A Quilter's Holiday: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel Page 17

  Gwen took in the dark circles beneath the professor’s eyes, her haggard appearance. “Do you want to go somewhere and talk?”

  Victoria hesitated as if she were on the verge of refusing, but then she pressed her lips together and nodded.

  Over coffee at the Commons Coffee House, Victoria quietly and matter-of-factly explained that her elder sister had lymphoma, the same type that had taken the lives of their grandmother, mother, and another sister. The sisters knew that she faced a repeating cycle of illness, treatment, recovery, remission, and recurrence, and unless scientists discovered a breakthrough cure, eventually it would take her life. “The treatment is almost as bad as the disease,” said Victoria, absently stirring her coffee, her gaze far away. “My sister is determined to fight it, but she’s an oncologist at Johns Hopkins and knows better than anyone what she’s in for. But that’s not the worst of it.”

  Gwen dreaded to know what could be worse, but she felt compelled to ask, “What is?”

  Victoria inhaled deeply and raised her coffee cup to her lips. “Her two daughters have been tested and they, too, carry the gene.” She set the cup down and added, almost as an afterthought, “As do I.”

  She wasn’t ill, Victoria hastened to assure her, but despite meditation to help her deal with stress and logical thinking that told her she was statistically more likely to perish in a car accident, sometimes she felt as if she were holding her breath, waiting like Damocles for Dionysius’s sword hanging overhead by a single thread to fall.

  Sick at heart, Gwen promised to do anything she could to help. Victoria thanked her and said she hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. But as her sister’s condition worsened, Victoria more frequently asked Gwen to take over her classes, to discuss her research over the phone instead of meeting in person, and to create exams and writing prompts. “I’m telling myself that I’m giving you valuable experience,” Victoria told her one morning after a week away to settle her sister into a hospice center, “but I know I’m merely rationalizing how badly I’m taking advantage of you.”

  “Not at all,” Gwen assured her. “If it gets to be too much, I’ll tell you, but in the meantime, don’t add any worries about me to the pile. I’m fine.”

  “You’re a remarkable young woman, Gwen,” said Victoria, and her weariness seemed to lift for a moment. “I’m thankful we met.”

  Soon after that meeting, Victoria’s sister passed away.

  Gwen took over Victoria’s classes during the two weeks she spent in Baltimore for her sister’s memorial service and the administration of her estate. A few days after Victoria’s return, Gwen stopped by her office to offer condolences only to find her mentor emptying the contents of a manila envelope on her desk and studying the accompanying letter with bemusement.

  “My sister’s colleagues are creating some sort of memorial patchwork quilt in her honor,” Victoria said, glancing from the letter to a white six-inch square of muslin. “Her friends, family, and colleagues have been invited to contribute a square to a quilt celebrating her life, which they plan to display in the medical school library.”

  “What a wonderful tribute,” said Gwen.

  “Indeed, and I’ll be terribly disappointed to turn down their invitation, but regrettably, I have no idea how to make a quilt block.”

  “It probably doesn’t have to be complicated.” Gwen held out her hand for the letter, and Victoria’s eyebrows rose as she handed it over. “Oh, I see,” said Gwen, reading it through. “You can piece a traditional quilt block if you like, or appliqué shapes and symbols to the muslin, or draw on the fabric with colorfast fabric pens, or any combination thereof. The challenge, I would think, is coming up with an idea.”

  “I gather you’ve quilted before,” remarked Victoria, as Gwen handed back the letter.

  “I picked it up when I was expecting Summer,” Gwen said, thinking of those months in Brown Deer where her mother’s quilting guild, the Brown Does, had been her only friends. As the daughter of a Doe, she had been an honorary Fawn even before she took up the art—probably from birth.

  “Perhaps you could offer me a few tips?” asked Victoria. “I’d prefer to participate if I could.”

