The Goodbye Quilt

by Susan Wiggs

  “In my next life, maybe.”

  “Seriously, Mom, you’d love it.”

  “I’m too chicken to love something like that.” Still, I feel a slight twinge. What would it be like, dangling in midair like the tail of a giant kite? But no. That is so far out of my comfort zone I can’t even imagine myself doing it.

  “What’s that piece of fabric?” Molly asks, indicating the dotted Swiss. She’s been enjoying my stories about the pieces in the quilt.

  “This is from your grandmother’s square-dancing skirt. There’s plenty of fabric, yards and yards of it, so I used it for sashing. Do you remember how she and Grandpa used to go square dancing?”

  “Sort of. Maybe just from looking at old pictures, though.”

  My parents were avid square dancers. They belonged to a club that held a dance the first Saturday of every month. I can still see them in my mind’s eye, my dad trim and dapper in a Western-cut shirt, with mother-of-pearl snap buttons, and a string tie. My mother’s dresses were outrageous confections. She made them herself, with yards of ruched calico or dotted Swiss draped over a pinwheel froth of crinolines. The dresses had puffy sleeves that sat like weightless balls on her shoulders, and she always wore these horrible little one-strap dancing shoes.

  The sight of my folks in their square-dancing getup might have made me squirm, except that they were so damn happy to be going out to the dance hall together, to laugh with their friends and drink sticky fruit punch.

  “They loved those dances so much,” I tell Molly, drawing a stitch through the sashing. “Grandma more than Grandpa, but he was a good sport about it.”

  “I never saw them dance,” Molly says.

  “Every once in a while, they’d have family night and we’d go.” Of course she wouldn’t remember that; she was in a stroller at the time. Still, I could see her swinging her tiny feet and clapping, mesmerized by the noise and the movements.

  When Molly was in the second grade, my mother suffered a massive stroke. She was just sixty-four; it shouldn’t have happened. I took Molly to see her, praying my child wouldn’t act frightened when she saw Mom’s altered face, the left side slack and unresponsive, her neck encased in a cervical collar.

  I needn’t have worried. Molly had happily rolled an ergonomic table in front of my mother and said, “Now you can play cards with me.”

  The funny, sewing, square-dancing mom I knew vanished that day, even though she lived for two more years. Her personality changed, and dark anger emerged from a place we never knew was inside her. It was as if the stroke awakened a slumbering dragon inside her. She raged at how hard she had worked, and how frustrated she was that she hadn’t given her kids more. I constantly reassured her that what she’d given her family was enough. She always liked it when I brought Molly to visit her, though. Seeing her only granddaughter quieted the angry sadness.

  She was supposed to get better with a long and rigorous course of physical and occupational therapy. She hated the therapy, though—squeezing a hard blue rubber ball, poking a thick shoelace through holes on a board to form the shape of a spider, walking back and forth between parallel bars. Most days, she refused to do any of it, preferring to let my dad tie her shoes and push her wheelchair. Her hands, which used to effortlessly knit Fair Isle sweaters and mittens and hats, closed around some invisible object and refused to open. Once or twice, she tried knitting again, but the yarn wound up in knots of frustration on the floor. The physical therapists told my father that in the long run, she’d be better off dressing herself and learning to walk on her own, but Dad didn’t listen. It was more important to him to do what my mom wanted.

  “I wish I could remember the square dancing,” Molly says. “Not the assisted living place.”

  I wish that, too. Even though I know it’s irrational, I feel irritated at Molly because she doesn’t remember my mother the way I want her to. I want her to recall the funny singing voice, the strong hands with their faint smell of onion, the perfect bulb of hair held slick with Aqua-Net. I want Molly to miss that woman, even though I understand it’s impossible.

  “How did she die?” Molly asks. “You never talk about that.”

  “Ask me how she lived. After all, that’s what she spent most of her life doing.”

  “You talk about that all the time,” Molly notes. “And I do love hearing the stories, Mom. But you’ve made her into this Disney grandma who’s barely real to me.”

  “She got pneumonia and was too weak to fight it.” I smooth my hand over the fading calico. “She died early one morning when you were in fourth grade. I didn’t tell you right away because you had a school party that day. I didn’t want to ruin it for you. So I waited until you got home.”

