Elm Creek Quilts [06] The Master Quilter (15 page)

She wanted to crawl into bed and sleep until spring, but she went to the kitchen and cut up vegetables and leftover turkey for soup. The latest
Contemporary Quilting
magazine had come in the mail. She curled up on the sofa beneath a flannel Lady of the Lake quilt and read while the soup simmered.

At six she decided Craig wasn’t coming home, so she warmed a few slices of sourdough bread in the oven and ladled soup into a single bowl. The door opened just as she began to eat. “That smells great,” Craig called from the hallway as he hung up his coat.

It was the kindest thing he had said to her in weeks. Tears sprang into her eyes, but the automatic thank-you died on her lips. He bustled in, cheeks red, rubbing his palms together for warmth. Bonnie sipped her soup and pretended not to notice how he hesitated at the sight of her eating alone.

“Bread smells good, too,” he said on his way to the kitchen. She heard him fishing a spoon from the drawer, taking a bowl down from the cupboard, opening a beer. A few minutes later he joined her at the table.

She ate without looking at him, waiting for him to speak. Oblivious to her silence, he ate with his eyes glued to the paper. Bonnie returned to the kitchen for seconds, then sat at the table swirling the barley and thick slices of carrot without tasting a mouthful, realizing only then that she was no longer hungry. She had refilled her bowl only to prolong the meal.

Finally she said, “Don’t you have something you want to tell me?”

He set down the paper and studied her for a moment. “Oh. Right. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“What were you expecting, chocolates and a dozen roses?”

It was all Bonnie could do not to fling her bowl at him. “I have a meeting,” she said, rising, clearing away her dishes. “Please put the leftovers in the fridge when you’re done. I’m taking the car. Don’t wait up.”

“Don’t worry.”

Fighting off tears of rage, she grabbed her tote bag and left. She endured the meeting, finding no comfort in her friends’ presence or their anticipation of the upcoming camp season. Then it was time to go home, but Bonnie dreaded the discussion—the argument—that would inevitably follow her return. She had to confront Craig; if he intended to tell her why he had met with Gregory Krolich, he would have done so over supper. Whatever secrets he kept could not be good for their home or Grandma’s Attic. Or their marriage.

When she pulled into the parking space behind their building, all the second-floor windows overlooking the back alley were dark. Inside, she found the pot of lukewarm soup sitting uncovered on the stove. Craig was gone, and so was the large duffel bag that once carried his workout clothes, but had sat on the floor of his closet, unused, for most of the past year.

He stayed away for three days. In the meantime, Bonnie called University Realty and left a message on Krolich’s voicemail declaring that the Markham home was not for sale. She wrote lessons for camp. She pored over the shop’s finances and concluded that she would have to cut her employees’ hours in half or let one of them go. Summer was out of the question, so it would have to be Diane. Reluctantly, she spent Sunday morning with the classifieds circling ads for commercial properties. There weren’t many choices, since three-quarters of the listings belonged to University Realty.

On Sunday afternoon Craig finally returned home. He ignored her as he went down the hall, tossed the duffel bag into the guest room, and continued on to the bathroom.

She went to the kitchen to fix a cup of tea. Eventually Craig came to the kitchen for a beer. “We need to talk,” she said, but he pretended not to hear as he rooted in the refrigerator. He left the kitchen and in a moment she heard a basketball game on the television.

She followed him into the living room and sat down. “I know you met with Gregory Krolich.”

He raised the can to his lips, eyes fixed on the television screen.

She clasped her hands around her mug of tea. “I want to know why.”

“So he could make an offer on this place.”

“I already told you I don’t want to sell.”

“It’s a good offer. Better than we could get if we tried to sell on our own.”

“I don’t want to sell.”

“It’s not up to you.”

“Yes, it is.” Her hands shook so badly she had to set the mug on the table. “It’s up to both of us.”

“You’re a spoiled brat.” He looked at her with such venom that she shrank back into her chair. “You won’t admit this is the best opportunity we’re likely to see. Ever. You won’t admit you can’t afford the new rent for the shop. You can’t admit you should close that place before it sinks us any deeper.”

“Grandma’s Attic means the world to me,” said Bonnie. “I still have many loyal customers who would hate to see it go. For them, and for me, I won’t close it short of total bankruptcy.”

“Then we won’t have long to wait.”

After that, Bonnie no longer noted when Craig slept in the guest room or how many days he stayed away. A week after their confrontation, she was vacuuming the carpet when words came into her mind, so suddenly that it shocked her, so clearly that she knew she had been considering them for weeks.

I want a divorce
, she thought, then said aloud, “I want a divorce.”

She shouldn’t. He didn’t beat her. He had not, as far as she knew, been unfaithful. He had been a reliable if critical father to their children. Maybe he was right and she was a spoiled brat. But she could not endure the current situation. Spending the rest of her life in a state of perpetual animosity was unthinkable. She didn’t think she loved him anymore; she barely even liked him most days. She was tired of the tension, tired of feeling at her worst when he was around, tired of feeling inconsequential when he did not even bother to tell her he wasn’t coming home.

Whatever happened with the store, with their home, they had to try marriage counseling again. It had helped them reconcile five years before when she had discovered and thwarted his planned rendezvous with a woman he had met on an internet mailing list. They simply could not throw away a shared history of thirty years. Things had never been worse between them, but she had to believe they still had a chance.

She wrote him a short but heartfelt note asking him to please come home for supper so they could discuss resuming counseling. She left it on the pillow of the guest room. It was gone by the time she returned home from work the next day, but Craig left no reply behind, and he did not show up for supper.

