Lover's Knot, page 23
“Isaac’s promised to get some groceries later.”
“How much later?” Sam asked him.
“I thought I’d go this afternoon,” Isaac said.
“Feel like going for a run with me in the meantime? It’s my day off.”
Isaac looked as if somebody had just offered him a gold mine. Then, carefully, he shook his head. “I’d better—”
“You’d better go,” Kendra said. “Or I’ll get up and shove you out the door with my crutches. I need some time to moan without anybody listening.”
“You’re sure?”
She wasn’t sure which was harder. Saying all the things that still had to be said or politely dancing around them. She only knew she was so worn out that having Isaac gone for a while was the antidote. “Go.”
“I’ll change and be right with you.” Isaac left for the bedroom.
“How’s it really going?” Sam asked once the door had closed behind Isaac.
“It’s going to be a long road or a short side trip. I don’t know which.” She was sure he knew what she meant.
“It took you a long time to get where you are. It’ll take a long time to go somewhere else. ‘The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.’”
“Straight from one of your T-shirts?”
“From Lao Tzu by way of a T-shirt. I’ll take care of Isaac, you take care of yourself.”
The two men left together. Kendra could hear workmen shouting in the back and the incessant drone of heavy machinery. But the painkiller had begun to do its job. She felt almost comfortable for the first time since she’d fallen. She closed her eyes.
Another knock sounded. Her eyelids flew open and she called, “Come in.”
Helen stepped into the room. “What’s this I hear about you getting hurt again?”
“Is there a neon sign by the roadside?”
“Now you’re getting smart with me.”
“I just feel pretty stupid, that’s all.”
“From what I hear, you surely ought to.” Helen came in and made herself at home in a chair. “The Claibornes told Cissy. I guess they drug it out of Caleb last night. The boy’s not much for talking.”
“If it weren’t for him, I might still be lying in the woods.”
“You’d have got yourself up here some way or t’other.”
Kendra appreciated that no-nonsense statement of confidence. She noted Helen was carrying a grocery bag, but she knew better than to ask what was inside. Helen would tell her when she was good and ready. She settled for gossip instead.
“Elisa told me Caleb’s story. How long has he been here?”
“Let’s see, it’s May now. He come just after Christmas, from over Norfolk way. Cissy, well, you never seen anybody as glad as she was to see that boy. Of course Caleb doesn’t remember her. He was too little when they were separated.”
“Is he doing okay with the Claibornes? Elisa said he’s having problems adjusting.”
“Marian and Ron, well, I never seen people try harder. I think if he burned down their house, they’d just ask him to help build another one. Not that he’d do a thing like that, mind you. But that’s just to say they’ll stick with him, no matter. They have three sons. They know what boy trouble looks like.”
“They sound like good people.”
“Cissy worries about him.”
Kendra understood that too well. She was going to worry about Caleb, too. She searched for a less emotional subject. “How was your trip? Did they treat you well at the Quilt Museum?”
“They like to have sucked every single thing I know about quilts out of this brain of mine. I’d be surprised if anything’s left.”
“That’s the best way to keep history alive.”
“I brought you a little history. And a casserole, too. Don’t you dare fuss over it, either. It’s just macaroni and cheese I made first thing after I heard, but the quilters’ll be coming by with more. So you won’t have to worry about cooking for a while.”
Kendra reached over and squeezed Helen’s hand. “You’re all so good to me. I think I owe you about a hundred meals.”
“Give or take.”
“My husband’s here, and he’ll be taking care of me, but he can’t cook worth a darn.”
“Time he learned.” Helen took a plastic storage container from the grocery bag and set it on Kendra’s lap. “These are for you.”
Kendra could see fabric inside, but she was mystified. She unsealed the top and pulled out a stack of quilt blocks, setting them on her lap. “Well, would you look at these.”
“They been cluttering up my sewing room for longer than you’ve been alive. If I haven’t got to them by now, I never will.”
Kendra thumbed through the blocks. They were shades of brown, dusty pink, blue and plain muslin. Best of all, they were signature blocks. Names were penned somewhere on the muslin, each with a short Bible quote above it. Each quote was different, and so was each pattern.
She looked up. “Where did they come from?”
“My mama sewed a little for money. I think somebody gave ’em to her to put together and quilt, although these were already old by then. From the colors and all, I’d say they’re from the early 1900s. I recognize most of the names, folks from over near Strasburg. Used to be an old German church between here and there. I’m guessing the blocks came from them. Anyway, Mama took sick, then she died. Nobody ever come bothering us about them after that, and I was too busy to go searching up names. These women who signed this, they were old as the hills when I was still a girl. Maybe they were making it to give somebody who died before Mama could get to it. Whatever happened, there’s nobody left to ask.”
“You’re not going to put them together?”
“I don’t have the time. I have a hundred quilts of my own to make and probably no time left to make ten. I can give them to the rummage sale at church. Or I can give them to somebody who thinks they’re interesting.”
