Clay's Quilt (32 page)

Dreama held Tristan tightly to her breast while the cashier screamed over and over for them to stop.

“They're destroying this store!” the cashier yelled. “Make them quit!”

Dreama scooted back toward the door. “I can't do nothing with them,” she said.

“I'll call the law if you all don't quit!” the cashier hollered, leaning over the counter.

They fought against the wall of glass-doored freezers along the back of the store and finally Cake knocked Darry down. Darry couldn't get back up. He put a hand to his nose, then looked up at Cake with nothing in his eyes. Cake walked back up through the store, wading through bags of pretzels and flattening boxes of cereal. He had a bad cut on his brow and put two fingers to it. He gathered up Dreama's gallons of milk and cans of juice and sliced through the air beside her, heading out the door.

Dreama ran out of the store like she was leaving the scene of a crime and jumped into the car without even putting Tristan in his car seat. “Let's go. That girl called the law on us.”

Cake peeled out of the parking lot and calmed his engine when they got back out on the road. Blood stung his eye.

“You ought not have done that, Cake,” Dreama said, her voice broken by tears.

“What'd you expect me to do, dammit? He was bout to push you down.”

“I appreciate it, but you ought not have done it.” She started sobbing, but the baby sat up on her lap and watched the road.

“You set there and cry over that sumbitch after how he's done you?” Cake felt like crying himself, he was so mad.

“I'm not crying over him. It's not on account of him. I just can't believe I had a child by somebody like him. I don't see how I could've been so stupid.” She held Tristan to her for comfort and broke down in a steady heave of tears.

Cake pulled over to the side of the road and watched the windshield wipers flop across the glass. He felt the blood sinking into his eye, but he paid it no mind. He reached over and took Dreama's hand in his.

“Don't cry now,” he said. “I never could stand to see you cry.”

Dreama jerked her hand away. “Don't,” she said. “You only want me for your friend now that Clay's gone.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“With him gone, you don't have nobody else. Ever since he got married, you've clung to me.”

“It's not like that, Dreama,” Cake said. “I've loved you ever since I was a little child.”

“Just take me home,” Dreama said, as if he had not announced the secret he had carried for so long. She fell against the window, shaking with tears.

E
ASTER CALLED
M
YRTLE BEACH
to tell Clay that Cake had been put in jail for assault and destruction of property, but Clay was gone. She told Alma, talking faster than she'd ever done before, and Alma listened attentively, only saying things like, “Lord have mercy,” or “Yeah.”

Finally, Easter stopped and the phone lines hummed between them. “Alma, are you all right? Where's Clay at?”

“He went for a walk on the beach. He loves the ocean.” She glanced around the little room, smelled the salt air, and felt like
vomiting. “I hate that over Cake, though. Will his daddy put bail up for him?”

“No, but Marguerite is. She got Gabe to take her to the jail. First time that woman's been to town in twenty year, as I know of. Cake'll have to serve time over it, though. Broke Darry's nose and three of his ribs. Destroyed that grocery store.” Easter couldn't help laughing, even though it wasn't funny.

“Darry needed stomped over the way he's done Dreama,” Alma said. “Ever dog gets his day.”

“Well, how is everthing?” Easter asked. “How's Clay doing?”

“Best ever was. He's a sight better.”

“Thank the Lord. You all will be home before long, then, won't you?”

“We'll be home real soon,” Alma said.

T
HEY SAT ON
the sand, which was still warm from the long day, and looked out at the black water, just as they had every other night they had spent here. Clay lit a cigarette and watched the smoke drift lazily toward the sky. There was not much of a breeze tonight, and the sound of the surf seemed louder than ever. They had walked past the long line of hotels, past the pier, and crossed a crude wooden fence that took them to a private beach. Here the beach was empty and they couldn't see a sign of life except for some flashlights down the shore, where people were out strolling and looking for seashells.

“You know I've been sick lately, don't you?” Alma asked.

