The Healing Quilt Read online

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, I'm all right, Ryan.”

  “I should have come home.” That was her Ryan, the tenderhearted one.

  “No, I'll get through this. If I was too bad, I'd go out to Teza's and have a cup of tea.” Her aunt Teza had bandaged many of her owies in life, many more than her own mother had. Teza had stood by when Kit's mother died of cancer and then when Amber followed in her grandmother's footsteps.

  Aunt Teza could fix anything.

  Except a daughter dying.

  “I better get going, talk to you later.”

  “Thank you, dear.” She sniffed again and sighed. “I love you, son. Take care of yourself.” Her nose was so plugged she had to breathe through her mouth. She knew he was crying too. Hanging up the phone, she leaned her forehead against the refrigerator, trying to drive the memories out of her mind. Amber lying in the hospital, fighting to live, Amber weeping when all her hair fell out, Amber telling a joke and laughing so hard she would forget the punch line or at least not be able to get it out around the giggles.

  God, why? You didrit need her near as much as I do. And now Mark isrit here either. Bring him home this evening, please.

  The tears calmed enough that she could hear a small boys laughter and the barking dog. She glanced at the clock. About time to send him home so his sister wouldn't get angry with him.

  She checked the freezer. No Popsicles or ice-cream bars. She knew the cookie jar was empty. Were there no snacks here a small boy would enjoy?

  She checked the pantry. Same song second verse, a little bit louder and a little bit worse. One of the old songs she'd taught the kids when they were little. She could hear them all singing on the car rides to anywhere over an hour.

  She found a bag of chips on the shelf, poured some into a Baggie, and clamped the big bag closed again. Like a Greek bearing gifts, she wandered out to the backyard and called. “Thomas, time to go home.”

  “Aw, so soon?” He flopped back on the grass. Missy planted her ponderous paws on his chest and stared down into his face.

  “Sorry. I have a treat for you. And one for Missy, too. You can give it to her.” Kit sat down on the steps.

  “Get off, dog.” He pushed her off and Missy leaped back at him.

  “Missy, puppy treats.” At the familiar call, the dog charged across the grass, leaving a giggling boy behind to get on his feet and stagger after her, straightening his hat so the bill hung to the right. Grass greened the front of a T-shirt that had never met Tide and could use a few stitches here and there. Kit thought about the sewing machine sitting at the ready in her sewing room. She could sew that up in a minute, but then what would Thomas's mother think? Nosy neighbor? Interfering old woman?

  Missy reached up to rest her front paws on Kit's thigh and looked into her face, tail wagging expectantly.

  Kit handed the snack to Thomas. “Here, you give her this.”

  “Hey, Missy.” The puppy treat was gone with a gulp. “She didn't even chew it.”

  “I know. She never does with those small ones.”

  Thomas scuffed the toe of his tennis shoe on the stairs before looking at her from under lashes long enough to make every girl in the neighborhood envious. “Can I come back?”

  “Of course you may, perhaps tomorrow.” She handed him the bag of chips. “Thanks for giving Missy her exercise. She'll sleep well tonight.”

  He held the bag aloft. “Thanks for the chips.”

  She watched him trudge out the gate. “Watch out for cars on the street.”

  The look he threw over his shoulder told quite clearly what he thought ofthat advice.

  Yeah, well, once a mother, always a mother.

  The ringing phone brought her to her feet. “Come on, dog, dinnertime.” She caught the phone just as the answering machine clicked in.

  “Just a minute till that runs out.” One of these days she would need to learn how to shut the stupid thing off, but like other technological beasts, it, too, would most likely best her. She'd ask Ryan to fix it when he came home. Or Mark.

  “There now. Hello again.”

  “Kit?”

  Who eke aid you think it would be? And ifyoure calling, you arent on your way home. So much for God answering my prayers today. Not that Iphn on praying anymore anyway. That last bit had just slipped out.

  “Yes.” A silence stretched.

  “Uh, thought I'd better let you know that I'll be moving on to another job.”

