The Beach Quilt (20 page)

The bell over the door at The Busy Bee tinkled. It was Cindy. “Morning,” she said.

“Good morning to you,” Adelaide replied. “Three customers already. Maybe that bodes well for a good day.”

“Let's hope so.” Cindy put her bag behind the counter. “Adelaide,” she said. “I need your help with something.”

“Sure. What is it? Is there a problem with the baby's quilt?”

“No, nothing like that. It's that I've decided to sell my family quilts. The ones my great-grandmother made.”

Adelaide felt her eyes widen involuntarily. “The ones you framed a few years back?”

“Yes,” Cindy said. “Those.”

“But why on earth?”

Cindy looked at a point just over Adelaide's left shoulder. “I don't see any point in holding on to them when they might be worth a significant amount of money. Not that I want them to go to just anyone,” she added hastily, looking back to Adelaide. “I mean, I would like to think that whoever bought the quilts will really appreciate them for their true value, beyond the financial value.”

Adelaide knew how hard this decision must be for her friend. Cindy lived and breathed quilts and quilting! She absolutely didn't want to trample on delicate feelings; still, having to play a part in the sale of beloved family heirlooms made her feel sad and uncomfortable. “Are you very sure?” she asked.

Cindy nodded. “Yes. I've given it a lot of thought.”

“Then I'll put out some feelers and let you know what I find.”

“Thank you, Adelaide. I'm going to get a cup of coffee.”

Cindy went off to the back room. While she was gone, Adelaide wondered if there was some way she could talk Cindy out of such a drastic measure. But if she really needed the money, and given Sarah's situation it was clear that she did, then what alternative could she offer?

And then it occurred to her. Maybe The Busy Bee could buy Cindy's quilts. Assuming that they were affordable, and Adelaide wouldn't know that for sure until she did some research. Anyway, if the shop owned the quilts, then someday Adelaide might be able to return them to Cindy or sell them back for a token amount. Unless Cindy would see that as unwanted charity and be offended.

Or maybe she could give Cindy more hours at the shop, at least until the baby was born. She would have to take a closer look at the books, see if the business could afford it without damaging her bottom line. If it
were
possible, then maybe Cindy would drop the idea of selling her family's heirlooms.

She wished there was
something
tangible she and Jack could do for Sarah and her family. True, her first responsibility was to her own family, her husband and daughter, but . . .

“Don't look now,” Cindy said, coming back out front. “But here comes a van worth of customers.”

She was right. A group of at least eight or nine women began to file through the door, exclaiming over the quilts hung on the wall and making a beeline for the quilt frames.

“I guess,” Adelaide said, “that this is our lucky day.”

On the way home from The Busy Bee later that evening, Cindy stopped for gas. Prices were up again. Once the girls started driving and the family had to get a third vehicle, the expense of daily transportation alone would probably eat up within months whatever money she would get for the quilts. And—this was the first time this had occurred to Cindy—she should probably give part of whatever money she got from the sale to Adelaide. After all, Adelaide was handling the sale and it was The Busy Bee's reputation that would help place them with a buyer. Adelaide might even
expect
a cut of the profit.

Rats,
Cindy thought. She had lied to Adelaide. She hadn't given the decision to sell the quilts much thought at all. She hadn't even told Joe about her intentions. Not that the quilts were his—strictly speaking, they had been left to her specifically—but she was afraid he might try to argue her out of letting them go. He would point out that the quilts were precious heirlooms better kept to hand down to Sarah and Stevie.

And he would be right.

It occurred to Cindy now that this was the second time in months she had kept something from her husband. First had been the menacing phone call from June Morrow. What was next?

A black Mercedes-Benz convertible glided up to the pump directly across from Cindy's car. She watched as a slim, well-dressed woman about her own age slipped out from behind the wheel. Her sandals were silver. Her hair was an astonishingly beautiful shade of strawberry blond. Her jeans were white.

Cindy looked away from the dazzling sight as a spark of resentment flared again inside her. She didn't
want
to have to let go of her precious quilts. She shouldn't
have
to make this sacrifice!

