A Single Thread (Cobbled Court) (25 page)

After that, Susan and I talked on the telephone on three occasions, and each time it was a little less awkward. I believe that, given time, we would have eventually reconciled, but then something happened….

Susan and David lived together for seventeen years. Then, just as I had, Susan became pregnant. But unlike me, she refused to abort her baby, and when she refused, David walked out.

And after that, I never spoke to her again. You see, in the end it wasn’t a man or her betrayal that came between us. It was me—my shame, my pride, and my terrible envy. Eventually, I would have forgiven her for taking David from me, but I could never forgive her for finding the courage that I lacked and, in doing so, getting the one thing I so longed for, the thing that all of Woolley Wynne’s millions could not buy for me—real love.

“And that was what you were to her,” I whispered, trying to keep my voice steady and failing. “You were the love of her life. I envied her so. It seemed that everything I had wanted in life, Susan had taken from me. I see now that it wasn’t true. I made my own choices, if only by refusing to choose or to stand up and say no when I had the chance. There is so much I’d do differently. If only…” I tried to stop and steady myself, but it was no good. I could not stem the tide of tears.

“If only I had realized it sooner. Everything could have been so different for all of us. I’m sorry. Dear God. Liza, I’m so, so sorry. It’s my fault. I know you can never forgive me. It’s all my fault.”

While I had talked, Liza sat silent and small in one of the big wingback chairs that flanked the library fireplace. As she listened, she seemed to shrink into herself, drawing her arms closer into her body, curving her back into the chair cushions as if trying to put as much physical distance between us as possible. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks as she heard, for the first time, the sad and secret tale of her own ancestry.

Now she got up from the chair and walked across the room to the sofa where I was sitting, weeping. I felt a tentative touch on my shoulder and heard Liza’s hoarse voice.

“I have to, Aunt Abigail. I don’t want to forgive any of you, not you, or Mom, or that lying scuzzball that fathered me either, but somehow I have to. We already know how things will turn out if I don’t. This has been going on for too long, through too many generations of this family. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I’ve got to forgive you, Aunt Abigail. I do. You forgive me too, okay? We’re all we have left.”

“M
om?” Garrett’s face looked anxious as he leaned over me. “Mom? How are you feeling?”

“Great.”

It was a lie. Everything hurt: my head, my arms, and the flattened expanse on my chest, the place where my breasts used to be.

“Honey, could you get me some water? I’m so thirsty.”

“Sure.” He took the plastic cup from the nightstand and went to the sink to fill it.

“Your lips are all chapped.” Blinking, I opened my eyes and saw Margot, flanked by Abigail, Liza, and Charlie. Margot dug into her handbag, pulled out a tube of lip balm, and used a finger to rub the balm on my cracked lips.

“There. I bet that feels better.”

I nodded and then took a sip from the straw Garrett held to my lips. The water tasted good.

“The doctor was here a little while ago,” Garrett said, “but you were still asleep. She said everything went fine. She has to wait for the final lab reports, but she thinks they got everything this time.”

I looked down at my flat chest. “Well, that’s good. If she has to go in again, I’ll be the only woman I know who has to buy bras size triple A inverted.” I tried to smile, but it wasn’t easy.

As much as I had tried to prepare myself for this moment, for waking up and seeing myself without breasts for the first time, it was still a shock. I felt like I had fallen asleep and woken up to find myself inhabiting a different body. My shape, my weight, the very mass and volume of my being had changed. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. I was trying my best to put up a brave front, but it was too hard. Everything was too painful. A tear rolled down my cheek.

“Look at me,” I whispered. “What did they do to me?”

Garrett swallowed hard and squeezed my hand. He didn’t know how to answer me. Abigail came to his rescue.

She moved to the side of the bed and leaned down toward me. “It’s all right, Evelyn. Everything is going to be all right soon. You’re tired, dear, and you’re hurting. It’s all right to cry.”

Liza nodded, and her eyes were solemn. “Yeah. Abigail’s right. You can cry if you want to.” She took my other hand and held it tenderly. “Just remember that it’s going to be worth it. You’re going to get well. After all,” she said. “We’ve got a deal.”

“We do,” I said and swallowed back my tears. “I’ll try my best to keep up my end of the bargain.”

Liza smiled at me, then looked up and smiled at Garrett, who was standing on the opposite side of the bed, still holding my other hand.