  “Will you be coming home first?” There, she'd asked the question that should have been answered weeks ago. Or was it months now?

  “Uh, no. Their time frame is too tight. Uh.

  Kit waited. Her mouth dried as the moments melted away. Where had the words gone? Why had they fled like phantoms flitting away in the dusk?

  “Uh, I just wanted to touch base with you. I better get going.”

  Where are you, Mark, who are you? Why won't you even talk to me? “Take good care of yourself.” The trite phrase squeezed by the sandstone boulder lodged in her throat. She listened for the click and the pause that turned to buzzing on the line. The receiver clattered into the base, and she fled to the sink. Water. Like a Sahara sojourner, she needed a drink of water. Taking a glass out of the cupboard, she ran it full and drained it just as fast. She set it on the tile counter, precisely and with a nearly imperceptible sound. Her jaw felt as though it locked with the same chink. She stared at the faucet. Water. The flowers. Where was he? She strode to the coffee table and picked up the arrangement, cradling the milk glass bowl in both hands. God, where is he? leant even call him, since he never gives me the number and his cellphone always transfers to voice mail What is the matter with him? She heard the sound of glass shattering against tile and saw flowers scatter across the counter and sink, one red carnation like blood on the floor. The water dripped off the cabinet and crept toward her living room carpet. Kit watched it, making no move to wipe it up.

  TWO

  The calendar never lies.

  “Haifa year gone and I still haven't made a decision.”

  Elaine Giovanni left off glaring at the calendar and moved over to the gilt-framed mirror in the hall. She frowned at the reflection and pushed her freshly tinted strawberry blond hair off her forehead. Pressing her palms against the sides of her face, she pulled backward, tightening the skin around her eyes, forehead, and jaw. She relaxed it somewhat to a more acceptable image and stared, all the while her mind teeming with all the reasons, both yea and nay, she'd been considering a face lift since January.

  She'd look more like herself. The surgeon's scalpel might slip. She'd feel younger. The cost was beyond reasonable, not that they couldn't afford it. George might find her more appealing. She might look like a wax doll. Should she do dermabrasion? Only if she could hide out for weeks until her skin healed. Perhaps a spa where it could all be done at once and she'd be pampered as well. Her thoughts circled round and round like a carousel with a permanently imbedded microchip that made it run forever.

  Why can't I make a decision? This isnt like me.

  She glanced at her watch and saw that the mailman had surely come by now. Perhaps her order from Sharper Image had arrived. Leaving the front door open behind her, Elaine ambled down the Italian-tiled steps and out to the mailbox, checking along the way to see if the gardener had edged the front lawn properly this time.

  “Mrs. Giovanni!”

  The call made Elaine cringe. Only one voice in the entire world could sound like that. Had she been watching and waiting for Elaine to come out the door? Why mei Why todaf. She spun on her heel and faced her adversary.

  “That fire was all your fault!”

  Elaine clamped both hands on her hips, stretching her five foot, two inches as tall as they would go. Right now she wished she were a six-foot, three-hundred-pound linebacker. Perhaps then the fool who lived next door would pay more attention. But one had to have a brain in that case, and that was one thing she seriously doubted her neighbor owned. Mrs
. Smyth-with-a-y had not displayed any kind of cerebral acumen in all the years they'd shared the fence line.

  “If you kept those fir trees cut back, there wouldn't have been a fire.” Mrs. Smyth snorted and panted like the English bulldog at her feet.

  “Mrs. Smyth, we've been over this a thousand times. You know my trees had nothing to do with the fire. The power line broke in the wind.” Elaine stepped closer to the shared property line. “The reason you had a fire in your backyard is obvious. You have oil spots on the concrete and greasy rags lying around to catch fire.”

  “Your trees broke the power line.”

  Elaine kept her voice in a lower register but cut each word with surgical steel. “I realize it's difficult for you to understand, but I will say this again. The power company admitted the lines broke due to high winds and old lines.”

  “The fire your trees caused burned up Bootsie's house. You could have killed my Bootsie too!”

