The Quilt Read online

  Most mornings the ladies would only stay an hour and then hurry back to what they had come to call the outside world. Mary would see them off the way she greeted them, with a soft smile and a blessing and a few words to show how wonderful it was to have them stop by. The ladies would always hesitate by the door, feeling pushed to go, regretting that they were leaving, and sort of wondering down deep if maybe that push they were feeling to depart was not truly as urgent as they made it out to be.

  Every few minutes, Mary would remind them of their purpose, their responsibility to say a prayer of thanks with each stitch sewn. It doesn’t matter if this quilt takes another twenty years, Mary would say a dozen times a day. What is important is that we all, each and every one of us, remember what it’s like to be grateful.

  That morning Jody waited until the room was pretty full, then said she had something she wanted to talk about. She found she couldn’t address the room directly. With a shyness she hadn’t known for years, she turned to Mary and talked, though her words were meant for all the room.

  “I found the prettiest Bible passage last night, Momma,” Jody said.

  Lately Mary had been spending more and more time just sitting and looking out the window, the work lying unattended in her lap. She turned at the sound of her name, blinked a few times as though not remembering where she was or why the people were there, said, “What’s that, child?”

  “A Bible passage I found last night,” Jody said, feeling somehow very young and very embarrassed.

  “Isn’t that nice,” Mary said, bringing the room into focus with her smile. “Why don’t you read it for us.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jody opened her Bible, said, “It’s from the hundredth Psalm.”

  Enter his gates with thanksgiving

  and his courts with praise;

  give thanks to him and praise his name.

  For the Lord is good and his love

  endures forever;

  his faithfulness continues through

  all generations.

  “I’ve always loved that passage,” Mary said, nodding her head very slowly, as though the effort was almost too much for her. “Why don’t you tell us how that spoke to your heart?”

  “Well,” Jody said, patting at wayward hair with movements made jerky by her nervousness. “I just read it and kind of saw myself walking into the presence of the Lord, like it says. And the way I could do it was by praising His name.”

  She made a little gesture as if she were trying to grab words out of the air, searching to find a way to say it so that the emotion she had felt would live for the others. “It was so beautiful there, with this love and light and everything. And I saw how all the things that I worried about were shadows that kept me from seeing what I really needed to do, which was be thankful.”

  Mary waited until she was sure Jody was finished, and said softly, “Child, you don’t know how those words make me feel.”

  With visible effort Mary rose to her feet, and the room saw that the lady could not stand upright. She leaned over slightly, her right arm bent up like a broken chicken wing. She held it close to her side, pressing in to keep some unseen pain from escaping and submerging her. And those in the room felt their hearts stand still.

  Jody was up and beside her before Mary could take her first step. “Momma, what’s the matter?”

  “Be an angel and help me back to the bedroom,” Mary said.

  “Can we get you something?” Lou Ann asked.

  “Not a thing, thank you. You just sit there and think on what this child has told you.” Mary let herself be half-led, half-carried through the silent room. When she was in the doorway leading to the back hall she turned and said to them all, “And finish what you’ve started.”

  That afternoon Mary had not risen from her bed, and her color did not look good, so Jody decided it was time to listen to sense and not to Mary’s protests. She called the doctor, and when he heard who it was he promised to stop by on his way home.

  Dr. Horace Martin had the sort of bedside manner that made most people want to get well just to make him happy. And those who couldn’t will themselves well were grateful for his care. His eyes held the light of somebody who was just waiting to hear the punchline of a really good joke, and even on the coldest days his hands somehow stayed warm. He had forgotten more secrets than most people ever knew, and came close to matching the minister for hearing out people’s troubles.

  But his face was serious and his eyes grave when he finished Mary’s examination. He folded up his stethoscope and put it back into his little black bag before saying, “Miss Mary, I think maybe I oughtta call us a car to take you over to the hospital.”

  Jody felt that little cloud of fear that had been hovering around her all day densify into a solid lump of ice that settled in her belly. She reached out and grasped the doorjamb for support.

  Mary did not need to raise her voice to get the message across. “Horace Martin, you are going to do no such thing.”

  “It’s just a few tests, Miss Mary, there’s nothing—”

  “Don’t be silly, young man.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, but her gaze still brooked no back talk. “What on earth do I need tests for? I’m old and I’m sick. There. I’ve just saved us both a lot of trouble.”

  Dr. Horace Martin knew Mary well enough to quit while he was able. He gave her hand a little pat, smiled in defeat, stood, and signaled for Jody and Lou Ann to follow him out.

  Once the door was closed, Jody had to fight to keep her voice steady as she asked, “Is she going to be all right?”

  There were some things that Horace Martin had never become comfortable with. His eyes said one thing while his voice said another. “She’s old but she’s strong. Why don’t we give her a couple of days and see how it develops.”

  Jody was too numb to wring her hands. “Should I try to talk her into going to the hospital?”

  It showed the kind of man Dr. Horace Martin truly was when he fought down his first reaction and said instead, “Maybe the best thing for her right now is to stay where she’s most comfortable.”