“You've been awful tired. What's wrong?”

“There ain't a thing wrong with me.” She took his hand and put it atop her belly. She pressed it firmly into her gut, hoping he might feel the life burning inside her. He looked at her with troubled eyes, and then the old familiar shine came back into them, and his mouth fell open. “I'm carrying our child.”

“We've got to leave right now,” he said, and jumped up. He dropped the cigarette onto the sand and ground it out with the toe of his shoe. “We've got to pack up tonight.”

Alma laughed, and the sound carried far out over the ocean, dipping over black, rocking water. “We can't leave tonight,” she said.

“I don't know why not,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her up. “I won't be able to sleep noway.”

He led her down into the surf, and their feet sank into the earth each time the receding waves sucked at the sand beneath them. He put both hands to the sides of her face and kissed her—not her lips, but her whole face. He kissed her eyelids and her forehead, her cheeks and her nose.

When they got back to the motel, Alma convinced him to stay the night, as she was too tired to set out on the road. Besides, she felt a celebration was in order, one that could not take place in a moving vehicle. She put a bluegrass tape into the stereo and pulled him onto the bed.

“If it's a girl, we'll name it Maggie, after this song,” she said.

A
FTER DAYLIGHT HAD
lit the room with a white glow, making everything inside seem to have a light burning within, Clay slipped from the bed and dressed without making a sound. Alma lay as she always did this time of the morning: on her side with one slender hand under her heart-shaped face, her auburn hair spread out across the sheet behind her. He looked at her for a long time, then decided to let her rest. He pulled on his Levi's and sneaked outside.

A cool, light rain was falling. Steam rolled up the street and off the parking lot, reminding him of the thick mists that eased over the mountains in the evening. The rain had washed away the scent of salt that always seemed present here. He took inventory of every scent and sound that came to him and tried to capture them in his mind. He wanted to remember everything perfectly because he felt this was the first day of his life. This is where he would begin when his children asked him about his life.

He walked to the beach and stood in the needles of rain, looking out at the endless stretch of water. There were already people out walking along the shore: old people with their pant legs rolled up and their shoes hanging off the ends of their fingers, children skipping and running through the surf. He spoke to everybody, even those who didn't glance at him until he had done so, and would have told them all that he was going to be a father if they had taken the time to stop and talk to him a few minutes.

When he went back to their room, he eased in so as not to wake Alma, but she was already sitting up in the bed, rubbing her eyes.

“Let's go home,” he said.

“I'm ready.”

They didn't have much to pack, but Alma insisted on cleaning the room before they left, even though Clay assured her that was what the motel maids were paid to do. She tied up the garbage, stripped the beds, and even washed out the bathtub before she would leave.

Clay peeled out of the parking lot, leaving black marks. He pushed in the tape that Alma had made for them to travel by. All the way home, he played one side of the tape, then flipped it over to hear the other again. They already knew every word to every song and sang them all the way across five states. They passed through violent thunderstorms, with lightning crashing down on either side of them as they raced along the flat fields of swampy grass. Houses and vehicles in the distance appeared distorted in the haze of heat and gasoline. Directly, the sun broke through and burned the purple clouds away. They rolled down the windows and let their hands push on the racing wind.

Alma fell asleep just outside of Asheville. Clay turned the radio down and sang to himself as the landscape began to look more and more like home. When they crossed into Virginia and
he was sure the mountains he saw rising in the distance were those of home, he shook her gently and she started, rising up in her seat as if she thought they were in a wreck.

“Look up yonder,” he said. “That's Kentucky.”

When Alma saw the signs announcing that they were about to enter Cumberland Gap Tunnel, her stomach was heavy with homesickness. She fast-forwarded the tape to play a Bill Monroe instrumental called “Scotland.” It was a full-throttle mess of wild, twirling fiddles, clicking Dobros, and plucking mandolins. They entered the tunnel, and when they burst out the other side in their own home state, the song had reached its fever pitch.

