Patchwork

Chapter Three

Granny now had two full trunks of completed quilts. And the world was that much more free of pain and suffering.

Late one night, I could hear the muffled sounds of Granny crying softly in her room. I slipped quietly out of my room and tiptoed to her door.

"Granny? You okay?" I whispered into the darkness as I pushed the door open.

When she did not answer, I stepped into the dark room. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, holding her hands tightly in her lap. I felt afraid, but I stepped closer to her and knelt at her feet, placing my warm hands on top of hers. Granny winced and pulled her hands away.

"I can't do no more," she whispered and raised her hands up to show me. Even in the darkness, I could see that her fingers were twisted and bent like claws and the sight of them was enough to make me gasp in fear.

"They're useless now," said Granny. I thought she was talking to me, but then I realized that her eyes were staring straight ahead, somewhere over my shoulder, but she wasn't looking at me. I wondered if she even knew I was there. She was shaking and crying silently without any tears. All I wanted to do at that moment was comfort her and take her pain away. I reached out my hand and lightly shook her bony shoulder to get her attention.

"Don't worry, Granny," I said to her. "We can go find a doctor tomorrow and you can get help. Please don't worry anymore." Granny turned her head toward me and smiled weakly as if she understood. Then she allowed me to help her ease back into the bed and pull the covers up around her, maneuvering carefully around her crippled hands, while she looked up at me like a frightened child. This was new to me. My Granny had never been weak, never been afraid of anything. I had seen her take her late husband's shotgun, prop it up her shoulder and dare a man to run. Some ignorant ne'er do well had the misfortune of breaking into our house late one night and Granny caught him loading his pockets with the silverware. Without saying a word, she returned to her bedroom and retrieved the shotgun, loaded it, and confronted the man who had now moved to the hall closet to rummage. I awoke to the sound of the shotgun being racked - a sound I had not heard since my grandfather was alive at least five years earlier. I made it to the top of the stairs in time to hear Granny issue her warning to the stupid fella - "run or die, up to you." He chose to run and it was the smartest decision he'd made that night. This fearful and weak Granny was indeed a stranger to me.

I slept fitfully that night, unable to clear the sight of Granny's deformed hands from my head. Each time I closed my eyes, I would see them reaching for me, feel the hard bony knuckles scraping my chin, see them in the shadows on my wall beckoning to me. I lay awake the rest of the night staring up at the ceiling and listening to Granny's bedsprings creak as she rocked herself in her bed. I wanted so badly to go to her again but I was truly afraid and I didn't know exactly why. This was the woman who had raised me, had taken me from my mother's womb as she gave birth in Granny's bed and then closed her eyes with a heavy sigh and died. Granny was actually my mother's grandmother, and at my birth, she was already 75 years old, but her age did not deter her from the promise she made to my mother. She was now the only mother I had ever known, but last night I was afraid. I didn't want to see those hands ever again. I would feel safer in the morning, so I waited.

Rising early the next morning, I padded down to her room in my housecoat and slippers, anxious to get started with the day, as I had already planned in my young mind how the day should go: Granny would call a doctor – she'd have to use the Yellow Pages to locate one since she didn't have one of her own, she avoided doctors completely; we would take a cab into the city and see the doctor who would give her some cream to put on her hands. I would rub the cream on her hands every day and every night and everything would be fine. Just like that. But Granny might have to say "no" to her visitors for a few days while she healed. It was all so simple to me and I hoped Granny would allow me to take care of her for a change.

The first thing I noticed as I pushed open her door was the chill in the air. It stopped me in my tracks and I felt my teeth begin to chatter. She was not in her room, and the sheets on her bed were twisted and hung to the floor as if she had thrashed violently during the night. I hugged my arms to my chest and turned back toward my bedroom to put on warm clothes, but when I took a few steps away from her room, the hallway was noticeably warmer, as if I had entered an entirely different room. I turned again and faced the source of the chill. The end of the hall near the stairs wavered before my eyes, and for the first time, I noticed the ice shards stuck along the wallpaper and on the staircase and the thin shiny icicles hanging from the ceiling.

My heart was beating a war chant in my chest as I inched slowly toward the stairs and placed my feet carefully on the icy steps. The rubber soles of my slippers skidded on the ice and I grabbed the rail with my bare hands, wincing at the contact but held on until I steadied myself and reached the bottom.

"Granny?" I whispered sharply through my teeth. The living room was like a museum exhibition of the Ice Age. The furniture had frozen over and was encased in chunks of ice while thick perilous icicles hung from the ceiling to the floor. I curled my hands up in the sides of my gown but they were already throbbing painfully from the cold. A huge slab of ice fell suddenly from the ceiling and crashed to the floor, sending shards flying about the room, striking me in my face, my bare legs, drawing blood. I screamed and raised my arms to protect myself from the rain of ice. When I lowered my hands, I looked instinctively toward the fireplace, and that's when I saw her.

Granny was sitting there, in her chair, with her face contorted so horribly that she looked as if she had seen the greatest terror in the world. Her mouth was twisted into a silent bloodcurdling scream, lips gaped open so wide that the corners had split and the hole was large enough to swallow the head of a small child like myself. Her hair had turned completely white and it stood on end all over her head as if she'd stuck her finger in an electrical outlet, and her eyes rolled back in her head to the whites. Granny's body had withered to the bone and the remaining skin hung on her frame shapeless and wrinkled. I could see the hollows of her neck, her ribs, where her dress had sunk within the crevices of her body. Tears of confusion welled in my eyes I reached out a finger and touched her arm ever so lightly – and the skin fell away in ashes, crumbling to the floor. The arm dropped from her body and hit the floor where it broke into pieces on the ice like fine china.

With her other hand, she clutched one of her patchwork quilts tightly around her body.