Chapter 46
The Saturday of his wife’s wedding quilting dawned bright and clear. Jacob slipped out of the room at 4:00 as usual and rode Thunder as fast as he could to his old home. Mamm was already up cooking for the others sitting around the table—Seth, his daed, and a grinning Tommy.
The kitchen was filled with the smells of good things. Jacob hung up his coat and hat, then went to give his mamm a hug at the stove.
“Danki for doing all this … I had no idea how much work was involved.”
His mother looked up from the huge tray of apple dumplings she was sugaring and raised an eyebrow. “I’m glad to do it, sohn, but to invite droves of women was a bit much.”
Jacob turned to look at Seth, who was now fiddling at the quilt frame with their father and Tommy.
“Droves? How many are droves?”
“Who are these people?” Daed asked.
“Well-wishers, romance lovers, and quilters from as far away as two valleys over. I never put specific names on those letter requests, just handed them to whoever, and somehow or another they just got circulated around. And, I think most women want to come simply to see men try to quilt.” Seth shrugged.
Jacob surveyed the huge frame that took up nearly all of the sitting room. He and Seth had hauled it from the Kings’ largest barn when Sarah’s mother remembered that the bigger frame had been stored there and hadn’t been used in well over fifty years.
The long lengths of wood for holding the layers of the quilt taut so that they could be quilted together, without folds or puckers, had needed a few repairs. But now the full frame held the entire quilt, stretched out for the beginning of the quilting. Then the side rails would be rolled up within the quilt as sections were completed.
“Well, we ought to get it done fast, right? With all those ladies quilting?”
Seth rolled his eyes. “And talking, and eating, and visiting— and we’re supposed to be the hosts! I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
“Boys!” Mary Wyse called. “This is for Lilly, for a lifetime of memories. And it’s a gut symbol for the beginning of a marriage— you have to work to put things together, to make things work in your minds and hearts. And certainly everyone from here to Elk County will remember this quilting. Now come get the ham out and run down to the cellar for a half-dozen jars of white navy beans. Hurry. The guests start arriving in a few hours and I’m not near done cooking, even with all the dishes the neighbors are bringing.”
Jacob hastened to obey and breathed a quick prayer that all would go smoothly on this special day for his wife.
It was a fresh Saturday morning, and Lilly sighed to herself that she was stuck in the classroom for an annual round of teacher training. The topics were really things she’d gone over before or already had teaching strategies for, and she thought she’d much rather be spending time with her husband. But, Jacob did say that he had a lot of things to catch up on. And, to make the day even more dull, Alice was surprisingly absent when she’d promised to come.
At 10:00 a.m. the mentoring teacher gave them a break. As Lilly stood and smoothed out the back of her dress, she had a sudden inspiration. she’d drive home and surprise Jacob with a half-day off, even though he was working. Perhaps she might arrive in time to have lunch with him.
She trotted Ruler, the buggy moving briskly, ignoring what stares she knew she was probably getting for leaving early, but choosing not to mind. She drove on and saw a lone Amish woman walking along the roadside. She would have passed by with a called greeting but when she drew abreast of the woman, she recognized Kate Zook.
She drew the buggy to a halt on some instinct and found herself asking if the girl needed a ride. Since the day of the cleanup at the classroom, she’d heard through the community grapevine that Kate had ceased to see Tommy Granger, even though the buwe was close at hand at the Wyse farm. Yet, she also knew that Kate was rather on the outside of the tight-knit community as she had yet to repent of her rebellion and express a desire to join the church.
Kate squinted up at her in the morning sunshine. “Why?” she asked. “Why would you want to give me a ride?” There was something flat and halting in the girl’s tone. Lilly recognized the resignation of her expression and felt a surge of empathy.
“Because you might need one. Come on.”
Kate clambered into the buggy and stared straight ahead.
“So, how are things going?” Lilly asked softly.
“Great.” The girl’s pretty mouth twisted in bitterness. “Just great.”
Lilly though for a moment. “Kate, I know we’ve never gotten along. I was very jealous of you and your feelings for Jacob, but I’m over that now.”
“And I’m supposed to say I’m sorry and that I’m happy for you, right?” The question wasn’t antagonistic, just tired.
“No, I don’t expect you to say anything. I just want you to know that I’d talk with you if you ever wanted. Believe it or not, I understand what it’s like to feel trapped and unhappy.”
Kate didn’t respond and Lilly lifted the reins. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t care. Anywhere.”
