Elm Creek Quilts [09] Circle of Quilters (11 page)

“Can you make it noon, so you can watch the boys while I get ready?”

“Sorry, I can’t. I have a meeting. I’ll leave as soon as it’s over.”

“Twelve-fifteen?”

“The second the meeting’s over, I’ll be on my way home. Promise.” He gave her a reassuring wave good-bye as he pedaled down the driveway and out into the street, his overloaded backpack giving him the appearance of a precariously balanced turtle.

Karen had time for a quick cup of coffee and bagel before taking Ethan to nursery school. Lucas fell asleep in the car on the way home, so once she had him settled in his crib, she gathered her maps and directions, the quilt block and pattern, and a copy of her portfolio. She packed all the papers into her briefcase and put everything in the car, just in case Nate came home later than anticipated and she had to rush out the door at the last minute. Lucas thoughtfully slept longer than usual, so she had time to iron her suit and find a pair of nylons without any runs. She rehearsed the interview in her mind, posing questions to herself and answering them aloud.

Lucas woke as soon as she lay down on her bed to rest so she would be fresh for the interview. Sometimes she suspected a device hidden in her bedsprings triggered an alarm in the children’s rooms, because somehow they always knew as soon as her head touched the pillow. She took Lucas from his crib and tried to persuade him to nurse lying beside her on the bed so she could grab a few minutes of rest, but he fussed and complained until she took him to the rocking chair.

Afterward, Karen and Lucas played with blocks and stuffed animals until it was time to pick up Ethan from school. Although she had warned him they would need to leave right away, Ethan begged to stay and play with his friends, and since Lucas was squirming in her arms and gesturing desperately toward the playground, she agreed. She chatted with the other parents and kept careful track of the time, remembering to give the boys a ten-minute warning, and then five, and then two. Somehow Ethan still managed to be astonished when she told him that it was five minutes past noon and they needed to leave. Lucas did not want to
leave, either, but he was still small enough to be carried against his will—unlike Ethan, who retreated to the farthest corner of the climbing structure and refused to budge. Mindful of the teachers and the other parents observing her, Karen projected loving sympathy as she reasoned, coaxed, and finally begged him to come down, all to no avail. After ten minutes, another mother offered to hold Lucas while she climbed the ladder, pried Ethan’s fingers from the monkey bars, and took him down the slide on her lap, since she knew there was no way she could wrestle him down the ladder.

“Say good-bye to your teachers,” she said cheerily when his feet finally touched pea gravel. She took Lucas back from the helpful mother and reached for Ethan’s hand. Instead of taking hold, Ethan burst into tears and reached for her with both arms.

“Someone’s tired,” remarked the other mother. Karen replied with a tight smile and a nod. She bent down and hefted Ethan onto her right hip, and, balancing Lucas on her left, she managed to shuffle across the playground and out the gate.

Once out of sight of the playground, she abruptly set Ethan on the sidewalk. “Okay, that’s enough. I need lots of cooperation today.”

Tearfully, he sniffled, “Please pick me up.”

“Honey, I know you’re tired, but I can’t carry both of you all the way to the car.” She took his hand, and he reluctantly held hers. He dragged his feet, but he came. Suddenly she felt overwhelmingly weary. They went through this at least twice a week. Almost every other child in Ethan’s class spotted their mother at the gate, cried out “Mommy!” and went running for a hug. Only Ethan acted as if a stranger had come to drag him off to the deepest circle of hell. Karen could only imagine what the teachers and other parents thought went on in the Wise home to evoke such a reaction.

As soon as she buckled Ethan into his car seat, he brightened and began chattering about his day at school as if nothing had
happened. His mood could turn on a dime, leaving her dazed in the wake of his emotions. Lucas fell asleep again, which surprised her considering how long his morning nap had lasted, but he woke as soon as they pulled into the garage. She had hoped to find Nate waiting for her, but had not really expected him to be able to leave so early.

She fixed the boys their lunch—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sliced bananas—and stood at the counter while they ate, too nervous to swallow a bite herself. She had not been on a job interview in eight years. She had not had a sustained conversation with any adult other than Nate, Janice, or her mother in more than four. What if she had forgotten how to talk about anything but her children?

