“Things, maybe,” Annie finally squeezed out. “I expect Mary Sue carried in groceries a time or two. Mainly she just fixed it for Kitty to come live there. Kitty’s the one who did for Edna. And you know how much she’ll get.”
Alvin Hannauer, a retired anthropologist with whom Joan’s father had worked, looked up over his wire-rims. “Edna was a fair woman. And she left a will, I know.”
Annie shook her head. “By the time they get to a will, anything worth wanting is gone. If the kids don’t sneak it out, the neighbors do. I know for a fact that my Aunt Goldie’s silver candlesticks walked off before she was in her grave. I could tell you where, if I had a mind to.”
Joan was relieved when Alvin called the meeting to order. As usual, he handled routine matters with dispatch. Then he unfolded a letter.
“We’ve had a request for volunteers this week,” he said. “From the symphony.”
“I’m not stuffing any more envelopes,” said Annie. “Folks think that’s all we’re good for.”
“Don’t get your back up, Annie,” Alvin said mildly. “You haven’t heard what they want yet.”
Annie subsided, but her knitting picked up speed.
“It’s for next week’s quilt show.”
“I’m not baby-sitting quilts, either.”
“Okay, Annie,” Alvin said. “But some people like to.”
“What does the orchestra want, Joan?” Annie asked.
“The orchestra,” Alvin said, staring her down, “or the orchestra guild, to be precise, has made a musical quilt as a fund-raiser. They want a crack at the out-of-town money, too. It’s all but finished, and they’re asking for volunteers to do the edges in time for the show.”
“She took her time asking,” Annie grumped.
The letter had eased Joan’s earlier resentment. Now, torn between her loyalties to the center and the orchestra, she felt obliged to clear the air.
“I can tell you a little about this,” she said. “Edna Ellett was going to bind it for Mary Sue, but of course she couldn’t. As a matter of fact, the quilt’s already here. Kitty Graf brought it over this afternoon and volunteered to work on it. If someone will show me, maybe even I can learn how.”
I can’t believe I said that, she thought. But it worked. Mabel Dunn, who took the minutes and seldom said anything, spoke now.
“I’ll help. And I’ll teach you. I’m no great shakes, but there’s nothing to binding a quilt. Seems as if it’s as much for Edna as it is for the orchestra.”
“Thanks, Mabel,” Alvin said. “Without objection, then, I’ll ask Joan to post the letter on the bulletin board downstairs. And without objection, the meeting stands adjourned.”
Past worrying about Mary Sue’s sensibilities, Joan called her to insist on help recruiting volunteers.
“You can’t just spring jobs on me like this,” she said. “Not only am I busy here, but there’s still lots to do for the orchestra before the concert. The people who thought this project up need to see it through.”
They finally agreed on a time—Friday after lunch, when the big room at the center would be free.
That was probably a waste of breath, Joan thought after she hung up. But it was worth it. If all else fails, Mabel Dunn and Kitty Graf will come. I’d better let them know when.
Hands All Around
The first to arrive on Friday was a stranger. Joan was sure she’d met all the orchestra guild members. The young woman standing in her office door with a skirt that met her unfashionable boots wasn’t one of them.
“I’m Carolyn Ryrie,” she said. “They told me you needed quilters this afternoon.”
“Bless you,” Joan said. “Who told you?”
“The woman’s name is Ellett, but I suppose you could say the police sent me. It’s a long story.”
The story had to wait, though. Mabel Dunn and Kitty Graf were already there. Joan introduced them, told Kitty where to find the quilt, and excused herself to check the tables they’d work around.
Opening the door to the activity room, she inhaled chicken and dumplings. Since she had come to the center in September, the occasional carry-in lunch had been replaced by a government-sponsored nutrition program for the elderly. Those who could were asked to pay $1.50 a meal. Everyone was encouraged to contribute at least something, but no one was turned away. Annie Jordan called it “eats for old folks.”
