Chapter 17

The next morning there was a tapping at their door early in the morning—at least what felt like early morning. Sarah checked the clock and was surprised to see it was nearly 9:00. “Just a minute,” she called out as she fumbled for her robe.

The steward was at the door with a pushcart filled with food. “Breakfast,” he announced.

“Did we order breakfast?” she asked, turning to Sophie who had the covers pulled up to her chin.

“Not me, but it sounds good,” she responded. “Can we have it even if it isn’t ours?” she asked in her serious but joking tone. The steward looked a bit baffled, not knowing what to do. Fortunately, at that moment, Charles stepped out of his room.

“I ordered that,” he announced. “Just take it into that room.” Turning to Sarah, he asked, “May I join you ladies for breakfast?”

“What can I say, since you provided the food?” she teased. The steward placed the food on their table and Charles returned to his room to get a third chair. While he was gone, Sophie slipped on her robe, and the three had a cozy breakfast of bacon and eggs served with Belgium waffles piled high with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Twenty minutes later, the steward returned with a second pot of hot coffee.

“Delicious,” Sarah swooned, licking her fingers when she finished. Charles smiled at her lovingly and Sophie reached over and snatched Sarah’s neglected bacon.

“What’s up for today?” Sophie asked as she bit into the bacon.

“I’m free until about 1:30. That’s my machine quilting class.”

“I thought you were already quilting by machine,” Sophie said, looking confused.

“I’ve been piecing. That’s the step where you sew the pieces together to make the quilt top. Quilting is the step where you sew through all the layers to keep them together.”

“What layers?” Sophie asked. Sarah was encouraged to see Sophie sounding interested in the process.

“The pieced top, the backing, and the batting in the middle.”

“Humph.” Sophie said as she reached for Sarah’s last piece of bacon, clearly finished with the conversation about quilts.

“So what are we going to do this morning?” Charles asked.

“I want to finish off some hand stitching, but I can carry that with me. What would you like to do, Sophie?”

“I want to go to the casino,” she announced with a flair. “I feel lucky today.”

“Let’s do it!” Sarah responded. “That sounds like fun.”

Charles moved the cart into the hall and took his chair back to his room. Sticking his head back in the room he asked, “How much time do you ladies need?”

“We need to take showers and slip into our casino attire. How about we meet you in an hour?” Sarah suggested.

“Perfect. I have some emails to deal with, so tap on my door when you’re ready,” Charles said as he left the room.

Sarah briefly wondered whom Charles was emailing but didn’t ask. In fact, Charles had previously sent a request to his old lieutenant, Matthew Stokely, asking him to run a check on Elwood Knowles. At breakfast, he made a decision to throw Jeffrey Worme into the mix, primarily to make sure Sophie wasn’t getting into anything that might backfire on her. He wasn’t really worried; he saw Worme as simply a buffoon, but he had a bad feeling about Knowles.

Charles was pleased to see he already had a response from Stokely.

Hey, Charlie!

You are supposed to be vacationing! What’s with this Knowles request of yours? I ran it, and this is one boring guy. No record, no warrants, no traffic tickets—nothing of any interest. It seems he worked for an insurance company for a number of years, quit about five years ago, and has been working part-time at Branson’s Hardware in Hamilton since then. Boring, as I said. Nothing on his wife at all except they’ve been married forever. So, what’s this all about?

—Matt

Matt,

I have no idea why I’m asking about this guy. Gut feeling. You know how that is. I just don’t like the guy and he is hiding something. I guess I should just ignore it. But you know me. Which brings me to my second request. There’s this guy who seems to have taken an interest in Sarah’s friend, Sophie. I don’t have any reason to mistrust the guy but, again, guts. His name is Jeffrey Worme from somewhere back East … New Hampshire, I think. Would you take a look? Then I’ll leave you alone and enjoy my vacation.

—Charles

 

Later that morning, the three travelers were sitting at adjoining slot machines and lamenting their losses. “Whose silly idea was this anyway?” Sophie complained. But at that moment bells rang and whistles blew—Sophie hit a jackpot! Stewards and fellow gamblers came running. Sophie jumped up and down waving her arms crying, “I did it! I did it!” Charles noticed that Jeffrey was immediately at her side, joining in the celebration.