At a quarter to one, she began glancing out the window, watching for Nate on his bike. Ethan finished eating and went into the living room to play, but Lucas pushed the pieces of his sandwich around on his plate and mashed his bananas into a sticky paste. At ten minutes to one, she phoned Nate’s office. He did not answer, so she left a message on his voice mail and decided to take his absence as a good sign; he must already be on his way home. She did not try his cell, knowing that he could not answer it while riding his bike.

“Sweetie, are you going to eat your lunch?” she asked Lucas absently, standing at the window. In response, Lucas picked up a peanut butter and jelly triangle and dropped it disdainfully on the floor.

Sighing, she unbuckled him from his booster seat and washed his face and hands. When he toddled off to join his brother, she cleared the table and wiped up the mess on the floor, keeping one eye on the clock. It was one o’clock. If he had left campus at twelve-thirty, the latest he promised her he would leave, he should have arrived home already. Even in bad weather, he never needed more than a half hour to bike home from the office.

She called his office again, and then tried the cell. After five rings, he answered in a low voice. “Hello?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m stuck in this meeting,” he griped in an undertone.

“You mean you haven’t even left campus yet?”

“Honey, I can’t talk right now. I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”

“But”

“I’m sorry, but I have to hang up. Bye.”

She fumed as the line went dead. She hung up the phone and began pacing. At a quarter past, Lucas ran back into the kitchen and reached for her with his head tilted to one side, his sign that he wanted to nurse. She carried him back to the living room, settled on the recliner, and nursed him, glancing at the clock on the mantel and starting a slow burn.

At half past she knew she could not wait any longer. “I’m going upstairs to get dressed,” she told Ethan, and carried Lucas, still nursing, to her bedroom. Lucas stomped his feet and wailed in protest when she set him down on the floor, and he would not be consoled with cheerful talk and smiles as she hastily showered, blew her hair dry, and squeezed into her suit. He clung to her legs as she put on her makeup, so she picked him up and fixed her hair as best she could with only one hand. At one-thirty she returned downstairs. Nate was nowhere to be seen.

“I can’t believe this,” she muttered, setting Lucas down on the kitchen floor. Instead of searching out his brother, he opened the pantry door and began taking out the boxes and cans on the bottom shelf and lining them up on the floor. She called Nate’s cell phone again, hanging up with a bang when he did not answer. Maybe he was on his way. He had said he would call first, but maybe he had run for his bike as soon as the meeting ended rather than wasting time on the phone.

He was more than an hour late. He had better be on his way.

“Mama?” Lucas held up the familiar yellow box hopefully. “Chee-woes?”

“I already made you a yummy sandwich and you threw it on the floor,” she snapped. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was not angry with
him
. “Sorry, honey. Of course you can have some cereal.”

She buckled him into his booster seat and handed him a spoon so he could bang away happily on the table while she poured cereal and milk. “Ethan, how are you doing in there?” she called when it occurred to her she had not heard from him in some time.

“Fine,” he called back, and something in his tone made her go to the doorway and look. He had turned on the television and was staring at a cartoon in which a vile-looking slime monster made deep-voiced threats to a shapely blonde girl wearing a cut-off shirt and military cargo pants. An indeterminate rodentlike creature was gnawing through the ropes that tied the girl to a metal barrel marked “Toxic Waste.”

“What is this?” cried Karen, quickly switching off the television. “That is not PBS Kids.”

“PBS Kids had Mr. Rogers. I don’t like Mr. Rogers.”

“You mean you don’t like his show. Mr. Rogers was a very nice man.” Karen shook her head. That wasn’t the point. “You know you’re not supposed to watch TV without asking.”

Ethan’s eyes were fixed on the dark television screen. “Can I watch TV?”

“No. Read a book.”

“I can’t read!”

“
Look
at a book.” She returned to the kitchen where Lucas, still strapped into his booster seat, strained to reach his bowl of Cheerios on the counter. “Sorry, sweetheart.” She snatched up the bowl and set it before him.

He peered into the bowl warily and looked up at her with a face full of doubt.

