The Goodbye Quilt (6 page)

“Onstage, in Vegas?” Molly turns to her in interest.

Eileen nods her head. “I was in the chorus line of a show at the Monte Carlo.”

“That’s so cool,” Molly says.

“It was. But…harder than you’d think, especially with a kid and a lousy boyfriend. My mother danced, too, but never professionally. She always wanted to work onstage and didn’t ever have the chance.”

“Then it’s great that you got the opportunity,” I tell her, trying to say something positive.

Eileen gives a brief, humorless laugh. “I doubt my mother would think so. She was scared I might succeed at something she never got to do.”

I have no idea what to say to this. I peek in the rear view mirror. Eileen is stroking the hair off Josten’s fore head. “Mama tried like hell to talk me out of going, but I went anyway,” she says. “Big mistake.”

“What, leaving home?” Molly asks.

“Leaving with
him.
With my boyfriend, Mick. My ex, now.”

There is no air of I-told-you-so when we stop at a modest clapboard house at the far side of a town called Honeymoon. Eileen’s mother, who doesn’t look a day over forty, gathers her into a hug that emanates relief and gratitude. She inspects the baby, now groggy and mellow from his nap, and holds him against her as if he’s a missing piece of herself. “Look at this doll baby,” she whispers, shutting her eyes and inhaling. “Just look at him.”

Through the lines of fatigue around her mouth, Eileen beams. “It’s good to be home,” she says.

“I’m glad you’re here,” the mother replies. “No idea what I did without you.” Then she turns and thanks me in a trembling voice. “Would you like to
stay for supper?” she asks. “I got some sweet corn from a neigh bor. And I just made some lemonade, fresh.”

“Thanks, but we have to keep going,” I tell her. Molly surprises me by saying, “Maybe a glass of lemonade…”

The woman, whose name is Shelley, serves it in mismatched glasses and asks us about our trip.

“My mom’s dropping me off at college,” Molly says.

“Goodness, college. That’s exciting.”

The baby starts fussing himself awake and Eileen turns away to tend to him. I admire the patchwork quilt draped over the back of the sofa, and Shelley tells me it’s a family heirloom.

“I’m working on one myself,” I say. “It’s my biggest project to date.”

“I like sewing,” she says. “I made all of Eileen’s costumes for her dance routines. I don’t sew much anymore. The local fabric store folded, and the nearest superstore’s thirty miles away. They got everything you need there, but I miss the shop. All the women were friends, you know?”

I think of the shop back home. Here in the
middle of nowhere, this woman had nailed it—a community for women.

She gives us a local map that shows more detail than my Triple-A triptych. She indicates a route back to the highway that will put us a good eighty miles ahead of where we were.

Molly takes over driving again. I pick up my quilting. She says, “Dad’s going to freak when you tell him we picked up a stranger.”

“She needed a lift. We had no choice.”

“I’m glad we helped her out. We’re behind on our schedule now, though.”

“We don’t need to be anywhere specific,” I note. “It was a goal, the four hundred miles.”

We drive through a few towns fringed by strip malls or trailer parks. There is an air of exhaustion that seeps into the atmosphere of these places, and we’re glad to leave them behind.

By the time we reach the highway, dusk has fallen and it’s time to find food and a place to spend the night. An eerie emptiness hovers over the open road and few cars pass by.

“It’s looking bleak,” Molly says. “How far to the next city?”

“Almost a hundred miles. You up for it?”

“Looks like we don’t have a choice.”

She plugs an adaptor into her iPod so we can listen on the stereo speakers, and we get into a discussion about the stupidest lyrics ever written—“This Is Why I’m Hot” would be my pick. But Molly points out Van Morrison’s “Ringworm” and then we dissect the lyrics of some old Yes songs.

“Anything sounds stupid if you listen too closely,” I say.

Molly switches to a track that’s in French. “Clearly, we’ve been in the car together too long.”

A few minutes later, I spot a billboard rising from an alfalfa field, with a light shining on it. “Ramblers Rest, in Possum, Illinois. Want to check it out?”

She nods and drives another mile to the next sign. There’s a red-neon light indicating Vacancy in the window of the office, which also contains a convenience store. The tires crackle over the gravel in the drive.

“What do you think?” Molly asks.

