The New Year's Quilt (Elm Creek Quilts Novels) (22 page)

Andrew loaded scrambled eggs onto a piece of buttered toast. “If it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother you.”

Caitlin threw her mother a brief scowl before returning her attention to Sylvia. “Should we call you Grandma?”

Amy slammed her palm on the table. “She is not your grandmother.”

“We can’t call her ‘Step-Grandma,’ ” said Sam. “That’s so lame.”

“Lame or not, like it or not, that’s all she is.”

Andrew glowered. “All right, now, I’ve had just about enough—”

“We’ve all had just about enough.” Sylvia rose. “I can’t bear to think that I’ve divided this family. Amy, you’re right. You win.” She turned to Andrew and steeled herself. “I’m sorry, dear. Our marriage was a mistake. When we return to Elm Creek Manor, I’m going to file for an annulment.”

Andrew looked up at her, pain in his eyes. “Sylvia—”

Sylvia managed a tender smile, blinked back her tears, and hurried from the room.

Upstairs in the guest room, Sylvia rolled Andrew’s suitcase into the hallway and shut the door. If she wasn’t going to stay married to a man, she couldn’t share a bedroom with him.

She arranged pillows into a comfortable seat on the bed and retrieved the New Year’s Reflections quilt from her tote bag. She spread the quilt over her lap and gazed upon it, her heart momentarily lifted by the soothing colors and the intricate patterns. Threading a needle, she got to work, wondering if Amy would still be willing to accept her gift or if all her efforts had been in vain.

Through the closed door she heard the muffled sounds of heated debate as she mitered the last of the four corners. Voices rose and fell as she turned her attention to the last edge of the quilt. She couldn’t hear the details of the argument, but she could imagine the way things were going. Five minutes of silence told her they had reached an impasse, and sure enough, before long she heard footsteps approaching from the far end of the hallway.

The door swung open and Andrew leaned inside. He gestured to the suitcase at his feet. “You’re throwing me out?”

She raised her eyebrows at him over the rims of her glasses. “It wouldn’t be proper to do otherwise.”

Andrew frowned, but he could hardly disagree. “You’re not going to stay locked up here until the New Year, are you?”

Sylvia considered. “As tempting as that might be, I don’t think so. Now that Amy has had her own way, I imagine it will be much more pleasant downstairs now that we’ve made her so happy.”

“Oh, you’ll see how happy she is,” Andrew said scornfully as Sylvia returned quilt and notions to her tote bag.

The grandkids had made themselves scarce, and Sylvia couldn’t blame them. In the kitchen, Amy and Daniel were rinsing the breakfast dishes and loading the dishwasher. “May I help?” asked Sylvia.

“No,” said Amy. “We’ve got it, thanks.”

She did not look in Sylvia’s direction, but it was obvious she had been crying. Sylvia pretended not to notice, sat down at the kitchen table, and idly paged through the newspaper.

Andrew pulled out a chair beside her. “Is there anything I can do to change your mind?”

“I’m afraid not, dear.” Sylvia passed him the sports section, but he ignored it. “This is best for everyone.”

“How can you say that?”

“With me out of the picture, you and your children can—” She waved a hand, searching for the appropriate phrase. “Go back to normal.”

“As if nothing ever happened? That’s not possible. I’ll always remember that they were responsible for driving you away. It’ll be impossible to forgive them. Our divorce would divide the family more than our marriage ever could.”

Sylvia saw Amy and Daniel exchange an anxious look. “Perhaps this is a discussion better made in private,” Sylvia said, lowering her voice a fraction. “We have a long drive home. We can save it for then.”

Andrew threw up his hands in exasperation. “And when we get ‘home,’ what then?”

“Oh, dear. You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that.”

Amy couldn’t restrain her curiosity. “Thought of what?”

“I can’t very well live with Sylvia after we divorce, can I?” said Andrew. “Elm Creek Manor has been my home for years, but not any more. Where am I supposed to go?”

“Didn’t Bob and Kathy ask you to live with them?” Amy asked in a small voice.

