Wedding Ring (10 page)

By afternoon the sky had darkened and the temperature had dropped as if rain might be on its way. Tessa was pleasantly tired after trooping through the hills with her father. They had spotted a white-breasted nuthatch and the rarer brown creeper. The hooded warbler that Billy had seen last year just over the first ridge had eluded them or, more probably, set up residence in a wetter climate.

Billy had begun taking Tessa birding when she was still in diapers. At first she had traveled in a backpack, then she had graduated to hiking in on her own, carrying her own canteen and binoculars. Like Billy, she kept a life list of birds she had observed, although it was not annotated in detail the way her father’s was, nor half as long.

Billy’s list was so vast that he was inching toward membership in the 600 club. While Tessa was more than content just to look for birds wherever she happened to find them, Billy’s dream was a trip to an isolated region of the Amazon with his binoculars, notebook and little else. Not surprisingly, that was not Nancy’s idea of a vacation.

Billy was gone now, back to Richmond without saying goodbye to his wife. Midafternoon, an unrepentant Nancy had returned from doing her errands in town, her arms heaped with new curtains for the living room.

At the sight of them, Helen sniffed in disapproval. “The old ones were just fine,” she said, before going upstairs to sulk at this new overstepping of boundaries. Earlier in the week, the old curtains had been added to the heap in the horse trailer.

“I’m going to get a start on the walls while I’m at it,” Nancy told Tessa. “So be prepared for another eruption.” She shooed Tessa out of the room, insisting that if Tessa didn’t participate in the Great Makeover, Helen would only be angry at one of them.

With the temperature cooling perceptibly, Tessa decided to begin on the attic. She and Nancy needed a storage area for the items that couldn’t be thrown away without Helen sacrificing herself on top of the trash pile—a Shenandoah twist on Hindu suttee. The attic seemed the most appropriate possibility, although that meant clearing it first. Luckily the room was large and well ventilated, with a high ceiling, windows that provided a cross draft and a surprisingly modern fan to draw out the hottest air. It would be bearable for a short time today, at least.

On the third floor she was greeted, as she knew she would be, by a scene similar to the one they had confronted on arrival. In places, the boxes and piles brushed the sloping ceiling. She wondered what else she would find among them. She might need to begin a life list of bugs, snakes and rodents.

She took stock to see if any form of order applied here. A closer look revealed that this mess was more or less organized along the lines of the downstairs version. At the very least, boxes contained similar items. Papers in one, broken pottery in another, gaily colored rectangles of fabric folded carefully in yet another toward the back.

She paused just as she was about to push that box back into line. This time she stooped so she could get a closer look when she folded the cardboard flaps back again. She picked up the first piece of fabric, large abstract strawberries in shades of bright pink and red, and examined it, standing at last to take it to the window where the light was better.

“Feed sacks.” She smiled, delighted she’d been able to make the identification. Someone, perhaps her grandmother, perhaps a woman of an earlier generation, had taken out the stitching that made this rectangle a bag. Tessa could still see the holes. Then most likely the fabric had been washed and ironed and folded for future use.

For a moment, without even thinking about it, she held the scrap of cloth to her chest. She wasn’t sure why this, of all the items she had handled over the past two weeks, moved her. Something about the care that had been taken with it, she supposed, the enthusiasm with which the sack had been readied. She imagined the woman who had folded this going to the store and choosing this particular flour or chicken feed sack because of color or pattern, knowing that she would use it someday to clothe her family or keep them warm. Women with very little not only making do, but making art as they did.

She replaced the sack, folding it carefully again, and pushed the box toward the steps. She thought it might be fun to go through the box with Helen at some later date. Some of the feed sacks had already been cut into strips and squares. She wondered if her grandmother could remember where pieces of those fabrics had ended up.

The box of fabric reminded her of something else she wanted to find here. Her grandmother had said that the wedding ring quilt Tessa had so loved as a child was up here. She gazed around the room again, wondering where to look first. She supposed she had at most another half hour before she had to abandon the attic for a cooler space.

