Slylvia and Andrew drove east through the foothills of the Rockies toward Golden, Colorado. Andrew had said little about Bob and Cathy since the motor home pulled out of their driveway, as if he preferred to pretend the visit had never occurred. Apparently, despite his concerns about informing his children of their engagement, he had still hoped for a much happier reaction to the news.
She sighed and glanced at her map. The enthusiasm of Sarah and the other Elm Creek Quilters would have to compensate for what Andrew’s children lacked, or their wedding would be a dismal occasion indeed.
“We just passed a sign for Golden,” said Andrew. “Can you direct me from here?”
“Absolutely.” Sylvia had last visited in 1993, when Golden had celebrated its first Quilt Day, but the landmarks were too remarkable to forget. “Just follow the M and the arch.”
“Beg pardon?”
In response, Sylvia smiled and pointed out the window to a large letter M on one of the more prominent mountains. “Head that way, and turn south on Washington.”
Andrew grinned and complied. “Is that M for ‘museum’?”
“I think of it that way, but it’s actually for the Colorado School of Mines.”
They drove into downtown Golden, a charming place that, in Sylvia’s opinion, looked exactly as a Western town should. The distinctive flat-topped mountains in the near distance resembled something straight out of a movie about the Wild West, and Sylvia would not have been surprised to see men on horseback kicking up a cloud of dust as they raced along the slopes.
They passed a statue of Buffalo Bill in the median strip, and just ahead, they spied a sign on an arch over the street. “‘Howdy, Folks,’” Andrew read aloud. “Welcome to Golden, Where the West Lives.’ And to think I left my six-shooter at home.”
“I want you on your best behavior,” scolded Sylvia. “I don’t see why anyone here should help me find my mother’s quilt if you’re going to joke about their town.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” said Andrew meekly, but his eyes twinkled and he tugged at the brim of an imaginary cowboy hat. “I guess this must be the arch you mentioned.”
“It is indeed. The museum entrance is almost directly beneath it. Park wherever you like.”
“You mean wherever I can,” said Andrew. He twisted around in his seat to view the street behind him. “The kids were right about one thing. Sometimes this behemoth is more trouble than it’s worth.”
“Only when you have to parallel park.”
“And when I have to fill up the tank.” Andrew grimaced as he maneuvered the motor home into a place across the street from the museum. “Sometimes I wish I’d settled for a nice SUV.”
They left the motor home and crossed the street hand in hand. They entered through the front double doors and paused in the foyer long enough for Sylvia to help herself to some of the pamphlets in the rack of brochures. Andrew sniffed the air. “Sure doesn’t smell like a museum. Smells like lunch.”
“There’s a Chinese restaurant on the lower level. We could stop by for a bite to eat later.” She smiled slyly and took his arm. “Or we could try the Buffalo Rose.”
“You mean that place a few doors down? From the name, I figured it was a florist.”
Sylvia erupted in peals of laughter. “I don’t think you should tell them that. It’s a biker bar.”
“Chinese sounds good,” said Andrew hastily. He held open the door and ushered her inside.
Sylvia eyed the gift shop with interest as they passed, but she was too eager to find her mother’s quilt to be distracted long. They entered the first gallery and were greeted by two docents, who provided them with brochures about the exhibits and invited them to sign the guest book. “Waterford, Pennsylvania,” one of the women said, reading upside down as Sylvia handed the pen to Andrew. “Did you ever attend the quilt camp there?”
“She’s one of the founders,” said Andrew.
The second woman spun the guest book around, and her eyes lit up at what she read. “You’re Sylvia Compson?”
“She sure is.” Andrew put an arm around her proudly.
“I love your quilt, Sewickley Sunrise,” the second docent said, adding that she had a print of it hanging in her office.
Sylvia and Andrew thanked the docents and moved deeper into the gallery. Andrew trailed after her as Sylvia approached the first quilt, an appliquéd scene of the first moon landing, nearly lifelike in its realism. “I don’t think we’ll find your mother’s quilt here,” said Andrew, and read aloud from the brochure. “‘A retrospective of the works of Colorado quilter Alexandra Grant, age ninety-seven, who used intricate appliqué and surface embellishment to depict the most significant historical events of her lifetime.’ That’s some lifetime. Do you think you’ll still be quilting when you’re that age?”
