The Language of Sisters by Cathy Lamb Page B

feel perfectly pleasant and peaceful about it.” Ellie, at her sewing machine, continued to sew white lace around the edges of the light blue fabric. When she was done, she was going to paint blue irises and lily pads on the pillow. “Be one with your life,” she whispered to herself. “Embrace your fear, then let it go floating into the sky.”
    â€œYou sound perfectly and pleasantly insane,” Valerie said.
    The three of us were at Ellie’s house sewing pillows. Some women meet for lunch. Some women go away to Vegas and be naughty. My sisters and I sew pillows and talk, so we call it Pillow Talk.
    When we were younger, we sewed pillows to make money in the midst of a long and blisteringly cold and starving winter in Moscow. Then we sewed for our lives; now we sew because that’s what we do when we’re together.
    All the pillows the three of us make during Pillow Talk go to a children’s hospital in town, so they have to be extra special. We all work on them at home after our Pillow Talk nights. When we get a bunch, we bag them up, haul them over, sometimes give them out to the kids ourselves, then we go back to Ellie’s, have a couple of celebratory vodka straight shots, and make more pillows.
    Ellie lives in a two-story blue home in a quiet area on the Willamette River. It’s set back from the river about twenty feet. The home was old, so she had the whole thing gutted and had all the walls painted white. That was where the boredom ended.
    Ellie loves fabrics. She has floor-to-ceiling window treatments in the most lush, intricate fabrics on every window, all different designs and bright colors that somehow blend. She has taken fabric from India, China, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia, etc., and framed it for her walls and used it as furniture slipcovers. The world looks like it landed in her home.
    Upstairs she knocked out a wall between the living room and kitchen, so it’s one large room, with two bedrooms down the hall and a bathroom. Downstairs she knocked down four walls, so the daylight basement, with two sets of French doors, is completely open. This is where she runs Ellie K’s Pillows.
    She has four women who work for her. She sews and sells her pillows all over the country. Ellie has a Web site where all of her pillows are pictured. I sometimes get on the Web site to relax myself because the pillows are so creative, fun, funny, bodacious. She also has a page about her, her life, her home, her cats, the river, and her pillows in progress. She’s made her business personal, a slice of her life on the river, in the woods. The business grows each year.
    â€œThat’s it?” Valerie asked. “That’s all you want to say, Ellie? I would think we’d get some bridal gushing, some enthusiasm, some wow—wow, I can’t wait for the legal bang bang.” Valerie bumped her fists together. Her pillow would have a country scene with white and black chickens that wore red velvet top hats. “Get what I mean?”
    â€œI think we get it, Valerie,” I said. “Since we do have brains.” I was cutting out leaves from many different fabrics from around the world, then I would paste them onto a tree on a three-foot-long blue, rectangular-shaped pillow.
    â€œThe wedding planning is going well,” Ellie said, standing up, breathing deep, her hand to her widow’s peak, which is what she always does when she’s nervous. “Except that Mama and Papa don’t like Gino. Family war.”
    â€œNot a war,” I said, choosing my words oh so carefully. “We have ... concerns.”
    â€œPlease. Let’s not hide behind politeness,” Valerie said. “We think you’re making a mistake. Let me spell mistake for you. G.I.N.O.”
    â€œPlease stop it, Valerie,” Ellie said. She took another deep breath and chanted, “I don’t need a paper bag. I don’t need a paper bag. I am in