The Charm Bracelet(24)
“Can you teach me to sew again, Grandma?” Lauren asked. “I remember trying to learn when I was younger, but I’ve forgotten everything.”
“I’d love to, my dear,” Lolly said, dragging her feet to slow the glider. “I still make all of my own aprons I wear to work … and I used to make all of your mother’s school clothes.”
Arden winced.
“I finally get it,” Lauren said. “That’s why you don’t like color, Mom. That’s why you dress the way you do. You were scarred by Grandma’s wild designs.”
“That’s not true,” Arden said, sitting up suddenly, a group of finches on a nearby bird feeder taking flight at the sudden commotion.
“Oh, it is, too,” Lolly said. “I liked a lot of color.”
“You dressed me like a hooker, Mother,” Arden said. “Little girls aren’t supposed to wear fire engine red dresses and purple bloomers.”
“You were adorable,” Lolly said. “I can’t help that no one appreciated my fashion sense back then.”
Arden shot her mother a look, so Lolly took her granddaughter’s hands in hers and asked, “You want to help me get ready for work in a few minutes?”
“Really?” Lauren said. “Yeah. Let me clean up some of these dishes, and go take a shower first, okay?”
“Okay,” Lolly said, patting her granddaughter’s knees.
Arden watched her daughter pad away barefoot. When she was out of earshot, Arden said, “How do you know all of that, Mom? About Mary?”
“I asked,” Lolly said simply. “Let me tell you something, my dear. My grandma sat at that sewing machine every single day, mending clothes, making wedding dresses for happy brides, tailoring suits for the town’s businessmen, making all of my clothes. I loved the sound of that Singer. The whir of the machine sounded like a million hummingbirds, and it would lull me to sleep out here on the screened porch. She could take a feed sack and make me the most beautiful dress from a pattern. She could take the scraps of rich people’s clothes and make us a quilt to keep us warm during long Michigan winters. My mom always tried to give her more charms, but my grandma always refused. ‘I have the only two I ever need,’ she’d say. My grandma had terrible arthritis in her later years, and it was hard for her to sew. Her knuckles looked like gumballs, her fingers like bent limbs on a sassafras tree. But she wouldn’t stop sewing. One day, I brought her a cup of hot tea while she worked. She patted her lap, and I jumped in it. ‘Let me show you how to do a running stitch,’ she said, teaching me the magic of her Singer. When we finished, I looked up at her as she sipped the tea from her favorite desert rose teacup. ‘Tell me about your charms, Grandma,’ I said. And she did. Before she died, she gave me that sewing machine charm, and she was buried with her four-leaf clover, right next to her beloved husband. The quilt on our laps was made by your great-grandmother,” Lolly finished, running her hand lovingly over the quilt.
Arden picked at her coffeecake. She stared out onto the lake, embarrassed by the fact she had never known this.
“Well, I need to go get ready for work,” Lolly said, standing up.
“Work?” Arden asked, looking back at her mother. “Mom, you need to rest.”
“No, I need to go to work. I need routine. Isn’t that what you and the doctor said?”
“What about us? We’re here and want to spend time with you.”
Lolly gave Arden a look that a parent would give a child who just doesn’t understand. She walked over and lifted her daughter’s chin with her hand. “And I couldn’t be happier that you’re here. I need you so much right now.”
Lolly hesitated, but continued, “I just wish it hadn’t taken you so long to come.”
When everyone had left, Arden took a seat on the glider. She felt chilled, from the inside out, and covered herself with the quilt. She fidgeted nervously with an errant thread on the edge, and pulled and tugged until a large seam split, and stuffing began to spill forth.
After a while, Arden fell asleep under the quilt, dreaming that she was drowning in Lost Land. But the lake wasn’t filled with water, it was filled with charms. Arden tried to claw her way to the surface, but she slowly sunk to the bottom, until the only things visible at the surface were the charm of a sewing machine and letters on a wave that spelled out: GUILT.
part four
The Kite Charm
To a Life Filled with High-Flying Fun
Ten
Arden jolted awake after a fitful night of sleep, to the sounds of loud music and giggling, rather than the moan of loons and the gentle lapping of the lake.
She tilted her head, like the RCA dog, to listen.
She felt for her glasses on the bedside table made of old birch bark and twigs, kicked the quilt off her body, and groggily shuffled to the window of her childhood bedroom. It was cracked slightly, and Arden gave it a sleepy tug to open it fully.
The ancient window—still the original, wavy glass in a peeling wooden frame balanced on fraying rope pulleys—refused to budge.
Arden crouched, leveraging her palms under the bottom of the frame, and gave it a mighty push. The window went flying all the way up, like a strongman’s bell at a carnival attraction.