Apart at the Seams (27 page)

A
fter pulling myself together, I had called Lanie. Then I called Libby Burrell. The plan was in place.

When Brian exited the airport terminal on Tuesday, a man would be waiting in baggage claim to serve him with divorce papers.

“And you're
sure
he'll be checking a bag?” Libby asked.

“Yes. Brian hates fussing with rollaboards and fighting for space in the overhead bin. And for anything longer than an overnight, he prefers a bigger suitcase.”

“Well, it's lucky for us that he'll be gone a few days. We need time to fill out the paperwork and get our ducks in a row. Now, when do you think you'll be able to wire the retainer?”

“Soon,” I said. “I have to move some money around and cash in a couple of investments. I'll make the deposit to the firm's account by Monday afternoon.”

“Good. Just so we have it before Tuesday. Well, I think that's it for now,” she said in a “let's wrap this up” tone. “I'm due in court, but before I go, how are you holding up?”

“I'm fine,” I replied, lying through my teeth. “Trying to stay busy. Lanie is going to come up next Friday to help me close the house. I need to get back to the city and drum up some new clients.”

Mostly so I could pay my attorney's bills, but I didn't say that to Libby.

“Good,” she said. “At a time like this, working hard is the best thing. Keeps you from thinking too much. Gotta run. But if you need anything, just pick up the phone. I'm here for you, Gayla. You can count on me.”

She hung up before I could say “thank you.”

 

I didn't go to quilt circle on Friday night; I was just too depressed to see anyone. After baring my soul to my circle friends and then going on about how great everything had been going the last few weeks, even letting them meet Brian at Abigail's opening night and then listening to them tell me how handsome he was and how happy they were that things had worked out, how they admired me for sticking it out, I just couldn't face them. It would be too humiliating.

However, I did phone Tessa on Friday to explain why I wouldn't be there. She'd been my confidante and cheerleader during the last several weeks. Even though it was difficult to tell her she'd been cheering for a losing team, I felt like I owed her an explanation. Besides, if I failed to show up for quilt circle on Friday without letting them know why, I knew my phone would be ringing off the hook on Saturday morning. Some of them might even show up unannounced, bringing chicken soup, worried that I was sick. They're very good at rallying around one another in times of distress. That, too, was part of why I didn't want to see them. In the face of kindness, I knew I would fall apart, and right now, I couldn't afford to do that.

“Oh, Gayla,” Tessa said, “I'm so sorry. Are you all right? Do you want me to come over?”

“No, no. I'm all right, holding it together,” I said as I spotted a ceramic fragment peeking out from under the lip of the cabinet and bent down to pick it up.

Apparently, I had missed that piece when sweeping up the teapot I'd hurled against the wall earlier that day. Either I'd have to learn to restrain myself or make a trip to Goodwill and buy another box of cheap dishes, specifically for smashing. But it was too late to save my mother's teapot—or Brian's birthday quilt.

In a way, I felt even worse about that than the teapot. It wasn't a family heirloom, but it might have been. Had things worked out the way I'd hoped, that quilt might have become a symbol of all we'd endured and triumphed over, the patchwork blocks a reminder of how we'd patched our marriage back together, taking the scraps of our torn relationship and stitching them into new and beautiful patterns.

Instead, and after all that painstaking work, my quilt was a ravaged mess.

Smashing the teapot had done little to calm my ire. When I stormed out of the kitchen in search of my cigarettes—I hadn't smoked one in close to two weeks, but I knew there was half a pack hidden somewhere—my eyes fell upon the dining table and my nearly completed quilt top, lying next to my sewing machine. I snatched it up and, without thinking, tore off one of the borders, the breaking threads popping violently asunder as I pulled the seams in opposite directions. I tore off a second border as well, one of the setting triangles, and then the diagonal seam in the center of the six strips of blocks. That seam didn't separate as easily as the border had—the popping sound stopped halfway down the strip—so I tore another seam, and another after that, until my beautiful quilt was shredded into distorted ribbons clinging to the last remaining border, like the tattered battle flag of a defeated army.

