There it was, the coded warning of girlfriends everywhere: "If it's what you want (translated: it's a huge mistake) I'll be there for you (translated: I'll still listen to you whine about his faults, even though-to be clear-you are making a huge mistake).
"I need time," I said.
"Then take it." Amanda breathed heavily on the other end of the phone. "I'm sorry."
"You're the one person who doesn't owe me an apology."
She didn't respond.
CHAPTER 27
From the hallway, I could see that Eleanor was alone in the living room, propped on her bed.
In the few hours I'd been upstairs, things in the house had gotten quiet. Ryan was nowhere to be found, so it seemed as good a time as any to have the talk. I stood just outside the door and watched Eleanor sew quietly while the news played in the background. She was working so intently she didn't seem to notice me standing ten feet away. Barney was lying at the foot of the bed and the rest was covered with squares of pastel fabrics as Eleanor appliqued animals on each square.
After several minutes and without looking up, she barked, "Are you going to stand in the hall or are you coming in?"
I walked into the room. "I'm the one who's angry, not you, so lose the attitude," I said with as much strength in my voice as I could muster.
The slightest smile crept on my grandmother's face. "You used to look just like that when you were three and I wouldn't let you play outside by yourself."
"I'm mad at you," I said, losing steam.
"Why are you angry?" she asked innocently.
I almost laughed. "Are you pretending to be senile?"
Eleanor put down her sewing and gave me a long, hard stare. "I'm not sure I'm pretending." She winked. "Nell, I'm sorry. You're a grown woman and I obviously have no right to tell you or Ryan what to do. It's just when you've lived as long as I have…"
I plopped on the bed. "Not the 'I'm older so I know more' line."
She patted my hand. "No. It's the 'I'm older so I've made more mistakes' line."
"You haven't made any mistakes. You've survived. You've succeeded. You're an example to women everywhere."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"Only a little." I lay down and starting petting Barney's belly. "I don't have your strength."
"After your grandfather died, I moved in here to look after Grace. You know about that," she said.
"Sort of."
"Well, Grace was an old woman and she needed a companion. I think a widow with two small children was more than she bargained for, but she was a wonderful person and she made us feel welcome." My grandmother shifted slightly, and continued. "I know you think I was strong and just kept going after your grandfather died, but the truth is I was scared and lonely. Once a week I used to get on the train and go to another town-Cold Spring, Beacon, anywhere. Once I even went into New York City and I spent the whole day walking around dreaming about living there."
"Then you came back."
My grandmother looked at me, as I was slightly addled. "Obviously."
I put my head on her shoulder. "The moral of your story is that you think I'm running away from dealing with Ryan."
"I think you had your whole life planned out, just like I once did, and now you're faced with the idea that your life might be very different. If I'm pushing you, I'm sorry, but I think it's time you dealt with that. Running away is not the answer."
"No," I said quietly, then shifted the subject to one I had the strength to discuss. "But quilting is, I suppose."
She smiled. "It was for me," she said, and went back to her sewing. I just sat next to her on the bed and watched her sew a little yellow duck onto a pink fabric background.
"Who are you making that for?" I asked.
"No one in particular." She held the block out for inspection. "I like to keep a few quilts handy. The quilt club gives them to the premature babies at the hospital."
"It's nice… that you do that." I took the fabric from her hand and she handed me the needle and thread. "Show me how."
"You catch a little bit of the duck with your needle and a little bit of the background," she explained as I took a large stitch.
I kept going until I had finished sewing the duck onto the background fabric. It was obvious this quilt had two sewers- one an expert, and the other someone who could be confused with a high-functioning monkey. But I didn't care how bad my stitches looked. I was proud of my work. I showed it to my grandmother.
"Not bad," she said, lying.
"Let's do another one."
She chose a square for herself and handed me a pink square of fabric and a small blue teddy bear, and I set to work.
"You are now part of a long tradition," Eleanor said as we worked.
"Yes, I know. Quilting goes back to the beginning of this country, to Europe before that and possibly to ancient Egypt," I recited. I had heard this speech before.
"Well, yes," she said. "But I was thinking that you are joining the great quilting tradition of using fabric and thread to calm your nerves and get you through a difficult time."
I had to admit that touching the soft flannel fabric had the same effect as petting Barney. I found myself completely engrossed in each stitch, moving at a slow but steady pace around the pattern, almost as if I were meditating.
"My first quilt-" My grandmother leaned in. "God it was awful. It was the fifties, and quilting was a dying art. Everyone wanted modern, sleek stuff. We were all caught up in gadgets, cooking TV dinners," she laughed. "The idea of doing something as old-fashioned as cutting up a perfectly good piece of fabric just to sew it back together again seemed, well, crazy."
"So why did you do it?" I asked as I finished my second square and moved on to the third.
"At first I was being polite. Grace quilted, and she was so kind to me and your mom and Uncle Henry. When she asked me if I'd like to learn, I said yes. I thought I wouldn't like it." She patted the fabric in her hands, smoothing the square. "But I realized," she continued, "a quilt could be whatever I wanted. It could be straight and square. It could be colorful and wild. I was in complete control of the process." She looked toward me. "There are certainly rules. In everything there are always rules. But it was the first time I realized I could follow the rules or I could break them, and neither choice was wrong."
"Sounds pretty rebellious."
"Anything you do that is truly yours is rebellious." She watched my stitches for a moment. "Now we're starting our own tradition. I'm the elderly woman being taken care of…"
"And now you're teaching me," I said, and showed her my teddy bear block. "What do you think, in fifty years will I quilt as well as you?"
She fingered the uneven stitches that held the teddy bear to the pink fabric. "Maybe not in fifty years," she said, and smiled.
After an hour of sewing small animals onto blocks, my fingers were starting to hurt. I stretched and wondered about what was in the kitchen.
I was almost out of the bed when Eleanor looked up. "Whatever his reason for calling things off, it was because of him, not you. Once you know that, you won't need to look for reassurance in whatever man comes along."
"Is that what you think I was doing with Marc?"
"Yes."
"There was more to it than that," I said, a little defensive. "That's just what you saw."
She sighed.
"What does that sigh mean?" I was now turning red. My grandmother said nothing, but I knew. "Did all the woman in the quilt club sit around discussing my relationship with Marc?" She said nothing. "You must have all thought I was very stupid."