  Gwen agreed, and after taking a few days to mull over potential designs, Victoria decided that she wanted to create a design of autumn leaves and acorns, since autumn had been her sister’s favorite season. Gwen invited her to choose rich autumn hues from her fabric stash, showed her the best way to cut appliqué shapes, and demonstrated how to sew them to the white muslin square. Victoria finished the block by embroidering her sister’s name and a verse from her favorite Emily Dickinson poem in the center, a needlework skill she had mastered as a girl.

  “It’s not likely I’ll ever see the finished quilt in person,” Victoria remarked wistfully after she sent her block to her sister’s friends.

  “You could make your own memorial quilt for your sister,” Gwen suggested. When Victoria smiled and pointed out that the one small block had taken her weeks to finish and she could not possibly complete an appliquéd, embroidered version for herself within her lifetime, Gwen offered to teach her to make a traditional Autumn Leaf block, which was mostly pieced using simple, straight seams, with only the stem in appliqué. “Don’t worry if you finish the quilt soon or ever,” Gwen added. “A memorial of this sort is as much about the process as the product.”

  Victoria accepted Gwen’s offer, and after a few lessons she thanked Gwen and said she would continue on her own. Except for an occasional question about fabric selections or tools, she said nothing about her quilt, and after a few months, Gwen assumed she had abandoned the project, unable to carve out the time from her busy academic schedule. Then, shortly after Spring Break, Victoria surprised Gwen at one of their weekly dissertation meetings by unveiling a completed quilt top, a forest of falling leaves in autumn hues from verdant greens and rich wines to blazing oranges and mellow browns, beautiful and yet melancholy.

  “Perhaps you could guide me through the next steps?” Victoria asked after Gwen stammered out astonished congratulations. She had never expected the professor to accomplish so much with so little instruction, but of course Victoria always nonchalantly exceeded expectations. So Gwen taught her to make a “quilt sandwich” by layering the pieced top, soft batting, and backing fabric, to baste the layers with large stitches, to hold them securely within a hoop, and to unite top, middle, and back with small, meticulous quilting stitches, enhancing the beauty of the top by giving it depth and dimension.

  “It’s quite therapeutic,” Victoria explained a few weeks later when Gwen inquired about her progress and marveled that she had accomplished so much so quickly. “I chose fabrics that I knew my sister would have loved, and with every stitch I think of her. Not as she was at the end, ill and suffering, but earlier, when we were children together and happy, when she was a young bride, when she graduated from medical school, when she first rode a bike and learned to swim, when she saved her baby-sitting money to buy me a typewriter for Christmas—so many years, so many memories. At her memorial service surrounded by our family and her many friends, I grieved. Alone, working on this quilt, I celebrate her life.”

  Gwen understood exactly what she meant.

  Whenever Victoria mentioned her second quilt and all those that followed, which was rarely, she spoke self-deprecatingly, as if she found it amusing that an educated feminist should derive such pleasure from traditional needlecrafts. Gwen did not take offense. She had once deplored quilting as pointless busy-work, a trivial distraction that prevented otherwise intelligent women from devoting their time and energy to work that might actually make a difference in the world. But then she had been drawn into the Brown Does’ quilting circle and had discovered that quilting was a uniquely accessible art form that flourished when practiced with others. Working in isolation, Victoria would never discover the deep, enriching friendships that bound one quilter to another, but she repeatedly refused Gwen’s invitations to visit her guild, so G
wen stopped pestering her. She knew the quilting community would welcome Victoria warmly when she was ready.

  VICTORIA’S FIRST SYMPTOMSappeared a few months before Gwen’s candidacy exam, but whenever Gwen hesitantly asked if she felt all right, Victoria dismissed her obvious fatigue and weight loss as the result of work stress and insisted that her upcoming vacation would cure her of all ills. Later, after she began her first round of chemotherapy, she confided to Gwen that she had known what was wrong with her, but she didn’t want to admit that the disease that had claimed four women in her family, the disease she had eluded longer than anyone had expected, had come at last to claim her.

