A Single Thread (Cobbled Court) (20 page)

T
hough Garrett’s arrival was a surprise, I managed to pull together some semblance of a family Christmas. Of course, it helped that I owned a quilt shop. Downstairs I found two samples from the “Crazy Quilted Christmas Stocking” class to hang by our hearth. We took turns playing Santa and filled them with gifts.

Our offerings were improvised but very creative. The next morning, we laughed as we sat on the floor next to the tree and emptied our stockings.

I’d scoured the apartment for gifts and found an orange, a pack of chewing gum, a box of matches from the Grill, some soap and a plastic-wrapped toothbrush they’d given me at the hospital, and a mostly unused book of crossword puzzles that Margot had given me during my recovery. The rest of the presents came from the shop. After I added a spool of thread, a package of needles, another of safety pins, an official pink “Cobbled Court Quilts” tape measure, and a pair of embroidery scissors, the stocking fairly bulged with bounty.

“Mom,” Garrett grinned as he held up the measuring tape by one end, letting it dangle from his fingers like some sort of pink and black striped snake, “I know you always hoped I’d be a girl, but get over it already, will you? I’m never going to take up quilting.”

“Very funny. I just thought it would be nice for you to have some kind of sewing kit. You probably have a closet full of shirts with loose buttons that need repairing.”

Garrett nodded. “Actually, I do. I brought them all with me in my suitcase. Along with my dirty laundry. Thought you wouldn’t mind taking care of that for me.”

“Not a chance, darling. But I’ll be more than happy to teach you how to thread a needle.”

“Hmmm. Somehow I thought you’d say that. Well, it was worth a try.”

He leaned over and gave me a hug. “Thanks for the presents, Mom. They’re just what I needed. Now go on. Open yours.”

Garrett seemed to have done his shopping at the Seattle airport and en route to Hartford. In addition to a pound of coffee beans and a mug, a Seattle Mariners baseball cap, and a tiny Seattle ferry tree ornament, I received a package of pretzels, a pair of plastic headphones, an eye mask, and a thin blue blanket still sealed in a plastic bag, all from the same airline.

By the time I finished going through the stocking, I was laughing so hard there were tears in my eyes. “What did you do? Make friends with the flight attendants or just wait until their backs were turned and steal this stuff?”

“Oh, very nice,” Garrett said with mock indignation. “Here I go to all the trouble of getting you some presents, and you accuse me of theft. Listen, this took some doing. This isn’t the cheap junk they gave me and the other poor saps riding back in steerage. This Christmas stocking is First Class. Of course I made friends with the flight attendants! I had to! Back where I was riding, they don’t even give you pretzels. Getting all this took a lot of sweet-talking on my part.”

He stretched his arms out wide as though yawning and then flexed them in a bodybuilder pose. “Of course,” he said in his best “surfer dude” impression, the one he’d perfected in high school, “I always have been lucky with the ladies. One look at these guns, and they’re putty in my hands.”

“That right? Last I heard you were still dateless in Seattle. Are you trying to tell me something?” I asked hopefully. It worried me that Garrett never seemed to have any dates, let alone a steady girlfriend. He was a good-looking young man and so much fun to be with. In college he’d gone out with a number of very nice girls.

“Nope. Sorry, Mom. No news to report on the girlfriend front. I don’t have time to look for one; I’m working seventy-plus hours a week. By the time the weekend comes, and by weekend I mean Saturday after dark, I’m too exhausted to go out. I just go home and sleep until it’s time to go to work on Monday.”

“Well, what about at work? There must be some girls at the office.”

He shook his head. “There’s not a woman in my entire department. The only female I see during the day is Antoinette, our fifty-six-year-old, married cleaning woman with varicose veins and a bad attitude. And I gotta tell you, she’s starting to look pretty good to me.” He laughed, and I joined in, but not wholeheartedly. In typical Garrett fashion, always trying to put the best face on things, he was making light of his troubles, but I knew he must be lonely.

