Elm Creek Quilts [09] Circle of Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini

removed his diaper and fingerpainted the sheets with the contents.
    In the summer, the boys’ playgroup met at the park every Tuesday and Thursday morning, but on Tuesdays Ethan had a swimming lesson first. “Did you feed the boys?” Karen asked Nate as she raced into the kitchen after a quick shower and a scramble through the unfolded clothes in the laundry basket for something to wear.
    “Lucas had cereal and toast.”
    “What about Ethan?”
    “He said he wasn’t hungry.”
    “If he doesn’t eat now, he’ll want something five minutes before his swimming lesson starts.”
    Nate shrugged. “I can’t force him to eat.”
    “Did you pack the swim bag?”
    “I thought you did it.”
    Silently, Karen counted to five. Every Monday night she asked him to pack the bag, and every Monday night he agreed. Every Tuesday morning, he assumed she had already taken care of it. Did he think she had squeezed it in between Lucas’s midnight and predawn feedings? “Could you please pack the bag so I can grab some breakfast?”
    “Sure, honey.” He rose and kissed her, coffee mug in hand, and went upstairs. She tracked his footsteps from Ethan’s room to the main bath to their room, hastily spooning down a bowl of muesli while standing at the sink. She had just finished when Nate returned with the blue nylon bag and put it on the kitchen table between his plate of toast crusts and Ethan’s cereal bowl.
    “Did you remember everything?” asked Karen, clearing away the dishes.
    “Yep.” He gave her a quick kiss. “I have to go. I have student conferences.”
    “Did you remember the swim cap?”
    “Uh huh.” Nate took his lunch from the refrigerator and stuffed it into his backpack.
    “Towel?”
    “Yes.”
    “Coffee cup?”
    He paused. “What?”
    “Coffee cup. When you went upstairs, you were carrying a coffee cup.”
    “Oh. I think I left it on the dresser.” He glanced at his watch. “Do you want me to go get it?”
    “That’s all right. I’ll get it.”
    “Okay. I’ll see you later.” He went into the living room to say good-bye to the boys, then hurried off with a cheerful wave.
    After the door to the garage closed behind him, she tried not toopen the bag to make sure he had remembered everything. She hated feeling like she always needed to check his work, but the urge was insistent. Towel, swim cap, and goggles were tucked inside the bag just as Nate had promised, but the swim trunks were old, faded from chlorine, and size 3T. Karen had no idea where Nate had found them, since they should have been packed away in the basement with the other clothes Ethan had outgrown and Lucas could not yet wear. If Ethan managed to squeeze into them at all, the waistband could quite possibly cut off his circulation.
    Can’t he read a tag?
Karen wondered as she hurried upstairs to Ethan’s room.
Does he not know his son’s size? Didn’t he recognize the right pair from last week?
    She took a deep breath and tried to let it go. Nate was in a hurry, students were waiting for him, and how many dads knew anything about their kids’ sizes? He had tried to help, and that was what mattered.
    She retrieved the coffee cup from the bathroom counter on her way back downstairs, finished packing the swim bag and the diaper bag and the lunch bag for the park later, and called for the boys to come and get ready to leave. Ethan came at once, but Lucas ran away, laughing, and hid by climbing behind the armchair and covering his eyes with his hands.
    “We can still see you,” his older brother said.
    “No see,” Lucas insisted.
    “And we can hear you. Mom, tell him he’s not hiding right.”
    “Time to go.” Karen reached behind the chair and lifted Lucas to his feet. He promptly went limp, forcing her to haul him out into the open. She wrestled the boys from their pajamas into their clothes and cajoled them into holding still while she slathered them in PABA-free sunblock. She had barely finished one of Lucas’s arms