Elm Creek Quilts [12] The Winding Ways Quilt (16 page)

The carefree times ended when Gwen realized she was pregnant.

She considered, for about half a minute, ending the pregnancy, but even if she could have found a safe way to do it, she couldn’t make herself think of the baby as anything less than a human being. How could she denounce sending American boys to die in Vietnam and yet condone killing her own child? She was careless, but she was no hypocrite. Her long-dormant pragmatism forcibly reasserted itself. Suddenly it mattered where their next meal would come from, where they would live, what kind of mother she would be. When she gave up pot—which she had only pretended to enjoy since it gave her migraines—Dennis’s drug use, once a minor irritant, began to worry her. When she tried to persuade him to quit, he told her she was jealous, uptight, and square—that same old label he knew she hated. “Relax, baby,” he said, blowing smoke in her face. Then he bent over to speak to her abdomen, still as flat as the day she had left Brown Deer. “That goes for you, too, baby.”

Watching him, his head thrown back in a fit of helpless giggling, Gwen felt nothing for him but shame and disgust. How could she have ever thought she loved him? How could she bring a child into the world and expect him to help her raise it? Dennis could barely remember to look after himself. Where would they get diapers and toys and clothes? She couldn’t raise a child in the backseat of a van, with a constantly shifting cast of characters filling the front seats.

The next time they stopped for gas, Gwen left her wedding ring on the dashboard, stuffed her few possessions into her backpack, announced that she had to take a leak, and left without saying good-bye. She walked along the highway in the opposite direction the van was traveling, hoping to get a good head start before Dennis and the others realized she wasn’t coming back. She considering returning to the commune in Berkeley, where the kind, gentle residents might welcome her, newborn infant and all. But after an hour of trudging along on the shoulder of the road, the only driver who pulled over was heading east. After a moment’s hesitation, she accepted the ride.

A week later, she walked the last mile into Brown Deer, filthy, hungry, and fervently hoping that no one would recognize her. A boy with baseball cards in the spokes of his bicycle wheels stopped on the sidewalk and stared as she climbed the stairs to her parents’ front door and rang the bell. She gave him a pointed look over her shoulder until he sped off, but her stomach gave a sudden lurch at the sound of the door opening, and she spun back around.

Her mother stood with her hand on the doorknob, staring at her. “Hi, Mom,” Gwen said, shifting her backpack and attempting a grin.

Her mother promptly burst into tears.

Immediately Gwen let her backpack fall to the ground and reached forward to comfort her, but her mother had stepped away from the door to hurry into the other room. “Harry, Harry,” Gwen heard her mother cry, “she’s home!”

Gwen swallowed hard and entered the house as her mother disappeared into the kitchen. She caught a glimpse of herself in the three gilt-framed mirrors hanging above the sofa and saw that long wisps of auburn hair had come free from her braid and that her face was sunburned and streaked with dirt. Through it all shone that unmistakable knocked-up girl’s glow. She wished she had thought to stop at a gas station and clean herself up first. She shouldn’t have feared being recognized.

Her mother reappeared, knotting her hands in the white apron she wore over her flowered dress. Behind her trailed Gwen’s father, his dark hair neatly parted on the side and slicked down, his eyes brimming with tears behind his black-framed glasses. “Gwen,” he said, his voice shaking. “Where have you been? We were so worried.”

Shame flooded her. She had never thought of them back home wondering about her, worrying, contemplating all the dangers a young woman might face in the world beyond Brown Deer. “California, mostly,” she said, trying to remember the last time she had called or written. She let her backpack slide to the floor and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep in touch better. It’s hard on the road. You know.” Although of course, they had no idea.

“Never mind that now.” Her mother came forward to embrace her, and her father reached out to pat her on the shoulder. “You’re home now. Welcome home.”

Gwen clung to her, filled with sudden anguish and relief.

While her mother fixed her something to eat, Gwen showered and slipped into some of her old clothes, which hung loosely upon her now, even around her middle. She studied herself in her vanity mirror, pressing her palm against her abdomen, while reflected behind her, her twin bed lay draped with the candy-colored Jewel Box quilt her mother had made. It was a little girl’s room, preserved as a shrine as if her parents still mourned a daughter they had lost in childhood. Perhaps they did.

