.

“We have several projects to work on this morning,” she said. “Some of us are making baby quilts for the staff at La Casa to give to the new mothers who use the center. We have our bear’s paw quilt in the frame for the fall bazaar. We pieced it as a group, but Helen Henry did the wonderful appliquéd bear scenes on the border. We expect this one to make a lot of money, so we’re asking only our experienced hand quilters to finish working on it. You know who you are, and I won’t be with you.”

A pleasant ripple, not quite a giggle, went around the circle.

“And I know some of you brought your own projects to work on, so feel free to do whatever you want,” Cathy continued. “First, though, we’ll have show-and-tell. We’ll start over here with Dovey and go around the circle. If you brought something to show, that’s fine. If you have a project you’re in the midst of, hold that up and tell us what it is. And don’t be shy…. Not that anybody here ever has been.”

This time the ripple was louder.

Jamie came in from the play yard with Elisa, and before the door closed again, Grace heard children laughing. She smiled at the sound.

Jamie and Elisa settled on the other side, and show-and-tell began. Not everyone produced something to share, but by the time it was Grace’s turn the group had been treated to a beginner’s first log cabin in patriotic shades of red, white and blue; a sweatshirt turned jacket covered with ragged-edged flannel patches; and a baby quilt with appliquéd figures of the major characters from Peter Rabbit. Everyone clapped politely, but the baby quilt got an extra couple of seconds, since it was clearly destined to become an heirloom.

Grace debated, but in the end pride won the day. She lifted out her sunflower quilt and unfolded it to hold it in front of her. “My daughter always loved the sunflower garden at our orchard. We never had the variety that’s available today, but we grew every kind we could. So this wall hanging is meant for her bedroom.”

“Wow, that’s awesome,” one of the younger women said.

“Where are the sunflowers?” Helen asked.

“Try to imagine a bouquet. But you’re close-up, so you can’t necessarily see the whole thing. You see a petal here, a piece of a leaf there.” Grace pointed to each. “The larger picture is the sum of the parts. But the smaller picture, this quilt, is a different sort of look at the parts. A close-up. You can see the drops of dew, the tiniest ladybug.”

“Me, I expect a sunflower to look like a sunflower,” Helen said. “But I guess that’s just an old woman’s fancy.”

“I suppose you need imagination to be able to put this together in your mind,” Grace said, not looking at her nemesis to see how that response affected her. “But to me, that’s what’s left out of so many traditional quilts. They’re predictable. We know what they are and what we’re supposed to think about them. With an art quilt, the viewer has to do some of the work that the quilter sets up for her. So when anybody looks at this quilt, they’ll have to think about it, examine it closely. They’ll find little surprises, which will make that worth their while.” She smiled. “Or we quilt makers hope it will.”

“I’d like to learn to think about quilts that way,” Kate said. “Can you teach people to see differently?”

“You can go a long way if they’re willing.” Grace folded the quilt and set it on her lap.

Kate pulled out a nursery-rhyme block she was embroidering in red embroidery floss and held it up. Show-and-tell continued around the circle and stopped at Helen.

“Well, I have one of those boring traditional quilts to show you all. I guess you don’t need much imagination, ’cause I made sure you could tell what it is.” She unfolded what looked to be a twin-size quilt. “Little Reese Claiborne is awful fond of snakes, which concerns me no end, just the way you’d expect. Anyway, I decided to make her a snake-in-the-hollow quilt. And that girl likes bright colors, so that’s what she’s getting.”

Jewel-toned snakes slithered across a pale green background. The quilt was made of fan blocks with a fan in opposing corners of each block. When set together, the fans did indeed look like snakes side-winding their way across the quilt. There was nothing imaginative about the pattern. Grace remembered seeing it on an uncle’s bed as a child, although certainly not with these animated fabrics. But Helen’s placement of colors and her use of many child-pleasing prints set this quilt apart. Any child worth her salt would adore it.

As one voice everybody oohed. Helen looked pleased.

“I’ll quilt bugs in the background,” she said, as she folded it up. “Reese likes bugs, too. She makes houses for daddy longlegs. Condos, more likely, since she piles them up, one top of another. Never saw a child so attracted to things she shouldn’t be.”