  “And then we would not have had dog turds in our yard,” Elaine muttered. Bootsie had never slept in the doghouse in his entire slobbering life. “The power company…”

  “Your trees started the fire.” Mrs. Smyth, now red of face and screeching voice, turned toward her house. “You can expect to receive a notice from my lawyer any day now!” The woman who closely resembled the mostly white bulldog now waddling toward Elaine paused only long enough to slap her thigh. “Come, Bootsie,” she commanded. Bootsie growled low in his throat and glared his hatred for Elaine before snuffling and snorting his way after his owner.

  “Why do I even bother talking to her?” Elaine raised her hands shoulder high, then let them drop to her sides. She consciously unclenched her jaw and ran slender fingers through hair that always fell back into perfect sleek lines. That woman is a menace. All these years, dug up daffodih, dog poop, motorcycles. Her kids were worse than the dog. Why I've put up with such misery, I'll never know. The slam of Mrs. Smyths door set her in motion. “Forgive and forget,” Elaine could hear her mothers usual advice. “Love your neighbor,” she'd said. Right, I'll show that old bag next door forgive and forget.

  Back in the silence of her white-on-white house, Elaine paced from one end of the arched glass solarium to the other, running the four-teen-carat gold chain at her neck around her fingers. Call George? Waste of time. Her husband always had more important things to do than worry about her problems. For some reason his patients were more important.

  Of course, now if I murder her that will gain his attention. Elaine shook her head at the thought. No way would she ever beat a murder rap, even if every homeowner in the country sat on the jury.

  Call Frederick. No, this had not escalated to calling in an attorney…yet.

  Call the president of the homeowners association? “Fat lot of good that will do.” She'd complained to him about the grease spots, the unkempt yard, the blinding porch lights more than once. The homeowners board of directors had about as much teeth as a sixteen-year-old Chihuahua.

  Speaking of which, she leaned over and picked up the quivering little Chihuahua at her feet. “Doodlebug, what do you think I should do?”

  Having cleaned Elaine's chin, ears and neck, the fawn-and-white-spotted dog yipped his answer, then placed a slender paw on her collarbone and laid his head on it. His sigh said it all. Forget your worries and come lets cuddle.

  Elaine eased down into a rattan chair with hibiscus flowered cushions and straightened the crease of her cream silk pants. Ankles crossed, she caressed her dogs head, staring out over the evergreen clad hills undulating toward the Cascade Mountains.

  “I could send her a mail bomb. Even your ears are too tender, Doodlebug, for the names I want to call her. Strychnine in chocolates. Now, that's worth considering.”

  She set the dog on the floor much to his displeasure and rose to pace again. A glass of Chardonnay. She glanced at the black-and-gold clock. No, the day was too young. “Chocolate, that's the answer. And”—she looked down at the dog—“if you quit whining, I'll share.” Doodlebugs oversized ears stood at attention. Chocolate, he understood that word for sure.

  She returned to the sunroom with shortbread dipped in chocolate. They had a good thing going—Doodlebug got the buttery end, and she the chocolate, since it was bad for dogs.

  Other women's husbands dealt with matters like fires and power lines, but George? She shook her head and fed her eager companion bits of the buttery shortbread. “Why can't I depend on my man, Bug? Why?”

  THREE

  The calendar never lies.

  Especially not in this case. Beth Donnelly tried to focus on the desk calendar, but seeing through tears was like looking out a window beaten by a Northwest rainstorm. Only dim outlines were visible in either case. Regular as moon and sunrise, ever since her twelfth birthday, her period showed up on the twenty-eighth day of her cycle. Except for those two months in her sixteenth year. And the five short months she'd carried their long awaited son.

  “Lord, is it too much to ask for a baby? You give everyone else babies.” She amended her monologue. “Well, most people, even those who don't want them or have too many or don't take care of the ones they do have.” She crossed to the window that overlooked her neighbor's yard, where two small children who had dim acquaintances with a bathtub and less with soap played with nary a hint of supervision.