Seeing it like that, realizing what I had done and what it meant, took some of the steam out of my anger. I picked up the torn remains of my quilt, folded it as best I could, and shoved it onto a shelf of the linen closet, my feelings of anger replaced by deep sadness.

I dropped the ceramic shard into the trash can and switched the phone to my other ear. “I'm going to be busy for the next few days anyway,” I told Tessa. “I've got to pack up and close the house, then go back to the city and figure out what my life looks like without Brian. I've been hiding up here long enough. It's time to go home and face facts,” I said, wishing I'd done that in the first place. It would have saved me a lot of additional misery. “Will you say good-bye to the others for me?”

“You mean you're not even going to see them before you go?”

“I really can't,” I said, feeling guilty but standing firm. “Maybe I'll see them later in the fall, when I come back up to put the cottage on the market.”

“I can't believe you're going to sell the cottage—especially after all the work you put into the garden. You love that house, Gayla.”

“I do. But my business is in the city and a second home just isn't in my budget anymore. We'll have to sell our apartment, too, and I'll have to find someplace cheaper to live. I've got a lot on my plate right now, Tessa.”

“Gayla,” she said gently after a moment's silence, “are you sure you want to do this? Shouldn't you at least
talk
to Brian first? Maybe there's some explanation.”

“Oh, I know what the explanation is,” I said bitterly. “He lied to me. He said he was going to Los Angeles on business. Instead, he's in Indianapolis with
her
. I'm done, Tessa. He lied and he broke his promise. That's all I need to know.”

After she asked once again if I was sure I didn't want her to come over and I said no but thanks for offering, we said good-bye.

I didn't see her that day, but when I stepped out onto the porch on Saturday morning, I found a cardboard box sitting next to the door. Inside were two presents. One, a terrarium filled with herbs planted inside a miniature glass greenhouse with a top that lifted up so you could clip fresh herbs for cooking, was from Tessa. The handwritten card attached to it said . . .

The second gift, which came in a Cobbled Court Quilt Shop canvas tote bag, was a collection of fabric. Each member of the circle had chosen two half yards to include in the bag: batiks from Ivy, florals from Tessa and Margot, a paisley and a stripe from Evelyn, cream-colored background fabrics from Philippa, polka dots from Madelyn, and two novelty prints with little airplanes from Virginia. There was also a packet of needles, a pincushion, a pair of embroidery scissors, a packet of lace dragonflies, and some beautiful glass buttons, also decorated with dragonflies.

The card said . . .

They'd all signed their names at the bottom.

I sat down on the steps and spread that beautiful fabric out on my lap, looking at each piece, thinking about each woman who had chosen it for me. My throat felt tight, but I didn't cry. In fact, I smiled.

I was sorry that my marriage was ending this way, sorry I'd let Brian make a fool of me yet again, but I wasn't sorry I'd come to New Bern.

In a lot of ways, it had been one of the best summers I'd ever known. I had tried new things, developed new interests, made new friends, found deeper faith in myself and even in God. No, I wasn't quite ready to join a church and sign up to teach Sunday school, but I couldn't help but feel that somehow this sojourn to New Bern had been of His doing, a season of rest to strengthen me for what lay ahead, and that He had put these women in my path so I'd understand what real friendship looked like and how much it mattered.

Folding up the fabric and putting it back in the bag, I decided that I would see my friends again in the fall and ask if I could be a sort of adjunct member of the Cobbled Court Quilt Circle. I could drive up here one Friday night per month; it wasn't that far from the city.

And when I got back home, maybe I'd look for a quilt circle to join there. Since there was a really good quilt shop in New York, there were probably some really good quilt circles too. It just stood to reason. And if there weren't, I'd start my own. I could do that, even if I wasn't an expert quilter. I knew how to be a friend now. It seemed to me that was the most important part.