“That’s crazy talk. You know how small those southern California tract houses are. We’ll be tripping over each other. And I sure can’t sleep on their fold-out sofa for the rest of my life, not with my back.”

“Well…there’s your RV, for the immediate future. You can even park it at Elm Creek Manor through the winter, if you like. But—” Sylvia threw an imploring look to Amy and Daniel. “I don’t think anyone would expect you to live in the RV forever.”

“You can move in with us,” said Daniel, placing an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “It’s the least we can do, since we’re responsible for Sylvia’s decision.”

“Wait.” Amy shrugged off her husband’s arm and held up her hands. “Maybe we’re being too hasty here.”

“Do you have a VFW in town?” Andrew asked Daniel. “Can I park the RV in your driveway or would it be better on the street in front of the house?”

Sylvia beamed at Amy. “You’re such a generous daughter, opening your home to your father, especially with the children going off to college in a few years. Taking on all that cooking and laundry and chauffeuring just when you were probably looking forward to more time to yourself—well, I don’t think one daughter in ten would be so generous.”

“I hope you didn’t have any other plans for that guest room,” said Andrew.

Amy shook her head, looking faintly ill. “I was thinking about turning it into a sewing room, but—”

“Oh, dear,” exclaimed Sylvia. “I suppose we won’t be able to continue your quilting lessons, since this will surely be my last visit.”

“Can I redecorate?” asked Andrew. “No offense, but that room’s awfully lacy and frilly. I’d like to hang up my fishing trophies.”

“Dead trout on a varnished plank, that’s what I always called them,” Sylvia confided.

“Maybe the kids can drive me around town when you’re too busy,” Andrew mused. “They all have their licenses by now, right? I don’t think I should take the RV around on errands unless you have very forgiving neighbors. These streets are so narrow I might knock over a few mailboxes.”

Sylvia, Andrew, and Daniel all began talking at once, their voices a babble of redecorating suggestions and driving tips. In the center of it all, Amy clutched her head in her hands, her gaze flicking around the room as if desperate to find an escape.

Before long Amy had clearly heard enough. “All right, all right!” When the others fell silent, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Dad, Daniel, will you excuse Sylvia and me for a minute?”

“Why?” said Daniel, wary.

Amy looked as if another word might cause her to explode. “Just go. Please.”

Daniel nudged his father-in-law and gestured toward the door. Andrew struggled to hide a grin as they left the kitchen. Sylvia knew he was thinking that this would be his moment of triumph. This was Amy’s cue to beg Sylvia not to divorce him.

Sylvia wasn’t so sure that was what Amy had in mind, but she pushed the newspaper aside and composed herself as Amy pulled up a chair on the other side of the table. “I take it you want to speak to me alone?”

“My father would just waste time proclaiming his innocence, but I doubt you will,” said Amy. “You can let the curtain fall on the drama now. Please.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The breaking up with my father act. I know what you’re doing, and I think I know why.”

Sylvia sighed. “How did you know? Was our acting really that bad?”

“My father loves you,” Amy said. “If he believed you really intended to divorce him, he wouldn’t be talking about parking spaces for his RV and hanging dead fish on the walls. He would be brokenhearted. He would be devastated. And I think you would be, too.”

Reluctantly, Sylvia admitted, “I suppose the lack of tears and pleading was a dead giveaway.”

“And also, yes, your acting really was that bad.”

“It couldn’t have been,” said Sylvia. “You were genuinely alarmed for a few minutes. I saw it in your eyes when visions of cleaning up after your father and losing your sewing room flashed before your eyes.”

“I might have had a nervous moment or two.”

“Your father hoped to drag this out for at least another day,” said Sylvia. “He thought that given a taste of how his life and yours would be affected if we were no longer together, you’d give our marriage your heartiest endorsement.”

Amy managed a small smile. “That’s ridiculous.”

