Patchwork

Chapter One

So this is what it all comes down to? One lone leather suitcase that was to encompass more than 20 years of conjugality, broken down to materials that could be quickly and easily rationed and tucked away and forgotten. Life is so cruel sometimes.

I looked at my watch and realized it was nearing 3:00. I had promised to have the suitcase packed and on the front porch by 3:30, so Dwight – my ex-husband – and his new girlfriend would be able to pick it up on their way to board a cruise. I prayed for a Titanic-styled disaster.

I had already emptied nearly all of the contents out of the mahogany Hope chest that Dwight and I had been given 10 years earlier for our wedding. It should not have come as a surprise that everything inside the chest belonged to him. He was a compulsive shopper, had been since the day we met in the Home section at a local department store. He was pushing a shopping basket filled with towels, Teflon cookware and assorted kitchen gadgets. I was close enough to notice that he did not wear a wedding band or even bear that conspicuous tell-tale bruise on his ring finger, so I summoned the courage to engage him and ask if he was just moving into a new place. He laughed and looked down at his new leather loafers shyly, and replied, "Naw, I just like to shop." Insert sheepish grin that burrowed into my heart like a gopher.

I should have taken the hint then. After our wedding, Dwight continued to bring home bags and bags of unnecessary items, hoarding them in the dusty unvisited parts of the attic, in the deep back corners of our closets, under the workbench in the garage. I could sometimes smell "new" in our house, when I'd walk into the spare bedroom or open the cabinet door to retrieve the good plateware for guests, I could smell the "new" wafting out of a shopping bag that he'd pushed deep into the darkness. And I'd shove it out of my mind and continue on with whatever task I was undertaking at that time. My ability to push down lingering doubts and suspicion would almost rival his ability to shop and hide the haul. But finally, his desperate and uncontrollable depletion of our funds lead to the breakdown of our marriage. After all, no matter how much love you make or how many laughs you share, the willful destruction of financial security is the death blow to any union.

Today, the chest that had been ordained to hold our wedding and anniversary gifts was now filled to the lid with objects of Dwight's addiction. All of these – unopened bottles of cologne, sculptured shaving cream dispensers, and hypnosis DVDs that were 'guaranteed to make you quit smoking, overeating, gambling, etc.' – all of these I pulled from the chest and tossed sideways into the opened suitcase, until I reached the bottom of the chest and my hand closed upon the patchwork quilt.

I lifted the handmade beauty carefully out of the chest with a somber smile playing upon my lips as I was filled with a rush of memories. My granny had stitched it together lovingly and painfully, more than 30 years before. Looking at the ragged hand-drawn stitches, you could almost feel the pain in every loop that held the motley patches together.

The quilt was encased in a thick zippered plastic, and I squeezed it to my breast as I let my mind wander back.

Granny's fingers used to cramp up so badly that she sometimes had to soak them for hours in Epsom salt. But when a knock sounded on the door, she winced but a moment before picking up her quilting needle again.

It often brought tears to my eyes to stand on the stairway and watch her pull at the fabric with her gnarled and crooked fingers. Her long, coal-black braid fell into her lap as she hung her head to concentrate on her craft. Every few moments she would pause and brush the braid up and out of her way, showing just a glint of irritation, and just as she finished attaching the fabric square to the rest of the quilt and laying her needle in the basket kept next to her chair, there would come another knock on the door. I watched silently as Granny massaged her hands quickly and vigorously, called for the guests to enter, and reached again for the quilting needle.

It pained me to see her suffering, so one day I tried to discourage her visitors. I met them at the door before they could raise their diseased hands to knock, and I gently but firmly informed them that Granny was no longer accepting visitors. They would turn with drooped shoulders, crying pitifully, and retreat down the walkway. Some of them were on crutches, some in wheelchairs, some taking slow indignant steps on their weakened legs. It was most heartbreaking to turn away the parents who were carrying crippled children in their arms. But I was only trying to protect Granny.

When Granny found out what I had been doing all day, she was furious. She grabbed the back of my shirt and snatched me away from the door, putting herself in between me and the visitor on the other side of the door, waiting to get in.

"Don't you get in my business again!" she screamed at me, then turned her back on me and reached for the doorknob with those bony arthritic fingers. I watched her wrestle with the knob and considered helping her open the door, but my feelings were hurt from the scolding. Instead I turned and ran up the stairs to my room, slamming my bedroom door behind me. I lay sobbing on my bed for what seemed like hours, alternating between short naps and chest-heaving tears, hoping to draw some sympathy from Granny. But she was too caught up in her mission to pay attention to me. The front opened and closed at least twice every hour, and in between, I could hear the urgent tapping on the wood, begging for entry. I stood at my bedroom window and looked down at the front yard beneath me, at the endless line of shuffling visitors winding a trail that wrapped from the road to our door. They met each other coming and going.

They came from all over with their heads hung, skin ravaged by unknown disease, hair long since fallen out. And they left walking just a little bit taller, heads held a little bit higher, and a palm-sized square cut neatly out of the tail of their clothing.