The Quilt Read online

  Mary eased herself down into the chair opposite him, and lovingly guided her boy toward forgetting the women in the next room and the worries he had with his work and the problems he’d been carrying all his life. Every man needed the chance to set down his guard from time to time, she’d always told anybody who’d listen. The problem was, most men got so used to working in a world that called for invisible armor all the time, they forgot they were even wearing it.

  Once he was talking without thinking, Mary allowed herself to relax a little and just love her boy. Everett had always held a special place in her heart. Jonas, her elder surviving son, was so much like his father it was uncanny—big and hale and quiet and solid. Jonas was not somebody who needed very much. Everett, poor little Everett, he’d been a sickly child. And too many of his younger years had been spent standing in the shadow of his big brother.

  While Jonas had grown up strong and solid as a barn door, Everett had grown out. Mary always looked at Everett’s pudgy round face and fat arms and protruding belly and saw the little lonely sensitive child that needed an extra padding of protection around a heart that broke too easily for this world.

  She watched her Everett grow up into a young man who tried hard as he could to be one of the boys, and even when they had accepted him as one of their own, Everett had never known happiness. He’d grown up letting the others of his age mold his character and his behavior, and it seemed like only Mary could see the yearning in those sad little eyes.

  “Your wife was here again yesterday,” Mary told him. “She’s a darling woman, Everett. I’ve always thought of her as the little girl I didn’t have.”

  Everett’s pudgy features lit up at the mention of Lou Ann. “You never told me that, Momma.”

  “Never told you a lot of things. It’s true just the same.”

  As she spoke, Mary recalled something Lou Ann had said the previous afternoon as she was leaving. The two women had been cleaning up after all the others had left, when suddenly Lou Ann had said, I’ve never thanked you for Everett, have I? Something in the way she’d said it brought tears to Mary’s eyes. I was so scared when Everett brought you home that first time, Mary had replied. There was so much need in that boy, I was scared to death he’d gone out and found somebody who’d never understand. Lou Ann had smiled at her and said, I knew you were worried. That’s why I wasn’t concerned over how cross you were with me. Anybody with eyes could see that Everett was your favorite. Mary had laughed to cover how touched she was by the words. He just needed me more than anybody else, I suppose, Mary had replied. Who’d have thought there was all that goodness just waiting to come out, Lou Ann had said. Child, Mary had told her, if it had been a lesser woman than you, that goodness would have never existed. It took a woman with a heart of gold to make that boy come alive.

  Goodness there may have been in Everett, but it was not something many could see at first glance. Everett was not a pretty man, and age did not sit well on him. His formerly sandy-blond hair now looked like a hard rain had rinsed all the color out. His hair was not turning white so much as it was becoming transparent. Everett’s chin tended to disappear nowadays into little layers of sagginess when he lowered his head. His face blotched into shades of pink and red when he got excited, and he had the deep, gasping cough of a formerly consumptive child. People who knew him well said Everett was a good man, he just tried too hard. His laugh was forced, his good-old-boy style too jovial, the fear in his eyes there for all to see.

  Everett spooned sugar into his coffee and said to Mary, “I still don’t see what’s possessed you to get started with another doggone quilt, Momma.”

  “There’s not a thing in this world that’s going to disturb our Wednesday mornings, son,” Mary replied, understanding him perfectly. “Now you just put those ladies in the other room out of your head and tell me about the family.”

  Everett hid his embarrassment behind a loud slurp of coffee. His mother’s ability to see right through him had always left him feeling downright exposed. “You didn’t answer my question, Momma.”

  “The Lord’s shown me what He wants just as clearly as He can, son.”

  “What, He came down and spoke from the burning bush?” Everett gave a little high-pitched chuckle at his own cleverness. “Lit up one of the magnolias in your front yard?”

  Sometimes after her visits with Everett, Mary would look back and wonder that the well of patience did not run dry. Mary looked down at her hands, rubbed them back and forth, one upon the other. Her voice had that quiet warning to it when she spoke. “There’s not a soul on this earth who knows how many days they’ve got left. Not you, not me, not any of the ladies sitting there in the front room. All we can hope for is that what time we have is spent as the Lord wants us to.”

  Mary looked up and fastened her son with a strong gaze. “I won’t say this again, Everett. The Lord has told me that I am to make Him a quilt, and it is to be sewn together with prayers. That is all there is to be said about it, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” Everett replied sullenly. “Can’t say as I understand it, though, a lady of your age starting another quilt.”

  “I didn’t say we’d always understand what the Lord intends for us, now, did I.” Mary pointed to the windowsill, said, “Reach over there for the little Bible, son.”

  Everett turned around, saw between the hanging plants a little New Testament covered in wood from an olive tree. The sight startled him. He lifted the tiny book, and recalled a six-year-old boy who saved his pennies for a whole summer, then sent off to the mail-order company for a Bible bound in olive wood from the Holy Land. It was the first Christmas present he had ever paid for with his own money.

  He had to clear his throat before he could say, “I didn’t know you still had this, Momma.”

  “Can’t read it anymore,” Mary replied. “The print’s just a blur. But I like to have it around me. Reminds me of a little boy I loved to distraction. Still do, for that matter.”