Occasionally, when meat loaf with onion permeated the building or fish and broccoli invaded her breathing space, Joan wished for the old days. Today, overwhelmed by work, she had forgotten to eat lunch, and the smell was hard to resist.
Maybe I could beg some leftovers, she thought. But I don’t know when I’d get time to eat them.
The cleanup crew was clattering pots and dishes out in the kitchen. At the far end of the room, a lone figure in a navy pea jacket and knitted hat was still hunched over a plate.
There was something familiar about the posture. Joan went closer.
“Rebecca!”
Her daughter jumped.
“Mom, you startled me, sneaking up like that.”
“Sorry. These shoes can’t compete with the kitchen noise.” Already I’m apologizing to her, Joan thought. “But what in the world are you doing here? I didn’t even know you were in town. The quilt show doesn’t open for a week.” Stop running on at the mouth, she told herself, and by a miracle, she stopped.
“There are lectures and demonstrations ahead of time.” Rebecca wiped her plate clean with a piece of biscuit. “You were busy when I arrived, so I followed my nose. They wouldn’t let me go away hungry even after they told me it was for old people. They said they had plenty.”
She gulped the biscuit and the last of her coffee.
“I did pay.”
Prickly as ever.
Hungry, too? She didn’t look all that thin, but it was hard to tell, as covered up as she was. Joan ached to hug her. She hesitated. With her hat and coat on, Rebecca looked ready for instant flight.
“Rebecca, I’m so glad to see you. Just surprised, that’s all. A good surprise.”
Rebecca stood up, stacked her dishes, and carried them to the pass-through counter.
“Best meal I’ve had in a week,” she told the kitchen workers. “Thanks a lot.”
Empty-handed then, she turned around and said, “Aren’t you even going to hug me?”
Joan’s eyes stung with sudden tears. She put out her arms. Rebecca walked in, and for a long moment they held each other tight.
Rebecca let go first. She pulled off her cap, ran her fingers through her dark curls, and began unbuttoning her jacket.
“Guess I’ll take off my coat and stay awhile.” Her grin, so much like Andrew’s and their father’s, broke through at last. “Unless you have something better to do.”
“Heavens,” said Joan. “I forgot what I came in here for. Those women are out there waiting to work on the quilt.”
“Quilt? What kind of quilt?” Rebecca sounded interested.
“I don’t know. I haven’t even looked at it yet. All I know is that the orchestra guild made it for the show, to auction or raffle or something. It still needs some finishing, and I don’t know what came over me—I said I’d help.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“Me too.”
They laughed together.
“Would you check the tables?” Joan asked. “Make sure they’re clean enough? That’s what I came in to do. I’ll be right back.”
The group had swelled in her absence. Responding to the letter posted on the bulletin board, two of the center’s old regulars had arrived. Even Annie Jordan, no more a quilter than Joan, was there with her ever-present knitting.
“I can sew a hem if it comes to that,” she said. “But I mostly came for moral support.”
Joan apologized for making them wait and took them in to meet her daughter. Rebecca, who was wiping a table with a dry dishtowel, tolerated the inevitable exclamations with considerably better g
race than she had shown as a child.
“So,” said Mabel Dunn, no longer the mouse of the board meeting, “let’s push a couple of tables together and take a look at this masterpiece.” Willing hands unwrapped the covering sheet and spread the quilt out.
Joan hadn’t known what to expect. What she saw was big enough for a double bed. A latticework of deep reds and purples framed rectangles of royal blue on which the instruments of the orchestra stood out in bas-relief. The trumpet, French horn, trombone, tuba, flute, and harp were gold; the violin, viola, cello, and bass were shades of red and brown; the clarinet, oboe, and English horn gleamed a satiny black. Most of the details were embroidered, but even Joan could see that the tiny white and black keys of the grand piano had been pieced together from separate bits of fabric, as had the light heads and gleaming kettles of the timpani. Near the center the conductor’s baton lay below an open score, its notes mere suggestions.
