The Beach Quilt (25 page)

Adelaide was alone in the shop when a young man passing along the sidewalk outside caught her attention. She hurried forward to the window to get a closer view as he continued on.
What was it?
she wondered.
Was it the length of his stride or maybe the set of his shoulders? Was it the dark hair?
Whatever it was exactly, the young man had reminded her an awful lot of Michael Baker. Well, of the Michael Baker she had known twenty-one years earlier.

The young man passed out of sight, and Adelaide, heart racing, turned away from the window. She hated when this sort of thing happened.
Would
she recognize her son if she saw him on the street? Would he somehow recognize her, blood calling out to blood? Or did that only happen in novels and the movies?

Adelaide went back to man the counter. Maybe she
had
seen her son, maybe she even had talked to him, and not known that the person she was speaking to was her own flesh and blood. The thought made her head spin. So many possibilities . . . The one possibility she had never entertained was that her son might be dead. She
needed
the fantasy of being able to look into his eyes someday. Without that, well, she wasn't sure what might happen to her.

Not that the fantasy of meeting her son was helping her much at the moment. Her thoughts were mostly mired in memories of that awful conversation with her daughter.

What a disaster. Jack had been a great comfort, but even her husband's reassuring words could not erase Adelaide's memory of Cordelia leaving the kitchen, her shoulders stiff. And, a day later, he told Adelaide that Cordelia had come to him. She had been upset, he told Adelaide, angry and confused and very curious about her half-brother.

Jack had urged Adelaide to remember that Cordelia was in many ways a typical naive, self-righteous, unsympathetic young person for whom life is black and white, decisions right or wrong. It was clear that she was only now coming to understand how dreadfully complicated and nuanced the world was. And how difficult it was to negotiate each and every day and still feel good about yourself as a productive and caring and decent person.

That helped a little.

The door to the shop opened, and Cindy came in. She held a folded quilt over her arm.

“The repair won't be difficult,” she told Adelaide, indicating the quilt. “I can get it done in a week. Seems Mrs. Gallagher's grandson is undergoing a fixation with scissors. Poor woman thought the quilt was ruined.”

“Good. I mean, good about the repair, not about the child from hell.”

“What's up?” Cindy asked, placing the quilt on a table next to one of the frames. “You look upset.”

“I am upset,” Adelaide admitted. “I told Cordelia about the adoption. I mean, about my son.”

“Oh. How did she take the news?”

“Not well, I'm afraid.”

“It
is
a lot to absorb,” Cindy said carefully. “And Cordelia is an emotional girl.”

“Yes. But, Cindy, I'm scared that for the rest of her life every time she looks at me she's going to see—well, someone disappointing.”

Cindy shook her head. “She loves you. Give her time to come to terms with the fact that her mother had a life before her.”

“And to think I convinced myself I was telling her because the news might help her to, I don't know, have more sympathy for Sarah. But Cordelia already
had
sympathy for Sarah! She was dealing with things just fine until I opened my big mouth. Look at how much she's been enjoying working on the baby's quilt! What have I done?”

Cindy squeezed Adelaide's hand. “Do you want me to talk to her?”

Adelaide sighed. “No. I think that maybe she needs to be left alone for a while.” Adelaide laughed bitterly. “But what do I know?”

“What did Jack say?”

“Honestly, he wasn't really keen on my telling Cordelia from the start. She went to him after our conversation. She wasn't happy.”

“Both Sarah and Cordelia are facing some major growing-up lessons this summer, aren't they?”

“Our poor girls.”

“Growing up is bound to happen,” Cindy pointed out. “If you're lucky.”

Adelaide gave a halfhearted laugh. “Then I guess they're lucky. But wait, there's something else. I know you didn't want Sarah to know about my past. But things were going so badly with Cordelia I didn't remember to ask her not to tell Sarah. I'm so sorry, Cindy.”

“It doesn't matter now,” Cindy said. “It won't hurt her to know.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure. Now, let me make you a cup of coffee.”

“Thanks,” Adelaide said. “And if there's a doughnut back there I'll take that, too.”

You didn't have to be particularly sensitive, Cindy thought, to feel the tension in the room.

They were at The Busy Bee after hours to work on the quilt. This evening their task was to sew several of the shapes they had each created—fish, roses, seashells, and lobsters—onto the background fabric with a variety of interesting stitches.

At least, Cindy thought the stitches were interesting. No one else at The Busy Bee seemed particularly happy to be there or interested in the work at hand. Cordelia was clearly upset with her mother. She hadn't looked directly at Adelaide since they had entered the shop. Well, she
was
absorbing some pretty big and upsetting news. As for Adelaide, she wore a pained expression, and her hair, usually so perfectly styled, was almost messy.