Alma squalled and yelped, slapping her hands against the dashboard. She couldn't control herself anymore and put her knees on her seat so she could hang out the window. She leaned her waist against the door and held her hand above her head. “Home!” she hollered. Her hair slapped against her face and the top of the truck cab.

T
HE QUILTER DIED
quietly on a spring morning.

Sophie got out of bed sleepily, shook Paul's shoulder, and hollered for him to get up, then pulled on her housecoat and went out onto the front porch to sneak her usual cigarette. She pulled the housecoat tightly about her. She couldn't remember a spring morning being so cold. A thick frost had fallen and crystallized on the ground, making the grass and rooftops look as if they were covered with a light dusting of fine, sugarlike snow. The petals on the dogwood and redbud looked caked with ice.

Inside, Paul still wasn't up, and this was the first time she could remember this happening in ages.

“Get up, old man!” she bellowed. “It's wintertime out!”

She walked toward the bedroom, undoing the tie on her housecoat so she could get dressed to start breakfast. As she entered the bedroom, the cold outside seemed to consume the house. It was as if the morning air were steaming under the
cracks around the windows like dry ice. Paul lay on his side with his back to her, the covers pulled up to his chin. She fell atop him on the bed, knowing that he was gone from her forever. She lay there with him a long time, then got hold of herself, began to smooth down his hair, and tried to close his mouth. She went into the bathroom and filled a dishpan with warm, soapy water. She didn't cry as she washed his face, his arms, his legs.

After the funeral, everyone gathered at Sophie's house, which seemed even larger now, sitting near the mouth of the holler. Sophie sat small and straight-backed within a circle of people who figured plenty of conversation would keep her mind off the matter at hand. Easter and Dreama took over the kitchen, dipping out heaping plate lunches that were passed into the living room. Marguerite brought a German chocolate cake and asked if she could help them get the food ready for the crowd. Most of the men stood out in the yard, smoking and talking about what a good man Paul Sizemore had been. Cake raced around the yard, playing ball with Tristan and the rest of the children.

Clay couldn't stand being at the house without Paul there. He had barely made it through the funeral and had almost refused to be a pallbearer; he had been afraid he would break down while he was helping pack the casket to the grave. He had helped to lower his great-uncle's casket into the ground, but he couldn't stand being here now. He had even forced himself to sit up all night with Sophie and the rest of the family the night before the funeral, but he couldn't take any more. He decided to use the baby as an excuse to leave and parted through the people with Maggie on his hip and Alma holding his hand. He bent down in front of Aunt Sophie and reached Maggie out to her.

“Give Auntie some sugar,” he told the baby. Maggie threw her arms out and laughed when Sophie tickled her belly. Sophie took
the baby and pulled her close. She ran her hand down the side of Maggie's face and kissed her on the mouth.

“Look at that curly red hair,” she told the women crowded around her. She handed Maggie back to Clay. “That's the friendliest little thing ever was.”

“We're gonna have to go get her on home. She's wore out,” Clay said. “If you need anything, you call me, all right? We love you.”

“Love you all,” Sophie said. “You all go on home now and get you some rest.”

Clay and Alma pushed through the crowd, hollering goodbye to everybody they passed. They walked across the porch, where people sat eating, with plates in their laps, and across the yard, where Cake was playing tag with all of the children. They went out the gate and had started walking down the holler road toward their little house when they heard Sophie calling for them.

“Clay! Wait, honey!” she hollered from the porch. Easter was standing beside her, wiping her hands on a dishcloth and smiling as if she knew something that they did not. Sophie came rushing through the crowd with a bundle wrapped up in newspaper that rattled loudly.

“I bout forgot,” she said, out of breath. “Paul made this for the baby. It's a Flying Bird quilt. It worried him a sight because he didn't have her a quilt made when she was born, but he was getting to where he barely could move his fingers to stitch. He got it done bout a month ago and was waiting for the baby's birthday to give it to you all.”