Prizes
- Door prizes were won by Joan, Barbara, Maryln, Gloria I., CJ,
Alverta, Donna, and Jeanne.
Name tag fat ¼’s were
won by Jeanne, Pat, and Claudia.
Popser’s Playground
http://popser.com/
Reprinted by
permission from "Popser's Playground."
I have gotten
permission to reprint three stories from ―Popser’s Playground ,
this is the second of three stories.
Quilter's Gift
by
Popser
She was up earlier
than usual. I could hear her slippered feet sliding across the
carpet, the swishing sound getting farther and farther away. I lay
there in bed wondering where she was going now, what she had
planned. Each morning I played the guessing game in my mind. Was she
going into the sewing room to work on her current quilt project? Was
she going into the cutting room, her old office where the cutting
table sat? Was she going through the closets where the stash was
piled high on shelf after shelf? Was she going into the hallway
where her wall hangings and miniature quilts were hung? I waited,
listening for some clue before I guessed.
But there was too much
silence then. The heater on this frosty morning was between cycles.
The refrigerator in the kitchen was quiet, too. Then, finally, I
heard a whoosh, the sound carrying from the living room down the
hall to my ears. She had dropped herself onto the sofa, the air from
the pillows compressed as she fell into place. She had not just sat
down. She had plopped. I knew that sound. She was in some kind of
terror, some kind of agony.
"I'm on my way," I
said aloud as I got out from under the warm blankets, the warm
Friendship Star quilt spread across the bed.
After many years of
marriage, I have learned from her that every sound has a meaning.
And since she had taken up quilting, every yip or moan or sigh or
chirp or whistle or song had a meaning beyond the normal sounds of
marriage. There were quilting sounds, the likes of which I would
never have imagined knowing two years before. But I knew them now. I
did not have to guess that the sound she made was a sound of dismay
that required my coming to her as quickly as I could.
"Any bones broken?" I
asked. She sat in semi-darkness, the backyard light filtering in
around the blinds. I could make out the narrow frown on her lips.
"Nothing is broken,"
she said softly.
"Any nausea? And
stomach pains? Sneezes? Coughs?"
"My health is fine,"
she said.
"Then why did you get
me out of bed if everything is all right, which from the look of you
I know isn't even close to being all right?"
"I came to say
good-bye," she said.
"Good-bye? Who are you
saying good-bye to? Are you leaving me? Are you running off with the
paper delivery man? Have you found someone who owns a quilt shop who
wants to marry you and give you all the fabric you want if you say
yes?"
"Don't be silly," she
said. "I thought I was doing all right, you know," she added.
"I thought you were
doing all right," I said.
"I was doing fine. I
finished some new blocks and sorted all the fabric for the next
quilt, and I went to sleep in a happy mood."
"You're not happy
now?" I asked.
"I'm happy now. I'm
sad, too. I have to say good-bye."
"If you're not going
anywhere, am I expected to go somewhere? Are you telling me to leave
our house and our marriage and go wandering off into the cold of
winter where hungry wolves may find me and eat me up?"
"There are no wolves
around here and you don't have to go anywhere. I'm not going
anywhere." She seemed to be sinking farther down into the sofa,
slipping into the wide crack between the pillows on both sides of
her now.
"It's something about
quilting?" I guessed. It was an easy guess. If she ran out of
toothpaste or overcooked a chicken or forgot to put gasoline in her
car, it had to do with her quilting.
"Do you think they'll
all be happy?"
"Yes," I said. I could
have answered by asking her who she was talking about, but that
might have led to weeping and wailing. And there was no doubt that I
would have been the one to do the weeping and wailing.
"Do you think they'll
be taken care of?" she asked. She looked at me with hopeful eyes.
"Certainly. They'll be
happy and well-cared for, and you don't have to worry about them," I
said.
"It's like when
children leave home," she said.
"The children have all
left home a long time ago," I said, "but you know where they are,
and they are all well and happy."
"I know," she said. "I
was just feeling a little sad."
"What kind of sad?" I
asked?
"A good sad," she
said.
"So, it's the quilts?"
I said, finally guessing what the sound was that awoke me from my
pleasant sleep. A man married to a quilter soon learns to just know
these things.
"It's hard to let them
go," she said.
"I know," I said.
"I worked a long time
on them," she said.
"I know," I said
again.
"I'm really happy to
give them away," she said, "but I'm allowed to feel sorry to see
them go, aren't I?"
"Of course," I said.
"It's a normal way to feel. In fact, it's required" I added.
"I just want to say
good-bye."
"For me too," I said.
The quilts had been in our house now long enough. As each one was
finished during the past months, it was put carefully away, labeled
with the name of the person who would get it. The quilts were
wrapped for the children and grandchildren and friends and family.
They were tucked away in a closet to wait the holiday season. Now
they were all piled in the living room, ready to be delivered. It
was time for the giving.
"So you go back to bed
and let me stay here with them," she said.
"All right," I agreed.
"It's a personal
moment," she said.
"Make it a cheerful
good-bye," I said.
"I can't wait to see
everyone's faces when they open the packages."
"Neither
can I," I said, and I left her alone in the room, she
and the room both now a little brighter. And as I hurried back to
bed, I knew I couldn't wait to see her face as she saw their faces.
Now, that was a gift worth getting.
Copyright A.B. Silver
1998
