The Beach Quilt (13 page)

Sarah stood in the middle of her room. Her shoulders twitched. The room seemed—odd. Nothing physical had changed, but it was beginning to
feel
strange and unknown. Once, not long ago, it had felt like a refuge, a secure place of calm and peace and rest. Maybe, Sarah thought, it was her perception of the room that had changed. On some level it didn't feel like
hers
any longer. It was a girl's room, not a woman's, and now she was a woman, an adult. At least she had to act like one. Was that it?

If you couldn't suddenly
b
e an adult, what did it take to
act
like one?

Sarah walked over to her desk chair and sank into it. She wished she knew the answer to that question because everyone from her parents to her doctor was expecting nothing short of a miracle from her. At least, that's what it felt like to Sarah.

She put her elbows on the desk and rested her head in her hands. She thought about the sonogram Dr. Westin had performed the other day. It had been so unbelievably exciting, seeing her baby for the first time! Even more exciting was the news that from what Dr. Westin could tell, the baby was perfect. Sarah and her mother, who had been there with her, had both burst into happy tears. Of course, Dr. Westin had then pointed out that Sara's baby was going to be beautiful and precious no matter what, but in spite of what the sonogram told them, there was always a possibility of something going wrong at some later point in the pregnancy. “It's important to be aware of such possibilities,” Dr. Westin had pointed out. “It's important to realize that you might have to make some very difficult decisions concerning your child.”

Sarah's heart had begun to race madly. She felt certain that she was absolutely
not
equipped to make difficult decisions about her child. She had never made a really important decision in her life. Correction. Deciding to go ahead with the pregnancy had been major. But it was something she hadn't really thought about. It was a decision that had made itself.

“I'm only a kid!” she had wanted to cry out to Dr. Westin. But she hadn't. She had just nodded and looked again at the image of her perfect little child on the screen.

Sarah raised her head and took a sip of the glass of orange juice she had brought with her to her room. She had had a dream about the baby the night before. Justin too. The three of them were sitting on her family's old red-and-white-checked picnic blanket in the middle of a field full of spring flowers. The baby was waving a daisy in one fat little fist. Justin was laughing. Sarah was wearing a circlet of pansies on her head. That's all, nothing had happened. They were just a contented little family of three.

For the first moment after waking, still in the peaceful world of her dream, Sarah had felt so very happy. And then, she had remembered who and what she was and the reality was in such stark contrast to the atmosphere of the dream that she had felt physically ill.

Sarah got up abruptly from the chair. If only Justin would get in touch with her! It wasn't that she wanted him back. She
didn't
. It was that she wanted to feel as if she had mattered even a little to him. That offer of marriage had been a joke, she was sure of it now, not a sign of love or affection, no matter what he had claimed.

An odd thought crossed her mind. What if Justin saw her once she started showing—really showing—and, faced with the blatant proof of her situation, had a change of heart? What if he decided he could really and truly “be there” for her like he had only sort of promised? What if love for the mother of his child blossomed in his heart like . . . well, like the daisy the baby in the dream had been holding?

Sarah frowned. It was a stupid thought. She did not want Justin to be her boyfriend or her husband. She did not want his help with the baby. She was sure of that. She was absolutely, one hundred percent sure of it.

She would make those adult decisions on her own. And she would pray that she got things right.

Adelaide got out of her car and closed the door behind her. She drew her coat more closely around her against the damp. She was not looking forward to this appointment with her ophthalmologist. Her eyes had been troubling her again lately and that probably would not lead to good news.

Out of habit Adelaide scanned the parking lot for familiar faces. In a small town like Yorktide, there was little that went unnoticed, and even something as neutral as a visit to the dentist or the dry cleaners might be noted and discussed. She was used to this dynamic, but still occasionally surprised by it, if it was possible to be surprised by the familiar.

There was no one she recognized, just a tiny, ancient woman crawling out of a car that looked far too big for her to handle. But there might have been someone she knew. Just the other day she had seen Justin Morrow in the parking lot outside the supermarket. For one insane moment, she had been ready to race across the lot and confront him. She had gotten the better of herself with some difficulty. After all, what could she have said to him that would have made any difference? And it was likely that her confronting Justin would have backfired somehow on Sarah and that was the last thing Adelaide wanted.

Still, it would have felt good to make some small dent in Justin Morrow's complacency or smugness or ignorance—whatever it was that was allowing him to walk away and leave all responsibility to poor Sarah. Well, not only to Sarah, but to her parents as well.

