The Wedding Quilt (17 page)

It was a lovely, simple wedding, with elements from Jeremy's Jewish and Anna's Catholic faiths. In the four months leading up to the ceremony, they participated in weekly pre-Cana group counseling sessions through the Waterford College Campus Ministry and attended a weekend Engaged Encounter retreat. Although older relatives had warned them they would never find a priest and rabbi willing to share the officiating duties, and no Catholic priest would ever validate a marriage that was not held within the four walls of a church, Anna's pastor and Jeremy's rabbi knew each other well, having offered many ecumenical services at the college through the years, and they proved all the naysayers wrong.

After a winter of preparations, the wedding day arrived, breezy and warm, with the fragrance of lilac blossoms filling the air. Both sets of parents escorted the bride and groom to the cornerstone patio where an intimate group of their family and dearest friends waited near the quilted
chuppah
Jeremy's and Anna's sisters had made from a blue-and-gold quilt top Anna had begun as a Chanukah gift for Jeremy. Suspended by four poles held by Anna's brothers and Jeremy's best friend, the canopy represented the new home they would create together, its four open sides reminding them of their essential place within their families, circle of close friends, and community. Before the blessing of the wine, there were readings from the Torah and the New Testament; they exchanged rings and read aloud an interfaith
ketubah
. Their aunts and uncles offered the traditional Seven Blessings, and afterward, Jeremy wrapped a glass in a soft cloth and crushed it underfoot, signifying the irrevocability of their vows. If anyone present believed that the wedding was neither Catholic enough nor Jewish enough and therefore imperfect, they kept their grumblings to themselves. In any case, Sarah found the ceremony very moving, and she believed that if Anna and Jeremy lived together as harmoniously as they had created their wedding celebration, bringing together significant elements from their individual traditions, they would live together very happily indeed.

After a honeymoon in Myrtle Beach, Anna moved across the hall into Jeremy's apartment until his lease ran out, and then they moved into a third-floor suite of Elm Creek Manor. They seemed blissfully happy, Sarah often thought. The simple pleasure of working in the kitchen together seemed to bring them joy; Jeremy would read and take notes and write his dissertation in his favorite corner booth while Anna cooked and baked and worked magic with simple ingredients to create the most delicious meals Sarah had ever tasted.

In April of the following year, not long after the twins celebrated their second birthdays, Anna gave birth to a daughter—more than a year after the wedding, which must have been enough to satisfy the elderly aunts and gossipy neighbors who had been counting. Two months later, Jeremy successfully defended his dissertation and earned his doctorate with the highest honors in his department. It was a day Sarah had long looked forward to for the newlyweds' sake and dreaded for her own, because Jeremy's graduation meant that his time at Waterford College had ended, and he, Anna, and their adorable dark-haired baby, Gina, would move on.

In the months leading up to Jeremy's graduation, he had applied for every relevant position published in
The Chronicle of Higher Education
and had participated in several interviews at universities scattered across the country. Anna confided to Sarah that she fervently hoped an assistant professor position would become available at Penn State's University Park campus, not because their History Department boasted any extraordinary resources for his specialization, but because the commute to Elm Creek Manor would be long though not impossible, and she could remain their head chef. They all knew the odds were against it, and no one was surprised when Penn State posted no suitable openings that year. Jeremy considered remaining at Waterford College and doing a postdoc until a position reasonably close to Elm Creek Manor miraculously appeared, but he and Anna both knew that this perfect job might not ever come along, and his career would stall if he didn't take advantage of more certain, more promising opportunities.

In midsummer Jeremy received an offer from the University of Arlington, and after taking a few days to discuss his options with Anna and his graduate adviser, he accepted. Jeremy moved to Virginia at the end of July, but Anna remained behind with baby Gina so she could finish out the camp season.

