Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt (5 page)

Judy had fallen in love with quilts long before she had learned to sew them. Perhaps it was more accurate to say that she fell in love with one quilt, and later learned to love others, though each one fell short of the faded heirloom that first captured her imagination and became her heart’s longing.

Judy was in second grade when her mother, Tuyet, met John DiNardo. Judy adored him, and in her mind he became the father she and her mother had come to America to find, for his kindness and gentle manner made the American serviceman and his cruel rejections fade from her memories. When Tuyet married him, she disobeyed Judy’s birth father’s orders and contacted him one final time, crisply asking him to relinquish his parental rights so John could adopt Judy. He did so without hesitation, apparently forgetting that he had once insisted those rights were not his to give.

Judy was eight when she saw her new grandmother’s quilt for the first time. Her parents had been married for less than a year, and the newly formed family had traveled to her father’s childhood home for Easter. As they drove across Pennsylvania, her father reminisced about the hundred-year-old red-brick colonial house in Ohio, the warren of rooms, the attic full of toys and old treasures, the woods with the pond and the treehouse, and the dozens of aunts, uncles, and cousins eager to welcome Judy into the family. She had met her new grandparents and some of her father’s other relatives at the wedding in Philadelphia, but not everyone had been able to attend. She couldn’t wait to see everyone at the same time, in the place where her new daddy had been a little boy.

Her grandparents’ home was everything her father had promised, and after some curious stares and questions about her hair and eyes, her new cousins accepted her as naturally as if she had been born into the family. They ran through the house, shouting and laughing, until the adults shooed them outside, where they played hide-and-seek in the woods and kickball on the grassy lawn. At night they unrolled sleeping bags on the family room floor and stayed up late giggling and whispering until one of the uncles came downstairs to hush them. Grandma and the aunts cooked marvelous meals, and while the adults lingered over coffee and talked of old times, the children were free to do as they pleased within the bounds of Grandma’s rules.

Sunday morning, the children were scrubbed and brushed and put into their Easter suits and dresses. Judy felt like a princess in her white gloves and sky blue dress trimmed in white lace. She held hands with her two favorite cousins throughout the church services, and when the children returned to their grandparents’ house, each discovered an Easter basket full of jellybeans and chocolates. After brunch, while their parents looked on from the back porch, the children ran through the yard searching for colorful Easter eggs hidden in thick tufts of grass, balanced on fence posts, or nestled into the nooks of trees. Judy found only two eggs, the least of anyone, but two of her cousins each gave her one of theirs and consoled her with promises that she would do better next year, when she knew the best hiding places as well as they did.

Later, when the children went inside to take inventory of their baskets and swap treats, Grandma called all the girls aside and invited them to accompany her to her bedroom. Judy’s cousin Susan, who was only two months her elder, whispered that Easter was the only time the girls were allowed into her room to see her most cherished possessions, and that messy boys were
never
permitted. Mystified, Judy obediently trailed after her grandmother and cousins, wondering what this treasure could be, so precious that it could only be displayed once a year.

The six little girls fell silent as their grandmother led them into her bedroom, which smelled of furniture polish and rosewater. The carved dark walnut bedposts stood taller than Grandma, and the mattress covered by an ivory candlewick bedspread was so high that a small four-step stool stood beside it to ease the climb into bed. Two plump pillows lay near the gleaming headboard, and at the foot, a tapestry-covered chest. Grandma motioned for Miranda, the eldest granddaughter, to help her lift the curved lid. With the creak of hinges and a whiff of mothballs, the lid fell open and instinctively the girls stepped closer to peer within.

From her seat on the floor, Grandma looked up at them, an amused smile playing on her lips. “Patience, girls,” she rebuked them mildly over the rims of her glasses. She had a long, thin nose with the slightest hook to it, large gray-blue eyes, and a small mouth. Judy had never seen her without her long graying blonde hair in a French twist or the delicate pearls around her neck.

“You know what’s inside,” she continued, reaching into the chest. As she withdrew a soft bundle wrapped in a white sheet, she gave Judy a quick, appraising glance. “Except for you, of course, dear. Why don’t you let her in the front, girls, so she can see better? She’s such a tiny little thing.”