“But what about you?” he said, changing the subject. “Are you seeing anyone? Looks to me like that Charlie fellow has a thing for you.”

I got up from the floor and went into the kitchen to start making breakfast. “Charlie? We’re just friends.”

Garrett followed me, opened the silverware drawer, and started setting the table. That had always been his job when he was growing up. We’d had so many good conversations, me fixing dinner while he put out the cutlery. I smiled to myself, thinking how wonderful it was to have him here and how easily we settled into our old routines. I was glad he’d come.

“Didn’t look like that to me,” he said. “Haven’t you noticed how he looks at you? Even when he’s talking to somebody else, he’s got one eye on you. The man is completely gone on you.”

I felt myself blushing as I cracked eggs into a mixing bowl. “Don’t be silly. I told you. We’re friends. We have a lot in common, since we both own our own business, that’s all.” Charlie had been kind to me, a wonderful friend in every way, but I couldn’t imagine that he would want to be more than that. Truth to tell, I couldn’t imagine anyone feeling that way about me. Especially not now.

“Really, Garrett, it’s just a friendship.”

Garrett shrugged. “Have it your way.” He put down two knives and set spoons next to them. “But I don’t know why you’re so surprised. You’re beautiful, Mom.” He grinned. “I mean, for a woman your age and all.”

“Oh, thanks very much.” I tossed a red Christmas napkin across the kitchen island, hoping to hit him playfully in the face, but it landed on the table instead. “You’re not so bad yourself, for a computer nerd and all.”

Garrett finished setting the table, and I brought the dishes over. It wasn’t a fancy meal, just scrambled eggs, grapefruit sections and red grapes garnished with mint, plus orange juice, coffee, and some banana muffins, not nearly as splendid as the Christmas breakfasts I’d prepared when Garrett was little. But I knew Charlie was bringing his fabulous duck confit for dinner, and I was providing the side dishes as well as two desserts, my chocolate peppermint layer cake and a pecan pie, so I wanted to make sure we had room for later. Still, with an evergreen and holly centerpiece and my best dishes and cloth napkins, the table looked very pretty.

“Mom, this looks great!” Garrett exclaimed as I put down a platter of eggs. “Oh, wait a minute! I almost forgot!” He ran back into my bedroom, where he’d stowed his bags, and emerged with a half bottle of champagne.

“Here we go.” He peeled the foil wrapper off the neck of the bottle and started trying to uncork it. “It’s warm, but we can mix it with the cold orange juice for mimosas.”

I laughed. “Well, this is a surprise! When did you have time to buy champagne?”

“I told you, Mom, the ladies love me. Katherine, the head flight attendant, slipped this into my briefcase.”

“She did? Wow! Was she cute? Did you get her phone number?” I’d have rather Garrett found a girlfriend who didn’t travel all the time, but the way things were going, I was willing to compromise; besides, she must be a smart, ambitious young woman to have been made head flight attendant.

“Cute? Definitely. Gray hair swept up in a bun, swell reading glasses.” He let out a wolf whistle and then laughed. “Mom, she was about sixty and has a son older than me. I was hanging out in the galley to stretch my legs. When she heard I was flying home to surprise my mother for Christmas, she gave me this.”

“Oh,” I said, a little disappointed. “That was sweet of her.”

After some struggle and a flurry of excitement when the bubbles foamed up and spilled from the bottle, Garrett poured a little of the champagne into each of our orange-juice glasses, and we sat down to eat.

“This looks like a pretty skimpy breakfast compared to the old days, but I didn’t want you to fill up too much before dinner. Charlie’s duck is out of this world,” I said and put a scoop of eggs onto Garrett’s plate. “I hope you don’t mind that Charlie’s joining us for dinner. I’d already invited him before I knew you were coming.”

