Pieces of the Heart (17 page)

“So, what was the best thing that happened to you today?” her mother asked.

The words brought back memories of the nightly ritual when she and Jude would sit on their mother’s bed and talk about their day. She had once looked forward to it, but now she pulled back, the rawness around her heart still fresh after all these years. “I took a nap.”

Margaret didn’t say anything for a few minutes as she wiped her hands on a tissue and screwed the lid back on the jar. “And what was the worst thing that happened to you today?”

“I woke up.”

“I see.” She leaned back on her pillow and regarded Caroline for a long moment. “You don’t have to meet at Rainy’s before you go hiking with Drew, you know. I think it’s a good idea.”

Caroline threw her hands up. “How do you know these things? I didn’t tell anybody.”

Her mom shrugged. “It’s something a mother gains when her first child is born. There’s not a lot that goes on around you that I miss.” She smiled, making the face mask crack over her laugh lines. “Plus, I’m nosy. When I saw you sneaking out of here this morning, I made a few phone calls. It’s a small town—nobody misses much around here.”

“Well, I’m an adult now. You don’t have to follow my every move, you know. I can take care of myself.”

“I know.” She put her hand on Caroline’s. “But I’ll always be your mother—that will never change.”

Caroline pulled her hand away and stood, remembering the swim meets when her mother hadn’t been there, and the Halloween they had stayed inside because Jude had been too scared to go out. But she felt her heart beginning to beat faster, so she pushed back the memories and took deep breaths filled with chamomile and vanilla.

“I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed now.”

“Let the mask sit for fifteen minutes before you wash it off.”

Caroline nodded, wanting to explain, to say more. There was so much unsaid between them, but thinking of it exhausted her. It was too much, and all in the past. No good could ever come from dredging up old hurts. Instead, all she said was, “Good night.” She paused at the doorway. “Can I use your phone to call Dad? I haven’t spoken to him in a couple of weeks.”

“You don’t need my permission to call your dad, you know. But he’s in Hawaii this week with his new girlfriend. He won’t be back until Sunday.”

The disappointment settled on Caroline like a dense fog, and she felt an odd compulsion to talk to her mother about it. But the old resentments pushed at her, propelling her out of the room. “Good night,” she said again.

“Sweet dreams.” It was what her mother had always said when she’d tucked Caroline and Jude into bed when they were children.

Caroline didn’t answer. She’d long since forgotten what a sweet dream was. She moved down the silent hallway, then quietly responded, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” She let herself into her darkened bedroom, and listened for the loon out on the lake.

Jewel sat on the bench at the round craft table in Mrs. Collier’s living room. She picked a seat that faced the television just in case she was allowed to relieve the boredom. Glancing at the clock, she saw that she had exactly two hours and twenty-three minutes before she could make her escape. Making sure she wasn’t being observed by Grandma Rainy or Mrs. Collier, she set the alarm on her watch. She had to be home in time for Lauren’s phone call. If she wasn’t there, her dad would answer and might mention Jewel was quilting. Her best friend would never let her hear the end of it.

Grandma Rainy approached the table with a wadded quilt in her hands. Lifting it high, she opened it in a quick move, creating a halo of color above them before it settled on the table’s surface.

Jewel crossed her legs and shook her ankle impatiently. “How long is it going to take to do all this?”

Rainy put her forefinger to her mouth. “Shh. Don’t let Caroline hear. You’re doing this because you want to, remember?”

“Whatever.” Jewel examined the quilt in front of her with a critical eye, unconsciously comparing it to the quilt in her mother’s trunk. This one, too, was unfinished, but there was something else not quite right about it—something Jewel couldn’t identify. There was no border yet, and only the first row and a half of fabric squares had been attached, leaving the rest a blank canvas. It reminded her of a piece of furniture that her father had sanded only once. He called it his rough draft, saying it was no better than a tree in the forest. You could see the beauty of the wood already, but it wouldn’t be until the third or fourth sanding that you could finally understand what her father meant.

It struck her then that this was her mother’s life in front of her, and that the women around the quilting table would be filling in her mother’s life square by square until each important event had been recorded with thread and needle by the loving hands of people who had known her. It seemed to her that she should be a part of it, that maybe somehow her mother would want this and approve. She remembered what she had read in her mother’s diary and realized that Caroline should be involved, too, to put the final sandings on the quilt.