Stevie seemed on edge and was uncharacteristically klutzy. She had dropped her needle twice and tripped over a leg of the stool behind the counter. Cindy found it disturbing to see her younger daughter, who usually moved with such grace, be so awkward.
Something must be on her mind,
Cindy figured,
but what?
There was never much use in quizzing Stevie about her feelings.

Sarah was pensive, not unusual for her, but these days, Cindy watched her like a hawk watching a mouse. No. More accurately, like a fierce mother lion watching her cub when the hyenas were on the prowl.

Maybe, Cindy thought, working on the quilt together this evening would help heal the pain and hurt or just plain irritability everyone but her seemed to be feeling. And if it didn't, she might have to suggest they call out for pizza.

“Is there such a thing as chocolate soda?” Sarah asked suddenly.

“What on earth made you think of chocolate soda?” Cindy asked with a laugh. “And yes, I think that there is such a thing. Though I'm not sure I've seen it around for some time.”

“I don't know. It just sounds like it would be a really delicious thing.”

Cordelia nodded. “Mmm. I agree. Especially with whipped cream on top.”

Adelaide looked from Cordelia to Sarah. “Next time I'm at the store I'll look for some if you'd like.”

Cordelia just shrugged.

“Thanks, Mrs. Kane,” Sarah said. “But don't go out of your way.”

“There's such a thing as cream soda,” Cindy said. “I think it's actually vanilla flavored. One time a woman visiting from New York City told me about it. I can't for the life of me remember how the topic of soda came up! I do know she bought one of my smaller quilts.”

“I think they both sound awful,” Stevie said. They were the first words she had spoken in almost an hour. “Probably all gross artificial chemical flavoring.”

No one had a reply for that comment.

“The baby is kicking,” Sarah announced, putting her hand to her side. “You can feel if you want. It's just when strangers . . .”

“Yeah,” Cordelia said. “People should know better. They're always saying and doing things that they shouldn't.”

Cindy saw Adelaide flinch. Clearly, neither of the adults had any doubt as to whom Cordelia's remark was aimed.

“Stevie?” Sarah asked. “Do you want to feel?”

“No, thanks. Ow!”

She had stabbed herself with her needle.

“Are you okay?” Cindy asked.

Stevie nodded. And then she said, “No. I'm not. I got my period this morning and I feel . . . awful.”

Cindy put a hand on her daughter's head and smoothed her hair. Her purple hair. “Growing up,” she said, “isn't always fun.”

“No,” Adelaide said carefully, her eyes on her work. “It isn't. Sometimes you have to accept some difficult truths about the people you love.”

Sarah looked up and frowned. “Like what, Mrs. Kane?”

There was a moment of awkward silence. Cindy opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Cordelia cut her off.

“Like nothing,” she said. She put down her work and placed the flat of her palm against Sarah's belly. “It's so hard. I mean, your stomach. It's kind of weird. Sorry. I didn't mean that in a bad way.”

Sarah smiled. “Do you want to feel, Mrs. Kane?”

“Oh,” Cordelia said quickly, “my mother doesn't need to feel it. She knows all about being pregnant.”

Cindy felt her cheeks flush. Really, Cordelia was acting badly, tempting her mother to show anger, to fight back. Cordelia was punishing her mother in the only way she knew how—by being a brat.

Cindy walked over to where Adelaide sat bent over her work and put a hand on her shoulder. Adelaide looked up and gave a small smile of thanks.
How our children hurt us so,
Cindy thought.
It was a wonder that a mother could bear it.

“I think we've done enough work for this evening,” Cindy announced, admitting to herself that sometimes, even quilting together couldn't soothe hurt feelings. “I'm going to call for a pizza.”

Cordelia spread the blanket under her with her hands. She was at the beach alone. Stevie was taking a turn working at the shop, and there had been no point in asking Sarah to come along. Sarah loved the beach but lying around on a blanket with hundreds of other sunbathers wasn't her thing. She preferred to come off-season or after hours and hunt for shells in the sand, and look for eagles overhead, and poke around at smelly seaweed that had washed ashore.

Cordelia lay back on the blanket, her bag close to her side. Fully packed, she guessed it weighed close to ten pounds. In it were a towel, a pair of backup sunglasses, two bottles of water, a large tube of sunblock, a small tube of lip balm, the latest issues of
Elle
and
InStyle
and
Vogue,
and two apples, in case she got hungry. Come to think of it, the bag probably weighed closer to fifteen pounds once you added the blanket, which meant that carrying it around amounted to weight-bearing activity, which was the same as exercise. And
that
meant that she could treat herself to dessert after dinner that night.

