Elm Creek Quilts [06] The Master Quilter (16 page)

Craig barked out a laugh. “Right, since it was so successful the first time.”

“If you won’t come with me, I’ll go alone.”

“Suit yourself, but you’re paying for it.”

“Craig—” She fought back tears. “I want to sort this out, but if we can’t, I think we should separate.”

“You mean divorce.”

“I didn’t say—”

“No one gets a separation unless they really want a divorce. Why don’t you just say what you want for a change?”

She stared at him in bewilderment. “Will you please just go?” she said after what seemed an interminable silence. “Pack an overnight bag. Tomorrow—tomorrow, when I’m at work, come back for whatever you want.”

He watched her balefully as he chewed his pizza. “Go where?”

She lifted her hands and let them fall into her lap. “Wherever it is you go when you don’t come home.”

“Why should I be the one to leave? You’re the one who wants a divorce.”

Didn’t
he
? “You hate it here.”

“It’s not so bad, now that it’s for sale. Why don’t
you
leave? Go move into that Elm Creek Manor with the rest of the crones. You practically live there anyway.”

Her home was not for sale, she thought, but she said, “Please, Craig. Let’s not make this any worse. For the kids’ sake if not for ours. Please, just go.”

He jabbed the remote at the television and shook his head. “If the Penguins keep playing like this, they’ll never make the playoffs.”

She watched him, but he acted as if she had already left. So she put on her shoes and coat, shouldered her tote bag, and went.

She was so accustomed to walking everywhere except to Elm Creek Manor that she never thought to take the car. It was nearly one o’clock when she rang Agnes’s doorbell. After a while she rang again, but no one answered. She was debating whether she ought to walk to Diane’s and endure the third degree in warmth or risk freezing to death by spending the night on Agnes’s front porch swing when a light went on in a second-story window. A few moments later, Agnes opened the door, squinting without her glasses and holding her fuzzy pink robe closed at the neck.

“Bonnie, honey,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“May I spend the night?”

Agnes immediately opened the door wide. “Of course.”

The older woman bustled about, showing her to the guest room, setting out fresh towels in the adjoining bath, offering her a cup of tea or glass of milk, but Bonnie refused, clutching a borrowed flannel nightgown to her chest and wanting desperately not to cry. She wanted to kiss Agnes for not asking any questions.

Once alone, she put on the nightgown. It was warm but too snug and it only came down to her knees, so she crawled into bed with her socks on. She fell asleep as soon as her eyes closed and did not dream.

She woke to bright sunlight and felt a moment of contentment before realizing that she was not at home, and then, that she had left her husband. Sick dread filled her as she rose and saw from the clock on the bedside table that it was after eleven.

She showered quickly and dressed in the clothes she had worn the day before. She found Agnes in the kitchen. “I overslept,” she said, wondering where she had left her shoes. “I have to get to work.”

Agnes smiled and shook her head, gently guiding her to a chair. “Not without breakfast. Do you want scrambled eggs or waffles?”

“But the shop—”

“Don’t you worry. I called Diane. She said she’d head over as soon as she could. She probably didn’t get there on time, but she got there.”

Agnes closed Bonnie’s hands around a cup of coffee. Bonnie sank back into the chair as Agnes brought her cream and sugar. “Thank you,” said Bonnie.

“I had waffles myself,” remarked Agnes, patting her shoulder and returning to the refrigerator. “I like to add cinnamon and vanilla. Have you ever tried them that way?”

“I haven’t, but I’d love to.”

Agnes nodded and left her to drink her coffee in silence. A few minutes later she set a plate in front of Bonnie and refilled her coffee, then brought a second cup for herself. She sat down as if friends showed up unexpectedly on her doorstep every night.

“I left Craig,” said Bonnie.

“For good?”

“I think so.”

