The Healing Quilt

by Lauraine Snelling

  Elaine smiled back. She knew Juanitas sister and her husband had passed their tests and been sworn in as citizens only days earlier. Juanita had helped them, as she had helped Juanita.

  “My madrey she not like to study, to speak new language.” Juanita picked up the pot and filled Elaine's coffee cup. “I bring fruit.”

  “One egg, over easy, and toast are all I want.” Elaine glanced over at George's place. The paper was refolded as neatly as if never opened and lay by the plate. She reached over and flipped it open to read the headlines. Three people had died in a truck crash the other day, two more critically injured. The local VFW would have their entourage of veterans marching in the parade. One lone survivor of World War I would be pushed in his wheelchair. The Mariners won against the Yankees. When Juanita placed her food before her, Elaine smiled her thanks and ate without paying attention to the meal, except for giving Doodlebug his bit of toast. She finished with the Dear Abby column and closed the paper, folding it again, all in the same order just in case George found time to read more in the evening. He liked his paper in order and without wrinkles, definitely without articles or recipes cut out. She'd learned that early in her marriage, at times thinking she might order her own paper, like the Seattle Post Intelligencer, so she could do with it as she pleased.

  After brushing her teeth, she gathered up the sacks of decorator pillows she'd sewn to sell at the hospital guild booth and checked to make sure she had her car keys before going out to the garage.

  “Have a good time today,” she called just before closing the door. Juanitas distant “adios” came down the hall. Elaine set the sacks in the trunk, opened the garage door with the remote, and backed out her silver BMW, all the while humming a tune under her breath.

  A snuffling, snorting dog doing his business on her side lawn made her hit the brakes. Bootsie finished by digging his rear feet into the sod, scattering grass and dead clippings over his offering.

  “Get home, you stupid mutt, before I call the pound on you.” She slammed the car into park and bailed out to storm across the driveway, heading for the dog with murder in her eyes.

  Bootsie, slobber drooling from his jaws, barked at her, his front legs jumping off the ground with the force of his effort.

  “If only I had a stick, a shovel, anything, I'd…” When her feet hit the grass, Bootsie huffed once more and turned to wobble home, fat rolling on his haunches.

  “Don't you frighten my Bootsie!” Mrs. Smyth yelled from her brick front steps.

  “Then keep him home to use your own yard. Look at this, a pile big enough for a horse! You just better have this picked up before it turns the grass yellow.” Elaine could feel herself shaking with rage. Frighten Bootsie; I'd rather kill him. She glared at the retreating duo and stomped her way back to the car. All dressed up and dog poop to scoop up. Hardly! If they had another yellow spot on the lawn, she'd send Mrs. Smyth the gardeners bill…

  She turned left on Main only to meet the roadblocks set up for the parade one block down. She thumped the steering wheel. Such a peaceful beginning to the day and now this. “I swear that woman sends her dog to our yard deliberately. Deliberately!” She turned off and circled town to get to the park. Stupid not to have remembered the parade. Perhaps if I hadnt had to chase off the dog I would have remembered—and not been hte. She glanced at her watch again. Ten minutes late. Inexcusable.

  Two women were already setting up the tables, chatting while they worked, when she arrived.

  “Good morning, sorry I'm late.” Elaine set her bags down and helped spread table drapes. “I think we should make a U so that more people can come in to shop, with the cash register here, out of the way.” She pointed to the right.

  “Sounds good to me,” said Joan, head of the booth committee. “A different look will be nice.” Both women nodded.

  Well now, isnt that amazing? No “we've always done it this way” jazz. Together they shifted the eight-foot tables around into the new formation.

  “I brought these closet accessories. Thought we could use them to hang things down the poles,” Joan said, holding up a line of hooks.

  Elaine gave her a wide smile. “Wonderful. Now, why didn't we think of these things before?” By the time the others from the hospital guild arrived, the three women had emptied the plastic bins and arranged all the hand-made items on the tables or hung them from the poles.