  Everett kept his eyes on the small book as he rubbed his hands over the smooth polished surface and recalled the excitement of a Christmas morning long ago. The joy over his own presents had paled in comparison to how he had looked forward to his momma opening that gift brought all the way from Israel.

  “Can you read that little print, son?”

  “’Course I can.”

  “Open it up to Romans, please, sir.” Mary closed her eyes, thought a moment, said, “Romans, chapter one, verse twenty-one. Read it to me, if you please.”

  Everett searched, turning the fragile pages with fingers that seemed too big and clumsy for the little volume. He read, “‘For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.’”

  “‘Nor gave thanks to him,’” Mary repeated. “Isn’t that something. We’re not just talking about some little act we can take on when times are good and there’s a few extra minutes lying about. Paul says just plain as the nose on your face that this is one of the most basic responsibilities we have. We must glorify our God and we must give thanks to Him. All the sins and all the confusion that Paul talks about for the rest of that chapter stem from people not doing those two things.

  “I’ve been sitting up here growing old and watching the world speed up, faster and faster, until I can hardly believe people don’t get dizzy just standing still. And when they come up to see me, all they can talk about is how much they’ve got to get done. Seems to me like they work themselves toward an early grave just so tomorrow they can rest a spell.”

  Mary leaned closer. “Son, let me tell you a little secret I’ve learned in these long years of mine. Tomorrow never comes. You either have it today, or you don’t.”

  She waved her hand around to take in the room. “I’m not talking about possessions. I’m talking about what counts. The things of the Spirit. Love, patience, kindness, compassion. And a thankful heart. A body’s got to take time
each and every day to thank their Lord for all that’s theirs. Plain and simple, son. It’s got to start today, no matter how busy you are, nor how much is still left undone, nor how many problems are piled up on your head and heart. Giving thanks is one thing that can’t wait.

  “The night I realized the Lord wanted me to make this quilt, I asked myself, now what business does an old lady like me have in taking on something like this? It wasn’t until the next morning, when I was sitting there listening to the newsman talk about some disaster or something, that I realized. Came to me clear as day. It’s a lesson that’s been forgotten, the importance of giving thanks. And if I can help one person see how necessary it is with this work, why, the Lord’s will has been done. Doesn’t matter a whit, that quilt being finished. What’s important is those ladies in there remembering what it’s like to be really and truly grateful to their Lord.”

  It was two days later, early enough in the morning for the ladies to have cut a dark swathe across the dew-covered lawn as they arrived. The sitting room smelled of coffee and baking bread, and was surprisingly silent for the number of people sitting on chairs, floor, and footstools. A couple were humming, one was staring out into space with a little smile on her face, and three were on their hands and knees around Mary’s chair as they discussed the color-coding in whispers. The room’s stillness was too precious a gift to be disturbed with loud voices and unnecessary chatter.

  Lou Ann raised herself up from the tiny space behind the television and walked over to Mary. In her hands was a parchment-colored sheet of brittle paper.

  “Miss Mary, did you write this?”

  Mary looked up from the myriad of triangular fabrics in her lap. “What have you got there, sister?”

  Lou Ann held out the sheet, said, “Did you use to write poetry, Miss Mary?”

  Mary took the paper and examined it. A tremor seemed to pass over her body. “Land sakes,” she whispered.

  Lou Ann bent nearer. “You’ve gone all white, Miss Mary. Are you all right?”

  Mary looked up, said in a fragile voice, “Where on earth did you find this?”

  Lou Ann made a frightened little gesture back behind her. “I was just looking through your old Bibles, Miss Mary. I was reading the passages you had marked, you know, just turning the pages, and I found this sheet.” She gave the old woman a very worried look. “I’m real sorry if I shouldn’t have done it. Are you all right?”

  “Everything’s just fine, child,” Mary said quietly and turned away from a roomful of watching faces. She stared out the window a long time, long enough for worried glances to be passed back and forth among her guests.

  Mary turned back, saw that Lou Ann really was concerned, smiled with the warmth that was all her own and patted the stool beside her chair. “Sit down here for a moment, honey, and I’ll tell you why it gave me such a start.”

  “I’m really sorry, Miss Mary. It was just so beautiful and I thought—”

  “Shush, honey, there’s nothing wrong with what you’ve done. It just startled me. I haven’t seen this in, oh, I don’t know how many years. Not since before Everett was born.”

  When Lou Ann was settled Mary went on, “Between Jonas and Everett I had three other babies. The first two were stillborn, God rest their little souls. The third was my only little girl. She was the smilingest little baby you ever saw. That’s about all I can remember about her now, that and the way she would follow me with her eyes all over the room. I know it’s not possible, no baby a month old can do it, but that’s the way it was. Got no reason to fib about it, now, do I. I would walk into the room and her little face would just light up like a candle. She’d lie there too tiny to move anything more than her head, and she’d follow me with her eyes no matter where I went. And if I went out and came back in again, that little darling was still watching the door. Soon as she saw me she’d smile again. Happiest baby I ever did see. Hardly ever cried, and if she did all I had to do was pick her up and she’d settle right down. Little angel was all she was.”