“It’s Cheerios, honey, just like you wanted.” She picked up his spoon and began feeding him. He took two bites before clamping his mouth shut and turning away. “Not hungry after all?” She rose and picked up his bowl. He let out a howl of protest that nearly made her drop it. “Okay, okay. Here it is.” She set it down again and placed the spoon in his hand. He smiled angelically and began to eat.

She checked the clock. Ten minutes until two.

She blinked back tears of frustration and practiced her Lamaze breathing. She pulled the phone closer, sat down beside Lucas, and tried Nate’s numbers one last time. It rang so long she was sure his voice mail would pick up, but instead Nate answered.

“Please tell me you’re on your way home,” she said.

“I’m not, honey. I’m still in the meeting. I can’t talk—”

“Don’t you hang up again. You’d better talk to me.”

“Hold on.” She heard muffled voices, a moment of quiet in which she feared he had hung up on her, and then Nate’s voice at a normal volume. “Okay. I’m in the hall.”

“Are you coming home?”

“No, Karen. I have to go back into the meeting.”

“But I have to get to my interview. You promised you’d be home by twelve-thirty.”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I had no idea this was going to run so long. We haven’t even taken a break for lunch.”

“Oh, poor you.”

“Karen—”

“You’re supposed to be here, right now, with the boys. I should already be on the road.”

“I’m sorry. How many times can I say it? Can you call the quilters and reschedule?”

“Are you kidding me? This is a job interview. What kind of impression will that make?”

“Well …” Nate sighed. “Let’s just hope they’ll be reasonable and accommodate a working parent.”

And if they didn’t? So much for her dreams of becoming an Elm Creek Quilter. “Nate, if you come home now, I might still make it on time.”

“I can’t walk out of this meeting. It’s too important.”

“More important than a job interview?” cried Karen. “It’s a meeting. You have a dozen meetings every week. They won’t care if you miss the last twenty minutes of one meeting.”

“It might run longer than that, and they will care. My whole tenure committee is here. I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to.”

“Surely they’ll understand that you have a family emergency.”

“This isn’t an emergency and you know it.”

“But it’s just one meeting!”

“It’s more than that. They’ll consider it indicative of my commitment to the department.”

“What about your commitment to me?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Not fair? I asked for one day. Not even a whole day. Just one afternoon for something I care about. And you promised.”

“It’s a job interview, Karen. Be realistic. What’s the worst that could happen if you don’t go to that interview today? And what’s the worst that could happen if I don’t get tenure? I’ll lose my job, I’ll have to find something else as if that won’t be next to impossible as a failed assistant professor, we’ll have to sell the house and uproot the kids and move God knows where. Listen. I’m sorry I’ve let you down, but this is my job and I can’t leave just because you want me to.”

“Nate—”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“You do have a choice.”

“You’re right. I do. And I’ve made it. I’m sorry.”

She said nothing, stunned.

“Look,” said Nate. “Call the quilters and see if you can reschedule for Friday or Saturday. If they won’t, call someone else—Janice
or one of the other moms. Someone will help you out. But I’ve got to go.”

He hung up.

After a moment, Karen pressed the button on the receiver, waited for the dial tone, and called Janice.

“Hello?”

The voice was girlish, too young for Janice and too old for her daughters. “Um, hi. Is Janice there?”

“I’m sorry, she’s not available at the moment. Would you like to leave a message?”

Then Karen recalled that Janice had mentioned hiring a babysitter to watch the kids while she and her husband went for an ultrasound. “No, thank you,” she said, and hung up.

She called every other parent in the playgroup. Half were not home; the other half were either on their way out, or the background noise in their homes radiated so much chaos and confusion that Karen could not bring herself to ask them to take on two more children. She clutched the phone, racing through her mental list of baby-sitters and friends and people who owed her favors. She heard Ethan turn on the television and watched as Lucas began to fling soggy Cheerios out of his bowl using his spoon as a catapult. One sailed past her ear and stuck to the window; another landed on her sleeve. Immediately she brushed it off and snatched up a napkin to press the milk out of her clothes. Fortunately it was a dark suit. The spot would dry on the way to Waterford.