During the next week, my daily talks with Josh were more somber. I listened to his stories of working extra hours and staying up later to finish his homework. But now my feelings of responsibility were mixed with anger that Josh had lied to me about the sleepover party. I hadn’t yet told him I knew about the lie, because it was a discussion I didn’t want to have on the phone.

As I expected, the weekends were lonely. I agreed to babysit both weekend nights while Josh was grounded, and in exchange, Rachel reduced my debt. After the children were in bed on one of those nights, boredom felt like it had climbed inside my body. I watched television for a while, but the shows seemed to have the same tired stories. A boy found himself with two dates for a dance. A woman lost a ring she had borrowed from a friend. A baby was born in an elevator. I turned off the TV and went to my room, looking for something else to fill my time.

I noticed the quilting bag that I had tossed into the closet on the day I arrived. Suddenly, the thought of the close, exacting work of quilting appealed to me. I turned the bag over on my bed, watching the colored fabrics fall into a hushed pile. At home, I had cut the shapes for the Pinwheel Block pattern, and I reached for the plastic bag where I had gathered the triangles and rectangles that would come together into the quilt square. I had chosen two shades of blue, the colors of morning and midnight skies, to provide a soft effect in the center. I liked when colors that are near each other on the color wheel sat beside each other on a quilt. To contrast with the blues, I had chosen burgundy and pink fabrics to bring definition and harmony to the square.

I laid out the pieces as they would be in the quilt square, the dark and light blue triangles alternating in the center, the burgundy around them, and the pink at the corners. I’d always enjoyed this part of quilting, arranging the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle until they reflected the pattern I had chosen, and provided the color balance I was looking for. Satisfied with the way the square looked laid out on my bed, I lifted up two blue triangles from the center of the square and stitched them together so that the alternating colors shimmered.

I continued stitching the shapes together until the quilt block was finished, a twelve-inch square with colors radiating out from blue to burgundy to pink. There was order and balance in the quilt block, with the shapes fitting together and the colors bringing just the right amount of complement and contrast.

I reached for the pattern book, flipping the pages to find the next design I wanted to stitch. The Grecian Square was interesting, and I had always been partial to the Checkerboard Basket. I searched through the cut swatches, organizing them by color and shape. I’d have to cut more shapes tomorrow, I realized. Maybe Janie would like to help me. I’d started helping my mother with her quilting projects when I was Janie’s age.

When Josh called, I settled the phone between my shoulder and ear to keep my hands free. “What’re you doing?” Josh asked.

“I’m quilting,” I said.

I could hear the grin in his voice when he said, “No way!”

“Next time we’re together I’ll show it to you,” I said, rummaging through the fabric to see how many primary colors I had.

“How about next Saturday? My two weeks will be up by then.”

“Good news!” I said, reaching for some pink squares. They would look nice in the Tulip Nine patch. I’d need some light green for the leaves. Josh was saying something, but I didn’t hear him. I was sure I had packed some green fabric. I rummaged to the bottom of the bag until I found it.

“Hello?” Josh said.

“I’m here,” I said, setting aside the pink and green fabric to work on later. “So, next weekend, right?” I tried not to sound distracted, but Tulip Nine is a complicated square.

“Yeah,” said Josh. “And, Eliza?” I waited. His voice sounded hopeful. “I owe you a nice weekend.” I set aside the material so I could listen fully. “I guess we’ll have some things to talk about when we’re together.”

“I guess we will.”

I hung up the phone and started searching for some fabric that would make a good background. The evening hummed along, and I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be bored.

I spent the week quilting, and felt invigorated by the work I’d completed. I had forgotten the satisfaction of finishing a square, of sitting back and looking at the pleasing array of colors and the straight tiny stitches, of placing the squares side by side and imagining what the quilt would look like when it was finished.

I brought my quilting to Aunt Beth’s house on Sunday, and we stitched together after dinner, talking animatedly about color values and pattern arrangements as our needles rose and fell. In the late afternoons, when Janie’s homework was done, I helped her measure and trace the shapes, and cut them carefully so the edges were neat and straight.

