Return to Paradise. Barbara Cameron
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got into Officer Kate’s car. It surprised her to see the woman dressed in a sweater and jeans and driving a vehicle other than her police car.
“I’m so glad you could come today,” Kate told her.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
A few minutes later she was surprised again when Kate pulled up in front of a simple three-story house on the outskirts of town. From the outside it didn’t look occupied; the houses on each side of it didn’t look like anyone lived there, either.
Once Kate used a code on the front door, though, it was an entirely different story. There were a half-dozen women sitting in the spacious living room and more kinner than Lavina could count. One woman sat in a rocking chair feeding a baby a bottle.
Kate had explained that the shelter wouldn’t be marked with a sign because its location was kept secret for the safety of the women and children who stayed there.
A woman with a round face and a big smile hurried toward them wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Kate, good to see you! So who’s this?”
Kate introduced Lavina, and the woman pumped her hand. “Glad to meet you. So happy you could come help the women with the quilting class.”
“I’m happy to.”
“I just put some coffee on up in the room, Kate. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Thanks, Pearl.”
Lavina followed Kate up the stairs and down a hallway. She heard the whir of sewing machines and the chatter of women before they walked into a room that had been converted into a sewing room. It reminded Lavina of the room her dat had fixed up for her mudder and schweschders at home. There were several tables with sewing machines of various ages, another two tables with projects laid out on them and shelves and shelves of fabric and colorful yarns.
The women glanced up as they walked in. One of them looked startled, jumping up and dropping the fabric clutched in her hands.
“It’s okay, Carrie,” Kate said in a low-pitched, soothing voice. “It’s just me.”
The woman frowned. “I see that.” She sat and didn’t look at Kate again.
“Hello, good to see all of you again,” Kate greeted the women. “Lavina here accepted my invitation to join us this week. She’s a master quilter.”
“Well, I don’t know that I’d say that,” Lavina said, embarrassed, gazing around at the dozen or so women gathered in the room. She’d been taught to avoid hochmut—pride—practically since birth.
“If someone’s making her living from what she does, I’d say she’s a master at it,” Kate responded equably.
“Isn’t every Amish woman a quilter?” someone asked, sounding skeptical.
“It’s true most Amish women quilt, Carrie,” Kate said. “But not all of them have the skill Lavina has. She and her sisters supply two quilt shops in town with their work.”
Kate turned to a nearby shelf, plucked a box from it and set it on the table in front of her. “This is the week’s quilt block.”
She handed several to Lavina to pass out and began handing out others to women near her.
“Each woman makes a quilt to donate to the community,” she explained to Lavina. “Then she gets to make one for herself and her family.”
She liked that idea. Community—their own and the Englisch one outside it—was important to the Amish. Each year Lavina, her schweschders, and other Amish women made quilts to donate to the auction that raised money for Haiti. The Amish community had been doing it for more than twenty years, well before the last devastating earthquake that had caught the attention of the world.
Kate gave a brief lesson on how to construct the block, and then she and Lavina walked around the room offering help when it was requested.
Lavina paused beside the woman Kate had called Carrie. She was the one who’d been a little sarcastic about how she thought every Amish woman quilted. Carrie was struggling to thread the sewing machine. Looking disgusted, she slumped in her chair.
“Would you like some help?”
“You know how to thread an electric sewing machine? I thought you people didn’t use electricity.”
“We don’t. But it looks like it threads in much the same way as my treadle machine at home.”
“Whatever you say.”
Lavina didn’t take offense at the way she talked. Carrie seemed . . . unhappy to her. Sometimes unhappy people were unfriendly.
On the ride here today Kate had warned Lavina that the women at the shelter had been through rough times. They’d been forced to leave their homes because of violence—sometimes in the middle of the night with only the clothes on their back. Some of them had children, and all of them hid here at the shelter where their husbands and boyfriends couldn’t find them. None of them had much money, and even worse, they had no self-esteem after months and even years of abusive behavior from those men.
Although Carrie looked about her age, she acted older, harder. She wore jeans that were worn and tight and a faded t-shirt. There was a colorful bruise under one eye.
Carrie stood and gestured at the chair she’d been sitting in. “Be my guest.”
Lavina sat, studied the machine for a moment and then she guided the thread through the loops on the top and side of the machine and finally the needle. “There. See if it works now.” She stood so Carrie could resume her seat.
Unsure whether she should stay and offer help or move on, Lavina studied the quilt block. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind working on something someone’s ordered. But it’s nice to work on one I want when I can.”
She met Carrie’s gaze. “Have you thought about what kind of quilt you’d like to make for yourself yet?”
Carrie jerked her shoulder. “Not really. I’m more concerned with what I’m going to wear for a job interview when I get one. When I went back with Kate to get my clothes my boyfriend had torn up my clothes, the bas—” she stopped. “The jerk,” she corrected with a sidelong glance at Lavina.
“I wonder—” Lavina paused and bit her lip. She had to ask Kate if she could offer to help her sew something to wear to an interview.
“What?”
“Maybe Kate knows where you can get something—”
“I’m tired of taking charity.” Her lips pressed together, Carrie bent over the quilt block.
Lavina stared at her stiff posture, unsure what to do. She looked around and saw Kate on the other side of the room, bent over talking to a woman sewing on a machine. “Let me know if you want help on the block.”
She moved on and found another woman her mother’s age who glanced up and smiled at her. “Don’t pay Carrie no mind. She’s only been here two weeks. It’s hard making the split, no matter how bad your man treated you, coming here with nothing and starting over.” She held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Edna.”
Lavina shook her hand. “Hi, Edna.”
“Don’t suppose you have this kind of problem in your community.”
“I’m sorry to say we do.”
“Really?”
“People are people no matter where they live or what religion they practice, don’t you think?”
She thought of David’s mudder. She hoped that all Amos did these days was yell . . . not that yelling wasn’t bad enough.
“Women turn to the bishop for help in my community. He talks to the husband and tries to work things out.”
“I