The Fortune Quilt (23 page)

“He’s on his way home from work,” she says.

She gives me a look I can’t read before continuing into the living room. I follow. Five is sitting on the couch, her face angry and her eyes focused on the window glass like she’s trying to break it with the force of her mind.

“Five,” Mary says. “We need to talk.”

Five says nothing, but I can see her lower lip start to tremble. Mary takes another step closer to Five.

“Five. Honey. I know you’re upset, but you can’t just leave like that.”

“Why not?” she says, her eyes now digging into Mary. “You did.” She jerks her head toward me. “She did. Why the hell can’t I just run away whenever I want to? That’s what people in this family do, right?”

I say nothing, just watch Mary. Her expression falters for a slight second, and then settles into steely resolve.

“You listen to me, young lady,” she says. “What I did or didn’t do has nothing to do with this.”

Five slams her hand down on the couch. “It has everything to do with this! First you leave, and then you come back, and you make Carly leave.” Tears track down her face, and her voice cracks. “Bo is the only one who loves me enough to stay around. You have no right to take him away from me, too!” She shoots a look at me. “Either of you.”

The front door opens and I step back, pressing my back against the wall. Dad comes in and stands beside Mary.

“Five, go to your room,” he says quietly.

“But—”

“Go!”

The room is silent, save for the reverberation of my father’s voice still rattling the walls. Five’s eyes widen, and she looks genuinely scared. She gets up off the couch and goes upstairs, and we all stand in silence for a long moment.

“I hope you’ve nailed the windows shut,” I say.

Dad doesn’t look at me. Mary stares at her feet. I’m two for two.

“Well,” I say quietly. “I guess my work here is done.”

“Carly?” Mary takes a step toward me. “It’s a long drive. Do you want maybe something to drink? Or I could make you a sandwich?”

“No, thank you,” I say. “I’m fine.”

Dad won’t look at me, just turns and goes into his office and shuts the door behind him. Mary and I stand in silence for a moment.

“Well—” I begin, motioning toward the door, but Mary interrupts me.

“Do you need a drink?” she says. “I’ll tell you, right now, I could use a fucking drink.”

I look at her, and for the first time, I see her. Not as my mother, the woman who abandoned me, but as Mary, a person who can’t find a glue strong enough to fix what she’s broken. I can relate to that. I force on a feeble smile.

“Yeah,” I say. “A fucking drink sounds just about right.”

***

Ten minutes later, we’re out on the back deck, two Irish women nursing tall scotches at high noon, the way God intended.

“So…” I say after a while. “How’s it going?”

She chuckles and takes a drink. “Super. You?”

“Great,” I say. “I’m a retail clerk in an art supply store. My boss is a transgendered woman, and my landlord is her ex-wife. They’re not speaking. It’s really awkward. Oh, and there’s a man who comes in the store twice a week and tells me to fuck off if I make eye contact. And I have a seventeen-year-old virgin giving me advice on my sex life.”

Mary laughs, although her eyes still look tentative and self-conscious. “Wow. Sounds like a fun place.”

“It is,” I say, taking a sip of my drink. “I like it.”

“I’m glad.” She takes a breath and pauses, as though she’s unsure if she should say what she’s thinking. Eventually, though, she does. “The therapist tells me I’m not supposed to feel guilty about what happened, that I can’t keep punishing myself. That I won’t be any kind of help to Five if I’m not strong, if I don’t hold my ground as though I have a right to be here. But between you and me…” She lets out a long, slow breath. “I never thought I’d tear you guys apart. I never wanted to do that.”

I swim through a sea of possible responses to this, most of them reactionary and defensive
. What the hell did you think would happen?
 
is one.
 
Since when do you care about what happens to us?
 
is another, followed closely by its evil twin,
 
I thought all you cared about was yourself.
 
But for the first time in my memory, I’m not furious with her, and when I do speak, it’s not with accusation or anger, just genuine curiosity.