“You’re giving them to me?”
“On one condition.”
“Oh, no...”
“That’s right. You have to sew them together. What good will they do anybody in a paper sack? Surprised they look as good as they do, aren’t you?”
“You are much too trusting.”
“You make a mistake, you can always tear it out.”
“I don’t have a sewing machine.”
“Old fabric. It will do better to sew it by hand anyway.”
Kendra knew she’d been bested. She was not going to let these beautiful blocks go to the rummage sale. “I just sew them one next to the other?”
“We’ll talk about that at your first lesson.”
“Lesson?”
Helen gave a definitive nod. “We can do it at the bee some Wednesday.”
“You’re good, you know?”
“Oh, I’m the very best.” Helen took the casserole out of the bag and trudged into the kitchen with it. Kendra heard the refrigerator open and close, and Helen returned.
“One more thing, and then I’ll go.”
“You don’t have to rush off,” Kendra said.
“Cissy will be on her way back about now. No, I just wanted you to have those. See, the thing about those blocks is that I know facts about the people who signed them. Emma Haff? Hers is blue, one of those about in the middle of the stack. She grew sunflowers in her garden, right betwixt every cornstalk. People called her the sunflower lady, on account of her sunflowers growing tall every year and her corn being right spindly.”
“The sunflower lady.” Kendra liked the sound of that.
“And Melissa Putzkammer? Well, hers is pink, if I remember correctly. She was an old maid and mean as a scorpion. Come Halloween night, her outhouse was always the first to get tipped. She’d load her shotgun with rock salt and shoot anybody who come up her drive if they couldn’t give a good enough reason to be there.”
“But she made a block?”
“I’m thinking maybe she wasn’t as bad as I remember. See, the thing is, quilts can teach you a lot of history.”
“Uh-huh.” Kendra knew more was coming.
“And I ran into some history at the museum. I wish you’d been there with me.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw fragments of a quilt, just like your Lover’s Knot. Almost exactly like it, I think.”
Kendra was wide-awake now. “Helen, really? Where? What were the circumstances?”
“Well, that’s the thing. It’s not a pretty story.”
“I don’t care.”
“Seems about a year ago they found two skeletons in a cave inside the park. They’d been there a long, long time. And they were wrapped in what was left of this quilt I mentioned. If I’m not mistaken, the quilt’s a twin to the one your Isaac inherited.”
* * *
Isaac usually ran alone, so he was surprised by how comfortable it was to run with Sam and two of the ugliest dogs he’d ever seen. The huge wolflike monstrosities, Shad and Shack, were every bit as friendly as they were ugly, and one of them—he wasn’t sure which—had assigned himself to be Isaac’s canine bodyguard, running right beside him.
“How often do you run?” Isaac asked.
“Three, four times a week. More if I can manage. How about you?”
“To and from work a couple of times a week when I know I’m staying in the office. On the treadmill a couple more. Kendra and I usually bike or hike on weekends if we’re not working.”
“My weekends are tied up, but I make sure I get outside on Mondays no matter what.”
“Kendra says for a small church, yours is the busiest she’s seen.”
“We’re calling an assistant minister. That’ll give me more time for my prison ministry.”
“You expect that kind of activism in the city,” Isaac said. “Not out here.”
“We have our share of problems with it. But I think the church is stronger for talking about issues.”
“They used to talk about issues at the churches I went to as a boy. Mostly who they could target that week. Politicians, usually, who didn’t see the world the way they did.”
“Condemning people isn’t our style. You ought to come with Kendra sometime and see.”
“Is this a conversion speech?”
“Nothing like it. I think you’d find friends and a place to think.”
“I’ve had enough church to last a lifetime. I saw what it didn’t do for my mother.”
“Your mother was a churchgoer?”
“My father chose our churches, but we went as a family every Sunday. Religion was just one of the ways he kept us in line. He used to quote scripture while he beat us. He was the master of Biblical excuses.”
The moment he’d admitted this, Isaac wondered why. The fight with Kendra last night? A heavy-handed stab at Sam’s own faith? A warning that religion was a closed subject?
“I’m sorry. Did your mother ever leave him?”
“She found a lump in her breast and didn’t see a doctor. I think she was hoping she would die, and she did. Nobody cried harder than the colonel.”
“He’s still around?”
“Somewhere. Mother’s dead, and now that I’m bigger than he is, the thrill’s gone out of having a family.”
“No hope of a reunion, I guess.”
“Don’t tell me you think people like Grant Taylor actually change?”
“I’ve seen it happen.” Sam paused. “But a man with a taste for blood rarely loses it.”
“When I was twelve, my mother went to our preacher and told him what was going on at home. She wanted him to help us get away. He said it was her duty to keep her husband happy, that somehow it was her fault.”