On the Sunday before Labor Day, the Elm Creek Quilters threw a farewell party for their departing friend. Jeremy returned for the cookout, which began as a picnic along the grassy shore of Elm Creek behind the manor until rain forced them to retreat to the front verandah. But the occasion wasn't spoiled; Joe and Andrew managed to finish cooking all the burgers, steaks, and spareribs before the rain began to fall, and on the broad verandah there were comfortable Adirondack chairs for the adults to relax in and plenty of space for the children to play. The storm lifted as the sun set, and in the cool and misty evening the twins chased fireflies on the front lawn while Gina watched drowsily from her mother's lap.

At the end of the party, Sylvia presented Anna with a small but precious gift—a nine-block Winding Ways quilt, similar to those she had made for the founding Elm Creek Quilters years before, when Judy and Summer became the first to leave their circle of friends. Sylvia had chosen fabrics that represented each of her friends' unique qualities. The mosaic of overlapping circles and intertwining curves, the careful balance of dark and light hues, and the unexpected harmony of the disparate fabrics and colors evoked the sense of many winding paths meeting, intersecting, parting, creating the illusion that the separate sections formed a single quilt. Sarah remembered the words Sylvia had spoken as she had presented the panels to the original Elm Creek Quilters a few years before. “The Winding Ways quilt will remind us of friends who have left our circle to journey far away,” Sylvia had explained. “When one of our circle must leave us, she'll take her section of the quilt with her as a reminder of the loving friends awaiting her return. The empty places on the wall will remind those of us left behind that the beauty of our friendship endures, even if great distances separate us. When the absent friend returns to Elm Creek Manor, she will hang her quilt in its proper space, and the loveliness of the whole will be restored.”

As there were eight founding Elm Creek Quilters and nine panels, Sylvia had dedicated the one in the center to all the Elm Creek Quilters yet to come. That section would always remain on the library wall, despite the comings and goings of the people it represented. “That way,” Sylvia explained, “as long as Elm Creek Quilts endures, no matter what becomes of the founding members, this section at the heart of the quilt will remain.” In this way, Anna, too, had been included in the original quilt even though she had joined their group later, but Sarah thought it was only right that someone who had contributed so much to the success of Elm Creek Quilts should at last have a section all her own.

The next day, Anna, Jeremy, and Gina left early in the morning so that Jeremy would be back on campus when classes resumed after the long holiday weekend. The confluence of the end of camp season and Anna's departure plunged Sarah into melancholy. She found herself wandering into the library and gazing at the Winding Ways quilt with its missing panels, a painful rather than fond reminder of her absent friends. Bonnie would return from Hawai'i in the spring, and the other friends would visit now and then, but it would not be the same, and she felt their absence keenly.

Reluctant to contemplate Anna's impending departure, Sarah had postponed the search for a new head chef throughout the summer, making the excuse that she was too busy with the demands of the current camp season to contemplate staffing needs for the next. But with Anna gone, she could delay no longer. Earlier that summer, Anna had compiled a list of former culinary school classmates and student interns from her days as a chef with Waterford College Food Services, but when Sarah, Sylvia, and Gretchen contacted them, those who were interested in the job lacked the proper experience or didn't seem like a good fit, and those who might have worked out quite well declined their offer for one reason or another. The job didn't pay enough, or the location was too remote, or the prospect of limited advancement was too discouraging. Throughout the winter, they advertised the position, collected résumés, and interviewed dozens of candidates, but they found no one worthy of Anna's kitchen. As March approached and the search became more urgent, Sarah finally realized why they had failed thus far. “We're never going to find someone as perfect for Elm Creek Quilt Camp, as perfect for us, as Anna was,” she told Sylvia and Gretchen. “Anna is one of a kind, and we're not going to find another Anna. At this point, we need to stop dismissing candidates simply because they aren't Anna and find someone who can do the job well and be pleasant enough to work with.”