“She sounds like a child who can see things the rest of us can’t,” Grace said. “If all of us could go back to being children for just one day, just think of what we could bring back to our quilting.”

“Dirt, scabby knees, bubblegum.” Helen shook her head. “Me, I’ll stay a grown-up and see the world just the way it is.”

“Or isn’t,” Grace said, fully aware she was stoking this blaze but suddenly powerless not to. “And that, of course, is always the problem, isn’t it?”

The circle continued, but the two women’s eyes met. If Grace hadn’t known better, she would have thought war had just been declared in Shenandoah County. And it looked to her as if Sheridan’s historic march through the Valley, burning everything that might feed the Confederacy, was going to look like a minor skirmish when she and Helen were finished.

Attending the SCC Bee had been a great way for Jamie to spend her morning. She liked the women, both old and young. The quilts and all the different techniques had whetted her interest. She knew she would never have time to turn out the abundance of quilts that Helen, Grace and some of the others had made in their lifetimes. But she could see herself working on a quilt in the quiet evenings after the girls had gone to sleep. She could imagine herself listening to music as she stitched, or watching
Mystery
on PBS as the needle rocked in and out of blocks she had made. She had taken drawing classes at the university, but she had always wanted to try her hand at crafts. And now she had the opportunity. She would be back.

“So what did you think of it, dear?” Grace asked. She was waiting for Cash to pick her up. Jamie and the girls were heading to Front Royal for a doctor’s appointment, and Jamie was waiting with her while the girls finished a game in the play yard.

“I think you and Helen Henry probably aren’t going to indulge in any senior citizen sleepovers.” She punched Grace lightly on the arm. “I hope she didn’t scare you off.”

“On the contrary, I like the others quite a lot. Several of them asked me to do a program on art quilts sometime in the upcoming months. We can safely guess that Helen won’t be attending.”

“All this because you weren’t in love with her brother?”

“Feelings fester over time. I wouldn’t be too surprised if she blamed me for Tom enlisting so early in the war. She intimated as much once, although she never said so outright.”

“Loss can be a profound shaper of personality.”

“It has shaped many a man and woman.” Grace nodded toward the pickup that was pulling into the church lot. “Although
that
man never speaks of it.”

Cash pulled up and opened his door, greeted both women, then helped his grandmother around the truck and into the passenger seat. Jamie could hear country music on the radio, something mellow and sad. Somebody had been done wrong and wasn’t afraid to tell the world their side of the story.

She turned to go back inside, but a hand gripped her shoulder, and she reversed to face Cash again.

“It’s awfully hot out here,” she warned. “Grace is going to roast.”

“The cab’s nice and cool, sweetcakes. I’ve had the air conditioner blowing full tilt all the way here.”

“So how are you?”

“Looking for a date for a dinner dance. Are you interested?”

She was surprised, and for a moment she didn’t know what to say. “Have you taken a good look at me?”

He stepped away, his hand still on her shoulder, and looked her up and down. “Always a pleasure.”

“I’m pregnant with twins. I’ve already gained nine pounds. I’m holding these pants together with a safety pin. When is this dance?”

“Labor Day. You have a couple of weeks to get used to the idea of being seen in public with me.”

“Do you know what I’ll look like in a couple of weeks?”

“No, but I can’t wait to find out.”

“Well, I won’t be wearing anything tight and slinky.”

“I’ll do my part for your sister and brother-in-law and suck it up like a man.”

She laughed. “What kind of dinner dance? Do we have to impress anybody?”

“It’s the local homebuilders’ association. An annual event at a nearby lodge. The food’s good. They always hire a band. It’s a rowdy bunch. There might be a bunny hop if they’re really feeling wild.”

She debated, but only for show. “I’d like to come. Thanks for inviting me.”

“I’ll ask Granny Grace if she’ll take the girls for the night, so you don’t have to worry about them.”

He had thought of everything. She was impressed. “Just let me know the details.”

“Wear something sparkly. That’s about it. Now I’d better rescue Granny Grace. She’s turning the music up. That’s a signal she’s ready to boogie.” He rubbed his thumb across her cheek, gently and so quickly that for a moment she wasn’t sure he had. Then he was gone.