“Isaac, surely you don’t believe there’s a Christian conspiracy to oppress women like your mother? Your father scouted for preachers who affirmed his twisted beliefs. Don’t tar us all with the same brush.”
“You’ve never counseled a woman to stay with a man?”
“I take marriage vows seriously, but I’m nobody’s fool. I’ve taken women straight from my office to safe houses.”
“I guess you weren’t reading the same Bible passages my father was.”
“The gospel of John says, ‘God is love.’ Twice. Talk about hammering home a message...”
Isaac fell silent. He admired Sam for living his principles, even when it had cost him a lot. But now he realized he liked him, too.
After two miles they turned around and started back, running on the shadier side of Fitch Crossing Road. Back at the cabin, Sam piled the dogs in his car, told Isaac to call if he or Kendra needed anything, and drove away.
He did some stretching exercises to cool down, exchanged a comment or two with a couple of workmen, then went inside. The logs kept out some of the encroaching heat, but the temperature was beginning to rise.
Kendra was still sitting where he’d left her.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“It’s going to be a scorcher, isn’t it.”
“Why don’t we move you out to the front porch, where there’s shade and a breeze? I’ll get you something cold to drink and your sandwich.”
“You’ll find a casserole in the fridge and more food on the way. Helen Henry came by and dropped it off.”
He helped make her comfortable on the porch, then went to pour soft drinks. In minutes they were both settled with sandwiches they’d bought in town on her trip to see the doctor.
“Ms. Henry must have come and gone quickly,” he said.
“She left me with the casserole and something to think about.”
He settled himself beside her. The view wasn’t the best, since they were looking out over their cars and two pickups. For the first time he felt a glimmer of excitement about the renovations and the resulting view of the river.
He unwrapped his sandwich. “What stirred your interest?”
“Isaac, have you ever paid any attention to the Lover’s Knot quilt your grandmother left you?”
He was sorry the conversation had taken this direction. “Not much.”
“Helen came over a couple of weeks ago to see it. You remember she’s something of a local quilting celebrity, don’t you?”
He listened with one ear as she told him all the strange things about his grandmother’s quilt. Some part of him was still thinking about his conversation with Sam.
“I thought I’d do some research into the names on the quilt,” Kendra finished. “Looking into birth or social security records, maybe, to get some idea where those people lived.”
She had his attention now. “There have to be more interesting ways to spend your time.”
“I guess I thought so, too, because I didn’t get around to it. The renovations started and I’ve been busy dealing with that. You have no idea how many decisions I have to make. Fixtures, windows, lighting, flooring.”
“Uh-huh.” She was right, he had no idea.
“Turns out I was wrong.”
He frowned. “About what?”
“Apparently the quilt’s a lot more interesting than I’d guessed. Let me back up.” She unwrapped her sandwich and set the two halves on the plate he had provided, but she didn’t take a bite.
He guessed she was stalling.
“Okay, here’s the story the best I know it right now. About a year ago, some hikers were up at the Shenandoah National Park. They had a dog, and they’d taken him off the leash to let him run ahead. After a while he disappeared. They searched for an hour, and eventually they heard him barking, but they couldn’t figure out where the sound was coming from. Finally one of them realized it was coming from some boulders a fair distance from the path they were on. Apparently the dog had been chasing something and managed to chase it into a small cave. But then the dog couldn’t figure out how to get out.”
“I thought this was about a quilt?”
“I’m getting to that.”
“Eat something before you start in again.”
She took two big bites. He was already on his second half.
“Anyway, even together, they couldn’t move the key boulder, because another one was right up against it. So one of them hiked back to get a ranger, while the other stayed to be sure they could find the cave again. It took most of the day, until a couple of men came to help.”
“I imagine the dog wasn’t happy.”
“The dog survived without a scratch. Anyway, with the four of them working on it, they managed to move a boulder and expose the cave. The dog bounded out, and that should have been that. But the two rangers were interested. Neither of them knew the cave was there. So one went to the mouth and shone a light inside.”
“And?”
“He saw bones. Human bones.” She paused. “Wrapped in a quilt.”
She had his attention now. He crumpled the sandwich paper into a ball and dropped it on his plate. “I think I remember reading about this. You say it was a year ago?”
“Almost exactly. The local sheriff brought in a forensics team and removed the bodies. Turns out there were two. A man and a woman. Dead from a single bullet each. They were wrapped in what remained of one quilt. The authorities estimated that they died somewhere around seventy years ago. The cave was well sealed, which is the only reason any part of the quilt was still intact. But of course only fragments remained.”
“What does this have to do with my grandmother’s quilt?”
“Helen saw some of the fragments at the Virginia Quilt Museum. The authorities hoped a historian would be able to help figure out where the fabrics came from, how old they were. Somebody there showed what they had to Helen, and she recognized them. She thinks the quilt that wrapped those bodies is virtually identical to the one your grandmother left you, although there’s no trace of signatures, not that she saw, anyway.”