  Beth clutched her elbows with chilled hands. If they were hers they would be loved and cuddled, sang to and read to, dressed in overalls and T-shirts, or shorts for the boy and sunsuits for the little girl. Oh, such fun she would have sewing for them. But another month had passed, and all she had to show for it was a new box of tampons. Twenty-nine and still no children. Garths birthday was tomorrow, and how she'd prayed to be able to give him good news.

  Tears again. “I hate crying.” She dashed the drops from her eyes, turned back to the sink, and ran water in the teakettle. A cup of tea, that's what she needed. Peppermint, since it was supposed to calm one's stomach. And the first day of a period she always needed calming, along with a Midol or two to kill the cramps. Even a friend to drink it with is apparently too much to ask. Or else the Lord ignored that prayer, too. Her Bible lay open on the table. “Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you.” She didn't need to read the words. They'd been drilled into her heart when she was a little girl in Sunday school.

  “Well, I've been asking all right, I've sought, I've knocked, I've just about pounded the door down and still nothing.” She waited for the water to steam and poured it into the mug sitting ready.

  “Honey, wake up.” Garth gently shook his wife. “Beth.” He wrapped his arm around her quivering body and pulled her into his warmth. “You're having a nightmare again.”

  She burrowed close, clinging to his arm, blinking away the horror of someone snatching her baby from her arms. “I can't stand this anymore.” She hiccuped on a sob. “Garth, we wanted our baby, and he's gone.”

  Gone wasn't quite the truth. Their baby had not made it full term. The doctor said it died in utero. He said things like that happened.

  Beth could still hear his gentle voice. You'll have other children, Beth. I know that doesnt make up for this one, but time will heal the wound.

  She'd gone to the funeral, using the tranquilizers he'd prescribed.

  Beth wiped her eyes on the pillowcase and reached for a tissue to blow her nose.

  “God will give us another child when he feels the time is right.”

  Her husband's words tickled the hair on her neck. He meant to comfort, she knew that, but for her there could be no comfort. Oh, Garth…if… if only I could tell you.

  But she said no more. His even breathing told her he'd slipped back into sleep.

  Beth slid out from under his arm and headed for the bathroom, where she could cry in secret. Perhaps a shower would help.

  She let the hot water beat down on her back and shoulders and rinse the tension away.

  The baby would have made all
the difference. “God,” she whispered into the steam. “You know how much I want a baby. I would be a good mother, and you know Garth would be the best daddy anywhere. We both love little kids. Couldn't you trust me, please?”

  She pulled a clean nightgown out of the drawer and, after slipping it over her head, slid back under the covers.

  Garth slept on. She glanced at the clock. She could get another two hours sleep before the alarm went off. If the nightmares didn't return.

  Sometime later Garth sat down beside her on the bed. “Honey, why don't you stay in bed? I can catch breakfast at McDonald's.”

  Beth brushed strands of mahogany hair from her eyes. “I… I'm sorry. I didn't hear you get up.” She pushed back the covers to rise, but he was in the way.

  “No, with circles like that under your eyes, someone will think I've been beating you.” His smile said he was kidding.

  Oh, Garth, you are such a fine man. You deserve so much better. But instead of saying the words, she reached up to stroke his freshly shaven cheek. She sniffed, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You smell good.”

  “Thanks.” He took her hand and kissed her palm, curling her fingers over and kissing them. He leaned over to nuzzle her neck. “If you like, I could leave a bit late.” He nibbled the lobe of her ear.

  Beth loved the curl of heat in her middle, the way he kissed her. She clasped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

  The ringing of the telephone made him lift his head and glare at the intrusive instrument. “If that's someone selling something.

  Beth giggled as he reached for the receiver. He winked at her. “Just stay the way you are,” he mouthed. “Hello, Pastor Garth here.”

  He sat straighten “Sorry, John, let me go to the other phone.”

  Beth watched him leave the room without looking back. As soon as she heard his voice on the phone, she hung it up and rolled over again, one hand tucked beneath her chin.