Plain Jayne (27 page)

“How's the pie?” Shane asked when I returned to the living room.

“Cheery cherry.”

“Cherry?” Beth's eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Where'd Mom get cherries this time of year?”

“She has her ways, I guess,” I answered with a straight face. “Dinner's ready, if you'd all like to come in to eat.”

“I don't think I heard,” Beth started, pointing at my arm, “how you wound up with a brace.”

I opted for the condensed version. “I fell down.”

“Out of nowhere?”

The Beth I grew up with never pressed this hard. Somewhere along the line, she had become quite a pain. A pain with a backbone.

“There was a short trashcan involved.”

“Was that at the Amish house?” Shane asked.

“No. It was…in town.”

Gary chuckled. “There's a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

Hmm, I didn't like where this was going. I pointed to the dining room. “Dinner—hot—in there. Good stuff.”

“Is the pie sanitary?” Beth asked innocently.

I saw Gary give her a dirty look.

“It should be,” I said with a straight face. “At least, once the E. coli cooks out.”

Shane snorted.

“Who's Ecoli?” little Emilee asked, the first time I'd heard her speak.

She had a sweet little voice. Reminded me of Naomi's twins. Come to think of it, they were about the same age.

“Don't worry about it, honey,” Gary told his daughter. “E. coli is a kind of germ, but there won't be any in your pie. Your aunt was just joking.”

“Where is everyone?” Mom called from the dining room. “Dinner won't be hot forever!”

“Coming!” I called, walking in her direction and willing everyone else to follow suit.

I could hear Beth and Gary arguing softly behind me, but their voices never seemed far away, which I took as a good sign. Shane came up beside me and squeezed my hand.

I squeezed it back.

“Shall we pray?” Mom asked, once we'd all settled at the table. “Gary, would you like to pray for us?”

“We should check with Jayne first,” Beth said.

My stomach sank.

“Is it all right if we pray?” she asked me, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “It won't disagree with your religion, will it?”

“Beth—” Mom warned.

“We don't know if it would offend her, Mother. We've seen so little of her. She could be Baha'i by now. Or Buddhist. Are you Buddhist, Jayne?”

“What is your problem, Beth?” I asked, crossing my arms. “I'm here. Need to get something off your chest? I don't want you to wear yourself out. Potshots can be exhausting.”

“I can't believe you!”

“What can't you believe?”

Gary pulled Emilee's chair back out. “Honey, why don't you go play upstairs for a little while? The grown-ups need to talk.”

Beth reached to still Emilee's chair. “She needs to eat, Gary.”

“She doesn't need to hear you—”

“Hear me what? It's past her normal dinnertime.”

Gary lifted Emilee from the chair. “There's a granola bar in your bag. That should tide her over.”

With that, Gary and Emilee retreated to safety upstairs.

I knew exactly how they felt.

“I can't believe you'd not visit for three years, barely show up at Dad's
memorial, and then waltz back here like nothing was wrong. Did you notice how Mom's lost twenty pounds in the last month? Who helped take care of Mom when Dad was in the hospital? Who brought her meals? Who organized the caterer for the memorial, made the phone calls, wrote the thank-you cards for the bouquets?”

“I'm sorry, Beth.” I struggled to keep my voice steady. “You want to know why I came? I came because I didn't like the way things were. Because I wanted to try,
try
, to make things right.”

“Why didn't you try five years ago? Did it occur to you that you might be five years too late?”

“Beth, that's enough!” Mom chided sharply. “If you can't be pleasant, you can leave.”

“Let me answer, Mom.” I looked back to Beth. “I did consider that it was probably
eight
years too late, but I wanted to try anyway.”

“What if,” she said, “I wanted a sister that whole time?”

I sighed. “What if I did too?”

“I was here! We all were!”

“You didn't want a sister who was a reporter in Portland. You wanted a sister who could look through children's clothing catalogs with you. I couldn't do that.”

“No. Instead, you ran away to the big city, doing big-city things so important that you didn't need us anymore.”

The room at the Sea Gypsy called my name, but I remained in my seat. “I'm sorry, Beth. I don't know what to tell you. I'm trying. I'm doing what I can. The rest is up to you.”

Beth closed her mouth, though she looked as though she had a lot of words still hanging around on the tip of her tongue. When she finally spoke, her voice was controlled.

“Would someone please pass the peas?”

“The pie was good,” Shane said, settling himself on the floor next to the couch where I was stretched out.

“The cherries were canned.”

“They were good.”

“The crust wasn't as buttery as Martha's.”

“Martha…”

“Burkholder.”

“Right, the Amish lady. Just use more butter next time.”

“You don't use butter in pie crust.”

“Then how…never mind.”

“My sister hates me.”

“She doesn't hate you.”

“Where's my mom?”

“Talking to Beth outside.”

I groaned and buried my face in a throw pillow with an appliqué butterfly. “It's like we're six years old again.”

“I can't understand you when you talk into pillows.”