“God willing,” said Sylvia, and moved on to the next quilt, a collage of images from the civil rights movement, fluid and vividly colored scenes of hope and triumph. Hanging next to it, in stark contrast in monochromatic grays and browns, was a three-panel work depicting the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and rolling hills Sylvia immediately recognized as the countryside of her own beloved state of Pennsylvania. A single bright color illuminated each panel: a brilliant blue sky over the Pentagon, a lush green forest for Pennsylvania, a firefighter in a yellow coat against a background of rubble in Manhattan.
Sylvia could hardly bear to look at it, and at the same time she longed to touch it, to find comfort in the soft fabrics even as the images caused her pain. She reached for Andrew’s hand instead. He held it in both of his, and let her linger a moment longer before drawing her away to the next quilt.
Before long, Sylvia lost herself in the beauty of the quilts and the poetry of their stories. Andrew’s prediction proved true, however, as Sylvia had assumed it would; not even a novice quilter or a very poor historian would have confused Eleanor Lockwood’s pieced New York Beauty quilt with the appliquéd pictorial works of Alexandra Grant. They left the first gallery and went upstairs to the second, although one glance at the sign outside the exhibit indicated they were not likely to find her mother’s quilt there, either.
“‘Agriculture Quilts,’” Sylvia read aloud. “It’s a long shot, but if we have time, I’d prefer to check anyway, if only to be sure.”
“Maybe they have quilts in here that aren’t part of the special exhibit,” said Andrew, escorting her into the gallery. “Besides, if we don’t look, I’ll spend the whole drive home wondering what in the world an Agriculture Quilt is.”
They quickly discovered that Agriculture Quilts were quilts inspired by farming. Some artists had used pictorial quilts to create fabric snapshots of farm life, much as the artist featured in the lower gallery had done for historical events. Others had approached the theme more whimsically, resulting in works such as the Pickle Dish bed quilt pieced from cow print fabrics and the Corn and Beans quilt with the Farmer’s Daughter border. Sylvia’s favorite was an Attic Windows wall hanging pieced from vintage feedsacks. She peered at the quilt closely to study the fabric, then nodded, satisfied that the fabrics were not reproductions. Genuine vintage feedsack fabrics were scarce and highly prized by some collectors, and whenever Sylvia saw the charming works modern quiltmakers had created from the scraps they had found, she remembered with misgivings how many sacks of horse feed must have come to Elm Creek Manor in her childhood. Her thrifty mother would not have simply discarded them, but since she had not cut them up to make quilts as far as Sylvia could recall, Sylvia had no idea what had become of them.
They returned downstairs. Andrew said nothing, but he still held Sylvia’s hand, so she knew he was sorry for her sake that their second lead had turned out no more successfully than their first. “There must be other rooms we haven’t seen,” said Sylvia, unwilling to give up so easily, not after driving so far and hoping for so much.
They returned to the first gallery, where Sylvia showed the docents Summer’s computer illustration of the New York Beauty quilt and asked if they recalled seeing it. To Sylvia’s dismay, the women studied the picture and shook their heads. “Are you certain?” she asked. “A recent visitor to your museum says she saw it here. We already checked the galleries, but might it be somewhere else in the museum?”
The docents exchanged a look, and Sylvia could see they were reluctant to disappoint her. “It’s not in any of the staff offices,” said the first docent, “or in the classroom. Did you ask in the gift shop? We do sell some antique quilts. Your friend might have seen it there, although I know it isn’t there now.”
Sylvia nearly gasped. “You mean it might have been here—but was sold?”
“Most likely not,” said the second docent quickly. “We’ll ask Opal. She’s been with the museum since its founding. If your quilt has ever been here, she’ll know.”
Sylvia nodded, but as the docent led them back upstairs to the museum’s administrative office, she envisioned a clerk closing a cash register and handing a satisfied customer the New York Beauty in a plastic bag. How on earth would she find it then?
Opal turned out to be a cheerful, curly haired woman who greeted them warmly and listened with interest to Sylvia’s explanation about her search for her mother’s missing quilts. “Your Internet correspondent says she saw your quilt here?” asked Opal, accepting the picture Andrew handed her.
“She did, but unfortunately, she didn’t say when.”
Opal studied the illustration, shook her head, and returned the paper to Sylvia. “It’s not one of ours. We never sold a quilt resembling this one in our quilt shop, and I know we don’t have it in storage.”
“Storage?”
“Why, yes. We have more than two hundred and fifty quilts in our permanent collection, and when we aren’t displaying them, we keep them in protected storage.”
“If you don’t mind, could we please look for ourselves?” asked Sylvia. “I don’t mean to be a bother, but if there’s any chance you might have my mother’s quilt, I would kick myself later for not asking.”