“It’s worth a look. If it’s horrible, we’ll drive away.”

It’s not horrible, just a bit strange. Ramblers Rest
consists of a group of small, self-contained wayfarers’ cabins at the edge of a small trout pond. Our room is plain but clean, with walls of scrubbed pine, checkered curtains and an old-fashioned prayer posted above one of the beds.

The proprietor, a man in jeans and a plaid shirt, tells us there’s a bonfire down by the pond where guests gather around to sing songs and toast marshmallows.

“Songs?” Molly mutters. “No way.”

“We could harmonize ‘You Are My Sunshine.’”

She cringes, and I send her a wicked grin. “Or ‘Kumbaya’?”

The closest restaurant, our host says, is a place called Grumpy’s, a few miles down the road.

“They’re probably closed now,” he warns.

Starving, we head up to the convenience shop adjacent to the office and buy hot dogs to roast over the fire, plus bright yellow mustard and squishy white buns—the kind of meal that is forbidden in a proper kitchen. On a whim, I buy the ingredients for a kind of dessert we haven’t made since Molly’s childhood camping trips. We hike down to the water’s edge where a teepee-shaped bonfire roars
at the night sky. There are at least three discrete groups here, but all share that sort of instant camaraderie that seems to crop up among strangers at campgrounds. They make room for us in the firelit circle and we roast hot dogs, sharing the extras.

It’s amazingly tranquil around the pond, the sky intensely black in the absence of city lights. It’s so dark you can make out the colors of the stars—red and violet, silver and the shimmering green of moss in shadow. Their reflections glow like coins on the surface of the water.

Molly and I sit shoulder-to-shoulder and make small talk with the other travelers. There’s a young family from Cottage Grove, who just sold their house and are moving to Cleveland. A not-so-young family is there, too. The parents are about my age, but the kids are little, with Asian features, so I assume they’re adopted. A retired couple, who seem self-contained and not as eager to mingle, tell us they’re on a monthlong driving tour of the mid-west. Molly, of course, gravitates toward two boys who seem to be about her age. They’re juniors at Penn State, so leaving home is routine to them, and they’re driving themselves.

She seems to have forgotten about dessert, but
the younger kids eagerly gather around when I ask them if they want to help. I demonstrate how to put a little whipping cream and sugar into a small Ziploc bag. The sealed bag then goes into a larger plastic bag of ice and salt. This is the kids’ favorite part—you shake until the cream and sugar in the sealed bag turns to ice cream.

“What a great trick,” the young mother says to me, watching her little ones shiver and shake.

“I learned it from my mother.” I look across at Molly, who is now explaining the process to the college boys, who are totally into it. Before long, everyone around the campfire is making ice cream in a bag, the kids turning it into a wild dance. Sparks land on someone’s blanket, and a tiny flame ignites. Fortunately, it is spotted and beaten out. People tuck their loose blankets away from the fire, and we’re more vigilant after that.

Everyone pronounces the ice cream delicious. In fact, it’s a bit bland, but flavored by the fun we had making it. One of the college boys plays a harmonica. Then, possessed by the silliness of knowing we’ll never see these people again, Molly and I sing “You Are My Sunshine” in perfect harmony, and our listeners are polite enough to clap. We stay by
the fire way too late, until I feel the stiffness of the long day and the cold night at my back.

“I’m heading to bed,” I tell Molly. I worry that she might want to linger here with the college boys. Her eyes glow when she talks to them. I battle the urge to remind her that these guys are strangers and we’re in a strange place. Pretty soon, I won’t be around to protect her at all, so I’d best get used to the churning nervousness in my gut.

She surprises me by getting up and helping collect the trash and leftovers. “I’m going to turn in, too. If we get an early start, we can make up for the time we lost today.”

We didn’t lose any time. I know exactly how and where we spent it, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

As we walk together to our cabin, Molly says, “Those kids loved making the ice cream.”

“Remember the first time I made it with you?”

“The Brownie campout at Lake Pegasus. I was—what—six years old? And I had the coolest mom.”

What I remember about that campout was feeling inadequate. The professional moms, as I’d come to regard them, had remembered everything from bug spray to breakfast bars. They knew how to roast a whole meal in a foil packet, braid a lanyard into a
friendship bracelet and name the constellations. My clever little ice cream trick didn’t seem like much. Now I’m ridiculously pleased to know she thought I was the coolest.