“Sorry.” I lifted my face. “I said it's like we're six years old again, and we need Mommy and Daddy to help us get along. Never mind she's married with a kid and I'm a working professional. We're not adult enough to work this out.”

“She's not adult enough. You were amazing in there. I just about took her out when she started choking on the pie.”

“If the crust had come out like Martha's, she wouldn't have.”

“The only way she wouldn't have is if Martha had made the pie. The pie had nothing to do with it. It was the fact that you made it.”

“You're a whiz at making me feel better.”

“Just saying.”

I heard the front door close and a single set of footsteps walking in our direction.

I was glad it was only one, that Mom hadn't made Beth come in and make an attempt at an apology.

“You all right there?” Mom took a seat in the chair next to me.

“I'm fine.” I turned my face away from the pillow when I spoke. If Mom caught me accidentally drooling on that butterfly, that could have been the end of things.

“Jayne, well…give Beth time. She'll get over it.”

I didn't believe her, but I chose not to argue.

“Heaven knows you're both too stubborn for your own good. You take after your father that way.”

I masked my wince with a cough.

“I'm sorry the night went the way it did,” Mom continued. “I was so glad you came. I just wanted it to be special.”

I pushed myself up. “Beth's right. I've been gone, and I haven't been much of a daughter or sister for the past several years. I never expected to show up and have everyone welcome me with open arms.”

“Well, you're welcome here anytime. Both you and Shane,” she said, nodding in his direction. “Anytime.”

I got up then, and gave her a hug. She hugged me back. I shoved my hair from my face. “It's good to be home.”

M
om made smiley pancakes for breakfast, though they weren't served that way. The fruit had been rearranged into a more sophisticated arrangement in the middle—but the red juice from the strawberries and raspberries left their indelible mark on the surface.

She had started making me a smiley pancake and thought better of it. It made me a little sad; I think I would have enjoyed a breakfast that grinned back.

But it probably would have weirded Shane out if he too had received such a breakfast, and it would have been unfair if they didn't match.

Thus the rearranged fruit.

Mom sat down a few moments later.

“Do you both have plans for the day?” she asked, cutting into her own elegantly topped pancake.

Shane and I looked at each other. “Not particularly,” I answered. “Although I thought about taking Shane to Kyllo's for lunch.”

“Oh,” Mom said with a nod. “Kyllo's is nice.”

I played with the edge of my black sweater for a moment before I asked the question I really wanted the answer to. “So…I saw some quilt squares in Beth's old room.”

Shane snorted and covered it with a cough. Anyone under the age of five might have been fooled.

“Anyway,” I continued, flashing a warning glare at my boyfriend, “I was wondering…do you quilt?”

“I do.” Mom took a sip of her coffee. “I started a few years ago when I bought that sewing machine. Why?”

“I went to a quilting bee when I was staying at the Burkholders'.”

“Really? An Amish quilting bee? What was that like?”

“Crazy. A lot of women and a lot of quilts.” I though for a moment about Rachel, Levi's perfect ex-girlfriend. I wondered what she was doing.

Probably cleaning something.

“That must have been fascinating.”

“It was. Sara—the teenager—taught me how to cut quilt squares. She wanted me to do something useful.”

“Good idea.”

Shane choked again. I turned to him. “I hope you're not coming down with something. You seem to be having trouble swallowing. Airway closing up?”

Shane wisely returned to his breakfast.

“She taught me to cut quilt squares, and I kinda got hooked on it. Except I don't know what to do with them now.”

“You just keep cutting squares?”

“Yes.”

“How many do you have?”

In truth, I didn't know. After breakfast we went upstairs and counted through the bag I'd brought. Mom counted one-half, I counted the other. After several moments, I put my stack down. “I have fifty-two.”

Mom fingered through the last of hers. “This is tricky…I should have gotten my reading glasses.”

“You have reading glasses?”

“They're a part of life at my age.”

“Oh. I don't think of you as being of the age that would need reading glasses.”

She gave a soft smile. “That's very sweet of you.”

Another few moments passed before Mom set her stack down. “I have forty-seven here. You've been busy.”

“Ninety-nine? I cut ninety-nine squares?”

“You could have Shane count to check.”

No, thank you. “I had no idea. I wasn't paying attention most of the time.” I looked up at her. “What should I do with them?”

“First,” she said, “I think you should cut one more so you have an even hundred.”

“Oh. Is one hundred a better number to have in quilting?”

“No. I just thought you might like to be able to say you cut a hundred squares.”

“True.” I smiled. “I can do that. I have fabric in my room.”

“You're welcome to mine. It's all going to be cut up, anyway.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“After that, I think you should make a quilt.”

“Really?” My mind reeled. Me? Make a quilt? “But there…there isn't enough, is there?”

“You don't have to make a full-sized quilt. You could make a lap quilt or a throw.”

“Oh.” I mulled it over in my head. “Hmm. I never thought of that.”

“You won't know how large it'll be until you piece it together.”

“Oh.” I fingered the squares. “I have no idea how to do that.”

Mom smiled. “I think I could pitch in a bit.”