Threads of Change (2 page)

Lucas paused, and Liz recognized the weighing of his words. “Liz, I know these last few months have been difficult. Caleb was a good man and a good husband. He was just like a son to me. And Luke isn’t little any more. He has grown into a fine young man.” Lucas covered his mouth and whiskers with his hand, holding his chin.

Liz spoke up. “Yes, this brings a thought to me. I’ve been thinking that Luke needs to stay here at the mill to work and go to school and … if Caleb is found …”

“Sweetheart,” Lucas interrupted, “you know Caleb is gone. He won’t be found. We all saw the accident at the mill. You’ve got to accept that he is not going to find his way back here.” His hands rested on her shoulders as he lovingly but firmly spoke. “We have to move on. This thinking isn’t good, Liz. I know you know that.”

His eyes searched hers for a positive reaction. She blinked and shrugged. “It’s just easier.”

With a sense of urgency she stepped aside, brushed her skirt, and straightened her shoulders. She wouldn’t let her emotions get the best of her. For almost a year, she had been a weeping widow. The timber mill accident never strayed far from her mind and she hated the sense of losing herself to the horrible nightmare. She’d been drifting for months, and she wanted to take control of her life again. Her mind and heart demanded something else; selling the mill and making a move seemed to provide that. Luke had grown up so much over the past months and had grown even closer to his namesake, Grandpa Lucas.

The process of planning the move nudged the sadness away. Liz wanted and needed a new beginning, and the lurking trouble in the South was just the push to get her started.

Her dear cousins coming along would make it fun as they embarked on this adventure together, all of them starting a new chapter. New fortunes were ready to be made, the developing western territories ripe for the picking. The tremors of unrest in the South shook louder and longer, and they made her Grandpa Lucas even antsier to get his plan into action.

“Are you sure about Luke going west with us? It could be quite dangerous. I would feel so much calmer if he were here, safe with you. Who will see after you?” Liz gave a sneaky smile, trying to coax him to her way of thinking. She wanted the only two men in her life safe, away from the uncertainty before her.

“I can’t leave the mill and property until the sale is final. It could be months before I catch up to you.” He swayed back and forth as he pondered Liz’s request.

“Luke misses his dad, and he’s so content with you.”

He stepped closer to her. “Sweetheart, keeping Luke here won’t stop him from getting hurt, and it won’t bring Caleb back. I know it’s easier to just think of him as being away, but …” His loving blue eyes embraced her tightly. “You know if he were alive he would have come back to us. The war is coming, we have a buyer for the mill, and it is a wise decision to go west. It’s not going to get any better for the South. With each election, the western expansion licks at the heels of the unrest. I’ve never had slaves at the mill, so some of it has eluded us, but nevertheless, we will get caught up in it.”

“Sorry. These senseless tears, I’m so tired of them,” Liz admitted, pulling a lace hanky from her pocket to wipe her eyes. Grandpa Lucas stepped back and ran his hand across a wet spot on her cheek as Liz noticed Luke standing in the doorway. She would never forget what Caleb looked like as long as she had her son.

Her grandfather followed Liz’s gaze to the doorway where Luke stood straight as an arrow, his messy sun-streaked hair falling over his eyes.

Luke glared at Lucas as he pleaded, “Tell me you won’t let that happen, Grandpa. Tell me!”

Liz searched her memory for the part of the conversation that had angered her son. “You promised. You both said I was going west with the wagons!”

Grandpa Lucas’s expression told Liz he would handle the situation. “Yes, we are still considering all of the possibilities that lie ahead, Luke. The plans are still in the works. We know what you want and will consider that along with everything else.” He patted Luke’s shoulder as he walked through the doorway, finalizing the conversation.

“Good,” Luke huffed, his face flushed. “I thought I might have to go joining up with those Yankees!”

Lucas never turned around as he let out a big belly laugh, grabbed Luke by the suspenders, and pulled him out the door with him.