Cindy paid for the gas, got back in her car—old and a bit rusty—and pulled out onto the road. She felt foolish. She had never rushed into a big decision before, but after that conversation with Joe the other day, selling the quilts had seemed like such an obvious way to help the family's financial situation. They would probably each bring several thousands dollars, money that could pay off the part of Sarah's doctor and hospital bills that were not covered by their insurance.

A memory of her mother formally presenting her with the quilts came to her then. It was shortly before Margie Keller had died. She had been so terribly weak, mere skin and bones. And yet she had had the strength to pass the torch, as it were, to her daughter, to symbolically ensure the continuation of a legacy.

Cindy felt sure that in spite of her mother's great emotional attachment to the family treasures, she would have understood her daughter's motives for letting the quilts go. She was also sure that her mother would have been very sad and very disappointed. She might also have pointed out that Cindy was sending a very mixed message to her own daughters—on the one hand, she was spearheading the making of a quilt for the next generation; on the other hand, she was casting off those that had been made by the generations before. Where was the sense of family history and continuity in that?

And the decision was made, for real this time. Cindy would withdraw the quilts from the market. She had acted rashly, and it had led to an interesting if disturbing revelation. As it turned out, there were some things she simply
wasn't
willing to sacrifice for her husband and children. What that said about her, she wasn't quite sure.

The girls were on a break from work. It was two in the afternoon, and they were sitting on a bench at the top of the beach. It was a glorious day; Cordelia thought that
glorious
was an even more appropriate adjective than
awesome
. The air was warm, but there was a good breeze off the water. And someone not too far away was grilling burgers and the smell was fantastic.

Cordelia waved her iPhone in front of Sarah's face. “I can't wait to show you the cool sneakers I just ordered online. I mean, they're totally awe—”

“You know,” Sarah said. “Sometimes I feel like I'm going to be the worst mother ever.”

Cordelia laughed. “Come on, Sarah. You'll be great. So, anyway, these sneakers—”

“I mean, I'm a good babysitter—in spite of what some people say!—but that's different. You're with your charges for a few hours at most, and you aren't expected to make any big, life-altering decisions, other than knowing when to call nine-one-one and how not to give peanut butter to a child with a peanut allergy and how not to leave a baby in the bath unattended. And then the parents come home and you're set entirely free of responsibility until the next time the parents want to go to a movie or out to dinner.”

“Right. And you get paid for babysitting, which you don't do for being a parent.”

“Intermittent responsibility I can handle,” Sarah went on, as if she were talking to herself. “I've been proving that for years. But ceaseless responsibility? That's something very, very different. I'm just so worried that because I'm so young I'll get it all wrong with my own child.”

Cordelia stifled a sigh. “I'm sure you'll be fine, Sarah. I mean, you're a smart person.”

Sarah frowned and squinted up at the sky. Cordelia suspected that Sarah hadn't heard a word she had said since they sat down.

“There's just so much to know!” Sarah cried. “There's all this information about how to teach your child to read by the age of two and how to make him a musical genius by the age of three and how to make your own organic, gluten-free, vegan baby food. And it all makes you feel that one little mistake could ruin your baby's chances for a normal life. It's like disaster is around every corner, just waiting for you to trip up. And I'm just so afraid I'm going to trip up.”

“You won't trip up,” Cordelia said. Wasn't that what Sarah wanted to hear? “Well, I mean, everyone makes a small mistake here and there but—”

“What if I'm giving the baby a bath and he slips out of my hands and falls onto the floor and bashes his head and has brain damage? What if I'm changing him and I pull the diaper too tight and he gets a painful rash?”

Cordelia raised her eyebrows. “Is that even possible? I—”

“Thank God no one uses cloth diapers these days, the ones you have to fasten with a pin.” Sarah shook her head as if in disbelief. “A pin! Can you imagine how many babies were inadvertently jabbed by their doting mothers?”

“A lot, I suppose. Look, Sarah—”

“These days you have to be a diagnostician to be a parent. You have to be Dr. House! You have to learn how to recognize an entire host of symptoms because if you ignore any of them it could result in total disaster. I mean, when is a runny nose just a runny nose and when is it a sign of brain cancer?”