If, that is, her mother served anything really good.

Cordelia had been avoiding meeting her mother's eyes since her big revelation. It was as if things were too close now, too intimate between them. Her mother had become something other than a mother. She had become an individual with a past that had nothing to do with Cordelia or her father. So, at the same time, her mother had become a stranger to her. Their relationship had sustained a rift.

At least, that's how it felt to Cordelia, and she felt resentful and sad and a little bit angry. Her life had suddenly become like the plot of a soap opera! What other crazy secrets would her mother reveal? Were her parents in actuality circus performers (a lion tamer and an acrobat?) on the run for having robbed banks all across the Midwest? Was she, Cordelia, in actuality a Swedish princess, stolen as an infant by an anti-royalist faction bent on causing domestic heartache among the nobility and whisked away to the United States where she was subsequently . . .

Cordelia almost laughed aloud. No. None of that was real. There was no point in abandoning reason in favor of the ridiculous. Though the ridiculous could be kind of fun.

But nothing about her mother's story was even remotely fun, certainly not the part about Cordelia's grandparents pretty much forcing their daughter to give up her baby.
Why had they acted so badly?
Cordelia wondered.
How could they have turned their back on their only child?
It seemed beyond mere cruelty. It seemed like—indifference. Wasn't it true that the opposite of love wasn't hate, it was indifference? Cordelia only knew her grandparents vaguely. Maybe they were mean-spirited, coldhearted people who thought of other people only as nuisances to be endured!

Well, Cordelia couldn't blame her mother if she still harbored angry feelings toward her parents for their lack of support all those years ago. She hadn't
sounded
angry when she told Cordelia her story, but maybe she had been acting. And Cordelia wondered if her grandparents still harbored feelings of disappointment in their daughter. What a mess all around!

And no one was safe from messiness; that was the really terrifying part. Anyone could get pregnant, even levelheaded Sarah, because passion could make even the most reasonable person do crazy things. Personally, Cordelia knew very little about sexual passion. She didn't think she was a cold person— she hoped that she wasn't—but for some reason, she hadn't yet felt any really intense emotion in her life. Crushes didn't count. And what she felt for her parents, though real, wasn't—over-whelming. Her love for them just
was
. It was just
there
. She knew it. She lived it more than she felt it, if that made any sense.

Cordelia sat up on her elbows. A group of four girls about her age were strutting by, tossing their hair and giggling. Each was wearing a bikini that was unbelievably tiny. Cordelia grimaced. Really, she was hardly a prude (or was she?), but those bathing suits bordered on X-rated! She shifted her gaze to the right only to see a couple making out on a blanket. She was both embarrassed and fascinated by their public display of affection. Or lust, which wasn't the same thing. Affection wasn't dangerous. Lust was very dangerous.

Cordelia looked away from the couple, embarrassed now by her voyeurism. She was almost seventeen, and she had never even made out with a guy. Well, she had kissed a little at a party last year, but nothing more. Maybe there was something wrong with her. Why weren't her hormones raging like everyone else's? Why wasn't she strutting and giggling?

Suddenly, Cordelia felt very young and very naive. The truth was that in spite of the bad stuff about Sarah's situation, she was a tiny bit in awe of her friend for having moved on toward maturity—well, toward sexual experience—without her.

Cordelia glanced again at the amorous couple and wondered what John Blantyre was doing with his last summer in Maine before heading off for college. She bet he looked good in a bathing suit. He wasn't one of those muscle-head types, but he was slim and fit.

Idly, she wondered what he would say if she called him and maybe asked him out. He might very well say yes. Things between them might very well click. She might even . . . and here her thoughts became more focused. She might even be able to catch up with Sarah, get back to sharing the same level of experience.

John
was
really nice. And he
had
been going to ask her out that time at school when she had run away.

Cordelia sat up abruptly. Her face was burning, and it had nothing to do with the sun. Oh, my God, she thought, how insane to even
consider
losing her virginity and risking pregnancy or a disease just to—to what? Fit in? Feel a part of Sarah's life again? Kill the pain of loneliness?

Wow,
Cordelia thought, holding her bottle of water to her flaming cheeks.
I just dodged a very big bullet.

After a moment, she lay back down on the blanket and closed her eyes.
Think of fluffy bunnies,
she told herself.
Think of those lace-up boots you want for fall. Think of gold, glittery nail polish. Just think of anything but boys.