I got to my feet and picked up my presents, smiling as I peered through the glass walls of the terrarium and saw that Tessa had even included a tiny lavender plant among the herbs. How cute. This would be perfect sitting on the kitchen windowsill in my apartment. Or wherever I landed after the divorce.

I opened the door to go inside but stopped when I heard a car coming up the driveway.

Still smiling, I quickly put the presents down on the kitchen table and went back outside, thinking that Tessa, or maybe the whole circle, after quietly leaving their offerings on my doorstep, had decided to ignore my request for privacy and come over anyway. I was glad. I really wouldn't have felt right about leaving without saying good-bye.

But the car that emerged from behind the hedge didn't belong to Tessa or any other member of the quilt circle. It was a rental car with New York plates and Brian was driving.

What was he doing here? He wasn't supposed to be back until Tuesday. But here he was, mucking up my plans, making my life hard. As usual. What should I do? Pretend that nothing had happened and then surprise him with the divorce papers on Tuesday? Or tell him the truth, here and now?

I decided on the latter.

He jumped out of the car with a smile on his face and a bouquet of pink roses in his hand. “Surprised? I was able to wrap things up earlier than I thought. I came straight from the airport. There's something I want to talk to you about.”

“That makes two of us.”

I stood at the top step and crossed my arms over my chest. Brian stopped short, trading his smile for a frown.

“What's wrong? Did something happen?”

“Yes. You lied to me. You said you were going to Los Angeles, but you really flew to Indianapolis to see Deanna. So yes. Something happened. I don't know the details, but I can make a pretty good guess.”

His jaw dropped, and for a moment, he just stood there staring at me, speechless. Good. Let him stand there and experience what it felt like to be blindsided.

“I know what's going on, Brian. I know where you've been and what you've been doing, and I've had enough. I've called a lawyer. On Tuesday, I'll be serving you with divorce papers.”

“What?” he shouted, throwing out his hands, one of which still held the roses. “You can't be serious!”

“I am deadly serious, Brian! I'm not putting up with this anymore. I'm not going to just sit here and do nothing while you—”

“You have no idea what you're talking about, Gayla,” he barked, talking right over me. “No bloody idea!

“Yes,” he said through clenched teeth, “I lied to you about going to Los Angeles. Yes, I was in Indianapolis. Do you know why? Because three weeks ago, I told Mike Barrows that I wanted a demotion—”

“A demotion? Why would you ask for a demotion?”

“So I could spend more damned time with you!”

He threw the flowers down so hard that the plastic sleeve they'd come in split, scattering roses across the grass.

“I thought that my job, that all the travel, is part of what caused us to drift apart, so I decided to ask for a demotion. I told Barrows that I'd take anything, even go back to my old sales job in Manhattan, as long as it didn't involve my being on the road more than one week a month.

“On Thursday morning, he called me back and said he had a new job for me with less travel and to come to Indianapolis right away. I wanted to tell you about it, but I thought it best to wait until everything was settled because I knew what would happen if I told you I was going to Indianapolis; I knew you'd act just like this!”

Oh, no. My cheeks went hot with shame as I realized the magnitude of my mistake and that he'd read me exactly right. He
should
have told me, but he didn't because he knew I'd go off the deep end. That was exactly what I'd done, dove headfirst into a pool of erroneous suspicions.

“Oh, Brian. I'm really—”

“When I got to Indianapolis,” Brian went on, his tone clipped and angry, “Barrows informed me that he was granting my request for a demotion and putting me in charge of marketing in the New York office.”

“So you've got a new job in the city?”

“No,” he said sharply. “I don't. Because Deanna—yes,
that
Deanna—also happens to work in marketing, and they're transferring her to New York. I told Mike that I couldn't work in the same office with her and asked him to find me another position, any position. Even if it meant we had to move. I wasn't sure how you'd feel about moving, but I supposed you'd prefer that to my working with Deanna.”