A Quilter's Holiday: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel by Jennifer Chiaverini Page A

and then turned back to Anna, whose smile had turned apologetic, and a little wary. “What’s the harm? This can’t be a gift for any of the Elm Creek Quilters or you wouldn’t be working on it in front of us.”
    “That’s not necessarily so,” remarked Sylvia. “Remember the year Bonnie gave us those lovely homespun plaid table runners for Christmas? She worked on them right here in this ballroom throughout our quilter’s holiday, and none of us suspected she was making them for us.”
    “She hid them in plain sight,” Agnes chimed in, but then she sighed. “I hope Bonnie’s having a wonderful time in Hawaii, but I do miss her so.”
    “I’m sure she’s not missing this weather,” said Carol, nodding to the window just as a sudden gust of wind scoured the pane with icy crystals.
    Diane forgot Anna’s inexplicable secrecy as her concerns about the storm returned. She resigned herself to leaving early, but at least she had fulfilled the quilter’s holiday tradition even if she would not accomplish as much sewing as shehad hoped. The traditions she kept at home were equally important as those she observed with her friends, and she would miss out on several if she were snowed in at Elm Creek Manor over the Thanksgiving weekend. And if she didn’t keep the family traditions going, who would? Not her husband, she thought with reluctant certainty, and not the boys.
    It wasn’t that Tim, Michael, and Todd didn’t enjoy marking important occasions as a family. They did, at least most of the time, as long as she handled all the preparations and reminded them where to show up and when. Sometimes, during those difficult years when Michael had struggled in school, glowering sullenly in the shadow of his popular younger brother who excelled academically and athletically and every other way it was possible for a teenager to excel, Diane had thought that their traditions were all that held the family together. The family dinners Diane had insisted upon every night, even if it meant dining at nine o’clock to accommodate a school event, prevented the boys from withdrawing too much into the world of their peers and leaving Diane and Tim utterly unaware of how they spent their time and with whom. Weekly Mass taught the boys the importance of faith and instilled in them a moral code that would last a lifetime, even if its immediate results were not apparent. Or so Diane had told herself, sometimes while clenching her teeth when Michael vandalized the middle school, or when he was arrested forskateboarding in a marked zone downtown. Throughout the years when she had held her breath, hoping that Michael would surpass his guidance counselor’s predictions and graduate from high school, and through the long months when she questioned Todd’s choice of friends, arrogant boys whose sense of entitlement rendered them void of humility, she had found strength in ritual and faith.
    Through it all, their traditions, both religious and secular, had held the family together, and every prayer and lesson seemed justified when she reflected upon the fine young men her sons had become. Michael flourished at Waterford College, on his own even though he was never more than a few miles away from his childhood home. He shared a rented house downtown with a few friends and came home almost every Sunday to do laundry and have dinner with his parents, moments of reconnection Diane cherished. Todd had started at Princeton only a few weeks before, and although he didn’t stay in touch as often as Diane wished, when he did call or email, he sounded happy, excited, and involved, reveling in the first real challenge to his academic gifts. Though separated by distance that would perhaps increase after the boys graduated, they would not fragment as a family. Their love would unite them, and the practice of their traditions would draw them together in spirit, despite the miles that might separate them.
    And yet—
    Diane sighed, frowning. Without her