Quilting was always waiting for me when Ben and Janie were at school and my list of chores was checked off, or at night after the children went to bed. By the time the weekend came around, I had finished the twelve squares I needed for the quilt top. Aunt Beth took me to the quilting store on Saturday to buy the batting that would provide the soft cushion between the quilt squares and the backing. My date with Josh would be later that night, and I was surprised to realize how quickly our time apart had gone by.

It had to be a cheap date, Josh had explained; just coffee and dessert at the Bean Scene. I wore blue jeans and a pink sweater, and I let my hair hang loose over my shoulders. When I answered the door, he was waiting there with a smile that was a little bit shy. His hug was warm and tight, the way it used to be, and I felt the heat deep inside me. I was still angry, but it was a thinned-out anger, not quite as sharp as it had been two weeks ago.

We walked to the Bean Scene holding hands, the October night cool and fragrant around us. Josh talked about his extra shifts at work and how it wasn’t so bad after all because he was learning so much about the new products. We got to the coffee shop and settled into a corner table, each with a steaming cup of tea and a cookie. He talked about history class and how he was sure Mr. Rozey gave more homework than the other history teacher. He talked about the French teacher he just calls “Madame” and how he wants to spend a semester in Paris when he’s in college. He stopped and looked at me as though for the first time. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been doing all the talking.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I like hearing about your school.” But it wasn’t okay. He was talking about a future I couldn’t have. He said it all so casually, like it was nothing to go to high school and then head on to the university and then hop on a plane and study in Paris. And where would I be during all of this? I took a long sip of tea. I’d been so eager to see him again, but this wasn’t what I was expecting.

“Look,” he said. “I have to explain some things about the dance.”

“I already know.”

“Valerie?” he asked. I nodded. “I was wrong not to tell you about the party. I just really wanted to be with you. And I was afraid if you knew that everyone was sleeping over, you wouldn’t be allowed to stay. So I thought that if you didn’t know…” His voice trailed off. “It sounds pretty lame now that I’m trying to explain it, right?”

I nodded my agreement. “It does sound pretty lame.”

“So, anyway,” he went on, “I’m really sorry for everything. I shouldn’t have lied to you about the party. And I should never have let you get drunk and sick.” He reached for my hand, and I let him take it. “I promise to be a better boyfriend from now on.”

I felt his hand, warm and firm around mine. “Thanks,” I said. Then I remembered my talk with Aunt Beth and Uncle John. “And there were some good parts of the night, you know. I want to remember getting all dressed up and dancing with you.”

He smiled. “So do I.”

“And I don’t want to be mad at you,” I said. He leaned back in his chair, looking grateful. I smiled. “But is it all right for me to be mad at Valerie?”

He picked up his cup and clicked it against mine. “That’s a deal.”

We chewed on our cookies and sipped tea in a comfortable silence for a few minutes. A guitarist was in the corner strumming gentle tunes. Quiet conversations hummed through the place, and I felt peaceful again. Josh broke the silence. “So tell me about what you’ve been up to.”

I couldn’t think of what to say. The colors sang in my quilt squares and I was all caught up on my letters home. But I didn’t think Josh would be interested in any of that. So instead I asked him questions about his friends and his job at the Apple store. And the evening went along just fine.

But not really.

The next weekend we met Greg and Valerie for ice cream. I hadn’t seen her since the afternoon at the Bean Scene, and I felt a wave of nervousness when we slid into the booth while the boys were placing our order. Valerie was fidgety, tugging on her hair.

“So,” she said, as though continuing a conversation, “I guess I owe you an apology.”

I looked back at her, surprised, and waited for her to continue.

“I shouldn’t have made you feel like you got us all into trouble after Homecoming.” She ran her hand through her hair, shaking it with her fingers.

I waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. “Thanks,” I said.

“So, are we okay?”

I thought about “okay.” It was not bad and not good. A teacher wrote “OK” on your homework if you completed it, but she wrote “Good” or “Excellent” if you had done it well. “Yes,” I said. “We’re okay.”

“Good,” she said, smiling.

And I thought, not good, Valerie. Just okay.