Infinitesimal stitches through all three layers—the decorated top, the puffy batting, and the plain muslin back—drew lines in shadows, the essence of quilting.
“Ohhhhh?” said Annie, drawing the word out in southern Indiana’s rising inflection of marveling admiration. “Will you look at that?”
I’ll never in this world be able to make such little stitches, Joan thought. And if I could, I wouldn’t have the patience.
Rebecca ran her hand over the quilt.
“The intense colors are great, and the textures,” she said. “Wool and velveteen, and that shiny gold. And look at the trapunto.”
“The what?” Annie asked.
“You know, the stuffing in the instruments. They stuck extra batting in through the back to make them stand out like that.”
“It’s Dacron,” said Mabel, checking the open edge. “Won’t fall apart. That’s why they could get away with so little quilting. So much the better. Less work for us.”
“True,” said Carolyn Ryrie. “But I like cotton better. Synthetics just don’t have the same feel.”
I’ll bet you only eat brown rice, too, Joan thought.
“Question is, would you want it on a bed?” Mabel said. “Or do you think it will go for more if we fix it for a wall hanging?”
“Do you have to choose?” Joan wondered whether anyone would buy it at all. What would I do with it if I won? Sleep under kettledrums? Hang it in the living room?
“Not yet,” Mabel answered her spoken question. “First we need to carry the quilting to the very edge. It won’t take long, even without a frame. It’s all but done, and these plain diagonals are easy. Then I’ll attach the binding with the sewing machine, and we’ll blind-stitch it on the back.”
They spread out around the double table, making space for Rebecca, who sat down with them as if she knew what she was doing.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Joan,” Mabel said. “But you did say you’d never quilted. Would you be willing to keep the needles threaded for the rest of us?”
“Right, Mom,” Rebecca said. “That’s the job they used to give the children.”
Joan wasn’t sure she was up to even that. But Mabel showed her how to knot a short length of the strong white thread at one end and run it across a block of beeswax.
“That keeps it from tangling,” she explained. “And keep the threads short—less than a foot long. We’ll lose more time quilting with a long thread than you can ever save on threading.”
Snipping the thread with stork-shaped scissors she had seen last in Edna’s hands, Joan clumsily prepared the needles. The beeswax-stiffened thread didn’t flop when she missed an eye and bumped an edge. Still, with six quilters, she had to work to keep up.
Fascinated, she watched Rebecca’s right hand rock from thimble to point and her left forefinger move rhythmically back and forth, guiding the needle from beneath, until, as if gasping for breath, the needle released half a dozen tiny stitches to the waxed thread and rose in the air before plunging in for more. With no frame to hold it taut, Rebecca stretched her section of quilt between her left hand and the edge of the table, where she anchored it with her right elbow.
Where had she learned this?
“You’re hiding your knots, aren’t you?” Kitty asked the room in general. “Edna was a real stickler about not letting a knot show. She always said that was the first thing a judge would take off for.”
As she spoke, Kitty teased the fabric apart with her needle to start a new thread. A quick, short jerk sent the knot through the top and set it in the batting. Her fingernail nudged the opening closed again, and her right hand began rocking and lifting in the quilter’s dance. Kitty’s line grew faster than the others, but with a certain flatness. Looking closely, Joan saw that these stitches were three times as long as Rebecca’s. The eye saw a line, not of shadows, but of thread.
“This is nice,” said one of the old regulars, stroking a section near the edge. “But it don’t hold a candle to Edny’s best quilting. Twelve stitches to the inch, and the back always pretty as the top. Or some of them real old quilts she had. You ever see those? Quilted so close you couldn’t put your little finger between the lines. If she’d ever showed ’em, she’d’ve walked off with all kinds of prizes.”
“I don’t know about that,” said another. “Last year’s big winner had no more quilting to it than this. It was like one of those wild modern paintings—all colors and no sense. The woman didn’t even quilt her own tops. She farmed them out.”
“And called herself a quilter?”
“You run into that a lot now.” Carolyn Ryrie spoke up.