When her cousins made room, Judy eagerly came forward and knelt beside the chest, tucking in her skirt in what she hoped was a ladylike fashion. Grandma appeared not to notice, which told Judy she had done the right thing. A mistake would have sent those arched eyebrows soaring.

Grandma unwrapped the bundle and unfolded a quilt like none Judy had ever seen—sixteen bouquets of daisies arranged in four rows of four, surrounded by three concentric square borders of yellow, white, and green, and a wider border of single daisy blossoms. The colors were as soft and clear as a spring morning, the tiny stitches graceful and swirling in crosshatches and spirals.

Judy drew in a breath and pressed her hands firmly to her sides lest they reach for the quilt unbidden.

“It’s all right. You may touch it,” said Grandma, but first inspected Judy’s hands to be sure she had washed them after brunch. Carefully Judy ran her small hands over one corner of the beautiful quilt, traced a daisy with a fingertip, and measured the bouquets with the span of her hands. The stitches were so tiny it was as if a fairy had made them with a piece of dandelion fluff, but she knew better than to say something so silly in front of Grandma.

“It’s beautiful,” she said instead, inching out of the way as her cousins pressed forward for their turns. “Did you make it?”

Grandma let out a small laugh at the very thought. “Oh, no. Not I. My mother made it for me as a wedding gift. This is my bridal quilt.”

“She used to keep it on the bed,” piped up Susan, “but not anymore, because the sunlight fades the colors.”

“And also because your grandfather has a terrible habit of tossing his shoes on the bed,” Grandma remarked.

The granddaughters giggled, and, following Grandma’s instructions, they spread the quilt open between them, tucking their legs beneath. Each girl picked out her favorite daisy, although privately Judy thought that they were so nearly identical that she could hardly choose one over another. They listened as Grandma told them about her wedding day, about how the bridal party and guests had made a mad dash from the church to the hall in a torrential downpour, but that no one had cared about the weather. Who minded a little rain while the band played so merrily for two young people so well suited for each other and so obviously in love? “We still are,” remarked Grandma, folding up the quilt after her granddaughters reluctantly let go. “We’ve been married forty-five years, and not one anniversary passes that your grandfather doesn’t thank the good Lord for me.”

Her airy disregard startled Judy, but her cousins giggled as if this was a familiar joke.

Grandma set her bridal quilt aside and withdrew a second bundle from the chest. It was thinner than the first, and after Grandma unwrapped it, Judy saw that it was just a quilt top, not a finished quilt with a backing, a fluffy middle, and tiny stitches holding the three layers together. The six little girls carefully spread it open between them and rested it on their laps as they had the first quilt. Gazing upon it, Judy let out a tiny sigh of amazement. Even unfinished, this quilt was lovelier than the first, although the two were so similar that Judy was certain it had been made by Grandma’s mother, too. Instead of daisies, pink tulips with green stems and leaves were arranged in sixteen circular bouquets. Pink, white, and green concentric square borders framed the bouquets, and surrounding those was a wider border of pink tulips in clusters of three flowers on a white background. The outermost green border had been embellished with a gentle scallop on the inside edge.

“After my wedding,” said Grandma, “my mother began this tulip quilt for my younger sister. It would have been her bridal quilt.”

“Why didn’t your mother finish it?” asked Judy.

“My sister never married. She drowned in a boating accident when she was only sixteen.” Grandma inspected the quilt top, frowned slightly, and picked off a stray thread. “After that, my mother quite understandably didn’t have the heart to complete it.”

Judy was sorry she had prompted such an unhappy memory. “It’s still a beautiful quilt,” she said softly.

Grandma allowed a brief smile. “I think so, too. It’s very precious to me. It reminds me of my sister, even though she never used it.”

The granddaughters admired the quilt top until Grandma told them it was time to put the quilts away until next Easter. Judy watched regretfully as the pretty tulips and daisies disappeared into their cotton covers and were shut away in the trunk. It seemed like such a waste to enjoy their beauty only once a year. If they were hers, she would bring them out often—maybe not every day, she conceded, remembering the warning about colors fading in the sunlight, but at least once a month.

