“ We made it just for you. We were going to give it to you in appreciation for writing the story and let you enjoy it in the comfort of your own bed. But perhaps this is more fitting.”
“ Fitting,” Daisy said with a hen’s cackle. “That’s as funny as Santa in a manger scene.”
Lillian approached the table, a blanket folded across her chest. Unlike the other quilts, this one was white, though the pieces were ragged, the stitches loose, the cloth stained and spotted. “We done our best work on this one,” she said. “We know a sick soul when we see one.”
“ Threads of Hope sometimes come unraveled,” Faith said. Her sweet tone, and her soft touch as she felt his wrist for a pulse, was far more unnerving than her previous bullying.
“ That’s right,” Reba said. “Sometimes hope is not enough.”
“ And kids die and go on to heaven,” Lillian said. “The Lord accepts them whole and pure, but their pain and suffering has to go somewhere. Nothing’s worse than laying there knowing you’re going to die any day, when by rights you ought to have your whole life in front of you.”
Lillian helped Reba unfold the patchwork blanket. Morris saw the white scraps of sheet were actually varying shades of gray, cut at crazy angles and knotted together as if built in the dark by mad, clumsy hands.
“ There’s another side to our work,” Faith said. “One we don’t publicize. If it had a name, it might be called ‘Threads of Despair.’”
“ I like ‘Threads of the Dead,’” Reba said, in her high, lilting voice. Her remark drew a couple of snickers from the old women gathered around the table. Morris didn’t like the way Reba’s eyes glittered.
“ I’ll write the story however you want it, and let you proof it before I turn it in to the editor,” he said, his throat parched.
“ Cover him up,” Faith commanded. “I’d hate to see him go into shock.”
Morris once again tried to lift himself, but he was too woozy. Maybe he really did need an ambulance. And a thorough check-up. He was having a nervous breakdown. And these fine women, whom he’d insulted and belittled, were compassionate enough to help him in his time of need. Faith was right, he was the needy one, not those sick children.
As they stretched the mottled blanket over him, preparing to settle it across his body, Morris saw the words “Mercy Hospital Morgue” stamped in black on one corner.
Sheets from the hospital?
The cloth settled over him with a whisper, wrinkled hands smoothing and spreading it on each side. His limbs were weak, his mouth slack, as if the blanket had sapped the last of his strength. Though his skin was clammy, sweat oozed from his pores like newly hatched maggots crawling from the soft meat of a corpse. He was being wrapped in fabric even colder than his soul.
Threads from the dead, from those who had lost hope.
Sheets that would give back all that had gone into them.
A handmade blanket stitched not in the attic of the heart but in the dark basement of the disappointed.
“ The ambulance will be here in twenty minutes,” Faith said. “Until then, cherish the despair you deserve.”
She tugged the blanket up to his chin, and then, with a final, benevolent look into his frightened eyes, she drew it over his face.