Garrett shook his head and picked up a fork. “No. He seems like a great guy. You’ve got to respect a guy who knows how to cook a duck. My cooking skills haven’t progressed much beyond ramen noodles and toaster strudel.”

“Looking at you, I can believe it. You’re too thin,” I scolded, watching him devouring his breakfast and wondering if I shouldn’t have scrambled more eggs. “I’m worried about you. You work twelve- and fourteen-hour days. You’re too tired to even take a girl on a date, and you don’t eat. I know you’re making good money at your job, but I wonder if you’re at the right company. Life is short, honey. Too short to spend it working for nothing more than a paycheck. I know you like your job, but—”

“Actually,” he said through a mouthful of scrambled eggs, “I hate my job. Don’t get me wrong. I love working with computers, but I trained to be a designer. My dream was to work with clients to create new sites, new programs, and solve problems. Instead, I sit in front of a screen all day long and stare at long rows of code. I can go days without talking to another human being in person.” He put down his fork and took a deep breath. “That’s why I quit.”

“You did? When did you decide to do that?”

“Last night, actually. So I guess you could say I’m going to quit. First thing Monday morning. I’m going to fly back to Seattle, give my two weeks’ notice, and then fly back here for a while to figure out my next move. That sleeper sofa of yours is more comfortable than it looks.” He grinned and bit into a muffin.

“Garrett, you just decided this last night?” I was worried about the hours he was keeping, but this seemed like an awfully rash, and suspicious, decision. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with finding out that I had cancer, would it? Because I told you, Garrett, I’m going to be fine. I can handle this. I won’t have you jeopardizing your future because of me….”

His mouth was still full of muffin, so he held up both his hands, cutting off my protests until he could speak. When he did, the lighthearted tone was gone. He was dead serious, calm, and undeterred. For the first time, I saw not my son, full of boyish charm and mischief, but a competent and determined man. No wonder so many company recruiters had courted him when he graduated from college.

“Okay,” he said, swallowing the last of the muffin, “first of all, I’m not jeopardizing my future. Not even close. If I want another corporate job I can have one tomorrow, but I don’t want another corporate job. I want to do what I was trained to do: design. The only way to do that is go out on my own.” I tried to jump in, but he cut me off. “And before you even bring it up, I can completely afford this. The upside of working for Claremont Solutions is the money. They give you lots of it and keep you so busy that you don’t actually have time to spend any money. It’s all sitting there in my bank account.

“And yes, even though you say you don’t need my help, I want to hang around until you’re back to your old self.” He said the next part so firmly that I wondered if he was as confident about my recovery as he sounded. “You’re going to get well, and I want to be there to help you do it. Is that such a terrible thing for a son to want to do? Help his mother, who has spent her whole life helping him?”

“No,” I said quietly. “Of course not, but I don’t want you sacrificing your future just because of me. You’ve got your whole life in front of you.”

He nodded in agreement. “Yes, but as you said, life is short. Too short to spend another ten years, or five, or one doing a job I hate. I’d have figured it out myself before too long, but talking to you last night and seeing how happy you are here”—he tilted his head toward the door that led downstairs to the shop—“what great friends you have and how you’re finally getting to do what you always wanted…It’s just helped clarify some thoughts that have been floating around my brain for months.”

He smiled, reached across the table, and grabbed my hand. “Mom. I want to do this. It’s the right decision at the right time in my life. And if it helps you too, that’s even better. Trust me. I’m a grown man. I know what I’m doing.”

I was quiet for a moment. Garrett’s eyes searched my face, waiting for me to speak.

“All right.” I nodded slowly. “Good. It’ll be good to have you around for a while, but Garrett, if you change your mind, or if you get an offer for a job you think you’d like, don’t feel like you have to come back here to New Bern. Don’t worry about me. I can—”

“I know. I know. You can take care of yourself. Tell me about it.” He reached for the champagne bottle, topped off our mimosas, and raised his glass in a toast. “To living our dreams!”