Liz watched the two of them from the window as they continued to tease each other. She laughed. “Joinin’ the union?”

As they disappeared, she sank into a parlor chair. The sweet fragrance of flowers drifted across the room, reminding her to water them. Her eyes landed on the green Irish chain quilt she had made for Caleb as a surprise anniversary gift. That quilt—and her son—had been the only things to get her out of bed each morning after Caleb died. She had made it for their thirteenth wedding anniversary, and somehow the fabric squares held all of the joy and excitement of her married life. The quilt represented a celebration of their future together, her grief for the loss of her husband woven into every stitch.

Liz closed her eyes and dropped her head to the back of the chair. In an instant, she wafted back to the day that had changed her life.

The gray and gloomy day in May of 1855 had begun with clouds swirling. The rain left everything waterlogged and cold. It was the sort of day where something feels bound to happen; the sort of day where life’s brittleness is prodded from its sleeping place and made to crawl to the surface and roar for a while, out in the open.

The air didn’t feel quite right, and Liz recalled thinking that the rain seemed too … wet. She sat in the parlor, working on her most recent quilting project, the one she’d named CALEB’S CHOICE, when Luke crashed into the house, calling, “Mom, Mom, come quick!”

“What is it?”

“It’s Dad. He’s fallen into the logs.”

The saturated grass looked limp and lifeless as she rushed to the mill, her mind racing as the wind blew fiercely against her progress. Trees bent. Leaves clung. Horrible thoughts and possibilities pulsed like the intense rain against her face.

“A horse to slide, a dock to fall,” she’d said to herself as she approached the mill and waterway.

As always, they’d fallen behind on the timber orders. Grandpa Lucas and Caleb worked long and hard every day, never demanding more from their workers than they themselves were willing to give.

Rain-soaked and muddy, she stood there with her hair pressed to her head. She watched the mill workers standing in silence with faces completely baffled and afraid.

“He’s gone, Liz. We couldn’t reach him,” Grandpa Lucas had confessed.

“I’m sorry, Liz; I couldn’t get to him in time,” Thomas, Caleb’s best friend, had cried in disbelief.

Their words still shot through her like the heavy bullets from a steel pistol. She’d looked away and fallen to the ground. No one revealed how long it had been between that moment and the one where she awoke in her own bed. Maybe days had passed. She recalled that the sun had broken through, leaving the property dry and the grass a brilliant green. She’d glanced down to find Luke asleep across the end of the bed. Her sister Megan sat in a chair that hugged the side of the bed as she threaded a needle with embroidery floss.

The clopping of horses’ hooves jolted Liz back to the present, her hands still shaking and damp with perspiration. She peered through the parlor window. Workers from the mill unloaded wooden crates and old cloths for packing.

On the other side of the parlor, Caleb’s completed quilt rested over the back of a small chair. She walked over to it and brought it close to her face, hoping to smell Caleb on the quilt, even though he had never used it. She ran her hand over the sewn patches of tans, reds, and greens that represented their namesake.

Caleb would have loved this quilt
, she thought.

Each piece and every stitch had come to memorialize his life with her. And now that completed quilt announced the final chapter of their book as well.

L
uke had turned twelve, and Liz would reach her thirty-second birthday that summer. She’d been a widow for almost a full year. Several Southern gentlemen had made their courting desires known to Grandpa Lucas. He’d even tried to convince her to see Doc Gaither. He was handsome and agreeable enough, she supposed, but Liz loved Caleb. She missed his smile, and the two freckles on his ear.

Across the hall, the bustle of Megan’s treadle machine brought Liz to the doorway. She watched as Megan sewed pieces on the new treadle. Petite, with dark and shiny straight hair, Megan had hazy green eyes, big and intent, their gaze revealing her passionate nature; playful and happy. She pedaled the machine hard, her shoulders even with the movement of the machine, her hair swaying this way and that as she pushed through the quilt top of vibrant creams, reds, and blues.