“Well, in that case,” Charlie said, trying hard to sound cheery, which was what we were all trying to do, trying to sound pleasant and ordinary, as if we were actors carefully repeating lines in an overrehearsed, overwritten script. It wasn’t their fault. This is what people do when they are faced with an awkward situation; they try to pretend that everything is perfectly, wonderfully normal, which, of course, makes everything more awkward and abnormal than it was in the first place. “I think it’s time for the presents, don’t you?”

Everyone murmured agreement. Charlie went over to the windowsill, opened up a giant shopping bag that was sitting on the ledge, and pulled out a white bakery box.

“These are my famous butterscotch macadamia-nut cookies. I made a double batch so you’ll have some for yourself and some for visitors.”

“What do you think I’m going to be doing while I’m in here, having tea parties?”

He made a face. “No, of course not. But you’re going to have guests. You should have something to serve. I left off another box at the nurses’ station—a bit of a bribe,” he said with a wink. “Just to make sure they take proper care of you. I know what a difficult patient you can be.”

“Thank you, Charlie. That was sweet of you.”

He bobbed his head, uncomfortable as always in the face of praise. “And I’ll be bringing in your meals too, while you’re here. I brought a chicken soup for your lunch, and I’ll be back with poached salmon for dinner. Unless you’d rather have the lamb?”

“Charlie, you don’t have to do that. Really. Besides, if I eat your food for every meal, they’ll have to cart me out of here in a wheelbarrow. I’m fat enough as it is.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “You look beautiful. If anything, you’re too thin. We Irish prefer women with a little meat on their bones. Oh!” he exclaimed before I could protest further. “And one more thing. I almost forgot.”

He reached into the bottom of the shopping bag and pulled out another brown paper bag with a piece of red string tied around the neck in a bow. “Didn’t have time to wrap it properly,” he apologized. “But here. Go ahead and open it.”

I pulled on the red string, reached inside the bag, and pulled out an enormous box of crayons. “One hundred and twenty! I didn’t even know they came in boxes that big! I love it. How’d you know?”

Charlie grinned broadly. “And I brought you a big pad of graph paper to go with it. Thought maybe you’d want to work on a few quilt designs while you’re laid up.”

I smiled, and this time it was genuine. “Thanks, Charlie. This is perfect. You’re perfect. You cook. You bake. And you know exactly the right present to bring. You’re the best friend a girl could hope to have,” I said.

Still smiling, Charlie nodded again, but there was a flash in his eyes, a look of disappointment that I didn’t quite understand, but, then again, it was so brief I might have imagined it.

“And I brought you those,” Garrett said, indicating the vase of bright Gerbera daisies that was sitting on the nightstand. “Thought they’d brighten up the place a little.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. They do.” He leaned down and gave me a peck on the cheek.

“And this,” Margot said, holding out a box wrapped in violet-covered paper with a sage green bow, “is from the three of us.”

“It’s heavy. What is it?”

“Open it and find out.”

Usually, I’m careful about how I open gifts, not because I save the paper, but when someone goes to the trouble to wrap a package, it seems to me that you ought to treat it with respect. But I was so weak, and my arms were so sore, that I couldn’t keep my hands from shaking. I accidentally ripped the edge of the paper.

“That’s all right,” Liza said. “Just open it. Do you want some help?”

I nodded, and together we tore the paper off the box. Liza pulled off the lid. When she did, my hand instinctively rose to my mouth to cover my surprise. “Oh!” I breathed. “It’s lovely! Oh, girls! I don’t know what to say. It’s just the most beautiful quilt I’ve ever seen in my life. And you made it? The three of you?”

All three were beaming, but Abigail spoke first. “It was Margot’s idea, but we all worked on it together. We had a few secret circle meetings without you, but we didn’t think you’d mind.”

“No,” I said. “Not at all.”

It was a beautiful quilt. Knowing how I love strong colors, they’d chosen a palette of bright greens and vibrant pinks with surprising accents of a white and black fabric that enhanced the depth and richness of the colors. Such happy colors. The design was bold, using a traditional theme—hearts—but giving it a fresh, modern interpretation. The theme blocks were patchworked hearts, strip-pieced in varying shades and patterns of pink and then outlined, first in spring green and then again in the black fabric. There were eight complete hearts in all, scattered over the pieced green backing in an unpredictable pattern. Most interesting of all, there were several half-heart blocks, again sprinkled around the backing at irregular intervals, some isolated and lonely, floating in a field of green, others set near but not quite next to another half-heart, slightly off center, as if the broken halves were moving toward each other in varying stages of becoming whole again.

I traced the stitching on one of the hearts with my finger. “It’s just so incredibly beautiful. Where did you find the pattern? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.”

