Chapter 4

The hospital elevator smelled of bleach. I carried the tin in my handbag and the yellow binding over one arm. Four squares could not become a quilt by visiting a hospital.

Warren met me outside the ward with his collar loosened. His hand rose toward my elbow and stopped when I looked at it.

"She's awake."

"That is generally encouraged in new mothers."

He smiled because I had taught him to smile at that voice. Then he opened the door.

Junia lay propped against two white pillows, pale around the mouth and furious with her own tiredness. The baby slept in the clear crib beside her. A quilt covered her from toes to chest, its little rows neat as planted beans.

Blue stars crossed cream squares. The corners lay flat. Every point met cleanly. Odessa had quilted tiny half-moons along the border, close enough that a fingernail could not slip beneath the thread.

There was no old square in the center.

My hand stayed on the door handle until the metal warmed beneath my palm. Warren moved past me to straighten an edge that did not need straightening.

"Odessa finished it this morning," he said.

"Then she worked fast."

Junia watched the yellow binding on my arm. "Mama, don't."

"Don't compliment her stitching? That seems unnecessarily cruel."

The baby opened one fist, considered the room, and closed it again. I had sewn Junia's first winter coat after she grew two sizes between fittings. I had unpicked both sleeves at midnight and started them over before breakfast.

"I couldn't wait," Junia said. "She came early."

"I can see that."

"You were making the Feeley quilt."

Warren set both hands on the crib rail. "That baby couldn't wait either. Somebody had to finish one."

I folded the yellow binding once, then again. The cut ends disappeared inside, where they could pretend they had never been meant for anything.

"You could've called," I said.

"You would've left theirs unfinished."

Junia's voice had the scraped sound I remembered from childhood fevers. "I wasn't asking you to choose which baby got cold."

"You chose for me."

"I chose for her."

Her fingers rested beside the baby's sock, close without touching. She had made the decision in pain, before anyone knew whether the child would breathe properly. I could hate the shape of it without pretending she had made it lightly.

Warren looked relieved, as if reasons repaired whatever they explained. "Odessa had time. Alma didn't."

"And Odessa does beautiful work."

Junia shut her eyes. "Mama, please don't be proud right now."

I crossed to the crib and laid one finger on a blue star. The seam was smooth. The batting had not bunched. Odessa had even buried her knots where no washing would pull them loose.

"I'm not proud," I said. "I'm accurate."

Warren reached for the binding. "We can keep that for the next one."

I moved it beyond his hand. "There are already children waiting."

Junia opened her eyes again. "Will you hold her?"

I tucked the binding into my handbag beside the tin. Then I washed my hands, lifted my granddaughter, and felt her whole warm weight settle into the hollow of my elbows.

The quilt remained in the crib. Odessa's stitches held while I counted ten perfect breaths against my wrist.

I said it was beautiful, because it was, and then I drove home and put the tin on the top shelf where I would need the step to reach it.