“Why’d you leave?”

There’s a long silence. I stare into my glass. I can’t look at her, so I can’t read her face. All I can see are the toes of her shoes against the pavement, still as stone.

“I thought I was a bad mother. I thought I was being selfish by staying. I thought your dad would remarry someone who was better than me. Every day I waited for a private detective to show up with divorce papers, but he never did.” Her voice cracks and grows thick, but her feet don’t move. “I thought you’d be better off. I thought that someday I’d stop missing you so much. I thought I could build a new life that would fill that empty pit inside. I thought that someday I’d be able to forgive myself.” She lifts her glass, gives an embittered laugh, and takes a drink. “And then I had a scare, and I realized that you people were the only important thing I’d ever done in my life.”

I look up at her and see that her eyes are a little wet, but she’s not crying. She’s being strong. She’s forcing herself to rise above it. And I understand her, I totally get what she’s doing because this apple did not fall far from that tree. For better or worse, I am my mother’s daughter. This realization inspires me to look into the swirly brown surface of my whiskey and down the last bit.

“I want you to know that I don’t blame you for hating me,” she continues, her voice calm and steady. “I understand. Part of me hates me, too. But I love you enough to be here whether you hate me or not, and I need you to know that. There is nothing you could ever say or do that will ever change how much I love you. Ever.”

There is a long silence, and I don’t know what to say. I feel ripped apart inside. Part of me wants to tell her that I forgive her, to make her feel better, but I just can’t.

“So,” she says finally, “you’re working in an art supply store, huh?”

I am taken a bit off-guard by her casual tone. It’s a mom tone. A
I’m-concerned-about-the-direction-your-life-is-taking
tone. And rather than being annoyed by it, even though I want to be, I’m comforted, even though that makes no sense.

“Yeah.” I twirl my empty glass in my hands. “I’m working in an art supply store.”

“And you like it in Bilby?”

“Yeah.” I look up and meet her eye. “I like it in Bilby.”

“And is it temporary? Or permanent?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Was New Mexico temporary or permanent?”

Our eyes lock and in some unspoken way, we seem to come to an understanding, so I decide to take it down a notch.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think it’s permanent-permanent. Like forever permanent. But… yeah. I’m happy there. I have friends. I have a—”

I stop there, realizing that I don’t know how to define Will in my life. I’m not ready to define Will in my life. I’m not ready to wonder whether Bilby is my life derailed or on track. I’m not ready for this conversation, not with Mary or anyone else, so I do the one thing I’m always ready to do.

“I’m gonna walk this off,” I say, putting my glass on the table and standing up, “and then I’ve got a long drive back to Bilby.”

Mary holds her hand up to shade her eyes, and smiles at me. “Okay.”

I nod. “Okay.”

“We’re all having dinner on Sunday,” she says, standing up. “I hope you’ll come.”

I stare at her, and I have to allow a grudging respect. Tables turned, I don’t know if I’d have the nerve to ask her to dinner. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.” She gives me a slight smile. “Please come. Seven o’clock.”

I look at her for a long moment, then nod my head. “Okay.”

She reaches out and squeezes my hand. “Thank you.”

I don’t know what she’s thanking me for, but I squeeze her hand back and release it, then walk toward the gate. I wander around the old neighborhood for a while, spending some time on the swings at my elementary school, and then when I feel strong again, I head back and get in my car for the long drive home.

***

It’s mid-afternoon when I get back to Bilby. I trudge back to my cabin and sit alone for a while, thinking about everything. And nothing. My thoughts are mixed. I worry about Five, and then wonder where Eloise Tucker ended up. I marvel at the fact that I can’t remember the last time I watched television, and I wonder if Dad will ever speak to me again. My nerves are jumbled, and I want to pace, but only crazy people pace alone in their living rooms, and I’ve decided I don’t want to be crazy anymore. I leave my cabin and knock on Will’s door, but there’s no answer. I am both disappointed and relieved. I want to see him, but I don’t have the energy to Talk, and after the way I’ve treated him, I fear we need a Talk. I hop down off his porch and follow the path to Brandy’s house. I ring the doorbell, and in a severe act of cosmic kindness, it doesn’t zap me.