“We had to try something. Reasoning with you wasn’t working. Arguing made matters worse.” Sylvia laced her fingers together and rested them on the table. “Frankly, Amy, I’m at a loss. You’ve said you’re concerned because I had a stroke. My doctor and I agree that I’ve fully recovered and that I’m in excellent health, but even if you’re right and we’re wrong, I have sufficient resources that you needn’t fear your father will exhaust himself caring for me.”

“It’s not just that. I’m thinking of the emotional toll if he loses you. You didn’t see what he went through, tending my mother in her last years, mourning her when she died.”

“Your father already loves me, so if I do pass on before he does, he will mourn me whether I’m his friend or his wife. I could lose him. You could lose Daniel. That can’t stop us from loving.” Sylvia shook her head, knowing nothing she said would persuade Amy to see reason. “We’ve told you all this before, dear, and not once have you disagreed. You accept our premises but not our conclusions, so I can’t help thinking there’s something else behind your disapproval.”

Amy studied her for a long moment in silence. “There is.”

“I thought so.” Sylvia reached for her hand. “Amy, dear, you’re not betraying your mother’s memory by accepting my marriage to your father.”

Amy said nothing, but her eyes filled with unshed tears.

“I could never replace your mother,” said Sylvia. “I would never try. Your father found love a second time. That doesn’t mean he’s forgotten your mother or that his love for her wasn’t strong and true.”

“He knew you first,” Amy choked out, snatching her hand away. “But you were married to another man. Was that the only reason he married my mother? Was she his second choice, and all these long years he was putting on an act, pining away for you?”

Aghast, Sylvia sat back in her chair. “Amy—”

“If that’s true, then everything I ever learned about love since I was a child has been a lie.”

“Oh, Amy, you couldn’t be more wrong.” Sylvia hardly knew where to begin. “What has your father told you about his time in the service?”

“Very little,” said Amy with a bitter laugh. “You know what men of his generation are like. They don’t complain; they don’t brag. They just do what needs to be done—whether that’s winning a war or keeping a marriage vow even when your heart longs to be with someone else.”

Sylvia silently promised herself to prevail upon Andrew to clear away Amy’s misunderstandings. She deserved to know what a fine man he was, even if that forced him to boast. “There’s so much to say and it’s your father’s place to say it,” she said. “For now, you need to know that your mother was indeed your father’s first choice. She always was his true love.”

“We’ll never know for sure.”

“On the contrary, we do know,” said Sylvia. “My husband was killed during the war. When your father came home after his service ended, he came to see me at Elm Creek Manor. If he had wanted to declare his love for me, he had the perfect opportunity.”

“He wouldn’t have considered that an appropriate time,” said Amy, with such certainty that Sylvia decided that perhaps she knew her father well after all. “You had just lost your husband. He wouldn’t have made a move on a grieving widow.”

“Perhaps not,” said Sylvia, amused in spite of everything at the thought of the gentlemanly Andrew “making a move” on anyone. “But he surely would have stayed nearby, so that when the time was right, he would be in the right place. Instead he took a job hundreds of miles away where he met your mother and fell in love.” Sylvia forced herself to confess her own guilty secret. “There are days, I admit, when I wish he had been in love with me back then, and that he had stayed in Waterford, courted me, and asked me to marry him while we were still young. If he had, I would have been spared years of loneliness. I almost certainly would have remained at Elm Creek Manor. I could have reconciled with my sister, kept the family business thriving, and saved myself a lot of trouble restoring the manor fifty years later. I might have had children. But if all of those things had happened, you and Bob, your children and your nieces never would have existed. Elm Creek Quilts never would have been founded. And your father would not have loved your mother, in which case I know he would not be the fine man he is today.”

A tear ran down Amy’s face, and she ducked her head to hide it. “I don’t like change,” she said. “I prefer to hold on, to keep things as they are.”

“You’re fighting a losing battle in that case, dear,” said Sylvia. She glanced around the room at the antique furniture, the years-old children’s crafts decorating end tables and shelves, and suddenly she felt as if she were truly seeing Amy for the first time. It wasn’t Sylvia that Amy disliked, but the unknown future. “Life is all about change, but you don’t have to face the future with fear.”