Opal smiled sympathetically. “Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. Ordinarily, we don’t even open this room to the public, but I think we can make an exception for the founder of Elm Creek Quilts.”
She led them next door to a locked room. Inside the air was cool and dry, and along one wall Sylvia discovered shelves and shelves of quilts, each wound around a long carpet roll and wrapped in a clean cotton sheet. “Oh, dear,” said Sylvia. “I suppose looking at these quilts would be more difficult than I thought.”
“I’m afraid so,” said Opal. “But I’ve been through this collection many times, and I know we don’t have any in the New York Beauty pattern. I would definitely remember such a striking quilt.”
She offered to post pictures of the New York Beauty on their announcements board in case any of their other visitors had seen it. Perhaps, she suggested, Sylvia’s Internet correspondent had seen the New York Beauty elsewhere in the area and was mistaken only in regard to the specific location. Sylvia appreciated the thread of hope, however thin, and gratefully gave Opal illustrations of all five quilts.
“Strike two,” said Sylvia as she and Andrew returned downstairs.
“Don’t get too discouraged,” said Andrew. “We make progress with every lead we follow, even if the trail doesn’t seem to go anywhere.”
“I won’t feel like we’re making progress until we find one of the quilts.”
Andrew chuckled. “Come on. I’ll cheer you up at the gift shop.”
Sylvia raised her eyebrows at him, but allowed him to steer her into the QuiltMarket. She had enjoyed exploring the museum despite the unsuccessful search, but she wasn’t about to tell him so. If he wanted to console her with a present, it wouldn’t be right to spoil his fun.
By the time they reached Iowa several days later, Sylvia had read her new book on the Agriculture Quilts exhibit from cover to cover twice, and Summer had received nine more responses from the Missing Quilts Home Page. None of these new sightings were on the route home to Pennsylvania, however, which suited Sylvia just fine. After their disappointments in Boulder City and Golden, she and Andrew had decided that it would be wiser to contact future prospects by phone first to rule out obvious false leads rather than put so many extra miles on the motor home for nothing more than another dead end.
But since they were driving through Iowa, anyway, they saw no reason not to turn north at Des Moines and investigate a promising e-mail message sent by the proprietor of Brandywine Antiques in Fort Dodge. Not only had he seen an Ocean Waves quilt fitting Sylvia’s description, he actually had it in his possession.
“He inherited the business from his grandfather,” said Sylvia as they paused at a gas station to fill up the tank and purchase a map of the city. “His grandparents used to travel to Pennsylvania to buy Amish quilts, but they bought others, too, and he believes this Ocean Waves quilt might have originated in Pennsylvania.”
“Why would they go all the way to Pennsylvania for Amish quilts?” said Andrew. “There are Amish communities much closer.”
“Perhaps he had a fondness for Lancaster. I certainly do.”
“Well, sure, but you’re from Pennsylvania. Why would an antique shop be interested in new Amish quilts, anyway?”
“Heavens, Andrew, how should I know? Perhaps they bought antique Amish quilts. You’ll have to ask—” She glanced at her notes. “You’ll have to ask this George K. Robinson when we arrive.”
Andrew shrugged and said he might do just that.
They located the street on the map and, with slightly more difficulty, found it in the city as well, but the shop itself eluded them. “3057 Brandywine Drive,” said Sylvia, checking her notes. “Perhaps I wrote down the wrong number.”
“Could be. This strip mall is the entire 3000 block, and I don’t see a sign for Brandywine Antiques.”
Neither did Sylvia, and they had passed the strip mall three times. Andrew drove the entire length of the street once, and again, scanning every sign and building they passed, but they could not find it. They did discover one antique shop, but not only was it not the one they were searching for, the owner claimed there were no other antique shops in that part of town.
“Of course he would say that,” said Sylvia as Andrew helped her back into the motor home. “He doesn’t want us to visit the competition.”
She didn’t really believe that, and she knew Andrew didn’t either when he suggested they return to the strip mall and inquire at whatever business occupied 3057 Brandywine Drive. If they didn’t know where the mysterious antique shop was, Sylvia could phone Summer and verify the address.
They parked in the strip mall lot and strolled the length of the shops. “I hate to think we made this trip for nothing,” Sylvia remarked, when Andrew suddenly stopped in his tracks in front of a Letters et All store.
“This is it.”
“This can’t be it. This is one of those shipping and mailing services.” Then Sylvia understood. “There’s no store. It’s just a mail drop.”
Andrew nodded and pushed the door open.