“Sparkly.” At the rate her belly was expanding, Jamie knew she wouldn’t look like Cinderella at the ball, she would look like Cinderella’s pumpkin.

“I need a fairy godmother, too.” Unfortunately not even magic could turn her into a slender, sexy young woman, not until the babies had been born. Cash knew it, and he had still invited her.

Jamie was smiling when she went back into the church to get her daughters.

H
ours later, Jamie leaned back against the passenger seat of Kendra’s car and closed her eyes. “Pregnancy used to be simple. You slept with the guy in the next cave, you threw up a few times so you knew something was going on, you got fat, you had a baby and then to feed it you just unbuttoned your blouse—”

“When it was that simple, nobody had to worry about buttons.” Kendra pulled out into Front Royal traffic. “If they wore clothes at all, they were made from dinosaur skins and were held together by mammoth teeth.”

“Dinosaurs and people never walked the earth at the same time.”

“Old moldy dinosaur skins, then. And don’t be so literal, college girl. I was just making a point.”

“I feel like I’m in some high-tech drama.”

“Forget it. Let’s go have some fun.”

Jamie was surprised that for once
she
was the worried sister. After the quilting bee she had met Isaac and Kendra for lunch; then, at the doctor’s office, they had listened to baby heartbeats, enjoyed reassurances that everything seemed fine, then sat through a lecture about the hardships of providing trustworthy screening for chromosomal abnormalities in twin pregnancies. And apparently surrogate pregnancies were the least fun of all.

“You don’t want to talk about this?” Jamie asked.

“My head’s spinning. Nuchal translucency, trisomy 21, maternal serum biochemistry? I need a snack. You must be starving.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“Well, nowhere close by, unfortunately. Did you get enough lunch to keep you going?”

“If I start to eat the upholstery, pull over to the side of the road.” Lunch seemed like something Jamie had indulged in during a different century.

“There are crackers in the glove compartment to help you resist.”

Jamie peered behind her and just caught a glimpse of Isaac shepherding her daughters into her minivan. “Are you sure Isaac’s up to babysitting the girls until we get back to Toms Brook?”

“It’ll be good for him. You know he’s nuts about them, but he’s a novice at child care. Think of it as a practice session.”

“Well, that kind of parenting—the kind where they talk you to death—is down the road a piece for you two, but the girls will soften him up. Are you preparing for the stress of having two babies at once?”

“How do you prepare for that?”

“I have no idea. I was so young when I had Hannah, I didn’t know enough to prepare. When I had Alison, I pretty well knew what I was getting myself into, but I was already so busy with Hannah I didn’t have much time to think.”

“I’m just taking it one step at a time. Close your eyes and take a nap. You probably need one.”

Jamie did as she was told, fully expecting to open them again in a minute. The next thing she knew she was waking by stages as Kendra’s car slowed to a halt. She looked around and saw the unmistakable signs of a mall parking lot. No matter what developers did, a mall looked like a mall anywhere in America.

“Where are we? Tucson? Providence?”

“Winchester. You were snoring before your eyes closed.” Kendra unhooked her seat belt. “Are you getting enough sleep?”

“I am.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to pry, and I’d be asking even if this was a regular old pregnancy. I just wondered if you might need some help with the girls, maybe somebody to come in and take them in the afternoons once in a while so you can nap.” “Alison and I manage to steal a little nap most days. We’re okay.”

“It’s a big assault on a slender body.”

“Only going to get bigger.” Jamie sat up and unhooked her own seat belt. “Why are we here?”

“Your jeans.”

Jamie looked down. Okay, so the outline of the safety pin at her waist was visible through her oversize T-shirt, and the jeans—the largest she owned—were more or less ready for the rag bag.

“They’re clean. And I have another pair at home I can still wear, but I need to buy larger pins.”

“There’s a Belk here, and a maternity store. They’re bound to have some nice clothes. I’m assuming you don’t have any left from Alison?”

“When I was pregnant with Alison, I was shopping at Goodwill, and by the time I gave birth, Goodwill wouldn’t have taken any of my clothes back for another round.” She waited for Kendra to make the point that Jamie hadn’t needed to live that way, that the trustees of their father’s estate would have gladly helped her. But Kendra just arched a brow, and looked her up and down.

“This time you don’t have to look like the Little Match Girl, kiddo. Let’s go do some serious shopping.”