“To living our dreams!” I echoed and lifted my glass and touched the rim against his.

I
stood in front of the open refrigerator, surveying the contents and wondering if I should heat up a bowl of leftover vegetable soup before going to Margot’s. She would undoubtedly have something delicious to serve, but that was the problem. The holiday revelries had left me four and a half pounds heavier.

When I’d sat down at my desk the day before to write down my New Year’s resolutions, I’d vowed to lose the holiday weight plus another three and a half pounds besides. At my age, it is important not to let extra weight creep up on you. If a stray pound settles in around your middle for more than a week or two, it can take months to get it back off.

I took the soup pot out of the refrigerator and put it on the stove to warm.

Liza, dressed in a parka and those big, clunky boots I detested, brushed past me and headed toward the back door. “Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“I can see that, but you’re early. We’re not due at Margot’s for another thirty minutes.”

She fished her gloves out of her pocket, not even bothering to look at me. “I’m not going to Margot’s.”

“Not going?” I sighed, exasperated. “Don’t you remember? I told you that Margot called right after Christmas. We’re going to get together at her house today to work on a new quilt, a present for Evelyn. It’s to be a surprise.”

She said nothing, just zipped up her jacket and pulled on her gloves, getting ready to leave as if she hadn’t heard a word I’d said.

I was absolutely at the end of my rope with the girl. How much longer was she planning on acting like this?

As I’d suspected, Christmas with Liza had been simply awful. I’d gotten up early, made coffee and some hot cider, and heated up the breakfast casserole Hilda had left for us in the refrigerator. I’d waited nearly an hour for Liza to come downstairs, thinking the delicious aromas coming from the kitchen would surely rouse her, but they didn’t. Finally, I knocked on her door and told her breakfast was ready. She said she was coming, but another hour passed before she finally deigned to grace the dining room with her presence. The casserole was completely dried out.

Still, I tried to put a pleasant face on things, ignore her rude behavior, and enjoy the day as best I might. After breakfast, I invited her into the living room and gave her the gifts I’d wrapped and hidden under the tree for her. I hadn’t put up a tree in years but had decided to do so for Liza’s sake. I had to admit I had enjoyed it. It wasn’t a large tree, but it looked so pretty and festive standing next to the fireplace. Just looking at it cheered me. And much to my surprise, I’d also enjoyed shopping for Liza’s gifts.

Originally, I’d thought about getting her a cashmere sweater from Kaplan’s Clothes Closet, but recalling her sullen mood of late felt she might not appreciate my attempts at humor. Instead, I went to Pam’s Boutique and bought a heavy black knit shawl—really it was more of a cape, very warm and very elegant—and a pair of knee-high leather boots with decorative crisscrossed lacing and black fur edging the tops. They would look simply wonderful on Liza’s tall, willowy frame: simple but dramatic, in line with her personal style and, of course, they were her favorite color—black. I was sure she’d love them. On top of that, I purchased one of those tiny music recorder-downloader things, the ones all the young people had. I got the very latest model, and the most expensive, also in black.

Surely, I told myself, once she saw her beautiful presents she’d cheer up, but I was wrong. After opening the gifts she’d just mumbled a thank-you and returned to her room. So irritating! And what’s more, she hadn’t even gotten me so much as a Christmas card, let alone a Christmas gift. Not that there was anything I particularly needed or wanted, but you’d have thought she’d have gotten me something! Just some tiny token to thank me for all I’d done for her. After all, if not for me she might have spent her Christmas behind bars.

Sitting alone by the fireplace, listening to a recording of “The Holly and the Ivy” by a boy’s choir and surrounded by wrapping paper and ribbon debris while Liza was up in her room brooding, I felt hurt and a little lonely. I had thought we might go to the Christmas Day services at church, but now I realized there was no point in asking her to come, and I didn’t want to go alone. After tidying up the living room, rinsing the dishes, and leaving the dirty casserole dish in the sink for Hilda to clean when she came in the next morning, I decided to call the shelter to make sure everything was going well with their Christmas celebration. It was a good thing I did. There was a virus going around, and several of the people who’d volunteered to serve dinner had called in sick. I told them I’d come right over to help. For a moment, I considered inviting Liza to join me, but then thought better of it. Instead, I left her a note on the counter and hurried over to the shelter.