Agnes nodded, apparently not surprised. Bonnie told her what had happened the night before, and in the weeks leading up to it, and all the months of loneliness and arguing and pretending that everything would be all right eventually if she just weathered the current storm. When Bonnie said she still intended to speak to a counselor, Agnes said, “As long as you speak to a lawyer, too.”

Bonnie nodded. She supposed Craig already had.

They washed the dishes together. “You can stay here as long as you need to,” Agnes said as she wiped off the table.

“Thanks, but I intend to stay at home tonight.” She dreaded the thought of seeing Craig again, but she would not give up her home to him. “He doesn’t usually sleep there anyway.” She managed a small laugh. “I have to go home, if only to change clothes.”

“I’ll come with you, if you like.”

Grateful, relieved, Bonnie nodded.

They linked arms as they walked, with Bonnie unsure who was supporting whom. The Markhams’ parking space was empty, but Diane’s car filled the one beside it. Bonnie knew she ought to stop by and thank Diane for coming in on a moment’s notice, but not before she changed clothes.

The outside door stuck on a crust of ice. Bonnie shoved it open and led Agnes upstairs to the second floor. She hesitated before slipping her key in the lock, wondering if she ought to ask Agnes to watch for Craig. The key did not turn. Bonnie withdrew it and checked that she had the right key, since it resembled the one for Grandma’s Attic. Neither key worked. She tried again, jostling the knob and shoving the door with her shoulder, but it would not budge.

“He changed the locks,” she said, not believing it.

She tried the Grandma’s Attic key again, but Agnes gently pulled her away. “Come on. We’ll go shopping. Buy yourself something nice and send the bill to Craig.”

Bonnie pressed her lips together and nodded, holding her breath to fight off sobs. “Please don’t tell anyone about this,” she managed to say as they emerged in the alley below.

Agnes glanced at her to see if she meant it. “I won’t breathe a word.”

They walked downtown, past the fancy boutique where five years before Bonnie had tried on expensive, flattering dresses in an attempt to find one that would lure Craig out of his cyber-girl infatuation, to Bonnie’s favorite department store. Woodenly she selected slacks, sweaters, blouses, sweats; she would have forgotten undergarments if not for Agnes’s delicate reminder. She did not know how much to buy. Ordinarily she never would have purchased so many items for herself, but she did not know when she would be able to go home.

Standing in line, Agnes did her best to amuse Bonnie with a story about how Sarah’s husband, Matt, had spied pieces for Agnes’s block for Sylvia’s bridal quilt in her sewing box. He had been so interested in seeing her current project that she had had no choice but to show him. “Right in front of Sylvia,” she said, chuckling, as the clerk rang up Bonnie’s purchases and took her credit card. “I know Sarah told him Sylvia’s quilt is a secret, but of course he didn’t know that particular block was my contribution or he wouldn’t have insisted upon seeing it. Fortunately Sylvia wasn’t paying attention or the surprise would have been ruined.”

“That was lucky,” Bonnie agreed, remembering her own half-finished block on the table in her sewing room. It had once been her daughter’s bedroom. The kids. What would they think when they learned what had happened? How would Bonnie tell them?

“Ma’am?” said the clerk. “I’m sorry, but your card didn’t go through.”

“Oh.” That bill, still in her purse from yesterday. It was late, but not that late. “Here’s my bank debit card. No, wait.” She remembered just in time and snatched the card away before the clerk could pick it up. She extended a second card. “Here, use this. May I have the other one back?”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I have to cut it up. It’s been reported stolen.”

“What?” said Agnes.

The clerk looked uneasy. “I’m sorry. Your credit card company insists.”

“That’s outrageous,” Agnes began, but Bonnie placed a hand on her arm to silence her. She should have anticipated this. She returned the second card to her wallet and handed the clerk her Grandma’s Attic corporate card without a word. The clerk scrutinized it, dubious, but the card cleared. As soon as the humiliating transaction ended, Bonnie snatched up her bags and fled.

