I reach the end of the walkway and wander back. The woman in the poke bonnet is standing behind her booth, furtively smoking a cigarette.

Still on the phone, Molly notices me watching her and wanders over to an information board covered with maps and tourist brochures. She tucks one hand into the back pocket of her shorts and keeps talking.

Her face is bright with love.

Seeing her like this conjures up mixed emotions. On the one hand, I am proud and gratified that my daughter has a great heart, that she can give it away with joy and sincerity. Yet on the other, I wish she understood the difference between the passionate heat of first love and the deep security of a lasting commitment.

But there is no difference, not in Molly’s mind, and no amount of discussion—lecturing, she would call it—on my part will change her mind about that. Love is love, she’d tell me, and who am I to say she’s wrong? I can’t claim to be an expert. There is a part of me—and it’s not even a small part—that keeps wondering what my marriage will be like when I get home and it’s just Dan and me.

Agitated, I take a seat at an empty picnic table, which faces a lovely marsh fringed by cattails, the reeds clacking in the light breeze. The distant hiss of truck brakes joins the singing of frogs from the marsh.

I pull out the quilt, thinking I’ll add a stitch or two. The feel of the age-softened fabrics is oddly soothing. Yet at the same time, I am nagged by the sense that I wish I’d never started this thing. What a crazy notion, to think I could actually put the final touches in place in time for the journey’s end.

“That’s a beautiful piece,” someone says, and I look up to see a woman about my age, walking a scruffy little dog on a retractable leash. The dog ranges out to the end of the leash and then comes reeling back toward her, like a yo-yo on a string. The woman is checking out the quilt with a practiced eye.

“Thanks,” I say, recognizing the expertise with which she studies the project. It’s gratifying to realize quilters are everywhere. It’s such a universal art, beloved by so many women. “I’m making this for my daughter’s dorm room.”

She nods appreciatively. “What a great idea. Wow, are you hand quilting?”

“More portable that way. More variety.” This morning I stitched the word Remember across a piece made from my mom’s square-dancing dress.

“I’ve always thought crazy quilting was much more challenging than a regular pattern,” the stranger remarks.

“You might be right. At first, I thought it would make the work to go faster. Instead, I keep trying to force things together and changing my mind.”

“I like going slowly when I quilt,” she comments. “It keeps me in the moment, you know?”

I do know. And here’s what happens when quilting women meet. When one quilter encounters another, there’s always something to talk about. We go from being strangers to friends in about three seconds. I’ve seen this happen again and again, back home at the shop. It’s like the fabric itself is common ground, the pattern a secret handshake. Quilting women already know so much about each other. We get to skip over the petty details.