The last day of February was cold and overcast, with gusty winds that sent newspapers and trash scuttling down the alley behind their building. Bonnie rose early to pay the household bills before going to Grandma’s Attic, where she would have to complete the same chore. Craig’s paychecks were direct-deposited into their joint checking account at the end of each month; usually he brought home a pay stub telling her the amount, but this week he had not left the familiar envelope by the computer. Bonnie wasn’t sure how many of his late nights had actually been overtime, so she estimated conservatively when she entered the deposit into the account. She would inquire at the bank for the actual amount when she withdrew funds on her lunch break.

The ATM was down when Bonnie arrived, but she had beaten the midday rush and used her brief time in line to fill out a withdrawal slip. “Could you check on a deposit for me?” she asked the teller while he counted out her bills. “It was made by direct deposit either this morning or yesterday afternoon.”

The teller entered a few keystrokes, frowned at the monitor, and shook his head. “Sorry. The last deposit was on the twelfth for twenty-two seventy-eight.”

“That can’t be right. My husband’s paycheck comes by direct deposit from the college at the end of each month.”

“Yeah, I know. They all come the same day.” The teller, freckled and far younger than her children, pressed another key. “The last direct deposit was on January thirty-first.”

“Maybe the college delayed their transfer for some reason. A computer glitch or something.”

“I doubt it, ma’am. People with Waterford College IDs have been coming in all day.”

“Well—” Bonnie didn’t know what to think. “What is my balance without that deposit?”

“Oh. Sorry.” He handed her the receipt he had forgotten to give her with her cash.

Bonnie stared at the receipt in shock—$215.74. In a moment of confusion she thought the checks she had written that morning had somehow already cleared, then she realized the envelopes were still in her bag. “There’s been some mistake,” she said. “There should be at least a thousand dollars in this account.”

“Um.” The teller glanced over his shoulder. “Well, there was a big withdrawal yesterday. I could print out a statement for you, or you can see it online. Do you know about our online banking?”

Bonnie went cold. “What about the savings account?”

“You want me to check the balance?”

“Yes, yes, please.”

Her distress motivated him to hurry. “Twenty dollars and fifteen cents,” he said, not wasting time on a printed statement. “Just enough to keep the account open.”

“I don’t understand.” But she did understand. Craig. “Can you tell me if the money was transferred to another account? Or was it in cash?”

He studied the screen. “It was a cash withdrawal.”

“Did my husband—” She took a deep breath. “Did he open a new account and deposit the money in it?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t give you any information about accounts not in your name.”

“Please,” she said, fighting off tears. “Please make an exception just this once.”

His fingers clattered on the keyboard. He glanced over his shoulder again, then said, “I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to tell you that your husband did not open a new account at this bank.”

“Thank you.” Bonnie forced a shaky smile, which faded when she remembered the bills in her purse. “While I’m here, I need to transfer money from my business account into the checking account.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

Bonnie stopped short, her hand on the stack of transfer slips. “What do you mean?”

“They’re still joint accounts.”

Bonnie withdrew her hand, slowly. “No.” She ducked her head as she returned her checkbook to her bag. “No. I suppose I don’t. Thank you.”

He nodded, with more sympathy and understanding than she expected from a boy his age.

Bonnie hurried back to Grandma’s Attic, rushed past Diane with barely a greeting, and shut herself in the office. She tore up the checks she had written that morning and wrote new ones drawn on the Grandma’s Attic account. Craig could not have touched those funds, she reminded herself after a quake of fear made her hands tremble as she signed the new checks. The Grandma’s Attic accounts were in her name alone. Craig did not even know the account numbers. Ordinarily she was scrupulous about keeping her personal and business accounts separate, but this was an emergency. As long as Craig had not taken a plane to the Cayman Islands, she would be able to return the money soon.

Diane readily agreed to close for her that evening. “I’ll open tomorrow, too, if you want to sleep in,” she offered with a grin.

Bonnie forced a smile and thanked her, but declined. How could she offer Diane more hours one week and fire her the next?

Later, upstairs in the condo, she waited in the living room, hugging her knees to her chest on the sofa, the flannel quilt draped over her, until the winter light faded. She knew she should start supper, but she could not even rouse herself to turn on a light. Finally hunger overcame her immobility, and she went to the kitchen for tea and toast with honey. The clock on the microwave told her it was half past eight.

She waited on the sofa long past her usual bedtime. At eleven she brushed her teeth and put on the evening news. When that ended, she switched between Leno and Letterman, but their jokes seemed inane and the celebrity guests fatuous. She put on the History Channel and tried to concentrate on an account of the Battle of Stalingrad, but the narrator’s voice sounded so much like Gregory Krolich’s that she finally turned off the television.

Not long after midnight the door quietly opened. She sat in the dark watching Craig remove his boots and hang up his coat. He switched on the dining room light, then turned and nearly leapt into the air at the sight of her. “What’re you doing up?”

“I went to the bank today.”

He disappeared into the kitchen. “So?”

“So, what did you do with our money?”

There was a long pause in which Bonnie heard the refrigerator door open and the microwave heating something. Soon Craig returned with a beer and a slice of pizza on a paper plate. “
Our
money? I earned it. Everything you earn goes straight into that money pit you call a store.”

“That is not true.” Bonnie had the ledgers to prove it. “You can’t drain our accounts so much without at least telling me. I paid bills this morning, and all those checks would have bounced if I had not happened to go into the bank today.”

He shrugged and sat down in his recliner, his mouth full of pizza. He reached for the remote and put on a sports network.

“I think we should try marriage counseling again.”