  “Don't we have power yet?” Elaine asked as she shoved the last crate back under the tablecloth.

  “No, but I'll go find out why not. I forgot to ask Sherman when he came by earlier.”

  “I'll take care of it.” As Elaine strode off, she caught a glimpse of Joans face, frozen as if she'd been reprimanded.

  / did it again. When will I learn? What is it about Joan that makes me do that? Elaine castigated herself clear to the booth set up as office. Sherman, ops manager for the festival, turned to greet her.

  “What do you need?”

  “Power for the cash register and credit card machine. We had that written on the application.”

  “Sorry.” Sherman, looking similar in body build to his namesake, reached under the table for a power cord. “You take this back with you and get set up, and I'll string line from the closest hookup. You ladies need anything else over there?”

  “Customers when we open.” Elaine took the orange cord, coiled in a figure eight.

  “You know the hospital guild always outsells the other vendors, except for food.”

  “Good thing. Someone's got to pay for the extra, but necessary, things.”

  “Yeah, like new carpets, fancy furniture.

  Elaine drew herself up straight. “Sherman, none of those things came out of our money, and if you don't like them, let the boy wonder know. He thinks pretty is as pretty does, as if sick people came to a hospital to admire the decor.” Icicles dripped from her words.

  “Ah, guess I put my foot in my mouth there.” He took a step back. “Need anything else, give me a holler.” He turned to answer someone else's question, giving her a wave at the same time.

  Elaine had perfected the stomp-'em-into-the-ground walk while smiling and answering greetings as she went.

  “What happened?” Joan took the offered cord.

  Elaine inhaled deeply and let it out. “If I hear one more snide remark about the money spent on redecorating the hospital, I swear I'll.

  “And I'll help you. People think our money went into that.” The three women clustered together.

  “After all the work we do.”

  “And the good we've done.”

  “You can make sure there will be pictures of the isolettes in the newspaper with our board on hand to do the donating.” Elaine looked to each of them. “We've always stayed in the background, but now might be the time to do some real PR. Maybe I'll take Yvonne Parrish out to lunch.” Yvonne Parrish wrote the Jefferson City society news and an “about town” column.

  “Time to call in a few marks.” The three shared a chuckle at her sinister tone.

  “Hey, your power's over here,” Sherman called, holding up the end.

  “No, actually, our power is right here.” Elaine tapped the others’ shoulders. Handing the pronged end to Joan, she began to play out the cord.

  Later in the day, after wandering around the festival, Elaine returned to the booth to do another stint. Joan stopped to talk with her.

  “Did you hear about the quilt project?”

  “What quilt?”

  “One to help earn money for a new mammogram unit?”

  “Really? Where'd you hear that?”

  Joan shrugged. “I think Kit Cooper is heading it up, or at least coordinating the planning stages. She's going to have a meeting at her house Wednesday morning at ten.”

  “Hmm.” Elaine thought a moment. “Well, there's more than enough work to go around. We'll take whatever help we can get.” She gave Joan a brief synopsis of the board meeting. “Those men have no interest in a mammogram unit, so we'll do i
t ourselves.”

  “Thataway.”

  “Right! Someone has to get the ball rolling.”

  Three other women had joined the discussion.

  “You think that stuff about the power lines is for real or just scare tactics?” Two shoppers joined in.

  “It's for real,” Elaine said, nodding and raising one hand, manicured forefinger straight like a candle. “I looked up the research. Getting the power lines moved is a long-term problem. In the meantime, I say we buy the women of this town a new mammogram unit.”

  “I hear you're inciting the women to violence.” George had come to escort her to the Saint Ignatius barbecue booth.

  “Not violence, teamwork.” She turned to look at her husband. “How'd you hear?”

  “Over at the raspberry shortcake booth.” He gestured in the general direction. “Some women were talking about it.”

  “Thanks to that newspaper article, there's lots of questions. You can count on the hospital board getting a few.” “Great. My wife, the Pied Piper of Jefferson.” “At least I'm leading the children to life and not to death.” “True, but you've got to remember to count the cost. There's always a cost.”