  Molly is quiet for a minute, sipping her tea, staring out across the lake, where the wind whips up white tufts in the water. Wrapped in a blanket someone at the restaurant gave her, she looks little and lost. But there is a sharpness in her eyes. “You were always cushioning me, Mom.”

  “It’s what mothers do.” I wish my own mother could see this young woman now, vibrant and excited about her future. My dad, who has grown quiet and slow with age and loneliness, often tells me he wishes that, too.

  “It didn’t work,” she says, not looking at me. “I knew, anyway. I could tell from the way you rushed me off to carpool. I was scared to say anything because I didn’t want to see you cry.”

  This shocks me. Dan and I had been prepared; Mom’s doctors had let us know her death was imminent, even offering signs and markers to watch for. For me, the sense of loss was so overwhelming that I hadn’t been able to talk about it.

  Even now, years later, it’s still hard. There is something about losing your mother that is permanent and inexpressible—a wound that will never quite heal.

  “I had a rotten day at school that day,” Molly explains. “Hated the party. There were these awful cupcakes, and the games were lame. So it’s not like you spared me anything.”

  “Moll, I never realized you knew what was going on that day.”

  “Nope. You didn’t. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to upset you. We were both trying to protect each other, and it didn’t work.”

  I draw the thread to the end and make a tiny, invisible knot before cutting it free. “How did you get so smart?”

  “Must’ve inherited it from my mother. We’d better get going.” She drinks the last of her tea, combs her hair again. The breeze is reviving her curls. She stands up and folds the blanket. She waves a thank-you to the waiter and he hurries over to our table.

  I put my things into the crafter’s bag and head back to the car while she lingers to talk to the waiter. Looking back, I feel a jab of annoyance. I don’t like the way he stands so close to her, checking her out. It’s on the tip of my tongue to call out, to remind them both that I’m standing here. Then I think about what Molly said about me always stepping in, trying to smooth things over for her, to absorb the body blows life tends to deal out from time to time.

  The afternoon at the lake caused an almost imperceptible shift in our mood. We’re more on edge. Our silences are longer, corresponding to the flat, boring stretches of highway.

  How do long-haul truck drivers handle the tedium? How will I handle it, driving back alone, the Suburban emptied of Molly’s things, devoid of her fruity-smelling hair products and her lively chatter?

  What’s really eating me is this. We’re almost there.

  DAY SIX

  Odometer Reading 123,597

  No other border was applied with greater ingenuity and diversity than the Sawtooth. It could be applied in one of three methods to a perfect turn and direction, but it is in its less precise applications that it often assumed its greatest charm.

  —Sandi Fox, Small Endearments: 19th Century Quilts for Children

  Chapter Ten

  There is a change in Molly’s phone calls with Travis. Pacing back and forth, the tiny silver phone glued to her ear, she talks to him at every rest sto
p, it seems. The shift in tone and emphasis is subtle but palpable. She is both more animated and more intense.

  I don’t say anything, of course. What is there to say? They’re eighteen, and in love.

  Give it time, I remind myself. The drifting-apart is not going to happen overnight. I picture the two of them like the huge layers of ice we get on the lake back home. All winter long, the frozen surface is strong and impermeable; the skating goes on for weeks. Yet in spring, the ice cracks apart, and once that happens, the pieces never fit together properly again. Even if the temperature drops sufficiently at night to re-freeze the ice, it’s not the same; it’s rough and chunky, prone to breaking. The skaters all go home for the season.

  Separation is rough on any relationship. On a pair who have barely dipped a toe into adulthood, it’s usually a death knell. They just don’t have the emotional hardware to sustain a love that depends on physical closeness. And I won’t kid myself. Those two were close. They were physical.

  I can’t imagine Travis Spellman going dateless for movie nights or football games, not for long. Likewise, I don’t want Molly to be like a war widow at college, holding back from the social scene because of her hometown boyfriend.

  That lack of availability, physical and emotional, is undoubtedly what will cause them to go their separate ways, as they must. Molly has a future ahead of her filled with brand-new people, challenging studies, a city she’s never seen before. Settling into college will take all her time and energy. Nurturing a long-distance relationship is simply not feasible.

  Except, of course, that she believes it is. And here’s the thing about my daughter. If she believes in some thing with her whole heart, no one can tell her otherwise.

  At a rest stop where we park to stretch our legs and use the facilities, she is pacing back and forth on the sere, dun-colored grass that has gone dormant from drought. The phone is still glued to her ear and her flip-flops kick up dust in her wake.