Agnes hurried to catch up with her. “Come home with me,” she said. “You can change clothes and call your lawyer.”

“I don’t have a lawyer.”

“I do. He’s a wonderful young man. His father looked after our affairs for years, and he took over the firm after his father passed.”

“Does he handle divorces?”

“If not, he’ll know someone who does.”

Bonnie took the lawyer’s number but did not call. She reminded herself that less than two weeks before she had been cleaning the condo and contemplating divorce. For five years, since Craig’s first betrayal, she had struggled to hold their marriage together, but in her heart she knew it was over. It was time to salvage what she could and move on.

And yet she could not bring herself to make the call. She did not know why and did not want to think about it.

She spent the weekend with Agnes, helping her cut fabric for the pieced border of Sylvia’s bridal quilt. Agnes arranged for Diane to cover for her at Grandma’s Attic on Saturday before Bonnie remembered to ask. On Monday she returned to work as if she had not been away. Summer stopped by in the morning, her concern and curiosity apparent, but fortunately Bonnie was helping a customer so she avoided uncomfortable questions.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” said Agnes that evening, when Bonnie returned to her house in defeat. She had tried to outwait Craig at the alley door since he would not return her calls, but her resolve faltered as the night grew colder. “Our friends would be a great comfort to you if they knew you needed their support.”

“I’m not ashamed,” Bonnie said, but she was. Ashamed that she had failed at her marriage, ashamed that she had not heeded the obvious warning signs and left Craig five years before.

On Wednesday, at Agnes’s urging, she camped in Craig’s office until he showed up for work. She pleaded with him to let her come home, but he said, “You’re the one who decided to abandon the property. Now you’ve got to live with it.”

She didn’t like his gleeful tone or the odd emphasis he gave the words
abandon
and
property
, but she was too emotionally exhausted to argue within earshot of his coworkers, whom she had known for years and had entertained in their home. She considered it a triumph when he agreed to let her come home that evening to pack her clothes and other necessities. Agnes accompanied her and stood glaring at Craig as Bonnie quickly filled two suitcases and sorted the mail. She left the bills for him to pay, since she had drawn on Grandma’s Attic as much as she could afford, but took her magazines and an unopened letter from their daughter.

“I forgot to ask him if the children called,” she told Agnes in dismay as they struggled to her house with the suitcases in hand.

“The light on the answering machine was blinking,” said Agnes, breathing hard from exertion. “I doubt if he even saw it, buried under all that mail.”

Bonnie waited until late the next morning, then called and checked the messages using the remote code. There were three messages, none very important, but Bonnie did learn that Craig had changed the outgoing announcement.

The days passed. Bonnie often felt as if she were watching a dream of someone else’s life. She went to work, returned to Agnes’s for supper, and spent her evenings helping Agnes with the bridal quilt or working on lesson plans for camp. Some mornings before unlocking the door to the shop, she would stare up at the windows of her home from across the street and wonder what Craig hoped to accomplish by throwing her out and cutting her off from their joint resources. She had no idea what her next step should be, no foresight into what Craig intended. Did he want her to suffer longer before he allowed her to return? Was he keeping her out just long enough to sell their home without interference?

A week and a day after she left the condo, she understood. He had no intention of allowing her to return. He had already divorced her in his heart. The legalities of their relationship he would leave for the lawyers.

New resolve filled her the day she accepted the inevitable. She still dreaded the confrontations to come, the astonishment of the children, the frightening questions of how she would manage financially, but she would no longer pretend these problems would disappear if she ignored them.

Somehow she felt like celebrating—she also felt like weeping, but she was determined not to. She had cried every night since leaving the condo and she felt too wrung out for more tears. After work, she stopped off at the market for a crown roast and all the fixings for a special dinner to thank Agnes for all she had done, suppressing a wave of guilt as she handed over the Grandma’s Attic corporate card. Afterward she passed a liquor store, something of a dive but popular with the students, and decided to stop for a bottle of wine.