The Beach Quilt (32 page)

Stevie smiled. “This feels like a ceremony.”

“It
is
a ceremony!” Cordelia announced. “Why else would we be having champagne?”

“Sparkling cider, you mean,” Sarah pointed out.

Cordelia shrugged. “Anything fizzy means a celebration.”

The Kane and Bauer women were at The Busy Bee to celebrate the fact that Henry's quilt, measuring an impressive five feet by five feet, was finally finished. It was spread out on one of the quilt frames to show off the colorful images (including a last-minute lion with a shaggy mane), the impressive stitching, and, across the bottom, the baby's name, Henry Joseph, in big block letters.

Everyone took a turn having her photograph taken standing next to the quilt, and then Adelaide had attempted a group selfie. The result was a little wobbly, but it would do.

“Let's toast our accomplishment.” Adelaide raised her glass. “To a job well done.”

“To a job well done!”

“And just in time!” Cordelia added.

Cindy put her arm around her daughter. “I'm so proud of you, Sarah.”

“But I hardly did anything but prick my finger a lot,” Sarah protested. “And make weird-looking starfish. You guys did most of the creative stuff.”

“What I meant,” Cindy said, wiping a tear from her eye, “was that I'm proud of you for
everything
. For your being Sarah.”

Sarah blushed. “The quilt is really lovely,” she said. “It's amazing to see it finished.”

“You're going to use it, I hope,” Adelaide said. “I mean, not just hang it on the wall.”

“Oh, no, I'm definitely going to use it! Though I guess I'll have to learn how to clean it properly. You can't just stuff it in the washing machine with the sheets!”

“And you can't store precious things in the attic in case there's a big storm and the roof leaks.”

Sarah looked inquiringly at Cordelia. “Why would I be storing Henry's quilt instead of using it?”

Cordelia shrugged. “It was just something I read in one of Mom's magazines.”

“I suppose you'll have to keep Clarissa away from the quilt,” Adelaide said.

Stevie shook her head. “Oh, no, Mrs. Kane. Clarissa is way too smart to destroy something so valuable.”

“It's true,” Sarah added. “In fact, I'm kind of expecting her to be a babysitter for little Henry. The little kitty guarding the little Leo. How cute would that be!”

“Maybe Henry will learn to quilt someday,” Cordelia said, taking a sip of the sparkling cider.

“Why not?” Stevie said. “Quilting shouldn't be just for women. Lots of guys knit these days. Why not quilt?”

“When I was a little girl,” Adelaide added, “the tailor in our neighborhood was a man. He was very old. He'd learned the craft from his father before him, growing up in Italy.”

Cindy smiled. “I wonder what your father would feel about his grandson wielding a needle and thread?”

“I think he'd be proud,” Sarah said firmly. “After all, Dad builds things with wood. Why wouldn't he appreciate a boy building something useful out of fabric?”

“Well, he certainly wouldn't stand in anyone's way,” Cindy affirmed. “Live and let live is what Joe would say.”

“Jack wouldn't mind, either. He would say, let the boy do whatever makes him happy.”

Cordelia cleared her throat. “Ahem. And what I would say is, can we please cut the cake now?”

Cindy picked up the knife. “That, we can all agree on.”

Cindy busied herself cutting the chocolate iced cake she had made that morning. On top she had spelled out the baby's name in blue and yellow jimmies. She really
was
proud of Sarah. She had handled the pregnancy and all it entailed with such grace. She had soldiered through the tough emotional times and had, Cindy believed, come to accept with some peace the role she was about to be handed.

“For Sarah first,” she said, handing her older daughter a paper plate. “A big piece.”

“I want a big piece, too,” Cordelia said; then, she reddened. “I mean, may I have a big piece?”

Adelaide shook her head, and Cindy laughed. “Yes,” she said, “you may.”

“You always had a sweet tooth,” Sarah said. “I mean, more than me, anyway.”

Cordelia shrugged. “Sugar is my vice. Everyone needs one vice, right?”

Adelaide raised an eyebrow at her daughter. “Who told you that?”

“I don't know if everyone
needs
a vice, but I think that probably everyone has one.”

Cindy looked to her younger daughter. “Now how did we get on the topic of vices? This is supposed to be a happy moment. Let's talk about, I don't know, virtues!”

“Like the virtue of accepting what life brings you,” Sarah said. “Honestly, when I first found out I was pregnant, I didn't know if I could handle it. Now, almost nine months later, here I am. Don't get me wrong, I'm nervous and all, but I'm also happy.”

“Life is full of surprises,” Cindy said.

“The human spirit is resilient,” Adelaide added.

Cordelia nodded. “And cake always helps.”