Molly goes off to shower. I flip through the Triple-A book, wondering what tomorrow will bring. On the back cover is an ad I never noticed before, with a list of phone numbers—who to call in event of a breakdown.

Odometer Reading 122,639

The next day we make tracks and we’re curiously quiet with one another, both lost in our private worlds and lulled by the monotony of the road. We stop for the night at a far more conventional place, one with wireless internet and pay-per-view movies. We are not nearly as entertained by this as we were by last night’s bungalows and campfire. The room smells of new carpet and cleaning solution. The beds are like two rectangular rafts, covered in beige spreads.

“Let’s go out,” I say, opening the door to the parking lot to scan the neon collage of signs along the main drag.

Molly looks at me as if I’ve sprouted horns. “What do you mean, out? We already had dinner.”

“I mean out. To one of these clubs.”

“And do what?”

I have to think for a minute. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to a club. “Get something to drink,” I explain. “I’m sure bartenders still remember how to make a Shirley Temple. We can people-watch and listen to music.”

“What if I get carded?”

“It’s legal for you to be in a bar in Ohio so long as you aren’t served.”

“You checked?”

“I always check.”

She looks so dubious that I feel vaguely insulted. “What?”

“It’s just weird going clubbing with your mom.”

“We’re not going clubbing. We’re going to a club, just to get out a little bit. Nothing else seems to be open.”

“That’s weird.”

“Fine. Let’s stay here. You can watch
Simpsons
reruns and I’ll work on the quilt and reminisce about the past.”

Fifteen minutes later, we’re headed out the door. Molly spent the entire preparation time in front of the mirror. I have to admit, she has a knack for
primping. Her eyes are now smoky around the edges, her hair glossy and her lips slick and pink. She gives me the once-over and frowns again.

“I’ve seen that shirt before, Mom.”

“I never realized you
noticed
this shirt before.” I smooth my hands down the polished cotton. Except it’s not so polished anymore. I think the polish wore off some time ago.

“Isn’t it kind of…old?”

“It still fits. It’s in perfectly good shape.”

“But you’ve had it forever. Those jeans, too, and the shoes. And the purse. You carried that purse when you drove first-grade carpool.”

“I take care of my belongings,” I explain. “It’s a virtue.”

“Sure, but…Mom? You keep things too long.”

She speaks kindly, yet I know what she’s saying. Although I’ve always been quick to get something new for Molly, I never paid much attention to my wardrobe. Other than the occasional school event, I don’t tend to need much in the way of clothes. I can sew like the wind, but I like doing costumes and crafts, not blouses and shifts. And I’ve never been much for shopping. I laugh at Molly as I grab a light jacket and my purse. “Trust me, the world
is not interested in my lack of style sense. Especially not when I’m with a girl who’s flaunting her midriff.”

“I’m not flaunting.” She checks out her cropped shirt in the mirror.

A year ago, she had begged us to let her get a tattoo and, of course, we refused. Once she turned eighteen, she didn’t need our permission but, to my immense relief, she didn’t run out to the tattoo parlor. Maybe she forgot it was the one thing that was going to make her life complete. I’m not about to remind her.

We walk out together into the twilight, and the breeze holds just the faintest hint of the coming fall. There’s none of the coolness of autumn in it, but a nearly ineffable dry scent. The smell of something just past ripeness.

The main street is lined with mid-twentieth-century buildings of blond brick or cut stone. The shops and banks are closed, window shades pulled like half-lidded eyes, but in the center of the block, the sound of music and laughter streams from three different clubs.

One of them, called Grins, has a sandwich board out front boasting No Cover. Across the street is
Tierra del Fuego, featuring unspecified live music, and two doors down is a place called Home Base. Twinkling lights surround a picture of Beulah Davis, and we choose that club because she has the same last name as us and because I like her picture. She’s smiling, though there’s a wistful look in her eyes. Her hands, draped over an acoustic guitar, look strong, capable of bearing the weight of a large talent.