As it turned out, it was a relatively small jackpot, but Sophie talked like she was “in the money.” She strutted around without the use of her cane telling strangers how she did it, taking full credit for what most would say was the luck of the draw. “I knew that machine was a winner! I knew it the minute I laid eyes on it!” she bragged.

Sophie was eager to cash out and have the actual dollars in her hands. She was devastated when they told her it had been credited to her account. “It’s on your Sea Card, Sophie,” Charles assured her, but she was very disappointed.

“I wanted to hold it,” she whined. Jeffrey stayed close by, putting his arm around her and attempting to reassure her. Charles was glad he had sent the request through to Matt.

When Charles returned to his room later that day, Matt had sent a short note.

Charlie,

Are you sure you got the guy’s name right? There is no record on him anywhere. Perhaps this is the guy to keep your eye on; forget about the boring Elwood.

—Matt

* * * * *

“Hi, I’m Sandy McFarland.” Sarah raised her head, realizing she was bent over the machine with her head practically touching it. She had noticed the young girl sitting at the next machine earlier. She had been machine quilting much faster than Sarah and seemed to already know what she was doing.

“I’m Sarah Miller. You are really good at this! I noticed your machine just flying along and …” Sarah looked over at Sandy’s work more closely. “… and you are doing an incredible job! Surely you didn’t just learn, did you?”

Sandy laughed. “Actually, I’ve had three machine quilting classes before this one, but this is the first time I was able to do it. It just all came together for me suddenly.”

“I’m having a terrible time,” Sarah complained. “I just don’t seem to get it. What’s your secret?”

“I think it started working for me after I relaxed. My shoulders were up around my ears and my whole body was stiff. When Delores said to shake out all the tension and just relax, it started to work for me. See what I did here? I actually wrote my name!” she said proudly.

Sarah made an attempt to relax her body but noticed that as she approached the project she tensed up again. “Try the quilting gloves,” Sandy suggested. Sarah put the rubber-tipped gloves on and started again, but this time trying to stay conscious of her body. Every few minutes she would need to tell herself again to relax as her shoulders crept up and her arms squeezed into her body.

“Relax,” Sarah said quietly to herself. “Just relax.” Suddenly she realized she was actually doing it. Once she found that she could guide the material around under the needle, she started to feel more confident. She stopped to look at her work and realized there were many things to remember. She had relaxed but forgot to control the stitch length. They varied from very tiny to almost an inch long!

Delores stopped at Sarah’s machine and asked, “How’s it going, Sarah?”

“Well, I managed to get the material to move under the needle just the way I wanted it to, but now I see my stitches are terrible! What am I doing wrong?” she asked.

“You aren’t doing a thing wrong, Sarah. You have the idea. From this point on, it’s just practice. You will eventually begin to move your fabric at a steady rhythm, and you will find your rhythm, I promise. Sometimes I hum and sway just a little bit looking for that rhythm. Let me see you try it.”

Sarah started sewing and humming a slow waltz. “Ah! I see the problem,” Delores said softly. “You are going too slowly. You need to speed up the machine and hold it at a steady speed. Try it now but faster.”

Sarah pushed harder on the pedal and held it steady while trying to keep the fabric going under the needle in an orderly fashion. Her stitches were now more even, but she had completely lost control of her design. She had been trying to follow the outline of the flowers printed on the fabric. “You aren’t going to believe this, Sarah, but you are doing great! It will just take practice.”

“That’s just what Sandy said. I had hoped to quilt the wallhanging I’ve been working on with Stephanie, but …”

Delores interrupted, “… let that go. That’s just added pressure. Relax and practice. And after you get home, make yourself a pile of sandwiches ready to quilt and pile them by the machine. Whenever you get a chance, practice. Okay?”

“Yes, Delores. Thank you.” After Delores walked away, Sarah turned to Sandy and whispered, “Sandwiches?”