Cordelia laughed. “Sarah, that makes no sense. Come on!”

“My point is valid,” Sarah insisted. “I am just so
scared
. I mean, I've never been the worrying sort, but then again, I never had anything to worry about. Other people have always taken care of me. This is totally different. Now,
I'm
going to be responsible for taking care of someone else. And who am I to take on such responsibility?”

“You're—”

“I'm just some sixteen-year-old, unmarried kid in a small town in Maine. It's not like I'm in my twenties and married and have a good job!”

Cordelia wasn't at all sure what she could say to that, so she kept silent.

“I'm just so glad I have my mother to help me. On the other hand, I don't want to depend too much on her, or on anyone else, really. It would be shirking my duty, letting others clean up the mess I made, and my parents didn't raise me to foist my responsibilities off on other people.”

“No, of course—”

“I mean, my father didn't build a successful business because he let someone else do the hard jobs. And my mother didn't develop her incredible sewing skills by giving up when she had to learn a really complicated stitch. No, I just won't let anyone but me bear the full weight of the responsibility for my child.”

Cordelia's patience—never very strong—finally snapped. “You're so selfish!” she blurted.

Sarah looked thoroughly surprised by this accusation. “Me? Selfish? How can you say that?”

“Because all you talk about is you, you, you. Haven't you even wondered how
my
life's been going?”

“Your life? Your life is—”

“Is what?” Cordelia said. “Perfect?”

“I didn't say that.”

“No, because I said it for you. Well, for your information, my life is
not
perfect. No one's is.”

“I know that.”

“I have challenges, too.”

“I know you do. It's just that—”

“It's just that because you're pregnant you think the world revolves around you. Well, it doesn't. Millions and billions of women have babies every day. It's nothing special, you know.”

Cordelia stopped short. She felt bad about that last remark. It was childish and mean. “I'm sorry,” she added quickly. “I didn't mean that, about it not being special.”

Sarah put her hand to her middle, a gesture that had become habitual. “Don't you care at all about my baby?” she said.

“I don't
know
your baby!” Cordelia cried in frustration. “But I do know you, and I care about you, of course I do. It's just that I need you to care about me, too.”

“I do care about you!”

“Sorry. Sometimes lately it doesn't feel like you do.”

Sarah sighed. “I'm doing what I can. I'm doing my best, I am.”

“I know.”

“Wait,” Sarah said after a moment. “Didn't you say you wanted to show me something?”

“Did I?” Cordelia shrugged. She slipped her iPhone back into her bag. “I forget.”

“Oh.”

Cordelia got up from the bench. “It doesn't matter. We should get back to the shop.”

Sarah was manning the counter at The Busy Bee. Her mother and Mrs. Kane were also at the shop. At the moment they were deep in discussion about some aspect of her baby's quilt.

Luckily business was slow that morning because Sarah's mind was not on her job. She couldn't stop thinking about what Cordelia had said about her being self-focused. She guessed that she
was
self-focused, but how could she not be? It wasn't like she could forget for even one minute that she was pregnant.

Sarah almost laughed aloud. Cordelia had claimed that her life wasn't perfect. But really, what did she have to complain about?
She
wasn't the one who was pregnant.
She
wasn't the one facing a totally uncertain future. And Cordelia always got everything she wanted, from new clothes each season to a manicure once every two weeks to every new app that caught her fancy. Cordelia wasn't the one who had to work for her pocket money. All she did was bat her eyes at her father or use her little girl voice with her mother and pretty much anything she wanted was handed over to her on a silver platter!

Well, okay, Sarah admitted, maybe not on a silver platter. Still, where was Cordelia today while Sarah was working? On a road trip with her dad to the outlets in Kittery!

Sarah took a deep breath. She knew she was being childish. Mothers were supposed to be responsible adults, not emotionally erratic teens. But that was the very problem, wasn't it? She was
not
an adult, and there was no use pretending to be. Pregnancy didn't confer adult status, and it certainly didn't guarantee mature thoughts and tempered behavior!