Surrounded by cardboard, there were three old trunks against one wall, like the flea-market finds that were often used for coffee tables. These weren’t that nice. The leather was cracked and, in some places, missing. But the trunks looked sturdy enough. She made a trail to them by rearranging aisles of boxes. The first trunk held school papers. They were arranged in layers. The ones on the top belonged to her mother.

Tessa smiled, lifting a neatly written essay on Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine. She read a few sentences, impressed with the eleven-year-old Nancy’s writing skills. She set it back inside, looking forward to going through the papers another day at her leisure.

The second trunk contained men’s clothes. She realized who they belonged to after she scanned the paper on top and realized it was a condolence letter from the U.S. Navy on the death of Fayette Henry. She smoothed her hand over a sailor’s Dixie Cup cap. All these years, her grandmother had kept her husband’s effects. She’d had little enough time with him, but the grief had not abated. Not entirely, anyway.

Despite the heat, Tessa felt a chill. She closed the top and moved on quickly to the third trunk. This one seemed filled with yellowed newspaper clippings. Closer examination showed that these were quilt patterns with instructions, carefully cut out and saved. Some of the patterns had been glued to thin cardboard. She flipped a piece to look at the back and realized the cardboard was a cereal box. All-Bran, she guessed, although only part of the printing was still decipherable.

She sifted through the papers, enjoying the line drawings of women with pageboys and aprons. She could imagine that these patterns had been treasured at a time when there were few gifts or pleasures in the life of a farm wife.

The top layer gave way to another of cigar boxes filled with old spools of thread and buttons cut from garments—judging by the attached tufts of fabric. The third layer consisted of odd quilt blocks, rejects, she guessed, for projects Helen hadn’t finished but hadn’t wanted to throw away, either. She could see why some of them had been discarded, but several caught her eye, and she set them aside to see what Helen would say about them.

Three unfinished quilt tops made up the fourth layer, all made from scraps and not nearly as nice as the quilts Nancy had showed her.

The final layer, under a neatly folded white sheet, was the wedding ring quilt.

Tessa lifted it carefully, excitement mounting as she pulled it from the trunk. She had hoped that Helen had protected the quilt by placing it in a trunk where damage was less likely, but she was surprised she had guessed so well and so quickly. It was the same quilt, though. She would have recognized it anywhere.

The past seemed to be impregnated in the cloth. She was filled with memories of her childhood. Cuddling under the quilt when she was home from school with strep throat. Sitting on her father’s lap as he read stories to her, both of them covered by the quilt. Waking for just a moment when Nancy came in late at night to tuck the quilt back around her after she had kicked it off unwittingly.

She wished Kayley were there in the attic with her, to see the quilt that Tessa had never thought to mention to her daughter, to hear the stories of Tessa’s own childhood. She laid her cheek against the disintegrating cotton and wondered how many tears she had already cried against it.

Helen was getting used to being fed, and although she would never tell her daughter or granddaughter, she found herself looking forward each day to whatever they bought or cooked for her. Nancy wasn’t worth much in the kitchen, but she could make a salad, not the way Helen had taught her, of course, but with fancy ingredients for which Helen was developing an alarming fondness. Canned artichoke hearts. Ears of corn as tiny as a baby’s pinky. Avocados. Bean sprouts, although why anyone would take the time to sprout a bean, then eat it before it could produce more beans, well, that went beyond silly.

Tonight, though, Helen had ordered them out of the kitchen so that she could make a real meal. Country ham, crowder peas, sweet potatoes the way her mother had taught her when times were still good, and, to top it off, a home-baked blueberry pie. After all, she did owe Nancy half a pie for half completing a quilt, and since that was pretty hard to bake, she settled for the whole thing. She would eat half of the pie by herself, just so show them who was boss.