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” she said, lowering her voice as she followed him inside. “I don’t care how much mail a business receives. It wouldn’t be practical to send someone to pick it up each day instead of having it delivered to the store.”
“Exactly.” Andrew strode up to the queue. “I think you might have been right when you said there is no store.”
Sylvia had no time to reply, for the smiling young woman behind the counter beckoned them forward. “May I help you?”
“I hope so,” said Andrew. “We’re looking for a business called Brandywine Antiques. They gave this place as their address.”
The young woman’s smile vanished. “They must be one of our mail clients.” She nodded to a wall of metal post office boxes on the opposite wall.
“We need to find the shop itself,” said Sylvia. “Do you have another address?”
The young woman glanced at a middle-aged gentleman behind the counter. He had not appeared to be listening, but he looked up at Sylvia’s question and said, “I’m sorry. We can’t give out any personal information about our clients. It’s a corporate privacy policy.”
“We aren’t asking for personal information,” said Andrew, “just the address of a business.”
“I’m very sorry, folks.” He looked past them to the next customer in line. “May I help you?”
Andrew scowled, and the young woman gave them a look of helpless apology. “Come along, Andrew,” murmured Sylvia, taking his arm. “We haven’t hit our dead end yet.”
They left the shop and retraced their steps until they came to a pay telephone Sylvia remembered passing earlier. They searched the weathered telephone book, but Brandywine Antiques was not listed in either the yellow pages or the alphabetical business directory. “I suppose it’s time to call home,” said Sylvia, digging into her purse for change. “Perhaps Summer said Fort Dodge, Indiana, or Ohio. Or maybe the city—”
Andrew placed a hand on her shoulder. “Hold on. I think I see help coming.”
Sylvia followed his line of sight and discovered the young woman from Letters et All hurrying toward them, glancing furtively over her shoulder. “Here,” she said, and handed Sylvia a scrap of paper. “The owner of the box gave this as his address. Just please don’t tell anyone where you got this. I could get fired.”
Sylvia glimpsed a hastily scrawled address. “Are you sure, dear?”
She nodded. “This is the third time senior citizens have asked about him in two weeks. I think he’s up to something, and I don’t like it.”
“Thanks very much, miss,” said Andrew. “We appreciate your help—and we can keep a secret.”
The young woman gave them a quick smile and dashed back to the store.
Sylvia studied the address. “Well, Andrew? Do you feel like playing detective?”
Within minutes they were back on the road, following their map away from the business district into a residential area. When they stopped in front of a two-story colonial house on a pleasant, tree-lined street adjacent to a park, Sylvia shook her head in disbelief. “I suppose our Mr. Robinson might run the business out of his home.”
Andrew snorted, skeptical.
A woman who looked to be in her late forties answered the doorbell, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“Oh, dear, I hope we didn’t interrupt your supper,” said Sylvia, giving the woman her most disarming smile.
“Oh no, my son isn’t even home from school yet,” she assured them. “He’s a junior at the local college. Is there something I can help you with?”
“I hope so. We’re looking for Brandywine Antiques.”
The woman looked puzzled. “Brandywine Antiques? There’s a Brandywine Drive near the mall...”
“Yes, we’re quite familiar with that,” said Sylvia. “I don’t suppose you know a George K. Robinson?”
Behind them, a car pulled into the driveway. Sylvia and Andrew turned to see a bushy-haired young man in baggy clothes climbing out of a bright blue hatchback.
“I’m afraid I don’t,” said the woman. “My son might. He has me at my wit’s end most of the time, but he does know the neighborhood.”
“Hey, Mom, did I get any mail?” he called, sauntering up the front walk.
“Two packages on the hall table. Jason, do you know the Robinson family?”
“Who?” he asked, brushing past Sylvia and Andrew on his way to the front door.
“These nice people who you didn’t even say hello to are looking for someone named George Robinson.”
“George K. Robinson, to be precise,” said Sylvia.
“Or his company, Brandywine Antiques,” Andrew added.
Jason froze. “Never heard of him. Or—or it. That company. Whatever you called it.”
“That’s a shame,” said Sylvia. “Brandywine Antiques is supposed to have a quilt that belonged to my mother, and we were willing to spend quite a lot of money for it.”
Sylvia and Andrew bid his mother good-bye and turned to go.
“Just a sec,” said Jason, with a furtive glance at his mother as he followed them down the stairs. “I do all my business over the Internet, see? You can only buy my stuff through AsIsAuctions dot com. I don’t have a storefront yet.”
“What?” his mother said. “Since when are you an antiques dealer?”