“You always did,” Mabel said. “Our church used to quilt tops for other people. I remember back when we charged five dollars a spool—and used maybe two dozen spools a top. Nowadays it would probably run you a good twenty-five a spool, if you could even find anyone to do it. But no one would quilt that close.”
“I was thinking more of the modern paintings,” Carolyn said. “Some of my artist friends think I’m silly to want to finish what I design. Too slow, they say. Some don’t even piece the top themselves. But I want to control the whole process, from dying the cotton with natural dyes to making my own binding.”
“So do I!” Across the table, Rebecca’s face lit up. “What kind of natural dyestuffs do you find around here?”
“Come out to my cabin, and I’ll show you.” Carolyn parked her needle in the quilt. Rummaging in a pocket of her skirt, she came up with a folded sheet of paper. “Here—it’s tricky to find without a map.”
“What’s this?” Mabel, too, held up a piece of paper. It looked to have been torn from a small spiral notebook. “I found it stuck in between the top and the batting. ‘No sugar on cereal’?”
Kitty reached for it.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s one of my notes. I guess Edna slipped it in when I wasn’t looking.”
No sugar—that would be Edna’s diabetes, Joan thought. But why a note about it? And why in the quilt?
The table was silent. For a moment, the hands stopped rocking and lifting. Crumpling the note, Kitty answered the question no one asked.
“She’d been having trouble remembering for some time. It got worse when she was sick. At first she could joke about it, but it really bothered her. So she started writing notes to herself. You know, a note on the front door to remind her to take her keys. That kind of thing.”
Kitty passed her empty needle to Joan.
“I do that myself,” Joan said, sending back a threaded one.
“But she started needing notes to find things in the kitchen, or to remember to wear a coat,” Kitty said. “And then I had to write them—not that she was going out anymore.” She jerked her knot all the way through the quilt top and had to start again.
“Sometimes, at the end, she’d hide notes she didn’t like. This one was to help her follow her diet.” Setting the knot at last, Kitty pulled two long stitches through the layers.
“I’ve been finding them everywhere—in books, under her night
gowns, stuck on the backs of pictures. Now here.” She raised her head from her work and looked around the table.
“Don’t tell. You knew Edna. She’d just hate it if people knew. Please don’t tell.”
Rolling Stone
Don’t tell what, little Kitty?”
Sitting with her back to the door, Joan would have recognized Leon Ellett’s voice anywhere.
“Why, Mr. Ellett,” she said, and turned from Kitty’s stricken face to pull out a chair for him. “Did you come to help? With another worker, we’ll be done in no time.”
Her own voice rang as false as her words, but he didn’t seem to notice. Ignoring the chair, he towered over her, the eyes below his bushy brows fixed on hers.
“Call me Leon,” he boomed. “I came to take Kitty back to the house. I thought you’d be done by now.”
Mabel Dunn offered, “I can give you a ride, Kitty. Unless you’d rather leave now, of course.”
“Thank you, Mabel,” Kitty almost whispered. “I want to finish.” Her needle rose and dipped as if Leon weren’t there.
“We’re just getting a good start,” Joan told him. “Sure you can’t stay?”
“Wouldn’t do you any good if I did,” he said, smiling down at her.
“That’s how I feel.” Joan smiled back. Then she realized what she’d said. “About myself, I mean. But they gave me a job where I couldn’t do much damage.”
“Could they spare you for a minute?”
“Heavens, yes,” said Mabel. “You go on.”
Conscious of Rebecca’s eyes, Joan led him out of the room. Does he want to talk about his mother? she wondered. In any case, she’d pulled Kitty’s chestnuts out of the fire.
“We could go into my office,” she offered.
“Or my car. It’s a beautiful day for a drive.”
She raised a mental eyebrow. Not his mother, then.
“I can’t leave,” she said. “But I’ll walk you to it.” She ducked under the arm holding the outside door for her and crunched across the gravel, inhaling spring air.
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