“She just means two pieces of fabric with batting in the middle. Just do small ones from your scraps and have them ready so you can practice for a few minutes whenever you’re on the machine.”

Sarah continued working on this new skill, hoping to see some improvement. By the end of the class, she had to admit that her work was already improving.

As she was leaving the work area, Sarah spotted a woman whom she had met in her appliqué class. “Hi,” she called. “What’s that you’re working on?”

The woman held up the block, and Sarah raised both hands to her cheeks. “How charming!” Sarah cried. The block was an adorable little girl wearing a dress, an apron, and a huge bonnet that covered her face, all appliquéd onto a background piece. “Is this a wallhanging?” Sarah asked.

“No, this is little Sunbonnet Sue. I’m going to make twelve of these blocks in different fabrics and use them to make a baby quilt for my new granddaughter,” she said proudly. The woman reached for her tote bag and pulled out a picture that had been carefully placed right on the top.

“Oh, she’s adorable! And this quilt will be perfect for her. What are these fabrics? They look like fabrics that were in the quilts my mother made when I was a little girl.”

“These are 1930s reproduction fabrics. Aren’t they sweet?”

“I wonder if I can still get into that class. I would love to make one for my granddaughter.”

“Oh!” the woman responded enthusiastically. “You have a granddaughter, too!”

“Well, not yet. My son, Jason, and his new wife are expecting their first baby later this year. This would be such a perfect quilt for her.”

“Oh, it’s a girl! This would be just right!”

After leaving the workshop, Sarah didn’t want to go directly back to the room. She went out on the deck and noticed a deck chair that had been pulled away from the others and offered a bit of privacy. She decided to sit down and relax in the late afternoon sun. Her thoughts went to her son, Jason, and his son, Arthur. Arthur would have been eighteen this year, she realized. The seven years since his death had been hard on the whole family.

At eleven, Arthur had been full of energy and often rode for hours on his bike through the trails in the woodland park behind their house. On that tragic day, he had ridden his bike to his friend Marty’s house, and the two boys headed for the park. A white sports car came careening around the corner without stopping at the sign. Two witnesses who were in their front yards saw the car and the boys. One man yelled, “Watch out!” but it was too late. The car struck Arthur head-on and he was killed instantly. It grazed the other boy, causing him to fly off his bike and land near Arthur’s body. By the time the neighbors reached them, Marty was laying across Arthur crying and pleading for him to get up. It took two men to pull Marty off of Arthur’s body. “Help my friend! Help my friend!” he screamed hysterically. Tears ran down Sarah’s cheeks as she recalled the details told to her by the neighbor.

Jason was devastated, of course, but his wife, Joyce, blamed herself and sank into a deep depression. She withdrew from family and friends and spent most of her time in her darkened room. She refused treatment, saying she didn’t deserve to live. Jason and Joyce continued to live their silent life, together yet apart. Five years after Arthur’s death, Joyce told Jason she was moving to San Antonio to live with her family. He asked if she wanted a divorce, and she said she didn’t care. She left the next week without fanfare. She was just gone one day when he came home from work.

Three years later, Jason filed for divorce. He began dating a young woman from his office, but it took another year before he introduced her to the family. He had continued to live in the house he and Joyce had shared. One weekend, he invited Sarah and Martha, his sister, to a cookout to meet Jennifer. Sarah adored Jennifer, but Martha, who was generally negative about any changes, thought she was too young for Jason. Fortunately, Jason put no stock in Martha’s opinion and he married Jenny a year later. Martha came to the wedding and even helped Sarah plan the rehearsal dinner, but she never made an effort to get to know Jennifer.

The couple decided to sell the house and start married life in a new home. They bought a new split-level home in a development just a few miles from Sarah. When they told Sarah that Jenny was pregnant, Sarah was overjoyed! She pictured herself pushing the stroller through the park with Barney at her side. As she sat on the deck of the ship, Sarah now pictured the baby wrapped in a beautiful Sunbonnet Sue quilt.

Sarah sighed and got up from the deck chair. Life goes on.