The kitchen hardly seemed like it belonged to her anymore. She couldn’t find anything, although, in truth, she hadn’t been able to find anything for months. At least now it was easier to search, and the way Nancy had organized utensils, pots and pans made a certain crazy kind of sense. She would redo it, of course, just as soon as they left. But for now, at least she could still cook.

By the time they filed in to eat, she was weary but proud. She might be old, but she could still turn out a decent meal. She waited for lectures about cholesterol and fat grams, but both women broke into delighted smiles at the sight of the supper table covered with dishes.

“I am absolutely, one hundred percent famished,” Tessa said. “And this looks beyond good, Gram.”

“Sometimes I wake up dreaming about food like this.” Nancy hugged herself.

“Don’t you dare say you can’t eat it ’cause you’ll gain weight,” Helen said. “Don’t you dare.”

“I’m not going to,” Nancy said. “What are a few pounds worth? Who’s even going to notice?”

Helen thought there might be more to that last comment than met the ear, but she didn’t ask. She wasn’t good about asking questions like that. What a body felt, well, it was that body’s business.

“Gram, you sit. I’ll get the tea,” Tessa said.

Helen made a long series of noises, like she didn’t need the help, but she had seated herself long before the noises abated, and her feet were grateful. “It’s in a pitcher in the refrigerator. Not much else in there. Your mother wants me to starve.”

“You’re on to me,” Nancy said. “That was my sole reason for coming here this summer. I want you to starve so I can take over the farm and mass-produce ostriches and llamas.”

“Don’t forget arugula,” Tessa said, returning with the pitcher, which she set on one of the few bare spots on the old oak table. “And all the other varieties of mesculun. Greenhouses filled with Chinese healing herbs. I can see it now.”

Helen realized she was smiling. Worse, she realized the others had noticed. She watched them exchange smiles of their own.

“Did either of you do one sensible thing today?” Helen demanded. “Bird-watching and curtain hanging.” She shook her head and started to pass the platters and bowls.

“Do you like the curtains?” Nancy asked, reaching for the sweet potatoes, which Helen had glazed with syrup and topped with crushed pineapple and pecans.

Helen sniffed. “I didn’t even look. The others were just fine.”

“The dust wasn’t even holding those together anymore.” Nancy didn’t sound offended. “These let the light in. You’ll enjoy them.”

“You didn’t even ask what color I wanted you to paint my walls.”

“I thought you didn’t look.” Nancy passed the sweet potatoes and lifted a platter of corn bread. “And I didn’t ask because I knew you’d say white. And peach suits the room, the new curtains and you. Any woman who can make a quilt like that gorgeous dahlia quilt deserves color on her walls.”

Ever the peacemaker, Tessa changed the subject. “I spent some time in the attic this afternoon.”

Helen knew she’d been bested on the paint-and-curtain issue. She was glad to move on. “Well, now, that wasn’t very smart. Hotter’n the devil’s own furnace up there, wasn’t it?”

“It was just bearable. But I found some interesting things before I had to quit.”

“If you’d asked, I’d have told you that’s where I keep the old stuff.” Helen buttered a slab of corn bread and slapped at her daughter’s hand when Nancy tried to move the butter farther away. “Family stuff, mostly. Nobody’s ideas of heirlooms, though. You don’t have heirlooms ’less you have enough cash to buy them in the first place.”

“I found a box of feed sacks,” Tessa said. “I’m proud to say I recognized them. I’d like to go through them with you someday, just to see what you remember about them.”

Helen was surprised. “Feed sacks? In the attic?”

“A whole box. They’d been taken apart, washed and folded.”

“Used to be a woman I knew who used the string that bound those sacks together to crochet doilies. Took it out stitch by stitch and rolled it in a ball. Times were awful hard.”

“They must have been.”

“I guess I forgot they were there.” Helen glared at the others. “Don’t think it happens very often. It doesn’t. Nothing wrong with my memory.”