Once they set their sights lower, they found someone. Maeve, who had worked at the Hotel State College for a year after her restaurant in Altoona closed, seemed like a good, if imperfect, fit. She prepared three delicious meals for fifty campers five days a week, and her welcome banquets and farewell breakfasts possessed an air of elegance without being too fussy. Sarah wasn't thrilled that Maeve created only seven menus, one for each day of the week, and repeated them every week throughout the summer, but she could tolerate that because the lack of variation affected only the permanent residents of Elm Creek Manor. Most campers attended only for a single week's session, so they had no idea that the chicken cordon bleu they enjoyed on Monday tasted exactly like the chicken cordon bleu Sarah had eaten the previous Monday and the Monday before that. What Sarah couldn't tolerate, and had to speak privately to Maeve about far too frequently, was her brusque manner with campers who wandered into the kitchen between meals in search of a cup of tea, a glass of lemonade, or a quick snack. The kitchen was for the chef and her assistants, Maeve insisted. Guests should remain outside. Sarah pointed out that the very reason they had installed eight booths when they remodeled the kitchen was so that campers would be comfortable if they wanted refreshments outside of regular meal hours. She reminded Maeve that part of her job was to welcome their guests, and if she couldn't interrupt her work to fetch them a snack, she should delegate that task to an assistant or leave a bowl of fruit on the wooden table so campers could help themselves. After one of these conferences, Maeve's behavior would improve for a while, but her aloof, unwelcome demeanor inevitably returned.

It was a relief when, on Labor Day, Maeve thanked Sarah for the rewarding experience but announced that she wouldn't be returning the following summer. Henry took over after her, but his habitual lateness obliged Sarah to start breakfast without him several days a week until he finally wandered off for a smoke after lunch one July afternoon and never returned. His replacement, a recent culinary school graduate named Marjorie, was friendly, hardworking, and energetic, but she couldn't break an egg without dropping the shells in the bowl or bake cakes without singeing them or use the gas burners for any purpose whatsoever without scorching the pan and filling the kitchen with billowing clouds of smoke. When guests began complaining about the frequent false alarms from the smoke detectors, Matt ruefully suggested that they remove the batteries, invest in a few more fire extinguishers, and take out a second insurance policy. Sarah and Sylvia adamantly refused, so Marjorie had to go. A retired elementary school lunchroom cook filled in for the rest of the summer, and although she was something of a curmudgeon, she tolerated campers in the kitchen, and her meals were nutritious, if bland and institutional.

Every winter after Anna left, Sarah confronted the same nerve-racking challenge of finding a suitable chef in time for a new season of quilt camp. Her heart sank when the good chefs were ready to move on after a single summer, and she spent countless hours searching for last-minute replacements when one employee after another didn't work out. If Anna had not eventually returned to Elm Creek Quilts, out of sheer frustration Sarah might have gone into early retirement—but to her eternal gratitude, Anna had returned. If she had not, Sarah suddenly realized, not only would Elm Creek Quilts have suffered, but Sarah would have missed out on many years with the woman who had become her best friend, and James probably would not have fallen in love with Gina.

Sarah was sure it was love, although she had only observed a few stolen kisses, overheard a few murmured endearments. When James gave his heart, he gave it completely, and he had known and cared for Gina almost his entire life. Gina was a compassionate young woman and wouldn't trifle with any man's feelings, least of all James's. Surely they were in love, although why they went to such trouble to conceal a relationship that would inspire rejoicing in the hearts of everyone who knew them, Sarah and Anna could only speculate. Whatever their reason for secrecy, Sarah knew James loved Gina.

She hoped Gina loved him in return.

A
s the day unfolded, Sarah delegated wedding preparation tasks to her friends and family, prepared for the arrival of Caroline's future in-laws, and contemplated the paths her children had chosen. Caroline's had taken her far from Elm Creek Manor, while James's had kept him close to home—and she dared hope, albeit selfishly, that his love for Gina would ensure that he would remain at Elm Creek Manor always.

Then Sarah caught herself, and had to laugh. She knew her children as well as anyone could, and she had faith in their potential to find their own places in the world, to embark upon meaningful work that would become as satisfying and rewarding to them as Elm Creek Quilts was to her. When they did, she would celebrate those successes, even if they took Caroline and James far from home. She knew they would always return, if not to stay.