  TWELVE

  “The vans been canceled—again?”

  Shaking her head, Kit punched the answering machines rewind button with more force than necessary. Surely she'd not heard right. While she waited for the click that signaled ready, she took coffee filters and a bag of vanilla coffee beans, medium roast, from the grocery sack and set them in the cupboard. After stuffing the plastic bag into the red calico tube hanging from the pantry door, she punched the machine again.

  “We're sorry to inform you that, due to circumstances beyond our control, the mobile mammogram unit will not be making its scheduled stop in Olympia. We will be sending a mailing for you to reschedule when we know the next available location in your area. Thank you for using Mammograms Plus.” Click.

  Kit eyed the machine. Sometimes the thought of maiming the messenger held certain appeal, especially when technology played a role in bearing bad tidings. Although she made jokes of being technologically disadvantaged, answering machines and voice mail rated high on her hit list.

  “Now I have to call Teza and cancel, which will please her mightily. And getting her to agree to go to Seattle…” She looked down at Missy, who watched her with hopeful eyes. “I know, you're hungry and need to go out.” The hound wagged her tail and glued her nose to her mistress's calf as Kit led the way through the kitchen to the back door. When the door opened, Missy swung her head from the door to her dish and back to Kit. “I get it, food first. You are something else, and to think some people consider animals dumb. You sure have me well trained.” All the while she talked, she poured dry dog food and a glu-cosamine tablet into the dogs dish, then added water and stuck the hard bowl in the microwave for thirty seconds. She popped open the oven door and set Missy's dish on the floor.

  Missy looked up with adoring, soulful eyes and sniffed once before digging in. The wagging tail added thanks.

  “I know, you're welcome.”

  Kit poured herself a glass of iced tea from the pitcher in the refrigerator and sat down at the kitchen table to read her mail. A card with no return address but a postmark of Denver, Colorado, caught her attention. Recognizing the handwriting immediately, she slit the envelope with her letter opener and smiled at the sad-looking Charlie Brown on the front. The lettering said, “I'm sorry” Inside, “For not writing more often.”

  She cocked her head. “Well, that's a switch. No phone call, but a card and one that lets me know his general whereabouts.” She read the brief handwritten message that said absolutely nothing and slid the card back in the envelope. “So I guess that shows he thinks of me from time to time.” Staring out the window, she tapped the edge of the envelope on the table. She was suddenly aware of the sound of Missy eating. Crunch, tap, tap, crunch, tap, tap and a big sigh. Her own. Ah, Mark, what is happening to us—or is there even an us anymore? Sometimes Kit wanted to scream at him. But now, a sadness so heavy she could hardly breathe smothered her. Standing would take too much lifting. Her arms weren't strong enough to bench-press the world of hurt his leaving caused. She thought back to that day, six months ago.

  “I can't stay here anymore. Too many memories, too many tears. I just can't.” Mark had his suitcase packed and sitting by the backdoor, ready to be loaded into his car. His gold-flecked eyes, usually so warm and charming, looked gray like the rest of his face. He'd lost weight since the funeral, and black hollows under his eyes showed lack of sleep.

  Many times she awakened in the middle of the night to find his side of the bed empty. Sometimes she found him in Amber's room, sometimes in his chair in the family room, no lights on, staring into space or the past. The past before the cancer returned.

  They'd lived through the first attack and round of radiation, chemotherapy, vomiting, hair loss, mouth sores so bad Amber could barely talk, and tears shed over an unfair life. In those five years, Amber had continued to play basketball, volleyball, and summer Softball. She graduated from high school. They believed God had healed her, since she'd done far better than the doctors predicted. The bone had grown back faster than normal and more fully than early estimations. While Mark had helped when he could, his business travel often kept him away during hospital overnights and outpatient care.

  Kit remembered his hasty departures any time the nurses had to find a vein in Amber's arm. Mark and needles were not compatible. But he had held basins and helped distract their daughter while she fought off the nausea. Together they'd kept their family life as normal as possible, enjoying their times together, looking forward to the future.

