"Two steps forward, one step back,” Harriet muttered. “See you,” she said louder and headed for the front door.
DeAnn greeted her on the porch.
"Did Lauren tell you?” she asked. “She figured out Iloai is Samoan."
"That's great,” Harriet said, with feigned enthusiasm.
"She narrowed it to somewhere in the South Pacific and brought us lists of words from each of the local languages. We hit the jackpot on the third try. I said ina, which means drink, and her face lit up like we'd never seen. She started babbling and clapping her hands. David is on his way to the bookstore in Port Angeles-they have a Samoan/English dictionary. The owner is going to keep the store open until he gets there.
"What am I thinking, leaving you standing out here in the cold on the porch?” She stood aside so Harriet could enter. “Come in. Would you like some tea?"
"No, thank you,” Harriet said. “I have the quilt.” She pulled it from her canvas bag and held it up.
"This looks wonderful. Let's go give it to her. She's in the family room with the boys. They're trying to learn how to pronounce the list of words by getting her to say them."
Iloai was sitting on the edge of the overstuffed sofa between DeAnn's sons. She slid to the floor at the sight of her quilt, and ran over to grab it from DeAnn as soon as they came into the room.
"You sure you don't want some tea?” DeAnn asked again.
"Okay, I guess I could drink a small cup. I need to go back and work on my blocks for the auction. We've wasted a lot of time deciding on our designs, so we're going to have to hustle to get the quilts done."
"I'm sure it's not helping that I'm not contributing anything,” DeAnn said as she led the way to the kitchen.
"That's not the problem,” Harriet assured her. “Really. Our trouble has been the Small Stitches copying our designs. Plus, none of us has had a great inspiration. I guess too many of us are cat people,” she finished with a laugh. “We have a plan, of sorts, finally. Now we all have to make our blocks and get the quilts put together."
"I wish I could contribute something. This…” She spread her arms to indicate her house and the people in it. “…has been pretty all-consuming, though."
"Don't worry,” Harriet said, and took the cup of steaming tea DeAnn offered her. “You just focus on your new daughter."
"I wonder why Joseph thought she was from Africa,” DeAnn said. “It seems like a big thing to get confused about."
"Mavis and Aunt Beth and I were wondering the same thing at dinner tonight."
"You knew?"
"Not for sure, but we were just figuring it out when Lauren came by and told us what she'd figured out."
"She forgot to mention that part,” DeAnn said with a knowing smile.
"Well, like we were saying, it seems strange that, with all the work involved in setting up an adoption, you could mistake the location of the orphanage you were getting a child from."
"You could maybe understand it if they had just confused one African country with another, but Samoa is half a world away, isn't it?"
"We came up with a few scenarios that could explain it, but if you ask me, they were pretty far-fetched. There's something else going on here. We just have to figure out what."
"There's one more thing that's been bothering me,” DeAnn said, looking down at her hands as she spoke. “If Iloai has been living in an overcrowded orphanage most of her life, why is she so anxious to be anywhere but here? Are we that terrible by comparison?"
A tear fell onto her napkin, and she wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.
"No, that's not possible.” Harriet reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “There are things we don't know yet, that's all. We'll get to the bottom of this, and in the meantime, you're not alone. The Threads are all here for you-whatever you need, whenever you need it, let one of us know. And just in case, one of us will be checking on you every day."
Mavis and Aunt Beth would have been proud if they'd heard her, Harriet thought.
The two women sipped their tea while DeAnn dabbed at her tears with her napkin.
"I can tell you one thing,” she said when she'd regained her composure. “I'll be at the door to Little Lamb Adoption Agency tomorrow morning, and I will have some answers."
"You better call before you go if you're hoping to talk to Joseph. My aunt and I stopped by there this morning, and he hadn't showed up. Phyllis was pretty worried."
"Great,” DeAnn said and leaned back in her chair, her face tilted up at the ceiling.
"I better get going,” Harriet said. “I've got blocks to work on."
"Thanks for fixing Iloai's blanket and…and for everything."
Harriet got up and carried her teacup to the sink. She rinsed it, then picked up her bag and purse and headed to the front door. DeAnn followed.
"I'll let you know if we hear anything about Joseph,” Harriet said, and went out into the chilly air.
She slowed once again as she drove by Joseph's house on her way home. The same downstairs window glowed yellow. She had almost passed the stately Victorian when she thought she saw a shadow move across the illuminated space, blocking the light for a second. She pulled into the next driveway she came to and turned around, parking at the curb in front of Joseph's house.
No more shadowy movement interrupted the light, so Harriet got out of her car and went up to the front door. Joseph's house was not the common style people think of as Victorian; his didn't have the broad porch or steep roofs with gingerbread trim. Only the fact Harriet had spent several of her boarding school years in France allowed her to identify the squared-off roof lines and tall narrow construction as the mansard style of Victorian. That particular design put the window Harriet was looking for directly above a large rhododendron shrub, just beyond reach from the porch.
She knocked on the door, waited then knocked again, but no one answered. She knocked a third time and listened for any sound that might indicate Joseph was inside. Nothing.
She stood for a moment trying to decide what to do next. She put her hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt and felt the smooth surface of her new cell phone. She pulled it out and pressed the wake-up button then dialed information and asked the operator for Joseph Marston's home phone number. She was connected, and a moment later could hear the distant sound of a phone ringing somewhere inside the house. She hung up when the voice mail came on. If Joseph was inside, he wasn't interested in having company.
Harriet stepped back off the porch and pushed between the bushes to the window. Concealed by the shrubbery was a cement window well that provided access to a lower floor window protected by an ornate wrought iron grill. She had stepped onto the cement surround, preparing to look in the lighted window, when she thought she saw a flicker of movement through the lower window in her peripheral vision. She wasn't sure if she'd really seen anything, but decided she'd better check it out, just in case.
The blow to her back, when it came, did two things. It knocked the wind out of her, and it forced her down into the window well, twisting her ankle. Pain shot up her leg, and she tried to cry out, but without air in her lungs, no sound came out.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she struggled to breathe and, at the same time, move her body to relieve the pressure on her ankle. In her shock and pain, she couldn't hear anything but her own wheezing attempts to make her diaphragm work again.
She'd just managed a partial breath and was struggling to lift herself out of her cement prison when a heavy weight hit her from above and crushed her back into the window well. She sucked in a ragged breath, thankful she was finally able to breathe again.
Something large had been thrown into the window well on top of her, and the space wasn't big enough for both. She wriggled around until she could get her arms in front of her and her knees under her, then she pushed with all her strength. She managed to heave whatever had been thrown on top of her off to the side and squeeze past it and out of the confined space.