“You told me to get a job,” protested Jason. He turned a pleading gaze on Andrew and Sylvia and lowered his voice. “I’m saving up money to buy a store, but until then, I’m running my business out of the house. Really. What was it you said you were interested in again?”
“A quilt,” said Andrew, loud enough for Jason’s mother to hear. “The pattern’s called Ocean Waves. It’s made up of lots of blue and white triangles.”
Jason nodded, but before he could reply, his mother called, “You mean that raggedy old thing you got at the Hixtons’ garage sale?”
Jason managed a weak grin. “You’d be surprised where great finds turn up.”
“Great finds? That’s no antique. Mr. Hixton’s mother made that quilt, and you know it. I heard her tell you myself.”
Jason held up his hands, begging Sylvia and Andrew not to leave. “Let me just run inside and get a contract. Once you sign that, I can show you the quilt.”
He hurried back up the stairs, but his mother blocked the doorway with her arm before he could duck past. “Sign a contract before they see what they’re buying?” Her eyes narrowed. “Just what kind of business are you running, anyway?”
With his mother’s help, Sylvia and Andrew eventually dragged the truth from him.
The young man had indeed been running a business out of the house—a shady business Sylvia considered to be just this side of fraud. He trolled Internet Web sites such as the Missing Quilts Home Page and eBay to find potential customers. With a list of the desired items in hand, he rummaged through garage sales and flea markets until he found similar products. Then he would contact the potential customer with the good news that he might have what they were looking for. “The key word is ‘might,’” said Jason, glancing from his mother to Sylvia and Andrew apprehensively. “All my sales were through AsIsAuctions. They clearly state in their service agreement that all items for sale are as is. It’s the buyer’s responsibility to inspect the item in person if they want. All sales are final, so you can’t get a refund unless you never get your product or you can prove the seller lied about it.”
“You certainly lied to us about this quilt,” declared Sylvia.
“I didn’t lie.” Jason turned to his mother and quickly added, “I didn’t.”
Andrew frowned. “You said you believed this quilt might have come from Pennsylvania.”
“Exactly. I said ‘might.’ That also means it might not have come from Pennsylvania.”
“But you knew for a fact that it did not,” exclaimed Sylvia. “And what about your alias, George K. Robinson? There is no such person.”
“Everybody uses fake names on the Internet. It’s for personal privacy, that’s all.”
“Young man,” said Sylvia, shaking her head, “you have such a gift for double-talk I’m sure you’re destined for a career in politics.”
Andrew folded his arms and regarded Jason sternly. “If you’re such an honest dealer, why did you pretend to know nothing about Brandywine Antiques?”
Jason hesitated. “I didn’t want my mom to get mad. I knew she wouldn’t want me to run a business out of the house.”
“A business I could handle,” said his mother sharply. “A scam, on the other hand . . .” She shook her head and gave Sylvia and Andrew an appraising look. “The question is, what are we going to do about this?”
Sylvia was reluctant to involve the police, but she and Andrew were both resolute that Jason should not be allowed to perpetrate his scheme any longer. They also insisted that he make restitution for any past customers he might have deceived and write every one of them a letter of apology.
“Oh, he’ll do that, all right,” said his mother. “If I have to stand over him while he writes every word.”
They all agreed that Jason should be denied access to the Internet at least until his obligations to his customers were fulfilled, and that AsIsAuctions must be informed. If all those measures were followed, Sylvia and Andrew would be satisfied, and they would not press charges.
“Do you think that’s enough?” Sylvia asked Andrew as they resumed their journey east.
“Nothing short of shutting down this AsIsAuctions place would be enough for me,” said Andrew. “They’re just as guilty as he is. But I guess this will have to be enough unless we want to have Jason prosecuted for fraud.”
“He’s just a boy. I hate to ruin his life when all we lost was a few hours of our time and the cost of gasoline.”
“We wouldn’t be ruining his life. He did it to himself. And I don’t know how we can rely on his mother to punish him when she didn’t even know what was going on under her own roof.”
The harshness in Andrew’s tone surprised Sylvia. “She seemed furious. I’m sure she’ll see to it he can’t swindle anyone else.”
Andrew shook his head. “Remember what the girl from the mailbox place said? This is the third time seniors have asked about Brandywine Antiques. Jason’s targeting old folks, and that shows calculation and contempt. He’s a crook, Sylvia. A young crook, but still a crook, and he’s just going to get worse. Mark my words.”
Sylvia did not know what to say. They drove on in silence until they stopped for the night, just west of the Illinois border.
