An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler (99 page)

I was tickled to get your last letter. I’m sorry to hear your ex is being such a louse. But don’t worry. I know you’ll figure out something and you’ll get to make your quilt block yet.

Do you and Robby have any plans for Halloween? I hope not, because I’d like to invite you for a visit. Meadowbrook Village has a Halloween party and trick-or-treating every year, and I would be honored to have you two as my guests. My grandson, Adam, is coming too, but since he’s a little old for trick-or-treating, I thought it would be much more fun if you brought Robby.

If you don’t wear a costume, you’ll be the only person there who doesn’t. I’m going as Raggedy Ann.

Hope to see you soon!

Love from your quilt buddy
,

Vinnie

Megan considered the letter thoughtfully. Vinnie’s invitation was an answer to a prayer. The boy next door, who had been Robby’s playmate until a year ago, was having a Halloween party, too, and Jason had invited all the boys in the class—except Robby. Jason’s mother spotted Megan raking leaves in the backyard, came outside, and made an awkward apology over the fence. “You know how kids are,” she said, shrugging and trying to smile.

Yes, I know
, Megan thought. She knew how kids were. She knew they needed to be taught that kindness mattered more than popularity, and that they ought to include the outcast even if they preferred not to, simply because it was right, because inviting every boy but one was cruel. Megan couldn’t bear the thought of Robby watching out the windows as the other boys’ parents dropped them off next door for a night of wild Halloween fun.

She wouldn’t have hesitated to accept Vinnie’s invitation—except for Adam. Vinnie had to be the least subtle matchmaker in the history of romance, and Megan cringed when she pictured Adam’s embarrassment when Vinnie nudged them together, beaming and dropping hints. Then again, he would have to be a total idiot not to see what his grandmother was doing, and since he was still willing to attend, he must not mind all that much.

He had been rather nice at the diner.

“Robby,” she called out, returning the letter to its envelope. “Do you want to go to a Halloween party?”

Seven

G
race hoped to channel her anger into the creation of a new quilt so that at least some good would come of her argument with Justine. In the past she had been able to work out her frustrations by slicing through fabric and pounding the pedal on her sewing machine, but like so much of her pre-MS life, that ability, too, had apparently been lost. Thwarted, she flung her rotary cutter aside, switched on her computer, and vented her frustrations in an email to Donna and Megan instead.

TO:[email protected],[email protected]

FROM: Grace Daniels

DATE: 9:27 AM 18 Oct

SUBJECT: May I start my quilt block now?

I wish I were asking because I’ve broken through my quilter’s block, but unfortunately, that’s not so. However, I have made progress on the other aspect of my challenge … if you can call it progress. It turns out my daughter isn’t dating an older man after all. The man my friend saw with Justine and Joshua was her father.

Should I be happy that Justine wasn’t keeping a boyfriend secret from me, or outraged that she’s been in contact with my ex-husband of twenty years and didn’t see fit to tell me? It’s not much of a consolation that I’m halfway to fulfilling my promise to the Cross-Country Quilters. What do you think: Although I haven’t started a new quilt yet, am I allowed to begin working on my Challenge Quilt block?

Donna must have been online, because she wrote back almost immediately:

TO: Grace Daniels

FROM: Donna Jorgenson

DATE: 18 Oct 11:35 AM CDTSUBJECT: Re: May I start my quilt block now?

CC:[email protected]

Good grief. I don’t know whether to congratulate you or not. At least Justine wasn’t hiding a secret romance from you, but it sounds like you have a bigger problem on your hands. Have you talked to the Ex yet?

As for the Challenge Quilt, I don’t think you should be allowed to start until you have at least a plan for a new project. Sorry, but the motivation will be good for you. Good luck.

Megan didn’t respond until later that afternoon, and when she did, Grace could almost feel the computer screen steaming from her indignation:

TO: Grace Daniels

FROM:[email protected]

DATE: 2:00 PM 10÷18

SUBJECT: Re: May I start my quilt block now?

CC:[email protected]

So where’s he been all this time? Did he only just remember he had a daughter?

Grace wondered about that herself, but in order to get an answer, she would have to talk to Gabriel, and she was not ready to do that. She doubted she’d ever be. Twice Justine had invited Grace to join them for outings with Joshua, but Grace had refused. She had nothing to say to Gabriel that silence wouldn’t communicate just as well.

“Don’t you even want him to apologize?” Justine persisted. Grace wanted that very much, but she wasn’t willing to admit it. “How do you know he will?”

“I just know.”

Grace let out a scoffing laugh and shook her head. “I think I know him better than you do. He was never good at regret.”

“He’s changed. Give him a chance.”

“I’ve given him more than twenty years’ worth of chances,” Grace said. “In all that time, did he ever come to see you? Did he ever send so much as a letter to let us know he was still alive?”

Justine watched her in silence for a long moment. “If you talk to him, he’ll explain.”

“I don’t need his explanations now. Anything he could say would be too little, too late.”

After that, Justine did not mention him for weeks. Grace tried to put him out of her mind, as she had done so well for so long, but her anger smoldered. She knew Justine was seeing him every week and that Joshua called him Grandpa, as if Gabriel had been there all along, as if he hadn’t abandoned his family as easily as sloughing off soiled clothing.

As the weeks passed, it became clear Gabriel intended to remain a part of Justine’s life. Just that morning, Justine had asked her if they could invite him to Thanksgiving dinner. The request left Grace speechless. “Thanksgiving is for family,” she finally managed to say.

“He’s family. He doesn’t have anyone else.”