  By mid-morning of the next day, Mary’s front sitting room was jammed. Lou Ann had been there since letting the kids off at school, granting Jody a chance to go home and get a few hours sleep. Voices were even more hushed than usual.

  Just before lunch Lou Ann went back to find Mary’s eyes open. “Are you all right, Momma? Can I get you something to eat?”

  Mary motioned toward the glass on her bedstead. When Lou Ann had helped her drink, she asked, “Are they working on my quilt?”

  The question caught Lou Ann by surprise. “Why, yes, ma’am, that is—”

  “You march right back out there and tell them to remember what I said.” Mary’s voice carried surprising strength for being so soft. “Not a stitch is to be sewn without a prayer of thanks.”

  “Yes, Momma, I will. But don’t you want—”

  “Right this instant, young lady,” Mary said, and set her mouth in firm lines. When Lou Ann was by the door she added, “And you might just call Preacher Louis and ask him to stop by sometime.”

  Preacher Louis was a wisp of a man with the voice of a hurricane, rolling and thundering and shaking the rafters. People who’d never seen him preach wondered how such a small weak-looking man with watery gray eyes could ride herd on such a large congregation. The question was never voiced by anyone who’d sat through a Sunday morning with Preacher Louis. As one old-timer put it, there was no question where the power came from. Up at the altar, the man burned like a freshly-lit Coleman cooking stove.

  The sitting room was still full of ladies that evening when the preacher arrived. Outside in the twilight a cluster of husbands and older children were talking in the low voices of people accustomed to the gatherings of a death watch. Preacher Louis greeted the men with his mild voice, commented on how warm the evening had remained, and pushed his way through the screen door. He stopped on the threshold and stared over the silen
t group with gentle gray eyes showing surprise. Women intent on work raised their heads to the reverend and offered greetings, but little was said and less time lost as they continued with their slow, careful stitching.

  Jody and Lou Ann came up together. The reverend looked at them, said, “Don’t these ladies have families waiting?”

  “We’ve been trying to get them to go home for almost four hours now,” Jody said. “They’ll leave for a little while and then sneak back in.”

  “Lynn told me straight out that if I locked the door she’d break in a window,” Lou Ann said.

  “I would, too,” Lynn affirmed from her place by the frame. “Miss Mary told us to finish this and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

  “Tell her we’re not forgetting the prayers, Reverend,” Amy said from where she was finishing up her own circular pattern.

  “Yes, well, perhaps I’d best speak to Miss Mary.” Preacher Louis allowed himself to be led through the women and down the back hallway to the bedroom. He smiled his thanks to Jody and Lou Ann and shut the door in their faces.

  More than an hour passed before the minister reappeared. He went with Jody and Lou Ann into the kitchen, refused their offer of coffee, spent a long moment tracing the pattern in the tablecloth.

  “Might as well say it, Reverend,” Lou Ann said, blinking at tears. “It’s clear enough in your face.”

  Reverend Louis raised his eyes, studied the two faces carefully before smiling his thin little smile and saying, “That is one beautiful lady.”

  “What did she say?” Jody pressed.

  “Miss Mary told me it was time she was going home,” Reverend Louis replied.

  When Jody could talk again, she said, “O dear sweet Lord.”

  “Said it like she was talking about the price of eggs,” Reverend Louis said. “She had a message for you two, said I was to wait but I think maybe I’ll tell you now. She said for you both to be strong.”

  Work on the quilt became a twenty-four-hour affair. Ladies whose husbands worked the night shift would come by for an hour or so, only to find a few others who just couldn’t sleep and thought maybe they’d stop in and keep Jody or Lou Ann or Jonas company. Nobody noticed Everett. He had come in not long after the preacher had left and had not moved since. He remained camped out in the chair beside Mary’s bed, not saying anything except when he read to her. He slept in little snatches when his eyes wouldn’t stay open anymore, the Bible open in his lap in case Mary woke and wanted to hear something. As soon as she closed her eyes again, though, he’d stop his reading and just sit there and watch her.

  When Jonas came in the first time, he’d started to ask his brother to leave them alone for a moment, but when he saw the look in Everett’s eyes he just didn’t have the heart to say anything. Lou Ann brought Everett food every once in a while, then stood over him to make sure he ate.

  Just before dawn on the fifth day after Preacher Louis’s visit, the last stitch was made. Seven tired ladies stepped back from the upright frame and looked with pleased expressions on their work.

  It was a glorious quilt.

  The outer edges were framed in shiny swatches of multicolored satin. They gave way to a stretch of pastel blue as clear and soft as the morning sky. And against this background were set the circular flower-patterns. Radiating out from each inner circle were fourteen petals, and each pattern was made from four different materials, four different printed designs.

  Somehow the different colors and designs and prints melted together and formed a new, larger pattern. The older ladies who had done quilts before knew this was the key. If the patterns were in true harmony they were seen yet not seen, like each brushstroke of a painting was not seen separately from the whole.

  The quilt was a picture and a story. It was a testimony to a time when pressures did not cry out for urgent things to be constantly tended to, when the world had not created a thousand different temptations pulling free time into a myriad of mindless activities. It told of values and patience and timeless meanings. It drew the person in. It spoke of comfort and rest. It soothed with the gentleness of a mother’s kiss.