Cordelia was alone at The Busy Bee. After the presentation of the quilt, Cindy and Sarah had gone home, and her mom had gone out to run an errand. There had been no customers for the past forty-five minutes, which gave Cordelia plenty of time to think about what Sarah had told her the other day about how in lust she had been with Justin.

She didn't know why she had been so surprised, but the whole passion thing did explain a lot. And when she gave it more thought, she realized that she felt closer to Sarah than she had since Sarah had gotten pregnant. Because the year before, she had had a crush on a senior on the basketball team. It wasn't the same as having a boyfriend, not at all, but still, she thought that now she could understand if only a little bit Sarah's infatuation with Justin.

She still sometimes thought of him—his name was Roddy—but without any of that sick-to-her-stomach feeling. In fact, now she couldn't understand what she had found so attractive about him. His ears stuck out more than a little bit and his hair wasn't that great. But for about two whole months, she had been possessed (that wasn't too strong a word) by thoughts of him. And it had come on
boom,
like that, like some cosmic ruler had snapped his fingers and suddenly, Cordelia had been smitten. She had spent hours fantasizing in minute detail about conversations they would have, kisses they would indulge in, and meaningful glances they would share across a crowded cafeteria. She had created entire scenes—no, complete movies!—in her head starring the two of them, movies in which they would run off in his car and drive across country and sleep wrapped in each other's arms, under a starry sky. In these movies Roddy and Cordelia were each other's everything; no one in the entire world understood Roddy like Cordelia did and no one in the entire world understood—and worshipped—Cordelia like Roddy did.

And then,
boom,
it was all over. She had walked in to the school's library one afternoon to find Roddy and a few other members of the basketball team goofing around at a table by the window. The librarian, a perpetually harried-looking woman, was busy at the desk, her back to the boys, when suddenly one of them (Cordelia hadn't seen who it was) threw a wadded-up piece of paper at her. It hit her square on the head, and the boys erupted in muffled hoots and guffaws.

And that had been the end of Cordelia's crush or infatuation or romantic disease. She remembered turning away and walking right out of the library, totally embarrassed by the fact that she had found Roddy Murphy the stuff of dreams. She was beyond glad she hadn't said anything to Sarah about her feelings for Roddy. Sarah wouldn't have made fun of her, but still, she might have pointed out, in her usual reasonable way, that Cordelia's feelings couldn't really be for or about Roddy because she didn't
know
Roddy. Cordelia understood that now. It was as if her free-floating romantic feelings, to which all teenagers were subject, had for some random reason attached themselves to Roddy Murphy though they might just as easily have attached themselves to another boy.

Love, at least, infatuation, really was like a sickness. It wasn't something you asked for. It was just something that, being human, you were vulnerable to contracting. And so maybe that's how even sensible Sarah Bauer had succumbed to Justin Morrow's dubious (his imagined?) charms.

And maybe that's what had happened with her mother, too, back when she was seventeen. Maybe that guy, whoever he was, had had a dizzying effect on her so that she had done something terribly careless and had had to pay a horrible price.

Cordelia realized that she was frowning. She still couldn't fully accept the weird fact that she was not her mother's only child. It made her feel a bit less special in the world. Still, she was absolutely certain of her mother's love. In fact, she wondered if her mother had spoiled her—and she
had
spoiled her, no doubt about that!—to make up for having given up her first child. Probably. Cordelia thought she would have done the same. It was something about guilt and atonement.

And it made no sense, really, but she kind of missed the brother she had never known. Maybe someday she might be able to find him . . . but would that be the right thing to do? What if he didn't know he was adopted? That seemed unlikely, didn't it? Or, what if he knew he was adopted but didn't want to be found, especially by his birth mother's daughter—the child she had kept?

The door of the shop opened, startling Cordelia out of her reverie.

“Was it busy?” her mother asked.

“Dead as a doornail,” Cordelia said. “What is a doornail, exactly? A nail used in making doors?”

Her mother shrugged. “I guess so. Better ask your father or Mr. Bauer. I don't do carpentry.”

Sarah was stretched out on her bed, her feet propped on a pile of pillows. Henry's quilt was draped across the back of her desk chair. It made her happy to see it there. And in a matter of weeks, it would make her happy to see the quilt covering little Henry himself. (Though you had to be careful about blankets and pillows around infants!)

In the past weeks, she had thrown out most of the trinkets Justin had given her over the course of their relationship, but she had kept two, one for Henry and one for herself. The first was a little stuffed rabbit about the size of her hand. It was brown and black with a pink nose. The other was a bracelet with an inlay of iridescent seashell. She would never wear it—it was more Cordelia's style, a bit flashy—but she thought it was very pretty. No harm would come from it remaining in her sock drawer. If she was being sentimental about these two tokens of—well, of whatever it was that had existed between them—so be it. Because whatever it
had
been, it had resulted in the creation of a life. Whatever it had been, it had not been worthless.