“You haven’t,” Margot confirmed. “Liza was the designer. Isn’t it gorgeous!”

Liza ducked her head modestly. “It’s just something I drew up one day,” she said. “You can’t call me a designer; more of a doodler.”

“Well, of course you can,” Abigail said a little impatiently. “You sat down, thought of a theme, then took up your pencil and created a design that expressed what you were trying to say. That’s what a designer does. Don’t be so silly. There’s nothing that irritates me as much as false humility.”

Liza turned slightly and made a face. “Whatever,” she said with a shrug.

“Anyway, I was thinking about us, you know, about our quilting circle and what it is that we all have in common. That’s how I came up with the idea. In one way or another, we’ve all had our hearts broken. But at the same time, we’ve helped each other get through it. It’s not like everything is better yet. We’ve still got problems to work through, but slowly we’re helping each other heal. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I know what you mean.”

Realizing that everyone in the room, including Garrett, had been listening as she described the inspiration behind her design, Liza blushed. “Well. That was the idea anyway. I decided to call it Broken Hearts Mending.”

“I love it,” I said sincerely, looking at all three of my friends. “Besides your friendship, this is absolutely the nicest gift I’ve ever received. Thank you all so much.”

There was a warm, almost a burning feeling in my chest, but it wasn’t caused by my incision; it was the warmth of gratitude. Liza had hit the nail on the head. We’d all had our hearts broken, but together, with each other’s help and support, we were on the road to recovery, each in our own way and at our own pace. I felt truly blessed to have found such friends at the time in life when I most needed them.

My poor, ravaged body was too sore for hugs, so I reached out and clasped my friends’ hands. “You’re the best,” I said.

The door to my room swung open, and a nurse came in carrying the biggest, most ostentatious, and, quite frankly, ugliest bouquet of flowers I had ever seen in my life—there were three shades of pink carnations, at least a dozen blood red roses, grouped with some enormous orange lilies, all topped off with one large, garish bird of paradise. The moment I saw them, I knew who’d sent them.

I turned to Garrett. “How did Mary Dell find out I was in the hospital? I told you I didn’t want to worry her, not when she’s getting ready to shoot her first television show.”

“Don’t blame me,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. “She called and started asking all these questions, and, well…it just sort of slipped out. Sorry.” The nurse put the bouquet on the windowsill. It was so big that it blocked out the light. “Wow. Until this minute, I never realized flowers could be ugly.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Howard must have been too busy to go to the florist with her,” I said. “She definitely picked these out herself.”

The nurse stood back from the flowers with her hands on her hips. “Well, I’ve never seen anything quite like them, that’s for sure.” She turned to look at me. “How are you feeling? Do you want some more pain medication?”

With everyone standing there, I didn’t like admitting how much I hurt, but I definitely needed something to ease it. “Maybe that would be a good idea.”

“As soon as I take your vitals and check the dressings, I’ll get you another pill. Then you can get some sleep, all right?” I nodded gratefully. I was so tired.

The nurse smiled sympathetically and then addressed the group. “Folks, I’m afraid I’m going to shoo you out of here for a while. Ms. Dixon needs to rest right now.”

Charlie clapped his hands together like a teacher trying to get the attention of a group of unruly fourth graders. “All right, gang. You heard Nurse Ratched. Clear out.” The nurse shot him a look, but he gave her a wink. “Now, don’t be like that. I’m the one who baked those delicious cookies and left them at the nurses’ station.”

“Trying to bribe the hospital staff?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

“It’s working,” she deadpanned. “Now take your own advice. Clear out and let this lady get some rest.”

She turned to me again. “Is he always like this?”

“Yes.”

“Gee, that’s too bad. At least he can bake.”

Charlie grinned and started shooing everyone out the door. They all filed by the bed to say a quick good-bye. “Come on. Let’s go. Come on over to the Grill, and I’ll buy you all lunch.”

Garrett was the last to leave. “’Bye, Mom. I’ll come back tonight. Think you’ll feel up to having a visitor by then? You look a little tired.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine after I get a few hours of rest,” I assured him. “It was so good to have everybody here, especially you, sweetheart. But I really do need to get some sleep now. I didn’t realize having visitors could be so exhausting.”

“It’s all right, Mom. Don’t worry. Just rest and I’ll be back later. I love you.”

“I love you too, Garrett.”

Garrett walked toward the door while the nurse put a blood-pressure cuff on my arm. I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling completely drained.

I heard the door swing open as Garrett started to leave and then the whisper of a familiar but unexpected voice.

“Hey, Garrett. How’s your mom? Is she asleep?”