"The Lover’s Knot" - читать интересную книгу автора (O’Donohue Clare)

CHAPTER 1

"I'm fine," I said between sobs.

"I know you are, dear." My mother's worried voice on the other end of the phone made it clear she knew just the opposite. "Call Grandma. You can go up and stay with her for a few days."

"I will."

"And try to get a good night's sleep."

That was out of the question. I'd scheduled crying for the next few hours, followed by fits of anger, loneliness, despair and denial. An intense desire to call Ryan would likely keep me occupied from midnight to three. Then, if all went according to plan, I'd fall into an unsatisfying sleep and wake up with a splitting headache and a bed full of tissues.

I pushed the wedding invitations off the bed and watched them fan out over the floor. The envelopes bent and the response cards landed in dust. What did it matter? They were headed to the garbage anyway.

How had this happened? This morning I was happy. I had everything-almost everything. And the one thing that was missing had arrived in the afternoon.

Six months ago when I announced my engagement, my grandmother Eleanor Cassidy, the formidable matriarch on my mother's side of the family, called me with a question.

"What colors do you want?"

I immediately knew she was speaking of my wedding quilt. My grandmother owns a small quilt shop in upstate New York. She has made me a quilt for all special occasions, from my first day at school to my college graduation to my first apartment. Some are large enough for a bed, but most are wall hangings-intricate, modern, and usually in her preferred bold, bright colors.

So when she asked me to choose the colors, I knew exactly how she'd react.

"Neutrals," I replied. I had already decorated the bedroom in my mind and decided it would be a soothing, restful place full of neutral colors.

"Neutrals?" I could hear the annoyance in her voice.

I laughed. "Yeah, you know tans, beiges, whites, creams. Can you do it? If not…"

"I can do anything." And with that she hung up. My grandmother is not a woman to waste time.

When she called me and told me she was sending the quilt, I was so excited that I took a vacation day just to stay home and wait for it. Not an easy conversation to have with the boss, but I didn't care. The quilt was not only going to be beautiful, I was sure, but it was tangible proof that the wedding was approaching.

At about one o'clock, my doorbell rang.

"Good afternoon, Nell Fitzgerald. That's a huge box you're getting, " the deliveryman said.

"It's from my grandmother," I told him as if he had been dying to know. "It's my wedding quilt."

Before the deliveryman had even left, I ripped open the box. At first all I saw was one large piece of fabric with an embroidered label: "Machine sewn with love by Grandma. Hand quilted by the Friday Night Quilt Club."

I pulled it out and flipped it over to the front. It was the most beautiful quilt I had ever seen: a lover's knot pattern, little strips of fabric sewn together to form interlocking diamonds. The background strips were in fabrics of soft whites and ivory, the others in subtle shades of tan and beige. It was as if the quilt were already a hundred years old-its quiet, seemingly faded colors whispering a tale of a long and happy love.

I cleared my fading comforter off the bed and spread the quilt over it. I carefully straightened and smoothed it, running my fingers over the patches and the tiny handmade stitches. My grandmother often would say that when several people work on a quilt, you could see the differences in their stitches. If you looked hard enough, she told me, you could count how many people contributed to a quilt. But as I stared, I could only see perfect stitches, one just like the next. It seemed impossible to me that five different women, the members of my grandmother's Friday Night Quilt Club, each could have worked on it.

My bed, a futon really, was only a double, so the quilt draped onto the floor, but it was beautiful enough to make even my crappy furniture look dressed up. I lay on it and closed my eyes, feeling the soft fabric with my fingers. I knew that the only thing that would make this more perfect would be the moment when my fiance, Ryan, and I made love under this quilt for the first time.

But that was eight hours ago. Before Ryan stopped by, before he looked guilty and scared and unsure. Before he told me what he had been waiting to say for, apparently, weeks. Before the life I'd planned turned to dust.