Cutting and serving pieces of pie and whipped cream for the children and parents at the shelter took my mind off my own problems. Bethany came through the line with her mother and little brother. They had a present for me; a small lavender sachet and a card that Bethany had made herself. It wasn’t an elaborate gift, but I was touched. After all, it’s the thought that counts.

The next day, Hilda came into my room holding the music player, the one I’d given to Liza. She said she’d found it in the trash and wondered if I’d accidentally thrown it away. Well! As you can imagine, I was incensed! But I decided not to confront Liza about it. Instead, I told Hilda to take it home to her fourteen-year-old grandson. She, at least, had the courtesy to thank me properly. Liza might be a Burgess, but Hilda could have given her a few lessons in manners. Heaven knew someone needed to—apparently me.

Now, as she deliberately ignored me, still wearing those dreadful, clunky hiking boots that she knew I hated instead of the expensive new stylish ones I’d bought precisely because she knew it would annoy me, I decided the time had come to take the bull by the horns. I was not going to tolerate this rudeness for one more moment.

“Liza! Did you hear me? We’re supposed to go to Margot’s and work on a quilt for Evelyn.”

Silence.

“Don’t you stand there and pretend you don’t hear me! And close that door! We have to go to Margot’s!”

“I told you before, I’m not going.”

“Why not? Do you have some more pressing engagement that I don’t know about? Are you scheduled to perform brain surgery or something?” She mumbled something. “What was that? Speak up.”

“I said,” she shouted, “that it isn’t any of your damned business where I’m going or why! I’m going out, and that’s all you need to know.” She opened the door, but I crossed the kitchen in three huge steps and slammed it shut again.

“Listen here, young lady! I’ve put up with enough of this. You are going to Margot’s with me, and for once in your miserable, ungrateful, selfish little life you are going to be pleasant! You’re the one that got me into this in the first place. I was perfectly happy with my life, but you blackmailed me into going to that Quilt Pink event, and helping Evelyn through her cancer, joining the quilt circle, and all the rest. None of this was my idea! But now that we’re in it, we’re obligated to see it through. You are going with me today, and we are going to work on a quilt to cheer up poor Evelyn. Good heavens! Isn’t that the least you can do? For all you know, this cancer will prove fatal! Had you even considered that? Honestly! I never met such a rude, inconsiderate, self-absorbed person in all my life! I—”

“Self-absorbed?” Her expression, purposely flat and enigmatic a moment before, suddenly transformed into one of seething anger and loathing beamed directly at me. Her eyes sparked like fire-crackers. “Are you
_*******
kidding me?” she asked, using an expletive I prefer not to transcribe. “Do you actually have the audacity to stand there and call
me
self-absorbed? Well,
_****
you!” She tried to push her way past me, but I blocked her. I was determined to finally have this thing out.

“Don’t you dare use that kind of language with me! Not in my home! I simply will not tolerate it, not after all I’ve done for you!”

Liza let out one sharp bark of a laugh. “All you’ve done for me? What have you ever done for me that the judge didn’t make you do? Don’t try that one with me. Don’t play Our Lady of Mercy and Philanthropy with me, Abigail. I see right through it. The only reason I’m here is because you couldn’t figure out a way to get rid of me without making the papers and thus besmirching the precious name of Burgess Wynne. If not for that, you’d have left me to rot in jail!”

“That is not fair and it’s not true! I was just trying to help you!”

“Oh come on! You don’t actually believe that, do you? You didn’t want to help me. You never want to help anyone unless there’s something for you in it.” She laughed again, longer this time, but there was no mirth in it, a laugh so infused with hatred that it frightened me a little. I took a step backward.