“That’s his own fault.”

“Mom—”

“You know I’m supposed to minimize the stress in my life. Believe me, inviting him to your aunt’s for Thanksgiving will not help.”

“Don’t use your MS as an excuse.”

Anger and humiliation surged so intensely that tears came to her eyes. “I told you, do not mention that in front of Joshua,” she gritted out, her voice shaking.

“He’s my father, Mom,” Justine pleaded. “He’s Joshua’s grandfather. Don’t shut him out.”

Grace couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Since when was Gabriel’s estrangement her fault? “You are a disloyal and ungrateful child.”

“You’re jealous and holding a grudge.”

Her words stung. “He left us, Justine. Did you forget that?”

“He says you kicked him out.”

“Only to force him to get help,” Grace snapped. “Did he tell you that part? His drinking was destroying our family.”

“He’s sober now, Mom. He’s been sober for ten years.”

“Then he should have contacted us ten years ago.”

“Why bother, for this kind of welcome?” Justine scooped up Joshua and stormed out.

Grace and Justine had often disagreed and sometimes even argued, but never before had they fought with such fury. Alone in her loft, Grace tried meditating to calm herself, but her thoughts were churning too strongly. The truth was, she
was
jealous. Grace had been there for Justine and Joshua all their lives, and now Gabriel could waltz in, the prodigal father, and Justine was willing for him to step right back into the family as if he had never left, as if she cared nothing for her mother’s pain. Gabriel had done nothing to earn such a welcome, and Grace couldn’t bear it.

If Justine knew the whole story, she would never attribute Grace’s feelings to something as simple as holding a grudge.

She and Gabriel had met as students at Berkeley, in a time of turmoil and hope, when their unjust society seemed more malleable than at any time in history. An art history major, Grace had noticed the tall, strikingly handsome man in several of her classes but had never spoken to him, although campus was not yet so integrated that most African-American students did not have at least a nodding acquaintance. It wasn’t until her junior year—while both were part of a group picketing against a local chain restaurant that had repeatedly demonstrated racism against black students and faculty—that he approached her and introduced himself. They struck up a friendship based on mutual interests and attraction, which soon blossomed into romance.

After graduation, Gabriel entered graduate school with the goal of becoming a professor of history. Grace turned down other, more lucrative opportunities and accepted a position at an art museum on campus in order to remain near him. They married a year later.

Gabriel had always drunk at parties and other social gatherings, no more than anyone else and less than most, and since he didn’t care for marijuana, it never occurred to Grace that he might have a problem. Only after they began living together did she realize how much, and how often, he drank. At first it was merely a few beers after classes had ended for the day, and possibly another as he unwound before bed. Then he began drinking at lunchtime, joking that he needed the fortification to deal with the class of brainless freshmen whose papers he was obligated to grade as a part of his teaching assistantship. When Grace expressed her concern that his graduate advisor would probably disapprove, Gabriel retorted, “He disapproves of everything I do anyway. The only way I could please him would be if I turned white overnight.”

When his professors evaluated him at the end of the semester, his advisor called him in to talk. Gabriel came home in a rage. Somehow—Gabriel insisted he had no idea how—he had developed a reputation as argumentative, undisciplined, and unreliable. No one in the department questioned his intellect and passion, his advisor explained, but they needed him to make a more obvious commitment to the profession if he wished to continue in the program. Gabriel blamed his advisor for blackballing him. Grace blamed the alcohol.

When she realized she was pregnant, she doubled her efforts to get him to stop drinking, but he turned his anger on her instead. Somehow he managed to scrape his way through school, earning his master’s in history when Justine was a year old. To Grace’s relieved astonishment, he was accepted into the Ph.D. program. Now, she told herself, he would have no choice but to give up the drinking and concentrate on his work and family. Instead, the increased pressures of the more rigorous academic program augmented his need for drink, and he left school after three months.

He found a job teaching history at a local high school, and for a while, the bitter disappointment of losing his long-held dream shocked him into sobriety. For two years he limited his drinking to the home and would drink only in the evenings, when he would play with Justine for a little while after supper and then settle in front of the television set, sipping one drink after another until he passed out. In the mornings he would get up, shave, and head to work on time, so Grace decided to count her blessings. She loved him deeply and learned to accept that he was not the husband she had once thought he would be.

Then one day, the principal of his school phoned her at work and told her in a stiff voice that Gabriel had fallen ill and needed to be picked up immediately. Grace arrived to find him in an empty classroom, nearly unconscious and reeking of alcohol. The principal said nothing as he helped her walk her husband to the car, but his anger was unmistakable. Grace was so ashamed she could barely look at him.

The principal expedited the paperwork, and when Gabriel was fired a few days later, he blamed a racist school board for his dismissal.

“It’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it?” Grace shot back. “It’s never you. It’s never your drinking.”

He glared at her balefully and rolled over onto his side on the sofa. In another moment, he was snoring.

Gabriel didn’t even attempt to look for a new job. Sometimes he left in the mornings before Grace took Justine to the sitter’s and went to her own work, but he was always home by the time she returned, passed out on the sofa. They hardly spoke anymore, and Grace was afraid to leave Justine alone with him. Gabriel stopped coming to their bedroom at night, which was more of a relief than she ever would have thought possible. His loving touch had long since given way to awkward gropings in the dark, resulting in failure most of the time, and leaving her angry and confused even when they didn’t. She felt desperately alone but was too loyal to talk about the situation with anyone, even her sisters, whose disapproving expressions suggested they knew something was wrong but respected Grace’s pride too much to confront her.