We enter between sets. Canned music pulsates from hidden speakers. The place is crowded with people clustered around bar-height tables. The yeasty scent of beer hangs in the air. A group of guys is playing pool under a domed light with a Labatts insignia. In the corner, the musical set is dark and quiet, two guitars—acoustic and steel—poised in their holders like wallflowers waiting to be asked for a dance.

I pause, letting my eyes adjust to the dimness, and a wave of uncertainty hits me. I can feel Molly’s hesitation, too, and unthinkingly I grab her hand, still the mom, leading her to a booth that has a view of the dance floor and stage. A good number of couples are swaying in the darkness, the women’s bare, soft arms draped around men’s shoulders.

I miss Dan. It hits me suddenly, a swell of nostalgia. He’s not fond of dancing, but he’s fond of me. Sometimes he has no choice but to sweep me into his arms and dance with me.

Molly orders a 7UP with lime, and I ask for a beer on tap.

“I’ll need to see some ID,” the waitress says.

“The beer’s for me.”

“ID, please,” she says, bending toward me.

This is both startling and flattering. I readily show her my driver’s license; she nods in satisfaction and heads for the bar. Molly samples the snack mix and scans the crowd. It’s a diverse bunch, people of all ages relaxing and talking, some of them drinking too much and laughing too loudly. A couple in a booth across the room appears to be in an argument, leaning toward each other, their mouths twisted, ugly with overenunciated insults.

The music stops and the dancing couples fall still. The singer appears on the corner stage, accompanied by a drummer, a bass player and a woman on keyboard. Applause greets them and we set aside our drinks to listen. She picks up the steel guitar and smiles as they tune up, then places her lips close to the speakers. “Here’s something by a guy I once
knew, Doug Sahm, from Kilgore, Texas.” A ringing, sweet melody slides from the speakers as she strokes the guitar.

It’s the kind of song that sounds fresh, even though we’ve heard it a hundred times before. There’s some thing about good live music that does that to a person. I feel a sense of happiness sprouting from within, and when I look across at Molly, I can tell that she feels it, too. There are very few people you can talk to without words. The fact that my daughter has always been one of those people for me is beyond price.

I grab and hang on to this moment, because I learned long ago that happiness is not one long, continuous state of being. Like life itself, happiness is made up of moments. Some are fleeting, lasting no longer than the length of a sweet song, yet the sum total of those moments can create a glow that sustains you. Watching Molly, I wonder if she knows that, and if she doesn’t, if it’s something I can teach her.

Sensing the question in my look, she tilts her head to one side and mouths, “Something wrong?”

The singer is joined by other band members, and the set segues into a lively swing tune. The volume
increases tenfold. I lean across the table. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just wondering if we’ve talked about what happiness is.”

She cups her hand around her ear and her mouth moves again.

“Happiness,” I say, nearly shouting. “Do you know how it works?”

She shakes her head, at a loss, then meets me halfway across the table. “Are you happy?” I ask in her ear.

She sits back down, laughing, and mouths the words, “I’m fine.”

Her words remind me that there are some things I’m not meant to teach her. She’ll only learn them by finding out for herself. I can hope and pray that I’ve raised a young woman who knows how to be happy, but I can’t hand it to her like my mother’s button collection, sealed in a mason jar. Starting now, she will have to be the steward of her own life.

After four songs, greeted with enthusiastic applause, the band takes a quick break and we buy a copy of their CD. The singer smiles a little bashfully and we smile back, two strangers who like
the sound of her voice. She signs the case with an indelible marker. “Y’all enjoy that, now,” she says.

“We will,” I say.

The waitress reappears, another beer and another 7UP on her tray, even though we didn’t ask for a second round.

“The gentlemen over there sent them,” she explains, indicating with her thumb and a wink.

“Oh, uh…” My cheeks catch fire. I can’t bring myself to look.

The waitress sets down the drinks and leaves.

“Get out of town,” Molly says. “Mom, those guys sent us drinks.”

“Don’t make eye contact. And for heaven’s sake, don’t drink—”

She takes a sip of her fresh 7UP. Watching her expertly made-up eyes over the rim of the glass, I see a whole world of things I haven’t told her, matters that need to be explained to someone who, in so many ways, is still only a child. I’ve had eighteen years to teach her not to accept gifts from strange men. I never got around to doing it. So much of this thing called parenting is a matter of waiting for a situation to arise and then addressing it. Just when you think you have all your bases covered, you—

“They’re coming over,” she says in a scandalized whisper.