Adelaide opened the door of the office, greeted the receptionist, and took a seat in the waiting room. She picked up a home decorating magazine (she was too hungry to look at an issue of
Cooking Light
or the
Food Network Magazine
) but found she wasn't able to concentrate on the glossy photos of magnificent gardens and formal living rooms. Her thoughts were still focused on Justin and his family.

June Morrow, whom she knew by sight, was not a quilter; at least, she had never come into The Busy Bee, so there was little chance of an awkward encounter between her and Cindy. June was a small woman, very thin and probably not much more than five feet tall. She worked as an administrative assistant in a real estate office on Route 1 in Wells. Adelaide seemed to remember hearing that she was a member of a rather offbeat church, a mix of several more established and recognized Christian sects. Other than that, which wasn't much, Adelaide knew nothing.

About Matt Morrow she knew only that he worked at a local branch of a large bank. What he did there, exactly, she had no idea. He was, she knew, a big man, tall and broad. Clearly, Justin had taken after his father in that way. She didn't know if he attended the same church as his wife did. She didn't know if he attended church at all.

As far as Adelaide knew, Justin was an only child. And none of what she knew about the Morrow family gave her any clue as to why Justin had acted as shabbily as he had.

“Mrs. Kane?” Adelaide looked up to see a neatly dressed assistant standing before her. “You can come in now.”

Forty minutes later, Adelaide left the ophthalmologist's office, a frown on her face. As she had suspected, her eyes had taken yet another turn for the worse, this time bad enough to require a new prescription. She would keep her frames, but still, filling the scrip for a pair of regular glasses and a pair of sunglasses was going to cost a substantial chunk of change. Plus, the doctor had thought she had noticed the very tiny beginnings of cataracts, unusual in a person as young as Adelaide. They would require surgery, Dr. Snowman said, at some unknowable point in the future.

Maybe it was better that they didn't take a vacation this summer, Adelaide thought as she slipped behind the wheel of her car. It was weird how life worked out.

“Is this Mrs. Bauer?”

“Yes,” Cindy said. The call had come in on the landline. Cindy hadn't recognized the number, and now she didn't recognize the voice, a woman's, shrill and with an unmistakable Boston-area accent.

“This is June Morrow,” the voice went on. “Justin Morrow's mother.”

Cindy stumbled back against the sink. She had never placed that call to Justin's mother; she had given up expecting Mrs. Morrow to contact her. She opened her mouth to say something—but what?—when Mrs. Morrow continued.

“I'm just calling to say that I hope you don't expect anything from us, or from our son.”

Cindy didn't quite know how to answer that because of course she expected something from the Morrows! At the very least, she felt she had a right to expect courtesy and maybe even an apology. But from what Cindy had just heard, she got the feeling that Mrs. Morrow was not the sort who believed in what Cindy's mother had called “correct behavior.” Did anyone have an obligation to believe in correct behavior? Yes. Cindy thought that they did.

When Cindy's answer was not forthcoming, June Morrow went on, her tone harsh. “Well, you had better
not
expect anything, not a single thing, and certainly not money because you're not going to get it!”

“Of course we wouldn't ask you for money!” Cindy protested, horrified.

“Because this is entirely your daughter's fault. My son is innocent in this, I assure you. He's a good boy. For God's sake, he told me he even offered to marry her! And thank God she said no because we never would have allowed such a—such a travesty!”

And a marriage between their children
would
have been a travesty, Cindy agreed with Justin's mother on that point. But to hear her daughter blamed for a situation that had quite obviously taken two to create was too much.

“Now, look here, Mrs. Morrow,” she began, but she got no further.

“Your tramp of a daughter had better stay away from my son or else there'll be consequences. Of that you can be sure.”

Consequences? What is she going to do?
Cindy wondered.
Get a restraining order against Sarah?

“How dare you call my daughter a tramp!” she cried, aware that her voice was ridiculously high and squeaky. “How dare you!”

And then Cindy did something she had never done in her entire life. She hung up on June Morrow without a word of farewell.

She realized she was trembling. She was hurt, and she was furious.

What a little worm,
she thought. She imagined Justin running home to his mother, begging her to fix things, to make everything all right again, to make his big, scary problem go away. God, she hated that boy! No, not a boy. A young and very stupid man. She wanted more than anything in that moment to slap him across the face.