  Jonas arrived with the sun, bringing the doctor for his morning visit. The two men stopped in front of the upright frame as though drawn to the spot.

  “That is a work of art,” Dr. Martin said. “You ladies should be proud of yourselves.”

  “Too tired to be proud,” Jody said, smiling at her husband.

  “I’m not,” Amy said. “I’m so proud I could burst.”

  “I want to take that frame apart and put it back together in Mary’s room,” Jonas decided. “Want her to see it just like this.”

  “You better wait till Lou Ann gets here,” Jody said. “She’d skin you alive if she wasn’t here to watch Momma’s face.”

  “You get busy with that, then,” Dr. Martin said. “I’ll go see to our patient. Everett still in there?”

  “Hasn’t moved in five days,” Jody said, the light in her eyes dimming. “I went in a couple of hours ago and covered him with a blanket. Momma seemed to be resting comfortably.”

  It took them the better part of the morning to unfasten the quilt, take the screws out of the frame’s corners, and set it up again in Mary’s room. They had to wait until they were sure she was asleep before starting to rebuild it. While they worked they kept shooting little glances at each other, raising up a little and looking at the bed, half-grinning at the thought of what Mary would say, making a lot of noise in a quiet sort of way, and just generally acting like kids getting ready to surprise their parents.

  Everybody who didn’t work stood in the doorway and watched, or waited in the sitting room to greet the newcomers and watch their expressions as they saw the quilt spread out across Mary’s chair. Most everybody had seen it the day before, but this was different. It was finished. The extra stitches had been cut away, all the little slivers of material brushed aside, the floor vacuumed, the quilt laid out for all to see. People came in and were cautioned to silence on account of the door to the back room being open; then those already there would kind of shuffle aside so the newcomers could see the quilt. There was a little gasp of inward breath, a little step forward with outstretched hand, a moment of silence, and the words everybody’d been waiting to hear. It was a glorious quilt.

  Finally the frame was built up again, and the quilt was taken and set into place. By this time the door was jammed so tight with bodies that those in back couldn’t see a thing. Everett sat in the chair by the bed, watching it all with eyes that didn’t seem to be seeing very much, so quiet and still that after a moment nobody really thought much about him being there.

  The side-clamps were tightened and the frame was raised upright, barely fitting in under the ceiling, and another little gasp escaped from the people by the door. The sound woke Mary.

  She turned her head slowly toward the noise, and it took a moment for her to realize how many people were there. Then she caught sight of the quilt out of the corner of her eye, and swivelled her head back upright.

  Mary reached a fragile hand out toward Everett, said in an ancient voice, “Hand me my glasses, son.”

  “It’s done, Momma,” Jody said, so excited she could barely stand it.

  At those words the crowd outside pushed the ones in front forward, and more than a dozen people spilled into the room. They moved over toward the bed’s headboard so as to be seeing the quilt as Mary did. And the sight was really something, what with the quilt almost big enough to cover the entire back wall. Lou Ann helped Jody slide another pillow under Mary’s head so she could see it better. Grins kept popping up all over the room. They’d look from the quilt back to Mary and back to the quilt again, and then show another little grin to their neighbor.

  Mary looked at it for a long, long time. She looked at it for so long that people started getting little lumps in their throats, watching her look at the quilt, thinking about how everybody said it would never get done, remembering how they thems
elves had labored over this or that, recalling the work, recalling the prayers. Truly, it was a glorious quilt.

  Finally, Mary turned to look over the friends and family gathered there in her room. She held them there for a moment, returning their smiles and shining eyes with a gaze that seemed to reach deep inside.

  With visible effort Mary raised her head up and said with surprising strength, “Now all of you go out there and finish what you’ve started.”

  Despite the fact that she was close to being scared out of her wits, Jody went up to the altar alone the morning of Mary’s funeral. Lou Ann helped her work out what she was going to say, but there was no way Lou Ann could leave Everett alone just then, especially not at the funeral. Jonas had just plain turned and walked away. When Jody pressed him all he said was, the last time you got me to stand up in front of other people was at our wedding. I don’t aim on making a fool of myself twice in one life. Lynn said she’d go up there with her, but she kind of felt in her heart like it was something Jody needed to do alone. Jody was held back from pressing her best friend by the fact that she felt in her heart that Lynn was right.

  The church was filled to capacity that morning, was how Reverend Louis put it. The back and side doors were all open to the early summer sun, but any breeze that might have been there to cool off the flock was blocked by the crowd pushing for room to see. Those who got there early enough had a place in the pews and busied themselves fanning up meager puffs of air with hats and programs and prayer book bindings.

  The others crowded in a semicircle around the outer walls, content to lean and shift their weight and perch their children up on the windowsills. The only people who weren’t crowded were those in the front two rows and the choir. The choir suffered as all choirs do in stuffy summer churches, be-robed and chafing and hoping their sweat didn’t drip on the hymnals. Those in the front two rows would have simply given the world to be anywhere but where they were.