by Mary Marks
“Did you try to call me?” Andre asked.
Nkwa nodded. “Of course. When neither of you answered, I knew something had gone sideways. That’s when I found you inside the house.”
“You really saved our lives,” Andre said. “I think June and Claytie were prepared to bury Martha and me alive.”
Nkwa’s dark eyes grew intense as she spoke. “I’m sorry I didn’t follow my earlier instinct to check the inside of the house, but I had a choice to make. The evidence against the Tollivers was mounting, and if we hoped for a conviction, I had to play the investigation by the book. I couldn’t enter the house to check on you without first obtaining a warrant. So, while I waited for the warrant, I watched the house. When I saw Claytie drive your car off the mountain, followed by June driving the van, I knew I had to do something. Exigent circumstances allowed me to enter the building without a warrant if I knew someone was in danger. I have to say, though, I admire your courage and determination to survive. You would’ve made a formidable agent, Martha.”
“John Smith told me the same thing.” Only he said I was too old.
CHAPTER 33
Friday afternoon at five thirty, I’d finished my preparations for Shabbat dinner. The scalloped potatoes were baking in the oven, tender asparagus stood in the steamer, and two large slabs of salmon were seasoned with butter and wrapped in foil ready to poach. A dessert platter piled with sweets from Bea’s Bakery waited on the sideboard.
Two unlit candles in silver holders claimed a place of honor in the middle of the table. I’d arranged a loaf of raisin challah and a cup of kosher wine near the chair where Uncle Isaac would sit. I still had a half hour to shower and dress before my family would begin to arrive: Quincy’s little clan, Giselle with Harold, and Uncle Isaac with Hilda. I still hadn’t heard from Crusher, who’d been working an assignment for the last two weeks, and I missed him terribly.
Much as I tried to fight it, a little seed of fear took root in my head. What if he’d been hurt somewhere and couldn’t call for help? I shivered as I remembered how I woke up bound and gagged in Royal St. Germain’s dark closet. Dear God, please protect Yossi.
My prayer was answered sooner than I expected. I’d just finished buttoning my pink silk blouse when I heard the front door open. Size fourteen boots clumped down the hallway toward the bedroom. My heart did a little flip when Crusher appeared with a huge grin. “Oh Yossi, thank goodness you’re home.”
He gathered me in a bear hug and lifted me off the ground. “Babe. I’ve missed you, too.” His kiss, warm and urgent, held the promise of a loving reunion later that night.
Thank you, God, for keeping him safe and bringing him back.
“How are you feeling?” He examined the back of my head. “Director Smith was at our debrief. He filled me in on your misadventures and I came home as soon as I could.”
“What was the FBI doing at an ATF debriefing?”
“We were concluding another joint op.” He cupped my chin in his hand. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”
“I’m fine now, Yossi. Really.”
He kissed me again and inclined his head toward the living room. “Let me take a quick shower, then I’ll join you out there.” I put on my strappy black heels and hummed all the way to the kitchen. I tied on a white apron to protect my Sabbath clothes and went to work. The potatoes came out of the oven and the salmon went in. I turned on the flame under the steamer of asparagus. The time was six, and our family would be arriving soon.
Ever since my ordeal at Mystical Feather, I’d been thinking a lot about how fragile life could be. One minute you were fine and the next you were shot to death. Or poisoned to death. Or, in the case of my own near miss, bludgeoned to death.
Getting hit on the head knocked me into a different perspective on life. I could no longer justify postponing certain things until “the right time.” When would it ever be the right time? Putting something off—especially the thing I really wanted—no longer sounded like prudent behavior, but more like laziness or fear.
I made up my mind to make some big changes in my life, no matter how uneasy I felt. Hadn’t Paulina foreseen those changes when she read my tea leaves? “Not all the changes will be pleasant,” she’d said. Sure enough, I had a scalp wound to prove that fact. Paulina also said a new person would come into my life. Well, I could think of several new persons: both good guys like Special Agent Nkwa Applebaum and the Polinskaya brothers and bad guys like June and Claytie Tolliver.
My thoughts were cut short when Quincy and Noah arrived. I rushed to gather my infant granddaughter Daisy in my arms. She giggled with pleasure as I kissed her face and tummy. She was already showing signs of genius. “Bubbie loves you,” I said, using the Yiddish word for grandma.
“Baba!” she grinned.
“Did you hear that?” I stared at my daughter and son-in-law. She’s brilliant. She can speak already. And she obviously knows my name.”
Quincy rolled her eyes. “She calls everything by that name, Mom. Baba is her one go-to word.”
I danced around in whirls and twirls with my granddaughter in my arms. “Say Bubbie again, Daisy.”
“Baba!”
I gave her a big kiss on her plump little cheek. “They don’t believe you can talk, but I understand you perfectly.”
Daisy smacked her lips and held out her hands to her mother. “Mmmaamm.” A minute later, Quincy sat on the sofa breastfeeding discreetly under a receiving blanket thrown over her shoulder.
I bent to kiss the top of my daughter’s head. “This picture couldn’t be any sweeter.”
Giselle and Harold had picked up Uncle Isaac and Hilda and driven them to Encino. Hilda helped my uncle over the threshold and into the house. Thanks to the bump on my head, my new perspective on life allowed me to see my aging uncle in a more realistic light. In his eighties and suffering from Parkinson’s, he looked fragile and tired. My heart sank when I faced the fact he wouldn’t be around forever. I knew he wanted to see one big change in my life, and I vowed to make that happen while he was still around.