Jamie felt a warm glow that had nothing to do with two babies increasing her blood volume or August’s sunshine. “We haven’t shopped for clothes together since I was a teenager.”

“I don’t think we got much shopping done then. I was too busy trying to convince you not to pierce body parts or cover yourself with tattoos.”

“I have a great tattoo. Want to see?”

“The orchid at the base of your spine? Yep, seen it. Every time your shirt rides up or your pants ride down.”

“So what do you think?”

“I kind of like it.” Kendra opened her door and got out.

Jamie was waiting by the time she came around. “You’re kidding? You like my tattoo?”

“I need one, don’t you think?”

“How about a heart with Double Trouble inscribed inside?”

“Yikes.”

They wove their way through a sea of cars and into the cool pleasures of air-conditioning.

“I’ve been reading about twin pregnancies,” Kendra said. “And you’re going to get as big as a house.”

Jamie sidestepped a mother with two little boys and a shopping bag on each arm. “Well, that’s something to look forward to. I’ve already had the nausea, my breasts are lumpy and swollen and I’m spending way too much time on the john. Now you tell me I’m going to look like a blimp.”

“Some of the bulletin boards recommend that you just buy up a size or two to start with, until you really need maternity clothes.”

“We could do that, but they’ll be too large in the thighs and hips.”

“Let’s just do a blitz and try on everything in the mall. What do you need for starters?”

“Food. Let’s find the food court.”

“Good, because I could use a cup of coffee.”

“That’s not nice. You should be drinking apple juice with me, out of sympathy. You should gain weight.”

“I know this sounds impossible, but I envy every change you’re going through.”

Jamie was pierced by regret. “Oh, Ken, I’m sorry.”

“And I hate that you’re suffering.”

Jamie rested her hand on Kendra’s forearm. “I’m not suffering. Pregnancy can be uncomfortable, and sometimes it’s hang-your-head-over-the-toilet-bowl grim, but it’s not suffering. I want to do this. I’m ecstatic you agreed to let me.”

“You knew I would, didn’t you?”

“No such thing.”

“We thought there were no solutions. Then along you came, with the only one we could both live with. How could we say no?”

“By pursing your lips, touching your tongue to your top front teeth, expelling air. I was offering you an option. But it’s been your show right from the top.”

Kendra faced her. People were streaming by. Overhead, somebody was crooning a song Jamie recognized from her unfortunate childhood.

“If it’s my show, then do I get to decide whether you’ll have the nucal translucency testing?”

For a moment Jamie couldn’t put this together. Nucal translucency testing was one of the options the doctor had mentioned. “What are you talking about? Of course it’s your decision. What do I have to do with it?”

“You’re carrying the babies.”

“They’re
your
babies.”

“And what if we do the testing, as uncertain as it is, and find out we need amniocentesis? Then we do that and find out the babies—or one of them—have Down’s and I want you to have an abortion?”

Jamie just stared at her. “I never thought about abortion,” she said at last.

“Me, either.”

Kendra started toward the food court, and Jamie strode to keep up with her.

“So that’s what you’ve been thinking about,” she said. “While I was napping. That’s what you didn’t want to talk about.”

“Did you ever think about this when you offered to be our surrogate? Who makes these awful decisions? The egg-and-sperm duo, or the woman who’s nurturing the babies inside her? Maybe if we were doing this through an agency, that would have been in the paperwork. But this is complicated. This is us. This is family.”

Jamie was silent until they were seated. Kendra had a cup of coffee in front of her, and Jamie had a hot pretzel and a bottle of cold water.

“Okay, I see what’s going on here. This isn’t about Down’s or abortion,” Jamie said. “It’s about whose babies these are, isn’t it?”

“Not so simple. It’s also about the woman who’s carrying them. Could you have an abortion?”

Jamie unscrewed the top of her water and poured it into a paper cup filled with ice. The familiar movements gave her time to think.

“Could you ask me to?” she said.

“I don’t know.”

“That was going to be my answer.” She took a sip, then another. “For the record, I believe in a woman’s right to choose. But when I was pregnant with both girls, I opted not to do any screening for birth defects. The tests are too inconclusive, and I was pretty sure if I got bad news it would simply ruin the pregnancy but not change what I did about it.”