Grandma beckoned to Miranda, who hurried over to help her to her feet. Grandma thanked her, patted her shoulder, and said, “One day, my daisy quilt will belong to you, my dear. You’re my oldest granddaughter and it’s only fitting that my wedding quilt should be yours.”

When none of her cousins protested, Judy realized that this was old news to them. She couldn’t really feel disappointed. She had not considered until that moment that Grandma might give away her quilt, and she couldn’t think of a reasonable argument against her grandmother’s choice. There was only one daisy quilt and there were six granddaughters—so far—and Miranda was, after all, the oldest. It was only fair. Judy also knew that when Grandma said “one day,” she meant when she died, and wishing for the quilt to be hers felt too much like wishing for Grandma to die.

“What about the tulip quilt?” piped up one of the younger girls.

Grandma’s eyebrows rose. “You asked the same question last year.”

The little girl, not much older than four, squirmed and hung her head. “I don’t remember what you said.”

“Will you give it to your oldest grandson?” asked Judy. That seemed fair.

“Heavens, no,” said Grandma. “Boys can’t properly appreciate a quilt. The tulip quilt will go to the most deserving of my granddaughters, the one who learns how to finish it.”

“Why not just give it to the second-oldest granddaughter?” another cousin asked.

Grandma regarded her with dry amusement. “If you want it, Carrie, you’re going to have to learn to quilt first. Something as beautiful and as precious as my mother’s last quilt could only go to someone who wants it so much she will learn how to quilt as beautifully as my mother did. Not only that, she must give me her solemn vow that she will finish the quilt. Many people who are capable of completing a task lack the will and perseverance to do so.”

With that, Grandma ushered the girls from the room, her private audience concluded. They went downstairs to join the rest of the family, but as soon as she could, Judy took Susan aside. “Maybe we can learn to quilt and finish the tulip top together.”

Susan nodded eagerly, but then hesitated. “Which of us gets the quilt afterward?”

“We can take turns. You can have it on odd-numbered years, and I can have it on even-numbered years.”

Susan agreed that this was a marvelous plan, adding that when they grew up, they ought to live next door to each other so that each could visit the quilt whenever she liked. Judy happily agreed.

On the trip home to Philadelphia, Judy described the beautiful quilts with such enthusiasm that her mother teased her father for not telling her the family home contained such treasures. “I’d forgotten she had them,” Judy’s father replied. “I think she showed them to me and my brothers once as children, and she showed them to my brothers’ wives after they married.”

“She didn’t offer to show them to me,” Judy’s mother said mildly.

“That was before they had kids. Now it’s become this secret annual rite between my mother and her granddaughters. She probably wanted to continue that tradition.”

“Ma,” Judy broke in, “when we get home, would you teach me how to quilt?”

“I don’t know how to quilt, but I could teach you to sew, and that would give you a very fine start.”

In the weeks that followed, Judy took to her mother’s lessons eagerly. She learned how to sew on buttons, to hem a handkerchief, and to embroider silk. The last was Judy’s favorite, and after months of practice she learned to create pretty pictures with the slender threads. For her grandmother’s Christmas gift, she stitched a cozy winter scene of a red-brick house surrounded by snow-covered trees and framed it, with her father’s help. Her grandmother praised her and hung the embroidered picture on the family room wall. Susan studied the gift with wide eyes and whispered in Judy’s ear that the tulip quilt top would surely be hers one day.

“But we’re supposed to finish the quilt together,” Judy whispered back. “Haven’t you been learning how to sew, too?”

“Not like that,” said Susan, nodding to the embroidered picture in its place of honor on the wall. “I don’t know if I could ever make something like that.”

“You could if you tried,” Judy said, wishing she could teach her cousin, but she had left her sewing basket and silk threads in Philadelphia.

When Easter came, Judy almost danced with excitement as Grandma led her granddaughters upstairs to her bedroom. As before, Miranda helped her lift the lid to the tapestry-covered trunk, and once more Grandma reminisced about her wedding day and told the much briefer story of the loss of her sister. Judy hung on every word, drinking in the quilts with her eyes. They seemed even more beautiful than she remembered.