A chicken salad sandwich with sweet dill pickles awaited her on the table when she went downstairs to the kitchen. Her mother looked up from washing dishes, turned off the tap, and dried her hands on her apron. “Do you want some milk?” her mother asked. “Lemonade? Iced tea?”

“Milk would be great.” Good for the baby, Gwen added silently as she sat down and began to eat. The familiar flavors brought tears to her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away as her mother set a glass of milk on the table and seated herself across from Gwen. “This is delicious. Thanks, Mom.”

“It’s nothing.” Idly, Gwen’s mother brushed crumbs from the table into her open palm and scooted her chair over to reach the trash can beneath the sink, the chair legs squeaking on the linoleum. “How’s Dennis?”

“Stoned, probably,” Gwen said without thinking, and immediately regretted it when her mother recoiled. “I—I don’t know. I left him in Kansas City.”

Gwen’s mother mulled this over. “Left him? You mean he’ll be joining us later?”

“No, I mean I divorced him.”

Gwen’s mother looked horrified, for all that she had never met Dennis and had little reason to think well of him. “Oh, Gwen, no. Not a divorce.”

Gwen picked the last crumbs from her plate, still ravenous. “We didn’t marry in the church.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“To you? Since when?”

“A marriage is a marriage.” Gwen’s mother rose and took bread from the bread box and a covered bowl of chicken salad from the refrigerator. “Was it a Protestant service? What denomination?”

“A friend who had spent a year in a Buddhist monastery heard our vows on the beach.” Gwen inhaled deeply and sighed, remembering the waves crashing on her ankles, numb from cold, the sunlight making the water sparkle, her friends’ voices raised in song, Dennis’s kiss. “It was a beautiful day.”

Her mother fixed her with an inscrutable look, but her hands kept deftly working, making Gwen another sandwich. “Then it wasn’t really a true, legal marriage.”

“It was real to us.”

“Well.” Her mother passed the plate to Gwen and sat down again. “I think it’s fair to say that you aren’t really divorced. You’ve just stopped living in sin. That at least makes matters less complicated.”

Gwen bit into her sandwich and washed it down with a gulp of milk. “I’m having a baby.” When her mother showed no response, she added, “In June, I think.”

Her mother’s eyes slowly filled with tears. “Well,” she said again, her smile trembling. “Isn’t that lovely.”

“So you might want to tell your friends that I was really married after all. I’ll go along with whatever story you want.”

Her mother took a deep, shaky breath and dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron. “So you’re planning to stay?”

Gwen’s heart turned over. It had never occurred to her that her parents wouldn’t want her to. But of course, this was Brown Deer. A daughter who left town with so much promise and potential, dragging herself home as a college dropout, divorced or never married depending upon your point of view, pregnant—of course they would want her well on her way out of town before she began to show. “I—just for a while,” she stammered. “I know people will talk. I’ll figure something out and leave before I give anyone anything more to gossip about.”

“No.” Her mother reached across the table and seized her hands. “You’re staying here. Your vagabond lifestyle was bad enough when you had only yourself to think of. A baby needs a home and a family.”

She spoke so fiercely that Gwen could only manage, “But the neighbors—”

“They’ll have a lot to say, I’m sure. I don’t care and neither should you. I’m not letting you disappear again, not with my only grandchild. I’m putting my foot down, as I should have done years ago. You’re staying, so you might as well get used to the idea.” Gwen’s mother released her daughter’s hands and gestured to the sandwich. “Go on. Finish your lunch. You’re skin and bones.”

For the first time in ages, Gwen found herself without a witty rejoinder.

She spent most of that first week home sleeping and rereading all of her old books. When her mother scheduled Gwen a long-overdue checkup with their family doctor, she insisted so adamantly upon driving her that Gwen knew her mother feared that if on her own she would hop in the car and disappear forever. When she ran out of things to read and began to grow restless, her mother suggested that she invite some of her school friends over.

“Who did you have in mind?” Gwen asked, sitting at the kitchen table and toying with a bread wrapper twist tie while her mother unpacked groceries. She’d had only two good friends in Brown Deer: Kelly, an aspiring poet and editor of the school paper, and Angela, who could play any instrument she touched but could barely spell. Kelly was pursuing a law degree somewhere in New England, and Angela had left town the day after graduation to become a session musician in Nashville.