In fact, until this summer, she had never felt resentful or jealous of her friend. And Cordelia had done nothing to warrant such feelings of ill will. She, Sarah, was the one who had been careless. Cordelia hadn't changed, and she wasn't the one who had caused their friendship to alter.

“Sarah?” Mrs. Kane said, interrupting her unhappy thoughts. “Would you do a quick inventory of the pattern books on the shelves?”

Sarah grabbed a pad of paper and hurried out from behind the counter. “Sure, Mrs. Kane.”

Better to bury herself in the doings of The Busy Bee than to moan and groan about how badly she had screwed up.

A few minutes later, the bell over the door tinkled. Sarah looked over her shoulder to see a woman in her sixties or seventies. Her hair was a stiff halo of a suspiciously dark, flat brown. Her eyebrows, too, were obviously dyed, and shaped into pointy arches not normally found on a human face. Her lips were heavily lined with a dark pink pencil and filled in with a lighter, glossier lipstick. She wore what looked like a pants suit preserved from the seventies, polyester or some other hot and itchy-looking fabric, in a sickly yellowish hue.

Sarah bit back a smile. There was something so clownish in the woman's appearance, something almost to be pitied if not laughed at. Sarah immediately felt bad for thinking this. No one should be laughed at, no one. And maybe the woman was a very nice person. What she looked like shouldn't matter at all. Still, Sarah found herself hoping the woman wouldn't notice her.

But her hope was in vain. The woman's eyes widened when she caught sight of Sarah, and she hurried toward her.

“So you're pregnant!” she cried. “Congratulations!”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “Thank you.”

“So, honey, when are you due?” the woman asked with an eager smile.

Sarah mustered an answering, though less eager, smile. “Late August,” she said.

The woman winked at her. “You must be very excited.”

“Um,” Sarah said. “Yes.”

“So is it a boy or a girl?”

“A boy.”

“I knew it! I can always tell. There's something about the shape—” The woman reached out a hand covered in gaudy rings and placed it on Sarah's middle.

She didn't know why the gesture repulsed her. So many other women had done this before. But now, Sarah jerked away from this woman's thoroughly unwelcome intimacy. “Don't touch me!” she cried.

The woman withdrew her hand as if it had been burned. Her eyebrows shot up even farther as her face, under its heavy coating of makeup, registered shock.

“I'm sorry,” Sarah said hurriedly. “I'm sorry. It's just . . .” But more words were lost to a sudden flood of tears and Sarah scurried off to the little kitchen at the back of the store. From there she was able to overhear her mother and Mrs. Kane rush to soothe wounded feelings.

“I'm so very sorry,” Mrs. Kane said. She was using what Sarah thought of as her professional voice, calm, clear, slightly conciliatory, and pitched a bit lower than normal. “I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it.”

But I did,
Sarah thought.
I'm not public property!

“My daughter is a good girl, really,” Cindy added. Sarah cringed at her mother's pleading tone. “She's just very tired.”

There was a moment of silence before the woman said, “Hormones! They play nasty tricks on us all. I remember when I was pregnant with my first son. Lord, I thought my husband would murder me!”

Sarah waited in the kitchen while the woman purchased some thread and then left. When she had gone, Sarah emerged from her hiding place.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Kane,” she said. “Really. I shouldn't have snapped at her.”

“No need to apologize,” Adelaide said promptly. “Why don't you take a break, Sarah? Walk down to the beach, get some fresh air.”

“Oh, I'm okay, really. I'll get back to taking inventory of the pattern books.”

“Are you sure?” her mother asked, concern etching her brow.

Sarah nodded and turned to the bookshelves on the left-hand wall. She felt a whirring in her stomach that had nothing to do with the baby. She was scared. She could not afford to let her mood swings affect her behavior at work. If her boss had been anyone other than Mrs. Kane, she might already be unemployed.

The bell over the door announced the arrival of another customer. Sarah kept her eyes on the pattern books and hoped it was someone who hated babies.