“Good Shabbos, faigela.”
I loved it when he used my Yiddish pet name, little bird.
“Shabbat shalom, Uncle. How are you doing?” What I didn’t want to ask in front of Hilda was how things were working out between them.
He must have understood the subtext of my question and a huge grin stretched across his face. “Oy va voy! Life is sure easier now that Hilda’s moved in.” He looked at her and his face softened. “This maideleh is real balabusta. She’s a kosher cook, already. And boy can she cook!”
Hilda smiled fondly at him. “You’re a good teacher, Isaac. And interesting. I could listen to you talk all day long.”
“Can you believe it? After Hilda gets her driver’s license, I’m going to buy a car. A blue one.” He looked at Crusher, who had just walked into the room wearing a Sabbath outfit almost identical to his own; white shirt and black trousers. “Nu? Maybe you can tell me the right car to get when the time comes.”
Quincy, Daisy, Giselle, and Hilda joined me to begin our weekly celebration. I covered my head with a scarf to show respect in the presence of the Divine. I lit the candles, watching the flames dance. Then I circled them three times with my hands, covered my eyes, and recited the blessing over the Sabbath candles—first in Hebrew and then in English. Blessed art Thou, oh Lord our God, King of the universe, who sanctifies us by Thy commandments and commands us to kindle the Sabbath lights.
Hilda’s voice joined ours as we all said, Omeyn.
I added a silent little thank you, God, for bringing her into Uncle Isaac’s life.
Uncle Isaac presided at the head of the table and recited the kiddush, the traditional prayer blessing the Sabbath wine. Then he blessed the loaf of challah and passed around pieces to everyone. That was my signal to bring the rest of the meal to the table.
Using the side of my dinner fork, I concentrated on cutting neat little squares in t
he potato kugel on my plate. Should I say something now, or wait until everyone leaves?
My stomach fluttered with anxiety as I thought about my options. As much as everyone at the table will be surprised to hear what I’ve decided, shouldn’t Crusher be the first person to know? He’s been so patient....
I’d managed to reduce the kugel to nine bite-sized pieces when my daughter Quincy’s voice dragged my attention back to the Sabbath table. “Earth to Mom. Come in, please.” All conversation stopped as seven pairs of curious eyes focused on me.
Embarrassment warmed my cheeks. “Sorry.”
Quincy continued to probe. “Is everything okay? You’ve hardly touched your food. Are you ill?”
I gave my daughter a tight little smile. “No, I’m fine.”
My sister Giselle lowered her fork and pinned me down with laser eyes. “Then if you’re not having a stroke, give it up, Sissy. What’s going on with you?”
I sighed with resignation. Clearly, I wasn’t going to be able to discuss this first with my fiancé, Yossi Levy, aka Crusher. I reached for his hand. He encouraged me with a slight nod of the head. “Go on, babe. Whatever it is, I’ve got your back.”
I cleared my throat, found my voice, and gazed into his impossibly blue eyes, into the face of the man who had waited patiently for me to get past my fear of failure. “No more waiting, Yossi. I—I’m ready to get married.”
The table erupted into a chorus of “Mazel tov,”
Yossi lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it tenderly. “It’s about time.”
Please turn the page for a quilting tip from Mary Marks!
I think some of the most beautiful quilts are made for highly personal reasons: grief and loss. Everyone who has experienced the loss of someone close knows that pain. Each person copes in their own way; there are no rules.
One way of coping with bereavement is to make a memory quilt using items from the lost person you can’t bear to part with. Do you still have the shirts or neckties he wore? Do you have her dresses or blouses? Did they have a collection of T-shirts with logos that were meaningful?
Each of those fabric items can be used to make quilt blocks in any pattern. For example, neckties can be used to make the Dresden Plate pattern or Grandmother’s Fan. If you Google “memory quilts images” you see a huge array of designs using those fabrics. The possibilities are endless. Are there photos of them in your family albums? Letters they’ve written? A child’s drawing? You can also scan these items and print them out on fabric.
Memory quilts aren’t new. People have been making them since long before the age of photos and scanning. The coffin quilt, or graveyard quilt, was made by incorporating coffin-shaped pieces of fabric in the design. One famous coffin quilt was sewn in the nineteenth century by a grieving mother over the death of her sons. Perhaps the most famous memory quilt dealing with the death of a loved one is the AIDS quilt, which contains 44,000 blocks—each one uniquely designed in memory of a loved one who died of the disease.
The reason for sewing a memory quilt doesn’t have to be about death. For example, if a family was moving out of the area, their friends and relatives might each pen a farewell message on a block to be included in a quilt. I wrote about such a quilt in Gone but Knot Forgotten. Although the “Declaration Quilt” was purely fictional, it could easily have happened in the real world.
Is your child going off to college? How about making a T-shirt quilt. Is your child or someone special having a baby shower? How about providing each guest with a square of fabric to write their name and a message? Is someone you know retiring? How about scanning photos of that person documenting their life from childhood to retirement.
A memory quilt can be a record sewn in fabric of a person’s life or of the community they are leaving. And the best news of all is the quilt doesn’t have to be bed-sized. It can be smaller for throwing over the lap, smaller still for hanging on the wall, or even for covering a throw pillow. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.
Blessings!