Clay's Quilt (33 page)

“Lord, you don't know how much that means to me, to have this,” Clay said, and turned quickly to go. He didn't want to cry in front of her.

“Wait,” Sophie said, grabbing his arm. Her small hand held
him so tightly that he glanced down at it. “Paul got fooling around in the basement last summer and found a big trunk of Anneth's clothes. Some of them was dry-rotted, but he saved what he could and made that quilt from them. It's made from her clothes. He knowed how much you missed your mommy, I reckon.”

Clay looked at Sophie for a long moment, then let the gate slam shut between them and ran down the holler road with Maggie bouncing on his hip. Alma ran at his heels, hollering for him to wait, but he didn't. He ran to their house, burst through the front door, and fell to the living room floor. He sat Maggie on the floor beside him and ripped off the newspaper wrapping.

When Alma rushed into the house, she stood in the doorway and didn't say a word. Clay was standing in the middle of the living room with the quilt pulled up to his face. He breathed in his mother's scent. It was probably long gone, since the clothes had sat in a musty basement for twenty-some years, but he could still catch a scent of her there. He smelled cigarettes and Tabu perfume, Teaberry chewing gum and the detergent in her dresses. He could smell her skin and her strawberry shampoo.

He snapped the quilt out onto the air and let it settle on the living room floor. Alma got right down on her knees and ran her fingers over the fine stitching. Clay smoothed one hand out over the quilt and wrapped his other one around Maggie's neck. She watched him as if she knew what was happening.

“This was my mother's,” he told her.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Clay awoke with Maggie pushed close to him. Alma lay on the other side of the child, sound asleep. He slipped out of bed quietly, taking the baby with him.

It was early, but full daylight, and when he came out of the house, he squinted in the new sun. He tried to wake Maggie, but
she fell back into a thin sleep with her head on his shoulder. He put his face in her hair, which smelled of the bedcovers. He climbed the mountain easily, and it seemed he could hear the sun glistening on the branches of the trees that stood straight and tall, their limbs reaching toward Heaven. Easter had once told him that she thought the birds sang so beautifully early in the morning because they were giving thanks to God.

He moved along the steep mountain path effortlessly, feeling as if he were going to the top of the world. The sun fell in straight lines through the bright new leaves. Dew dripped out of the sarvis and dogwood.

He climbed over rocks and splashed through the narrow creek that made its way down the mountainside. The farther up he went, the thinner the morning mist became. It was slowly being eaten away by the spring sun. Halfway up the mountain, Maggie awoke, but she didn't take her head from Clay's shoulder.

At the summit, the sun washed out over the earth, so bright and yellow that he could see through the leaves fluttering on the trees. He walked across the top of the old mountain and looked out at the land below. There were no strip mines to be seen from here, no scars on the face of the earth, only mountains, pushing against the horizon in each direction, rising and falling as easily as a baby's chest.

He walked along, showing leaves and new buds to Maggie. When he looked up again, he stood in a small clearing that he had never noticed before. The trees here were thin saplings, so small that he couldn't understand how they withstood the heavy winds that sometimes blew at the top of the mountain. Clumps of bluebells grew at his feet, but that was all. There was no field of wildflowers. That place was lost forever, Clay figured. His mother had taken a piece of the world with her. There were no birds here, either, and it seemed like he could hear the world
turning beneath his feet. A breeze, no stronger than a breath, danced through the treetops. It caused leaves to tremble and limbs to scratch together, and it sounded to him like the high, soft sound of a dulcimer. He held Maggie's arm out in front of her and twirled round and round, as though they were in the middle of a wild square dance.

I am deeply grateful to the following people for their guidance, generosity, and friendship: my agent, Barbara Kouts; Kathy Pories, my editor; Ingrid Robinson and everyone at NSAL; participants and staff of the Hindman Settlement School's Appalachian Writers' Workshop; Sidney Saylor Farr, for my first break; and Sandra Stidham, the epitome of what a fine teacher should be.

To my wonderful friends: Leetta Angel, Donna Conley-Birney, Mike Croley, Doug Dixon, Jane Hicks, Jamie Hill, Genie Jacobson, Lisa Parker, Julia Watts, and Marianne Worthington. Special thanks to Gretchen Laskas for sharing her wealth of knowledge and support.

I am especially indebted to my family, storytellers all. I am blessed to have such parents as Donald and Betty House, as well as my sister, Eleshia Sloan, and brother, Terry Hoskins. Profuse gratitude goes to Thelma Smallwood, Wanda and Johnny Shepherd, and my cousins. I am compelled to invoke the memory of Dave Sizemore, Jack Hoskins, Red House, Jean Priest, and lastly, Jasper House and Anne Sizemore—neither of whom I ever knew, but whose fire I hope to have inherited.

Finally, to Teresa. Thanks for always being right there.

This novel was funded in part by a generous grant from the Kentucky Arts Council.

Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

©2001 by Silas House.
All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.

An excerpt of this novel appeared in
Appalachian Heritage
magazine.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

E-book ISBN 978-1-61620-297-2