Not that she’d enjoy any of it, of course, but if she had to do it, she might as well do it right.

As if reading her mind, Rainy asked, “Where’s Caroline?”

Mrs. Collier placed a large pincushion on the edge of the table and spoke in a loud whisper. “She’s in the kitchen getting snacks together and brewing sweet tea. I thought if I kept her around here we could somehow get her interested enough to join us.”

Grandma Rainy nodded her head while her gaze strayed to the curved wooden benches. “Is this where we’re going to sit?”

“Well, yes, Rainy. You could go sit on the dock but it would be a far jog to change thread.”

“That’s not what I meant. I was just hoping that maybe there would be cushions or something. Recovering cancer patients can be delicate.”

Mrs. Collier pursed her lips like Jewel had seen her mother do after telling her she was too sick to go to school when she felt perfectly fine. Mrs. Collier gave a delicate snort, if there could be such a thing, and said, “Maybe it’s that your rear end has gotten so big that it needs a large cushion to support it.” Without skipping a beat, she turned to Jewel. “Honey, could you go out to the back porch and grab the cushions off the patio furniture? We don’t want your grandma to have a sore fanny, do we?”

Jewel jumped up as Rainy said, “My rear end isn’t nearly as big as your ears. Did you know that your ears and nose continue to grow even after your dead?”

“Thanks for sharing that, Rainy. I’ll make sure that you’ve got an extra-deep coffin to accommodate your nose.”

“Fine. And I’ll make sure you have one wide enough for those skin flaps on the side of your head that you call ears.”

Jewel had reached the kitchen, where she nearly ran into Caroline taking an iced-tea pitcher from the refrigerator. Their eyes met and they started laughing.

Caroline placed the pitcher on the counter. “I can’t believe they’re best friends—it defies logic.”

“I’ve said that for years.” Jewel leaned back on the counter and crossed her arms, forgetting her errand for a moment. “Were you like that with my mom?”

Caroline turned her back and began taking glasses from the cabinet. “Not really—it was more that way between her and my brother, Jude. They could talk about anything together. And sometimes they didn’t even need to talk—it was like they could guess what the other was thinking.”

Jewel watched Caroline put ice cubes into each glass, an equal number put precisely one by one in stacks of three. Maybe that was how accountants did it, but it seemed like a waste of time to her. Or maybe Caroline did things like that to keep her mind busy so she wouldn’t have to think about the hard stuff.

“Do you still think about him every day?”

Caroline dropped the ice bucket on the counter, making the glasses bounce. “Yes. I do.”

“I think about my mom every day, too. Except you think about your brother in a different way.”

Slowly Caroline turned to face her. “What do you mean?”

Instead of answering right away, Jewel pushed off from the counter. “Come help me with these cushions. Hold the door and I’ll hand some to you.” She waited until Caroline came to the back door before she answered. “Well, when I think about Mom, I feel good inside. It’s not that I don’t miss her—I do—but I know she loved me and that she had a great life and that she’s in a good place now. I don’t think she’d want me to have a bad attitude about life just because she’s not here.”

“I don’t have a bad atti—”

Jewel handed her three large cushions, covering Caroline’s face and making her stagger against the door.

She continued. “But when you think about your brother, you wish he were here with you, and when you realize that’s never going to happen, you get angry and everything else doesn’t matter because you don’t have that one thing.” Jewel grabbed more cushions and moved toward the back door. “My mom would say that crying for the moon is a lot like sitting in a rocking chair: It keeps you busy but it won’t get you anywhere.”

Caroline turned her face sideways so she could speak. “Has anyone ever told you that you talk way too much?”

“Yep. My dad tells me every day.” She motioned for Caroline to move ahead, then followed her into the kitchen. “Come on, let’s give the old ladies their butt pads.”

“Wait. You can’t just say something like that and then walk away.”

“Sure I can. My mom always told me it was the best way to get people to open up and talk about things they don’t want to but probably need to. If you’re annoying enough about it, it will make the person you’re talking to argue with you.”

She plopped the cushions down on the floor at the feet of Mrs. Collier, who’d just sat down at a card table near the benches. On top of the table she’d piled about ten shoe boxes full of photographs still in their white sleeves from the developer’s.

Caroline dropped her cushions, too, and stared at her mother. “What are those for?”