  In the year that followed, Gwen organized the history department into a support system so that Victoria had meals delivered to her home several times a week, rides to and from chemo treatments, a rotating shift of graduate students to take care of errands, and a round-the-clock schedule of volunteers, who had agreed to be only a phone call away should any unforeseen circumstances arise. Later Victoria credited their support and the excellent medical care she received at the University Hospital for her successful response to treatment, but Gwen knew it was her mentor’s indomitable resolve that pulled her through. By the time Gwen defended her dissertation, Victoria was in remission.

  Throughout her mentor’s ordeal, Gwen had often thought that Victoria might not be there to stand beside her when she received her doctorate. She knew she would be forever grateful when the glorious sunny May afternoon arrived at last and Victoria was present. Gwen would never forget the pride in Victoria’s eyes at the department reception following the commencement ceremony, her words of praise, her hopes that they would collaborate on many projects in the future, and her predictions that Gwen would make her mark in the field and be a credit to them all.

  Summer was ten years old when Gwen accepted a job as an assistant professor in the American Studies department of Waterford College, nestled in the Elm Creek Valley beside a small town that reminded her of Brown Deer. She kept in touch with Victoria, and their plans to collaborate on a Women’s History textbook were well under way when Victoria broke the terrible news that her cancer had returned.

  “But you were in remission,” Gwen heard herself say numbly. “You were doing so well.”

  Victoria sighed and reminded her that this was the way the disease had progressed in the other women of her family, and she had always known it was a possibility. This time Gwen had to follow Victoria’s treatment from long distance, wishing she were there to help, relieved that other students and faculty had stepped in to support Victoria as she had before.

  Months later, when Victoria announced that her treatment had succeeded and she was once again in remission, Gwen did not fool herself that the treatment had cured her entirely. But years passed without recurrence, and Gwen began to hope that perhaps she had been wrong. Her hopes lasted until Summer was in middle school, when Victoria’s symptoms reappeared.

  Gwen’s mother came to Waterford to stay with Summer for two months so that Gwen could move into Victoria’s guest room and care for her. “It’s a good thing you already have tenure,” Victoria interrupted as Gwen read aloud to her to distract her during a chemotherapy session. “You’d never be allowed to take so much time off otherwise.”

  “What are you talking about?” Gwen replied, feigning puzzlement. “I’m not taking time off. I’m on a research trip consulting with a respected colleague. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

  She was gratified when Victoria laughed.

  One night, as Gwen was helping Victoria prepare for bed, she confided that she and her doctor had been discussing other options for her future care. “If I pull through this recurrence—”

  “Not if,” Gwen interrupted. “When.”

  Victoria allowed a small smile and nodded. “When I pull through this, and when I’ve fully recovered and have regained my strength, my doctor thinks I should consider a bone marrow transplant. It’s a dangerous course of treatment, but he believes it’s the only way I might avoid this recurring pattern of illness, treatment, remission, illness. I believe the opportunity for a complete cure would be well worth the risks.”

  At the time her mentor’s words barely registered, so intent was Gwen on seeing her through the immediate danger. Responsibilities called her back to Waterford College all too soon, so it was again by phone that Victoria informed her that she was once again in remission. The blessed news was as welcome as ever, but each time Gwen accepted it with a diminishing measure of relief. She wondered how many more cycles of recurrence Victoria could withstand, how long she could hold body and soul together by little more than sheer force of will.

  Over the years, Gwen fulfilled some of the predictions Victoria had made on her graduation day and had found herself thwarted in others. But although academia had not turned out to be as completely fulfilling as she had once envisioned, her life became enriched in other unexpected ways. Gwen joined the Waterford Quilt Guild but eventually left with a group of close, like-minded friends to form the Tangled Web Quilters. Summer began high school—beautiful, brilliant, kind, generous, her presence a constant blessing. Distant ties began to loosen as newer bonds formed, and Gwen eventually heard from Victoria perhaps only twice a year, enough to know that she was in good health, thankfully, and enjoying her promotion to Dean of the Graduate School.