And she was worried, too. What if June Morrow spread the nasty lie that Sarah had gotten pregnant purposely to ensnare Justin into a marriage? That sort of behavior probably wasn't all that unusual; lots of women had probably tried the ruse and succeeded, but not Sarah. Never Sarah. And she
hadn't
wanted Justin Morrow as her husband. She had known he wasn't worthy.

Cindy took a deep breath and then another.

If June Morrow did decide to trash Sarah's character, Cindy could only hope that people's better natures prompted them to think well of Sarah, a girl who had never been in the tiniest bit of trouble since the day she was born.

Cindy sank into a chair at the kitchen table. When Joe heard about the phone call, he would be furious. He might even take it upon himself to pay the Morrows a visit. There was a limit even to his patience.

Maybe, she thought, maybe she just wouldn't tell him about the call. She had never kept anything from her husband—what was there to hide?—but yes, the call from the abusive June Morrow, she would spare him.

Cindy rubbed her forehead. How had her life come to include a virtual stranger who was forcing dishonesty between husband and wife? It was an abomination, that's what it was!

She got up again and put the kettle on to boil. A cup of herbal tea might help calm her. She hoped that something would.

“Hey, Cordelia. So where are Regan and Goneril?”

Cordelia laughed and thought it was a good thing she had read
King Lear
earlier in the school year. She would hate John Blantyre to think she was stupid. “With Dad, out ranting and raving somewhere,” she replied.

John Blantyre was a senior. He looked like a young Tom Hanks. (Her father had pointed that out once.) She had heard that he had applied to a college in California. (Maybe, she thought, he hated the Maine winters as much as she did.) John was very popular, kind of in the way she was, meaning that pretty much everyone got along with him and he got along with pretty much everyone in return. He ran track. Like Cordelia, he wrote for the school paper. He had even tried his hand with the theater club, building and setting up scenery. And, obviously, he had read
King Lear
!

“So, how's it going?” he asked.

“Good,” Cordelia replied brightly. “How about you?”

John shrugged. “Can't complain. Except that I'm late on a deadline for the paper.”

“Can I help?” Cordelia asked. “I mean, what are you writing about?”

John grinned sheepishly. “I'm supposed to write a review of that new movie about the Arctic. The one playing in town?”

“So what's the problem?”

“Well, I went to see it yesterday, and I kind of fell asleep right in the middle.”

Cordelia laughed. “Was it really that boring?”

“I don't know. I can't remember! So I have to see it again after school today.”

“Drink lots of coffee before you go. And eat some chocolate. And pinch yourself if you start to nod off!”

“Hey,” John said. “I have an idea. Would you—”

Cordelia's smile froze. He was asking her out. He was asking her to be alone with him in a dark movie theater. Suddenly, Cordelia was overcome by an ugly, nameless fear. . . .
No
, she thought.
The ugly fear has a name and it's “pregnancy”!

She slapped a hand to her head. “Oh my God, I totally forgot! Sorry, John, I've got to run.”

And run she did, all the way to the girls' room on the far side of the building, where she rushed through the swinging door, almost slamming into a girl coming out, and, panting (
I really should get more exercise,
Cordelia thought), leaned against the wall under the window.

She was alone. Good. At least she wouldn't have to explain the panting.

What must John think of her? That she was a flake? That she was rude? She really hoped she hadn't insulted him by running off, but she suspected that she had. Poor John. He wasn't Justin after all. But who knew who he might become if they were alone and he got all excited and . . .

Cordelia went over to one of the sinks, wet a paper towel with cold water, and held it to her forehead and cheeks. She could not allow herself to become afraid of guys just because her best friend had gotten pregnant by one of them. Sarah had played a part, too. She had agreed to have sex with Justin. Hadn't she? At least, she hadn't told Cordelia otherwise. She hadn't said that Justin had forced her.

Cordelia tossed the damp paper towel in the trash. Well, even if Sarah
was
partly responsible for her situation, Cordelia couldn't blame her, she just couldn't. Justin was the bad one here, the stupid one. He was the idiot who should have known better.

And if it weren't for what Justin had done to Sarah, Cordelia might have been about to go on her very first date with a really nice guy.

Cordelia took a deep breath and checked her hair in the mirror over the sink. She looked pretty good for someone who felt so agitated. She left the ladies' room and headed for her next class, hoping she would not run into poor John Blantyre again.