Brandy answers the door a second later, and her face is awash in sympathy.

“Will told me about your sister,” she says. “Are you okay?”

“
Pffft
. Fine,” I lie. “I was just feeling kinda antsy and I thought maybe we could… you know. Have some tea or something? Do you have any of that chamomile? I think I could use being knocked out by that again.”

She smiles and steps back, allowing me passage into the house. I wander over to her workstation and stare quietly at her current quilt-in-progress, a funky piece with shards of orange and brown seeming to explode out from the center. Brandy goes into the kitchen to put the water on, then comes back with a platter full of Pepperidge Farm cookies.

“I thought we could use a treat,” she says as she sets it on the coffee table.

“Mmmm,” I say, then look back at the quilt. “This is really neat.”

“Oh. Thanks,” she says, crossing her arms over her stomach and cocking her head to the side as if trying to study it from a new angle. “It belongs to a man. Or a woman. I haven’t met them yet.” She crinkles her nose and levels her head. “Although I’m looking forward to it. Whoever it is is a real spitfire.” Her eyes glaze over as she continues to stare. “Wanda.”

“Hmmm?”

She continues to stare. “She’s pregnant.”

“Wow,” I say. Two months ago, I would have had to fight not to roll my eyes. Now, I’m sending a small prayer to the Universe for this Wanda to have an easy pregnancy. I sit down in Brandy’s rocking chair and she settles on the couch, nudging the platter of cookies at me. I reach over and take one to be polite, but end up just playing with it in my fingers. I don’t really feel like eating.

“So,” Brandy says. “Do you want to talk about it or talk around it? Because I’m great at both.”

“Are you ever going to forgive her?” I raise my head up suddenly. Looks like I’m going to do both.

Brandy sits back and takes a deep breath. She doesn’t pretend she doesn’t know who I’m talking about, and I respect her for that.

“I already have,” she says, then raises guilty eyes to me. “Okay. Well, we both know that’s a lie. Progress is slow, but I think I’m making it. I’m not angry anymore. I was, at first. I felt like, all those times he told me he loved me, that it was just a lie. I’ve never felt so betrayed in my life. When you trust someone with your whole heart and they give it back to you in bits and pieces, it can be really… upsetting.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard that.”

“You know what’s strange?” she says suddenly. “I forgive him. But I don’t know if I can forgive her.” She stares at me as though the realization is just hitting her at this moment. “We manage to avoid each other pretty well, but every now and again I see her at the grocery store or something, and I think, ‘This is the woman who took my husband away from me.’ Is that crazy? It feels like he’s dead and she killed him.”

“Do you ever wonder what it would be like if you could forgive her? Do you think it would be like having him back, or would it be…?” I can’t verbalize what I’m thinking, but the curiosity within me is burning.

“I’ll never have him back,” she says quietly.

“But… do you ever wonder what it would be like? If somehow, you could get past it and be friends? If, when you needed her, she was there?”

Brandy watches me for a long time, her brow furrowed and her eyes so sad that I can’t believe she’s not crying.

“No,” she says finally. Then the kettle whistles and she goes into the kitchen to make the tea.

***

Brandy and I spend a good two hours talking around everything, and it’s nice. The effects of the chamomile tea hit me quick and hard, but I’m enjoying Brandy’s company so much that I push through it, and when I finally head back to my cabin, I’m wide awake. Will’s car isn’t parked in his usual spot, and when I pass by his cabin, it’s dark, so I head to my own cabin and flick on the lights. The first thing that catches my eye is the quilt, lying in a bundle on my couch where I left it this morning. I walk over to it and pick it up in my arms, running my hands over the images sewn in. All the little blue boxes, keeping everything separate.