Two days later they arrived in Silver River, Indiana, just outside Fort Wayne, to pursue the last of Summer’s Internet leads between them and Elm Creek Manor. Although he didn’t complain, Sylvia knew Andrew just wanted to get the visit over with and go home. She could hardly blame him. Her anticipation had lessened with each dead end. She might have considered abandoning the search altogether if not for a sense of duty to her mother—and if not for her proud proclamations that she would not give up the search until every lead had been followed to its end.
“At least they’re expecting us this time,” Sylvia said as Andrew drove through town, keeping an eye out for the Niehauses’ street. Sylvia had phoned them the previous night, for while it was perfectly acceptable to stop by a museum or antique shop unannounced, she would not dream of intruding on a private residence that way. Mona Niehaus herself had answered the phone, and when Sylvia explained they were in the area, Mona invited them to come see the quilt for themselves. Her description sounded so much like Sylvia’s mother’s Crazy Quilt that Sylvia allowed herself to hope their luck would take a turn for the better here.
They parked in front of a sky-blue Victorian house with a white picket fence and a minivan in the driveway. In the front yard, a sudden gust of wind rustled the boughs of a pair of maple trees, sending a flurry of brilliant gold and orange leaves dancing to the ground. Dried cornstalks adorned a black lamppost in front of the house, and on the wraparound porch stood a white stone goose dressed in blaze orange and camouflage, a wooden duck decoy propped up against its booted feet. It was such a typically idyllic autumn scene that Sylvia would have been thoroughly charmed if not for their sojourn in Fort Dodge.
“Reminds me of Jason’s house,” remarked Andrew, echoing her own thoughts.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Sylvia, unfastening her seat belt. “His house was brick, and they had no picket fence.”
She spoke mostly for her own benefit, however, and tried to prepare herself for the worst as they climbed the porch stairs and rang the doorbell. A boy of about seven opened the door halfway and greeted them in a very formal manner. When they asked for Mona Niehaus, he said, “She’s my grandma.” At that moment, a girl about two years younger peeped shyly around the door. “I’ll get her.”
“Thank you, darling, but I’m right here.” The door opened all the way, and a tall, thin woman with salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a batik scarf stood before them. Silver bracelets jingled as she placed her hands on the children’s shoulders and steered them back into the house. “You must be Sylvia and Andrew. I’m so pleased you could come.”
She welcomed them into the living room, where the two children played with a jumble of unrelated toys in the center of a woven rug. Sylvia took the seat Mona offered, an overstuffed armchair with legs shaped like lion’s feet, and glanced about the room for the quilt. She saw heavily embroidered pillows on the sofa, all manner of candles on the mantel, and framed photographs and other eclectic pieces covering so much of the walls that she could barely see the flowered wallpaper behind them. She saw no quilts.
Mona excused herself and returned with a tray. “Please help yourselves,” she said as she placed the tea and sandwiches on the coffee table and hurried back out. In a moment they heard the creaking of footsteps on stairs.
Sylvia and Andrew exchanged bemused looks, but Andrew shrugged and piled several sandwiches on a plate. Sylvia knew she was too nervous to hold a teacup, so she merely sat fidgeting in her chair, watching the children play. “No, the engine goes in here,” the little boy told the girl, handing her a small wooden block, but what sort of vehicle the engine was meant to propel, Sylvia had no idea.
Before long they heard footsteps again, and then Mona returned with something draped over her arm. “This is the quilt I contacted you about,” she said, unfolding it carefully. “I hope it’s the right one. It would be a shame if you came all this way for nothing.”
“We were passing by on our way home from California anyway,” Andrew said, but Sylvia merely nodded. Involuntarily, she straightened in her chair and held her breath.
Mona held up the quilt, and Sylvia was struck speechless.
“As you can see, it definitely is a Crazy Quilt.” Mona regarded Sylvia inquisitively, awaiting a response. “And it has the identifying marks you listed on the Web site. Although some of the stitches have come out, you can still see an embroidered spiderweb in this corner. Here is the appliquéd horseshoe, and if I’m not mistaken, this patch here is from a linen handkerchief. Do you see the monogrammed ALC?”
“Sylvia?” prompted Andrew.
“That’s it,” said Sylvia. “That’s my mother’s quilt.”
“How wonderful,” exclaimed Mona. She draped the quilt over Sylvia’s lap. “I hoped it would be. You must be thrilled.”