“Fine.” Lilly started Ruler back down the road and they soon came to the Wyse family farm. She would have passed when the sight of dozens of buggies gathered around the place made her catch her breath. Was someone ill? She could think of no other immediate reason but tragedy for so many to gather on a Saturday, and she hastened Ruler along and turned down the lane. “I’m sorry, Kate. I’ve got to stop. Something might be wrong.”
“I don’t think so,” Kate muttered, but Lilly was already out of the buggy, barely noticing when Kate began to follow her but then turned and walked back up the lane. Lilly threw the reins over a post and flew up the steps and burst through the kitchen door.
The jumble of women, some unfamiliar, made her heart sink even lower and she frantically searched the group for Mamm Wyse.
Then she heard someone exclaim. “It’s Lilly!”
The crowd stopped talking and slowly parted to reveal a giant quilt frame surrounded by women with their needles frozen mid-stitch. Then she saw Jacob and Seth and tried to assimilate the fact that they were, apparently, quilting!
Jacob stabbed his needle into the fabric and rose when her eyes met his. The contrast between his long, dark-clad legs and the bright colors of the unfamiliar quilt pattern was striking. He came around the edge of the frame and crossed the room to where she stood with his hands outstretched.
“Lilly! I thought that you’d be away for more of the day … I … I wanted us to get more done.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s your wedding quilt.”
“My wedding quilt?” Her blue eyes flashed to his.
“This isn’t how I planned for you to know,” he whispered, pulling her close to him and shielding her with his broad back from the naturally inquisitive faces behind them. She saw him glance over her shoulder and heard a shifting as the women in the kitchen sounded like they’d turned away as a group.
“How did you plan it?” she whispered back, amazed and uncertain.
He smiled at her, his heart in his eyes. “With Seth. I just wanted to give you something to celebrate our marriage. I thought a wedding quilt made up of all kinds of squares, all kinds of love, might show you that … that …” He cleared his throat. “That our marriage is for real.”
Tears began to flow down her cheeks.
“Even if it didn’t start out in the traditional way …”
Jacob took her hand and turned to lead her to the frame where Seth sat grinning.
“Seth helped me write a request for some ladies to donate a quilt square and some of their time and skill. But Derr Herr had the word get around I guess, and all of these ladies wanted to celebrate in your happiness as a bride, even if it is a bit late.”
“Ach, Jacob, do you even know what a gift this is? How much I’ve longed for this?” Her voice shook but she raised it so that everyone could hear her as she continued. “I have to tell you, even those whom I don’t recognize, that this is something I never thought I’d have. Never really thought I deserved in some way.” She looked toward Lucy Stolis’s sweet, young face. “But I think you’re all here because Derr Herr brought you to add to this day.”
She turned to Jacob and lowered her voice. “Thank you, Jacob. I can’t imagine a greater gift of love.” And she thrilled to the truth in the words. Love. At last.
A needle dropped, crystalline in sound, and went skittering across the wooden floor. The noise broke the silence and the ladies broke into an emotional response of laughter and tears.
Jacob drew her forward to walk her around the edges of the quilt.
“I’ve never seen such a large quilt!” she exclaimed.
“Well, all of the squares are wunderbaar but there are a few I think I should point out.” He moved her to a corner to show her the square the children had made her for her wedding gift. He pointed to the next one, a marker-covered square showing a little boy, holding the hand of a woman outside a schoolhouse. “That’s Abel’s square … you and him together.”
Lilly nodded, her tears falling unchecked.
“This is mine, sweet schweschder,” Seth called, indicating a painted sunrise over the mountaintops with a well-held needle.
“Ach, Seth. It’s beautiful. Danki.”
Jacob pointed to another square nearer them. “I asked your mother … she said you wouldn’t mind, right, Mamm?” He showed her the patch he’d cut from the Christmas tree covering that Lilly and her daed had sewn.
“Oh, Jacob, it’s just too much.”
“Well, there’s one more.” He took her by the hand to the square on the opposite corner of the quilt. “I made it—your gift to me and back again.”
Lilly bent to look at the seemingly blank square that she’d given him for Christmas.
“There’s nothing on that square you gave me,” he said for only her to hear. “Because I thought of a thousand ideas. And none seemed right. What finally came to me was that I wanted us to start quilting on it together. Just a few stitches now and maybe we could add to the design every year. Just like our lives together.” His voice was hesitant.
She felt her heart swell with love. “It’s like a patch of heaven, Jacob.” She turned in his arms and kissed him full on the mouth to the delight of all the onlookers. Then she took her place at the frame, beside her husband, and began to stitch on her wedding quilt.