I want to slither under the table. I’ve never been good in social situations, not with men, anyway. For Molly’s sake I need to get over the urge to slither. This is a teachable moment.

“Thank you for the drinks,” I tell the older one. He’s maybe thirty, and the way he’s looking at me makes me glad I’m wearing the mom clothes. “We were just leaving, though.”

“I bet you have time for one dance,” he says, smiling beneath a well-groomed mustache. He looks like the guy in that old TV series,
Magnum PI.
Magpie, Dan called it. I never did like that show.

His friend is clean-shaven, late twenties, checking out Molly with an expression that makes me want to call 911.

And here’s the thing. I can’t call 911. Nobody’s doing anything illegal. It just feels that way to me.

“My mother and I really need to go,” Molly says, polite but firm as she stands up. She tugs her shirt down, probably hoping they don’t notice her midriff.

“Just trying to be friendly,” the clean-shaven
one said. His buddy seems to be having a delayed reaction to the word
mother
.

On the way out, I hand the waitress $20 and don’t ask for change.

“Okay, that was weird,” Molly says as we step out onto the street.

“Honey, when a guy approaches you—”

“I didn’t mean it was weird that they approached me,” she interrupts. “I’m just not too keen on guys hitting on my mom.”

“Guys hit on women. It’s what they do. They don’t think about whether she’s somebody’s mother. Or daughter, or sister. And when we were in there, all I could think about was whether or not I’ve talked to you enough about staying safe around strange guys.”

She laughs. “You’re killing me, Mom.”

“Oh, that’s right. You know everything. Sorry, I forgot.” She doesn’t realize it now, but the older she gets, the wiser
I
get.

Something I probably won’t share with her—the last time I met a man in a bar, I married him. Not right away, of course. But there are eerie similarities. The bar was dim, like the one we just left, and—in those days—smoky. Dan didn’t send a
waitress to do his work for him. He strode right over to me and said, “Let me buy you a drink.”

I was too startled to say no. By the time the drink arrived, it was too late. I had noticed his lanky height and merry eyes, the heft of his biceps and the humor in his voice and his mouth, even when he wasn’t smiling. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was love at first sight, but it was definitely something powerful and undeniable.

He was a guy with clear potential and big plans, and I was a mediocre student at the state college. Less than half a year later, we found ourselves standing face-to-face at the altar, with nothing between us but dreams and candlelight. I still remember our first lowly, undemanding jobs and the way the days melted into a rhythm of partying every weekend, making love before dinner, staying up late and watching edgy movies.

Then Molly came along, and nothing was ever the same. We thought, at first, that nothing would change. Our denial ran deep; we walked around with her in a Snugli or stroller, pretending she was a fashion accessory.

Of course, she was so much more than that. She had the power to turn us into different people. We
were no better and no worse, but different. She was our happiest, most blessed accident.

All of which goes to show what can happen when you talk to strange men in bars.

In the middle of the night, I wake up and blink at my surroundings, my sleep-blurred gaze tracking the seam of the drapes, glowing amber from the lights of the motel parking lot. I hear Molly breathing evenly, sweetly, a sound that catches at my heart now as it did the first time I ever heard it and thought, My God.

Emotion and memory chase away sleep and I get up, shuffling over to the laptop computer. I touch the keyboard and it wakes up, too. Little boxes tile the screen; Molly was IMing with Travis late into the night. I quickly close the IM windows without reading the text.

It’s 3:00 a.m., and the internet is there, waiting for me. Following the stream of my own thoughts, I click to site after site, surfing from link to link as though pulling myself along some invisible, unending chain. Ultimately, it’s unsatisfying, filling my head with too much information. Yet it’s given me a huge idea.

Slipping on a light jacket, I step out into the parking lot with my cell phone. The whole world is asleep. There are no cars on the street, no critters rooting in the trash, no breeze stirring the tops of the trees. I punch in our home number on the cell phone.

“It’s me,” I say when Dan picks up on the second ring.

“What?” he asks, grogginess burgeoning to panic. “Where the hell are you? Are you and Molly all right?”