Sylvia hesitated before touching the delicate fabrics, as if they would dissolve like the memory of a dream. She had not seen her mother’s Crazy Quilt in more than fifty years. The colors were not as bright as she remembered, and some of the fabrics had unraveled so that only the embroidery stitches held the quilt together, but she did not remember when she had ever seen anything so lovely.
“Mona,” she said, “I am so far beyond thrilled that I don’t think they’ve invented a word to describe how I’m feeling.”
Mona clasped her hands together and beamed. “I couldn’t be happier for you. And to think, I never would have known to contact you except for my daughter-in-law.” She indicated the children with a proud nod. “Their mother.”
“She’s a dentist,” the boy piped up. “Grandma plays with us when she works.”
“Yes, and we have a lovely time, don’t we?” Mona turned back to Sylvia. “She’s a quilter, and she heard about the Missing Quilts Home Page at her guild meeting. When she read the description of your lost Crazy Quilt, she immediately recognized mine.”
Sylvia felt a pang at Mona’s last word, though she was right to use it. The quilt did belong to Mona. “I’m very grateful you contacted me,” she said. “I’m also quite curious. How did you come to own it?”
“By a very circuitous route,” said Mona with a laugh. “This quilt has had an eventful life since leaving your household.
“On your way through town, you passed a lovely old brownstone called the Landenhurst Center. It was refurbished into an office building during the eighties, but back in the sixties and seventies, it was a theater for the performing arts. A lovely place, too—velvet curtains, ornate paintings and carvings, two balconies, and private boxes for the local gentry—but the acoustics were far from ideal and the roof leaked, and after the new civic center opened, its time had passed.
“The founders of this theater, Arthur and Christine Landenhurst, were rising stars in vaudeville at a time when vaudeville was going the way of the buggy whip. They traveled from town to town performing their comedy act on a variety of stages—nothing terribly grand, of course, but fame and fortune seemed only the next performance away. They had both been married to other people, people who were not performers and thus did not understand them at all, or so Arthur and Christine thought. They fell passionately in love with each other, and one night, after a particularly successful performance in front of a scout from a New York theater who promised them they could be headliners, they ran off to New York, where they divorced their spouses, married each other, and eagerly anticipated their coming stardom.
“Not long after their arrival, they discovered that the theater this scout worked for was not one of the most prestigious. According to the story, it was one of the seediest in the city. Christine and Arthur needed a year to get out of their contract, and almost another year to find a better one, but that, too, was short-lived. Both tried to find work on Broadway, never managing to get more than bit parts, but they persisted, until one day they realized they were ten years older and not one step closer to becoming headliners than the day they had arrived in New York.
“They must have realized their big breaks might never come, for when Christine was offered a role in a traveling production, she took it, and Arthur accompanied her. Eventually he won a part in the cast, too, and together they toured throughout the East Coast and parts of the Midwest, enjoying every minute on stage, but hating the travel and the unpredictability of their profession.
“They were heading West after a performance in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when the train was delayed for repairs. The entire company found themselves stranded in a small town with nothing to do but wait and try to enjoy the unexpected time off. Arthur and Christine decided to explore the quaint shops downtown, which is where they found your mother’s quilt.”
Mona reached for the quilt, and Sylvia reluctantly allowed her to take hold of one edge. “They bought it, of course,” said Mona, regarding the quilt with amused fondness. She nodded to the patch cut from a linen handkerchief. “Actors are notoriously superstitious, and when they saw the monogram—the same as their own, ALC for Arthur and Christine Landenhurst—they saw it as an omen of change. I imagine they were ready to give up the road anyway, but finding this quilt gave them the push they needed. So they resumed their journey with the company and waited for another sign.
“The production was in its final week in South Bend when the sign finally came. A childhood friend of Arthur’s had driven all the way from Fort Wayne, where he was a college professor, to see the couple’s performance. As it happened, this friend was in a position to offer Arthur a job as a drama teacher. Arthur accepted, and so he and Christine moved to Fort Wayne.”
“Arthur became a drama professor at the college?” asked Andrew.
“Well, not exactly. The job was at the local high school. But there Arthur discovered a love for teaching, as did Christine, who became a music instructor and vocal coach. Eventually they joined the college faculty, and wouldn’t you know it, their acting careers finally took off. They both made numerous appearances in university theater productions, and later, they became quite popular hosts of a local television variety show. They founded the Landenhurst Theater here in Silver River, where they made their home, and they were very well regarded as patrons of the arts and pillars of the community.”
“They sound like very interesting people,” said Sylvia. Suddenly she didn’t mind quite so much that they had owned her mother’s quilt. They had purchased it honestly enough, and by its appearance, they had cared for it properly.