“You are so completely clueless,” she spat and moved toward me. “But you’re right about one thing. I dragged you to the quilt store, blackmailed you into going, because I wanted you to have to acknowledge the fact that my mother, your own sister, died of breast cancer and you never, ever did a single thing to help her! You never visited her, you never called her, you never even sent her a
_*******
get-well card!”

She was screaming now, and tears started to fall from her eyes, but there was no hoarseness in her voice, no sound of choked-back sobs, just tears seeping slowly from the corners of her eyes and running down her cheeks, crystalline and bright, catching the light from the kitchen window, as if something frozen behind the brown orbits of her eyes were melting.

“I was so happy to see how miserable you were that day! To see you finally forced out of your perfect little world with your perfect friends, and perfect clothes, and perfect house. Actually having to mix with real people with real problems. And then, when we met Evelyn and you started helping her, I thought that maybe, finally, you were starting to face what you’d done. That you were feeling sad about deserting Mom, and me, when we needed you most and were looking for some way to make amends for it. I thought maybe you’d changed.” Finally, her fury seemed to subside, at least a little. When she said this last there was a sad, almost mournful tenor to her voice.

“I have,” I said quietly. “I have changed.”

She kept on talking as if I hadn’t said anything. “And then, that night when Evelyn told us that they hadn’t gotten all the cancer and you were suddenly so solicitous, so anxious to help, I saw that it wasn’t true. You hadn’t changed. You’d just put on another costume, one more layer of veneer to hide what you really are inside—whatever that is.” She barked out a bitter laugh. “I’ve lived in your house for months, and I’m still not sure who you are. But one thing I do know, you’re not sorry about what you did to my mother. Not one bit. You just like the idea of this new part you’re playing—Abigail Burgess Wynne, Compassionate Caregiver to the Ordinary and Downtrodden. Helping poor quilt-shop owners with cancer, taking in ungrateful nieces with criminal records, making quilts for little kids you barely know, serving Christmas dinner to the homeless.”

She lifted her face and looked at me. The angry spark was rekindled. “It’ll all look good in your obituary, won’t it?”

“Liza! That’s awful! What a hateful thing to say!”

“Is it? Good! Because I do hate you! I hate everything about you! Your house, your clothes, the sound of your voice. And I hate, I absolutely despise, the fact that every time I look at you, I see my mother. You look just like her; did you know that? Like she would have looked if she’d gotten to live to be your age. When I see you, I remember that she’s gone and you’re still here. She was good and kind and loved me and she’s dead. You’re cold and self-centered and you only put up with me because you have to, but you’re still alive. Why is that?”

She hates me? How could she? After all I’ve done…
My usual refrain, the one I always played in my mind when working myself into indignation over Liza’s behavior and attitude. But then, for an instant, just a breath, everything seemed to freeze. The voice in my head was silenced, and I looked at Liza, truly looked at her, as if I were seeing her for the first time. I looked beyond the angry eyes, the hard-edged clothes and makeup, and the sullen attitude, and saw grief, despair, and wrenching loneliness. And I finally realized the truth—at least some of her anguish had been caused by me.

All this time, I had been congratulating myself on everything I’d done for Liza, moaning like a martyr about all I’d given her. But what had I given her, really? Everything but what she needed. My indignant inner monologue, briefly interrupted, began again, but something had happened, the tirade twisted and turned in my head and became something entirely new, a realization that forbid indignation, pulled me up short, and filled me with shame….
After what I’ve done. And what I’ve never done. She hates me. How could she not?

Tentatively, awkwardly, I took a step toward my niece, my sister’s only child, the only person on earth who shared my name, my history, the only human being whose birth and past were connected to mine. I lifted my hand, thinking I should touch her shoulder, but she shrank back from me and wrapped her arms across her heart like a shield. She looked so young.