  Mary sighed long and soft, shook her head, “Came in one morning when she was just four months old and found her lying there dead. Crib death, the doctor told me. Nothing anybody could have done about it. Like to have torn me apart, losing my little girl. Didn’t know a body could stand that much grief and still survive.”

  The room was so silent that the mockingbird outside the sitting room window sounded jarringly loud. All eyes watched Mary turn and stare out the window, hiding the emotions that etched the ancient face, searching the sunlit lawn for a smiling little girl.

  “Dr. Caswell was preacher then,” Mary went on, her face still pointed toward the window. “None of you would remember him, but there was a fine man. A good man. Never afraid to share a body’s burdens. Don’t know what would have happened to me if it wasn’t for him. One time he came by, I suppose it must have been a few months after the funeral, Dr. Caswell gave me that sheet there and told me the story of George Matheson. Have any of you ladies ever heard of him?”

  There was a chorus of no ma’ams about the room as work was forgotten, tools laid aside, bodies settled to more comfortable positions.

  “George Matheson was a man of the Lord, born and raised in Scotland. I forget when he lived, but I know it wasn’t in this century. He fell in love with a beautiful young lady, and they planned to marry. Not long before his wedding day, George Matheson discovered he was going blind.”

  Mary waited until the room quietened, then continued, “He did what he had to do, went to his young lady and told her the news. Told her she could break off the engagement if she wanted, but that he still loved her and wanted to marry if she would have him. The woman thought about it for several days, then came back and said that though she loved him, she did not want to spend the rest of her life with a blind man. And the wedding was off. Soon after this, George Matheson wrote a hymn.”

  Mary turned back from the window. She lifted the brittle page with trembling hands, looked at it for a long moment, then handed it over to Lou Ann. Her voice was as shaky as her hands when she said, “Read that first verse for me, honey, my eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

  Lou Ann studied the ancient script, read in a halting voice,

  Oh love that will not let me go,

  I rest my weary soul in thee.

  I give thee back the life I owe,

  That in its ocean depths,

  Its flow may richer, fuller be.

  “The Lord holds me always in His love, Dr. Caswell told me,” Mary said to the silent room. “Always there, always loving, always giving, always healing. At my weakest, the Lord is strongest.”

  Mary paused a moment, kneading one hand with the other, then said, “George Matheson went blind, and he didn’t marry the girl. He lived a full life for his Lord, and toward the end of his time on earth he wrote a prayer. I think more than anything these words were what saw me through my own dark times.” She looked at Lou Ann, said, “Just read that section there at the bottom that starts, ‘My God,’ please child.”

  Lou Ann cleared her throat, wiped her eyes, read,

  My God,

  I have never thanked thee for my thorn.

  I have thanked thee a thousand times

  for my roses,

  But never once for my thorn.

  Teach me the glory of my cross,

  Teach me the value of my thorn.

  Show me that I have climbed to thee

  by the path of my pain.

  Show me that my tears have made

  my rainbows.

  “There’s lessons right along to the end of the road,” Mary said, her eyes back on the window. She sighed, shook her head, said softly to the world outside, “What strength that man must have had.”

  Pretty soon the whole town was talking about the quilt, give or take a few souls who didn’t think the whole mess amounted to a hill of beans on a hot day. The regular crew was singled out for talk and gossip, the opinions varying according to personalities. Fo
r some it was a curious thing, how grown-up women with jobs and families could see fit to spend so much time on a silly old quilt. Others thought it a Christian duty, helping poor Miss Mary out on something she had no business starting in the first place. Then there were some who heard of the praying and the Bible reading and the singing, but they weren’t really sure they could believe it all. Others listened and nodded and wished in silence they had the courage and the time to go up and join the group.

  When asked, those who went were usually very excited about it, yet bashful at the same time. It was hard to describe, the communion and the joy and the stillness they found in the little house on the hill.

  Some of those who went regularly stopped saying much when asked about it, or at least stopped opening their hearts every time someone asked them how the quilt was getting on. It was hard to face those frozen little know-it-all smiles, those calculating, cold eyes beneath carefully set coiffures, that unspoken desire to probe for weakness and fault and something to criticize. So the women often did what they felt they had to, which was develop a little two-sentence piece that started out with how marvelous it was to take time for prayer every day and ended with how the lady ought to come up and join them. And the lady would cover her disappointment at not gaining anything else for her rumor-mill with another little cold-eyed smile, and say the inevitable, Miss Mary is such a beautiful woman, and change the subject.

  The morning sessions in Mary’s sitting room took on the sort of established routine that was possible only when people did what they needed to do because they wanted to. The first ladies to arrive each morning made coffee and set out the various scissors and measuring tapes and sewing baskets. If a pie or coffee cake was brought, it was put in the oven and the temperature set on low. Bread dough was placed on the counter to rise and covered with a damp cloth. The women chatted with Mary and marked out the work completed the day before and laughed quite a lot. There was a sense of anticipation in the room, a feeling that the little girl inside each of them was let loose to laugh and chase sunbeams and share a little of the joy they thought locked away forever.