  Gwen had not spoken to Victoria for several months when they ran into each other at a conference and spent an evening catching up over supper. Eventually the conversation turned to Victoria’s health and her thwarted attempts to have a bone marrow transplant. Her brother, long hoped to be a suitable donor, had recently been eliminated after more thorough testing revealed previously undetected incompatibilities. “Now my hopes ride on a response from the national registry,” said Victoria. “If I remain healthy until a suitable match can be found, my doctor will proceed with the transplant. If I have a recurrence before a donor appears—” She smiled ruefully and shook her head.

  Gwen felt a chill, but she declared that of course Victoria would remain perfectly healthy until a donor was found, which would certainly be soon. When Victoria smiled knowingly and said she hoped so, Gwen knew that her former mentor had seen through her false bravado, and she was ashamed. Victoria deplored perfunctory niceties and Gwen had always respected her too much to give her anything but the plain, hard truth. As they parted ways, Gwen silently chastised herself and resolved that she would never again resort to cheery platitudes and deny Victoria the truth, no matter how painful it might be.

  Back in Waterford, troubled by the thought of Victoria’s limited window of opportunity, Gwen searched the Internet for information about bone marrow transplants. What she discovered alarmed her even as it increased her respect for Victoria’s courage. Once a donor was found, Victoria would undergo radiation treatments that would destroy her own bone marrow. The stem cells taken from the donor’s bone marrow would be given to her intravenously, much like a blood transfusion. The donor cells would travel through her bloodstream into her bones, where they would engraft, or grow, and begin to produce healthy cells. She would have to take antirejection medication for the rest of her life and possibly endure a host of side effects, but if the transplant succeeded, her lymphoma would not return.

  But the odds of finding a donor were daunting.

  Suddenly Gwen knew what she must do to help her beloved mentor: She would volunteer to be tested and add herself to the bone marrow donor registry.

  Intellectually, she knew that the larger the pool of donors, the more likely a match would be found. But more compelling than any calculation of the odds was her belief in fate. After all that Victoria had done for her throughout the years—teaching her, guiding her, setting her on her way—it would be only right and just if Gwen could help Victoria now.

  The histocompatibility antigen test was simple, virtually painless. Gwen made an appointment at the Elm Creek Valley General Hospital, where a nurse cleaned the inside of he
r elbow with antiseptic, wrapped an elastic band around her upper arm, inserted a needle into the vein, and collected a vial of blood, just like any other blood draw Gwen had had through the years. As she waited several days for the results, Gwen’s certainty that she would be a match for Victoria grew. When she was identified as a suitable donor, it would not be an astonishing coincidence but rather the sign of a benevolent presence in the universe, guiding their footsteps, bringing them together for a great purpose. Gwen loved and admired Victoria and considered her a friend as well as a mentor. No sacrifice was too much if it would free Victoria from the cycle of recurrence, increasing the quality of her life as well as extending it.

  Gwen’s expectations had soared so high that when the news came that she was not a match for Victoria, she was sure that there had been some mistake, some mix-up in the lab, something. Told that the results were accurate, Gwen nevertheless had herself retested elsewhere—and was shattered to hear the same unhappy result.

  “I’m sorry you can’t help your friend,” the nurse consoled her as she left the clinic. “Don’t lose hope. New donors volunteer for the registry every day. A match for your friend is out there somewhere.”

  Gwen wanted to believe her, but as she returned to her office on the Waterford College campus, she realized that she couldn’t wait patiently for that someone to appear, not when time was of the essence.

  After consulting with the Waterford College infirmary and the Elm Creek Valley General Hospital, Gwen enlisted the help of the college premed and prenursing programs and organized a campus-wide bone marrow donor registration drive. Hundreds of students, faculty, and staff scheduled appointments or dropped by the basketball arena between classes to be tested. Local businesses donated prizes to be awarded to the various fraternities, sororities, and dorms that brought in the most residents. Campus bands entertained the volunteers and potential donors throughout the day, and College Food Services supplied tasty refreshments. At the end of the long, triumphant day, Gwen thanked her volunteers with tears in her eyes and a heart full of gratitude. Surely someone tested that day would turn out to be a lifesaving donor for someone—if not for Victoria, then for someone else whose need was just as great.