Darkness had begun to roll in, and Liz knew she’d have to light the lamp for the evening. She didn’t like Megan to work by lamplight. With so much shifting and motion, she feared the lamp might fall and start a fire. Megan slowed the motion of the treadle wheel and looked up at her.

“I think Luke will probably go with us when we leave for Texas,” Liz said.

“What happened? I thought you were against it,” Megan commented.

“I told him that Grandpa and I would consider it. But now that I think of it, we could use him.”

“I’ve thought so all along, really.”

Megan adjusted the fabric under the needle of her treadle. She had taken to the new machine immediately. Learning the difference in hand piecing and treadle sewing hadn’t troubled her one bit.

“What happened a little while ago with Luke?” she asked.

“He overheard us discussing whether he would go with us or not. He got mad and said he would join the Union Army if we forbade him to come.”

They shared a giggle at Luke’s idea.

“I know it is safer for him here, Liz, but I do think it would be better if he went with us. He can even go to school there.” Megan brightened suddenly. “Oh, Liz! I didn’t tell you. I got a letter today from Pastor Parker and his wife.”

“You did? I must’ve been sleeping. Did you read it?”

“Yes, I did. By fall, they’ll have the church prepared for holding classes, and they want Abby to teach there!”

“Oh, Meggie, that’s wonderful.”

“Yes, they’re preparing a classroom in an extra room of the church. I can’t wait to tell her.”

“She will be delighted. Did they say when to expect them?”

“Their stage should arrive late Thursday afternoon.”

“I must say, Meggie, I’m growing rather excited about our journey.”

“Me, too.”

“I wonder if Abby and Emma are as well.”

“Oh, they must be!”

A wagon jangled as it rolled away from the house, dust trailing just behind. Liz watched as two lanterns dangled from the side posts of the wagon, realizing she must have dozed for longer than she’d expected.

“Where are the Lukes off to?” Megan asked.

“Grandpa wanted to take Luke for one final fishing trip. And they prefer to fish at night. Grandpa says that’s when most of the fish are caught.”

“Oh, maybe we’ll have catfish for supper.”

They shared a laugh without verbalizing their usual joke about whether or not there were any fish left to be caught in that pond at all.

“Is that Granny’s pattern?” Liz asked, and Megan nodded.

They gazed at the cotton top, a lovely, pieced appliqué quilt with nine beautiful flower blocks. The various triangles had been meticulously stitched together so that the corners ran smooth and flat against the borders. “This is beautiful! I simply adore this pattern. Do you remember the one she made with pastel fabrics and paisley border? Granny always loved appliqué.”

Liz traced her fingers over the seams and down its edges. She’d always felt that quilts were made to be touched. It was part of the process. Love poured from her fingertips, circling through the quilt and straight back into her.

“Yes, I do. It was very pretty,” Megan replied.

“You’ve finished so quickly, Meggie. It looks wonderful. You’ve become quick friends with this machine.”

“Thank you.” Megan glowed. “I would like to have this one in its frame by morning.”

“Oh! Well, I can’t wait to see it quilted. I can help if you’d like.”

“I imagine that Abby and Emma will want to help as well.” Megan started the pedal moving again.

Megan hovered over the treadle and concentrated on the needle as Liz peered out the window at the red dusk-shadowed barn.

“Liz, do you think you will ever remarry?”

The question caught her by surprise. “I don’t know. I don’t want to be a widow, but I don’t feel like I could right now. I just … want Caleb to come home. I know he won’t, but I just have to hang on to that thread of hope that maybe he just might. Not seeing the accident,” she said, and then paused and bit her lip. “Not seeing a body just makes me wonder or hope that he’s out there somewhere, trying to find us.” She shrugged her shoulder. “Silly.”

Megan sighed, and Liz felt her sympathetic affection. But the matchmaker in her sister seemed always at the ready.