“I can understand that.”

“And you have that option. The tests under these circumstances are even less certain.”

“The biggest problem? We don’t know a thing about Isaac’s father.” Kendra looked up from her coffee. “We don’t know who he is or was, if he had serious health problems, nothing.”

“Do you need a wee reminder, Ken? You know a lot about our side of the family, and you might be better off not knowing it.”

“Riva…”

“She’s bipolar. It can run in families.”

“I know. I know.”

“We don’t know if she’s an anomaly or if there’s an entire wing of the Delacroix family who buy sixty pairs of the same shoes in one shopping blitz and have nightly conversations with saints who even the best Catholics can’t identify.”

“Didn’t that worry you when you had your girls? Weren’t you afraid they might turn out like our mother?”

“Didn’t that worry you when you were raising
me?
”

Kendra put down her coffee cup. “Weren’t we talking about something else? How did we get here?”

“One thing led to another. But that
was
your big concern, wasn’t it? That I was turning out like Riva. That the drugs, sex and rock and roll were all symptomatic.”

Kendra was quiet for a long time. She finally shrugged. “I was just barely an adult. What did I know? We had a mother with serious problems. You were desperately unhappy, and nothing I did made it better. You seemed happiest when you were out whooping it up.”

“And of course you were concerned and tried too hard to rein me in. I was lucky to have you. But my problems didn’t sift down through the family genetics. They were all about our crazy background, and one older sister couldn’t save me completely from the impact.”

When Kendra didn’t answer, Jamie pointed at herself. “But look at me now, Ken. I am who I am because, despite those little blips called our mother and father, I came through. And I’m sure it’s because in our background somewhere there were good, strong people who were able to overcome adversity and move forward. Those are the people we have to remember and count on to pass on their genes to our kids. Every family has something in their background to worry about. If you knew Isaac’s background, that’s what you’d discover. Some things to worry about, some things you hope get passed on. Look at
him
. He’s a great guy who got through his own difficult childhood because he’s strong. Look at you. Taking care of me when you needed to be taken care of yourself. These are great genes you’re sending down through the centuries.”

“The tests we’re talking about don’t turn up any of that, you know.”

“These are your babies, Ken. You and Isaac have to make your decision without thinking about me. Then I’ll have to decide if I can do whatever you ask.”

Kendra lifted her eyes. “You know, for somebody who was a huge pain in my neck all those years, you’ve more or less turned out well.”

Jamie laughed. She saw that her sister’s eyes were moist. “Now to the important stuff. Can we buy something besides jeans?”

“This is my treat. You can buy the whole darned mall.”

“I probably could afford it. That’s weird, isn’t it? So Paris Hilton. Anyway…” Jamie leaned forward. “I have a date over Labor Day. And I need a dress.”

“Cash.”

“That was my line. I hate to be scooped. Yes, Cash.”

“A maternity dress?”

“Maybe not that drastic yet, but we can look. Something that doesn’t show the expanded waistline and the bump.”

“Bump?”

Jamie grasped Kendra’s hand and guided it to her belly. “
Your
bump.”

Kendra nodded, message clearly received. “Black. With your hair, definitely black.”

Jamie was glad they were done with the hard part. “Cash said sparkly.”

“Black with a discreet number of rhinestones or sequins. Or maybe some really wonderful costume jewelry. I have some of Riva’s that she tossed out the window on a bad day.”

“How about something cut way down in back so my tattoo shows?”

“How about something that won’t get us banned from the Valley?”

“I probably should have ordered two pretzels, one for each twin.” Jamie took a big bite, then another, before she stood. “While we’re at it, I’m thinking some new underwear might be appropriate.”

“Should I be in on that?”

“Nothing to worry about. Less Victoria’s Secret, more Granny’s red flannel drawers. Something loose at the waist and nonbinding.”

“I’m assuming this is not for Cash’s consumption.”

Jamie finished the last bite of pretzel. “You always were too nosy about my personal life.”

“Well, I’ve got spies this time.” Kendra stood and tapped Jamie’s belly. “Just remember. My bump, my spies.”

“I’ll bribe the little darlings into silence with a passion-fruit smoothie. Can we stop for one on the way out?”