  Until Amber died.

  “Woof!” Missy nudged her knee, and the look on her face clearly questioned why she was being ignored. Kit, wiping her eyes with her fingertips, leaned down and cupped the dogs ears with both hands. “Do you still miss her, girl? Sometimes I think I could die from the hurting. Or maybe I just wish I would. Living is much harder, and with Mark gone…” She shook her head, dropping her chin to her chest. Missy lifted both broad front feet to Kit's thigh and whimpered, her pointed nose and sad eyes seeking and giving reassurance. At least petting the dog helped Kit focus on something besides the hole in her heart.

  Okay, Cooper, straighten up and fly right, she ordered herself. You have no time for a pity party now or anytime. Besides, you ve done enough of them.

  Someone knocked on the back door. Kit sniffed, wiped her eyes again, and stood, sucking in a breath of composure at the same time. Seeing no one through the lace sheer, she opened the door to see Thomas sitting on the deck chair.

  “Hey, Thomas.”

  Missy charged out, catching Kits calves and nearly knocking her over. Her woofs of delight and flapping ears stretched a grin from ear to ear on her guest. “I think she likes you.”

  Thomas fell to his knees, hugging the dog and laughing at her slurpy kisses. When he looked up at Kit again, he studied her for a moment.

  “You're sad. Why?”

  Leave it to Thomas. She sniffed and wished for a tissue, but rather than going back for one, she sat down in the other chair.

  Thomas didn't take his gaze off her, all the while petting Missy but obviously waiting for an answer.

  What to tell him? The honest truth, than what you tell people. But then I might cry again, and this child doesnt need to see me wallowing in self-pity “I got a card in the mail, and it brought up sad memories, that's all.”

  Missy knocked Thomas's Mariners cap off his head. He snatched it before Missy could run off with it and returned to studying Kit.

  “What memories?”

  “Of my daughter.”

  “I forgot. What's her name again?

  “Amber.”

  “Where does she live now?”

  “In heaven.” Kit rolled her lips and eyes to keep the tears at bay.

  “My grandmas in heaven. She watches out for me.” Sitting
on the deck floor, he crossed his legs and took up scratching Missy's belly, still gazing at Kit.

  Go away, child, this hurts too bad.

  “Amber watches out for you. That's what angels do.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My dad.”

  “Your dad is pretty smart.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Thomas grinned at Missy's wriggling to keep him rubbing her tummy, then glanced up at Kit from the corner of his eye. “How long since Amber got to be an angel?”

  Got to be. Interesting. “Two years.”

  “You miss her, huh.”

  It was more a statement than a question, as if he understood all about death and life and missing ones you love. “More than I can say.” Tears flowed unchecked, dripping off her chin.

  “I bet she loved Missy a whole lot.”

  “She did.” She hved life a whole lot. “You want a Popsicle?”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah, I think so. You can give Missy a treat. That's one of the things Amber loved to do, only most of the time she just shared what she was eating.”

  “Does Missy like Popsicles?”

  “Most likely, but I'll bring her a puppy treat.”

  “Can I get the ball?”

  Missy scrambled to her feet at the b word, again making Thomas laugh.

  “Does she know ‘ball’?” His eyes grew round when Missy Tigger-bounced around the deck.

  “I call it ‘the b word’ if I don't plan on throwing it for half an hour. I dont think she's ever given up before I did.”

  “I can throw it.”

  “I know.” Kit opened the door and crossed to the refrigerator while he fetched the red nylon ball from the toy box. “Put it in your pocket for a bit, or you'll never get to eat your Popsicle. What color do you want?”

  “Purple.”

  “We have red, green, and yellow.” Green.

  She took out banana for herself and smacked it on the edge of the counter to separate the two sections. “You want yours divided too?”

  “Okay.” He nodded and shoved the ball in his jeans pocket. “Thank you,” he said, taking one half and watching her return the other to the freezer.