  I wander along the walkway of the rest stop. It’s a pleasant spot, insulated from the noise of the interstate by a stand of thick trees, evergreens and sugar maples that are just getting ready to take on their fall colors.

  The local historical society in this area has a craft booth set up at the rest stop, and I buy a bottle of amber maple syrup from a woman in a homespun apron and—I kid you not—a poke bonnet. The clear glass bottle is in the shape of a maple leaf, and when I hold it up to the sun, it sparkles like a jewel.

  According to the information flyer that came with the syrup, the maple trees will put on a dazzling display of fall color. These country roads will soon be crowded with RVs and busloads of leaf-lookers, coming to enjoy the scenery so beautiful that it attracts tourists from the world over to view them each year. After the riot of color, the trees lose all their leaves and appear to die.

  Yet it is then, in the dead of winter, that the maples are most productive. If you tap deep enough into the tree, sinking a metal tube into its most hidden heart, you’ll discover a gush of life.

  The sap is drained through the tube, collected in covered buckets and boiled in huge vats to make maple syrup.

  Who the heck thought of that? I wonder. At some moment in the unremembered past, someone walked up to a leafless maple tree, hammered a tube into its center, harvested the sap and rendered it into sweet syrup. What a random thing to do.

  One thing I’d guess—whoever thought it up wasn’t a college graduate. She—I’m quite certain it was a she—was probably a mother. An ancient Algonquin desperate housewife. At the end of a long winter, her kids were probably bored and cranky from being cooped up in the longhouse, chasing each other and driving her crazy with their noise. They had no idea supplies had run low, that the men hadn’t done too well on the latest hunt. Pretty soon, the kids’ war whoops and giggles would turn to whining. Yelling at the older kids to keep the younger ones away from the fire, the woman strapped on snowshoes made of hide, with gut laces, and trudged out into the deadening cold to look for food.

  How did she know about the secret inside the maple tree? Maybe the deer clued her in. During the starving season, the hungry animals stripped the bark from the trees as high as they could reach. Maybe the woman, her vision sharpened by desperation, noticed the glistening ooze from the flesh of the trees. Maybe she touched a finger to the sticky dampness, tasted a faint sweetness on her tongue. And the rest was history. An industry was born. The hunting party came home with their limp, skinny rabbit to find the women and children feasting on boiled cornmeal, magically sweetened with an elixir from the sugar maples.

  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 an other, 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.

  Within moments, I am giving her a guided tour of Molly’s quilt—the snippet of fabric from the tooth fairy pillow, upon which she placed her first lost tooth. The blue ribbon she won at the seventh-grade science fair, for her pond water display. A Girl Scout badge she earned delivering Christmas cookies to a nursing home. One
square is decorated with pink loops of ribbon in honor of the time she raised a thousand dollars in a Race for the Cure.

  Sometimes I wonder if I’m being fair with the milestones and memories I’m stitching into this quilt. It’s easy to block out a square to celebrate her little victories and happy times. But what about a square to commemorate her detention notes for skipping school, or the time she pierced her own navel and it got infected, or the night the local police brought her home, reeking of peach-flavored wine cooler? Why not remember those times? They’re part of her history, too.

  “You’re making a family heirloom,” the woman remarks.

  Ha, I think, vindicated. That’s why I don’t need those reminders in the quilt. “It’s not going to be finished in time.”

  The woman smiles, leans back against the picnic table. “In time for what?”

  “Move-in day at the dorm.”

  “I have a rule. If it’s not falling apart, it’s finished.” She is about my age, I surmise, yet she seems wiser, and I’m not sure why. Her posture is relaxed, and she appears to be in no hurry.

  I tell her about the shop back home, how I’ll miss it when it’s gone, how it won’t be the same, buying my fabric somewhere else.

  “Maybe someone will take over,” the woman suggests.

  “I sure hope so. I’m not optimistic, though. Most of the women I know who’d be capable already have other jobs, or they’re retired, or too busy with their families. It’s a huge risk and a huge commitment.”

  “I hear you,” the woman says. The dog has finished its business in the reeds, and she calls out to a little girl who is playing on the swing set. “Amanda, we’d better get going.”

  The dark-haired child runs over on chubby legs. “Five more minutes,” she begs in a voice every woman within earshot recognizes.