“I saw Vicky in the Piggly Wiggly this morning. She said she’s thrilled to hear you’re back in town and you should come over for coffee sometime.”

“Vicky invited me to Chateau Sinclair?” jeered Gwen. “I don’t believe it.”

“She’s Vicky Hixton now. I know you girls weren’t real friendly, but you’ve both grown up and people change. She’s married and has a baby, too, so she knows what you’re going through.”

“She has no idea what I’m going through,” Gwen retorted. So Vicky had married Pete after all. How cliché—the cheerleader marrying the captain of the football team. She doubted either of them had ever left Kentucky, except perhaps for their honeymoon. Apparently Pete could read a map better than he could read a book, or they never would have found their way back to Brown Deer. Of course, Vicky had probably told him what the multisyllabic words meant, just as she had always done to keep his grades up so he could keep his academic eligibility. At least he could add money and make change; that and his winning personality would serve him well at his father’s used-car dealership—

Abruptly Gwen abandoned her silent, scathing appraisal. Pete was dim, but he didn’t smoke grass and he was probably a devoted husband and father. As much as she hated to admit it, Vicky had chosen a better father for her children than Gwen had—but that didn’t mean Gwen admired her and wanted her for a friend.

Her mother pursed her lips, put a gallon of milk and a carton of orange juice in the refrigerator, and picked up the phone. “Think of something polite to say fast, because I’m calling her.”

Against her better judgment, Gwen found herself two days later carrying a plate of her mother’s best sour-cream cookies down the tree-lined streets of Brown Deer on her way to Vicky’s house. Vicky greeted Gwen at the door wearing a cashmere twin set, lipstick, and pearls, her honey-blonde hair swept back in a headband. “Well, if it isn’t the long-lost Gwen Sullivan,” said Vicky, unsuccessfully masking her shock with a cheery smile. The towheaded baby in Vicky’s arms stuffed a chubby fist in his mouth and stared at the visitor. “What a surprise to see you back in Brown Deer. I know your folks have missed you terribly.”

“It’s nice to be back,” said Gwen as Vicky ushered her inside, although at the moment she didn’t believe it. She forced a smile and held out the plate of cookies. “These are from my mother.”

“Isn’t she sweet. That must be the secret recipe my mother says the bridge club raves about.” Vicky showed Gwen to the living room, her smile never faltering as her gaze flicked over Gwen’s worn sandals, patched jeans, and fringed vest. “Why don’t you set that plate on the coffee table and take a seat?” She excused herself and hurried off to the kitchen, the baby riding her hip, and soon returned carrying a coffee service on a silver tray. “It’s so good to see you,” she said, pouring them each a steaming cup. “Are you home for the holidays?”

It was an odd question considering that Thanksgiving was still two weeks away. Either Vicky already knew the whole sordid story and was playing dumb, or she was so disconcerted by Gwen’s sudden reappearance in Brown Deer that a holiday visit was the only possible explanation that came to mind. “No, I’m home for a while.” Gwen leaned forward to stir cream and sugar into her coffee, praying she wouldn’t spill anything on the plush white sofa or the shag carpeting, both strangely pristine for a home with a baby in it. “Your son is adorable. How old is he?”

“Six months. Pete Jr. is his given name, but we all call him PJ.” Vicky shifted her son to her lap and took one of his feet in each of her hands. “My boobs have gotten so huge from nursing that his daddy can hardly keep his hands off me. I bet it won’t be long before I’m in a family way again.”

So this is the discourse of popular girls, Gwen thought as she forced herself to join in Vicky’s laughter. This was what Gwen, Kelly, and Angela had missed out on while observing the cheerleaders with equal parts envy and disdain from the worst table in the school cafeteria, the one with the short fourth leg. If a newcomer set down a tray too suddenly, those already seated would find their food catapulted through the air. It had been one of the more humiliating occupational hazards of their exile. Pete, especially, had found it very entertaining, for slapstick was just about the only humor he understood.

“How is Pete, anyway?” Gwen heard herself ask. “How did he manage to avoid getting sent to ’Nam? I can’t picture him burning his draft card.”