“That explains how it ended up in Silver River, Indiana,” said Andrew, “but not how you became its owner.”
“Oh yes. Please go on,” said Sylvia. “Are you related to the Landenhursts?”
“No, but my husband was acquainted with them. Arthur Landenhurst died in 1984, and Christine passed away two years later. They had no children, and except for a modest percentage for the general scholarship fund at the college, they left their estate to a trust to help fund the Landenhurst Theater in perpetuity. Most of their possessions were sold to establish this trust, but others— their substantial collection of costumes and musical scores, for example, autographed photos and scripts from actors they had met, various items that seemed to have little fiscal worth but could be used as distinctive stage props—those remained in the theater, in the safekeeping of the theater board.
“Regrettably, after some time, the theater ran into financial problems, which were augmented, I’m sad to say, by the board’s poor management of their finances. The board held an auction of the Landenhurst’s remarkable collections in an attempt to shore up the trust, but they held off their troubles for only a few more years.” Mona sighed and gathered up the quilt, and Sylvia forced herself not to cling to it. “The theater sold to a business development group. At first there were some sporadic protests from local preservationists who wanted the building to remain a theater, but even they realized it would cost a fortune to bring it up to modern standards.” Mona stroked the quilt. “I have wonderful memories of that theater. Now all that remains is its name, most of its original exterior, and those belongings of the Landenhursts that were sold at auction.”
“The Crazy Quilt was one of those?” asked Sylvia.
Mona smiled. “Yes. It was a prop in numerous plays over the years—Little Women and Arsenic and Old Lace, among others. It was also used in You Can’t Take It with You, in which my eldest son appeared. He went on to become a theater major at Yale, and now he’s a director.”
“I can see why you wanted to keep this quilt as a memento,” remarked Andrew.
“Well, everyone around here knows the legend of how the Landenhursts came to Silver River, but only a few know the story of this particular quilt, or I suspect the bidding would have gone far beyond my reach.”
“How did you happen to hear the story?” asked Sylvia, with a sudden fear that Mona’s tale might be no more than hearsay.
“My late husband was a lawyer,” said Mona. “He was also, at one time, a member of the theater board. When Arthur and Christine updated their will to create the Landenhurst Trust, my husband met frequently with them and their counsel. They shared quite a few stories of how they came by certain items of great sentimental value.” She gave Sylvia a long look of understanding. “I suppose the only person who valued this quilt more than they did would be you.”
Sylvia tried to smile. “In my case, ‘sentimental value’ would be an extreme understatement.”
“That’s why although I might own it, it truly belongs to you. To me it will never be more than a beautiful object d’art, a fond remembrance of pleasant occasions and two people I greatly admired. To you, every piece of fabric, every stitch, every thread contains a memory of your family, of your mother. This quilt is a part of you in a way it will never be a part of me, however attached to it I might have become.” She smiled. “That’s why you are the only person I could conceivably sell it to.”
Sylvia felt a catch in her throat. “You would let me buy it?”
Mona appeared to consider it for a moment, and then she shrugged. “For what I paid for it, and oh, perhaps a little something extra.”
“I expect you to make a fair profit, of course.” Sylvia worried far less that the price would be out of her reach than that Mona might change her mind.
“That’s not what I mean,” said Mona. “Did I mention my daughter-in-law is a quilter?”
Sylvia and Andrew began the last leg of their journey home, their spirits light. Sylvia rarely let the quilt out of her hands. She could still hardly believe that Mona had been willing to part with it for the few hundred dollars she had spent at the Landenhurst auction and the promise of a free week at camp for her daughter-in-law. “I hope you offer classes in making Crazy Quilts,” said Mona wistfully as they parted. “Perhaps you can encourage her to make me a replacement.”
“I’ll do my best,” promised Sylvia, although they both knew nothing could replace this particular quilt.
As they drove east to Pennsylvania and Elm Creek Manor, the precious quilt on Sylvia’s lap, she could laugh at all her worries of the past few weeks. Her disappointment over the earlier false leads suddenly seemed insignificant. Even Bob’s and Cathy’s lack of enthusiasm for the news of their engagement no longer troubled her quite as much as before.
Cradling her mother’s legacy in her arms, she renewed her resolve to search out the remaining four quilts wherever the trail would take her. Now that she had found one, nothing could dissuade her from pursuing every lead. Nothing could diminish her high hopes, not after the impossible had come to pass.
Nothing, she thought, until they arrived home at Elm Creek Manor and found Andrew’s daughter waiting for them.