No, the creation of a new life was not a waste. What mattered was what people made of that new life, how they cared for and nurtured it. That's where waste might come into play.

She remembered something she had read on the Internet a week or two ago. Every single day more than two thousand girls in the United States got pregnant. Girls, not women. And eight out of ten fathers—boys, not men—did not marry their girlfriends. And—this had really upset Sarah—the sons of teenage mothers were twice as likely to go to prison than the sons of older mothers.

Sarah wondered how much of that sort of information was meant to scare a girl away from sex. (Were boys ever scared away from sex?) If she had known then all she knew now, would she have resisted her desires? Would she have been smarter and gotten on the pill? It was impossible now to say.

Just like it was impossible to know what Justin had really seen in her. She wasn't the prettiest girl in town, nor was she the one with the best personality. But she had never questioned his attraction to her, not once during all the months they were together. He had made her believe that he found her beautiful and special. He had really listened to her when she talked.... Correction. Sarah had
thought
that he had listened. And she realized now that she had never told him anything important about herself. Maybe deep down she had known that he wasn't capable of a proper response. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she believed that the entire relationship had been only smoke and mirrors, more a figment of her imagination than a mutual experience rooted in genuine emotion.

Sarah sighed and rested her hand on her stomach. She felt what she thought was a little foot and thought of all the joy Justin would be missing by rejecting his child. She sincerely hoped that he would grow up and mature. If he didn't—and some people never did—he might very well leave several more abandoned children in his wake.

And not all of them would be as lucky and as blessed as her little Henry.

Adelaide was alone in the den after dinner. There was little chance she would be disturbed. Jack was watching a Red Sox game. Cordelia was watching
Down with Love
for about the sixth time.

Adelaide sat at her desk. She had been thinking about how at the gifting of the quilt Cindy had told Sarah that she was proud of her. Adelaide had been touched, but at the same time, she had felt a pang of intense jealousy in the presence of that warm, nurturing relationship.

She wondered now if her own mother had ever been proud of her, even before her “big mistake.” She couldn't remember her mother ever praising her for anything—getting good grades, keeping a clean room, making the basketball team. But maybe her mother
had
praised her. Memory was a notoriously tricky thing. Maybe, after the pregnancy, and her mother's insistence that she “get rid of” the baby, Adelaide had obliterated any memories of her mother having been supportive and encouraging.

Maybe.

Adelaide took out a pen and a yellow legal pad (yes, she still used her handwriting skills). She thought she might draft a letter to her mother, expressing what she felt about that toxic e-mail. She wasn't sure it was something she would ever send, but she felt that the process of putting her feelings on paper might help her achieve some peace of mind. Certainly, Adelaide didn't expect anything in her relationship with Nancy Morgan to actually change.

Unless, of course, she decided to cut all ties with her mother.

The idea had never occurred to her before. But, why not? As it was, the relationship was an empty husk, kept up as a matter of form. At least, that's how it felt on Adelaide's end and she suspected her mother would agree.

But there was her father to consider. How would a final rift between his wife and his daughter affect him? Adelaide was certain her mother would forbid her father to contact her. And she didn't see him having the nerve or the energy to fight for a private relationship with his daughter.

What would Jack say to such an idea? Even though he was her fierce supporter, he would probably advise against such a dramatic option.

And what would Cindy say? Cindy didn't know about Nancy Morgan's last e-mail. In spite of how Adelaide felt about her mother, she still felt bound by the ancient commandment to honor her. There was a limit to the critical things she could reveal about her mother to anyone other than her husband.

So, knowing only the little she did, Cindy would probably point out that Adelaide's parents were geriatric and might not have that much longer to live. How would Adelaide feel when they died? she would ask. The regret at having abandoned the relationship might be unbearable.

Yes, Adelaide countered to the imagined voice of her friend. There
was
such a thing as filial duty, but how did you determine when a person was no longer worth your time and respect ?

But cutting off a relationship entirely, even one that had been diseased for years, was not an easy thing to do. There might even be cases in which it was the
wrong
thing to do and this case, Adelaide's, might be one of them. It was hard to know for sure. After all, what had her mother done to her that was so wrong except to be her particular self?

Suddenly, Adelaide began to write. She only stopped twenty minutes later when her hand was so cramped around the pen she had to use the other hand to release it.

She felt as if she had done something good. Still, she would not send the letter. She had rushed into telling Cordelia about the long-ago adoption, and the revelation had been painful for Cordelia to bear. She knew now to be more cautious. Words could not be unspoken or unwritten. They could only be suffered.

Adelaide folded the sheet of paper, put it in an envelope, and slid it into the top drawer of her desk. She suddenly felt like watching that Red Sox game.