Quilt By Association

It was dark when Harriet woke with a start. She was still sitting in the gray chair, but she was alone in the room, and she'd been covered with a plaid flannel log cabin lap quilt. Fred rose up from his spot next to her left thigh and meowed.

'Where is everyone?” Harriet asked her cat. He meowed again.

'I'm coming,” said a disembodied voice from a small white speaker on the pie-crust table. A moment later, Aunt Beth appeared, carrying a glass of water in one hand and a white capsule cupped in the other.

'Here,” she said and handed the pain pill and then the water to her niece. “How are you feeling?'

'I know I just woke up, but I'm still sleepy. How long was I out? Is Detective Morse gone?'

'A couple of hours, and yes, the good detective left not long after you fell asleep. She didn't ask anything else, and we didn't offer up anything, either. And you needed the rest. We left you in here with the baby monitor so you could have some peace and quiet.'

'We had an idea about our quilting,” Mavis said as she, too, came back into the studio from the kitchen. She was carrying a small plate of triple chocolate cookies and a fresh cup of tea for Harriet. “We were thinking maybe we could change up who was working on what.'

'What do you mean” Harriet asked.

'We're getting to crunch time for the auction quilts,” Mavis started.

'And I'm going to be running the long arm machine,” Beth added.

'You aren't going to be able to sit at your sewing machine for a few days,” Mavis continued. “So, we thought I could sew your tumbling blocks together on the sewing machine, and if you can, we thought you could work on appliqueing the dog-bone wreath block I'm supposed to do. My block is more than half- done, so it won't take much to finish it.'

'You can start on that first thing tomorrow,” Aunt Beth interrupted. We're going to stitch a little more, but Aiden brought you a couple of movies and we thought you could watch them upstairs. We moved the television into your bedroom so you could keep your foot up.'

'Aiden was here?” Harriet said. “Wait, you moved my TV?'

'Well, you can't watch in your TV room,” Mavis explained. “You'd have to prop your foot on the table. You're using your ottoman down here.'

'How could I forget? Is there anything else you've done on my behalf I should know about?'

'Well, we did ask Aiden to bring us all burritos from Tico's,” Aunt Beth confessed.

'That part's good. About the quilt project, don't forget I'm supposed to be appliqueing a dog-bone wreath block, too.'

'I think you can hold off till tomorrow and still have time to finish all the applique,” Aunt Beth said.

Any further argument on the topic ended when the doorbells tinkled and Aiden came in carrying two large white paper bags from Tico's Tacos.

'Jorge sent you your own carton of guacamole and a bag of chips that are still warm from the fryer,” he told Harriet. “He also sent some of his special soup that he says is guaranteed to cure your kidney.” He set the bags on the big work table and crossed the room to lean down and kiss her. “How are you feeling?'

'I've been better, but the sleep and pain meds are helping.'

Beth and Mavis picked up the two bags and carried them into the kitchen.

'You need to take it easy for a while,” Aiden said. “These should help.” He held up two red envelopes Harriet recognized as DVD movie mailers. “Guaranteed to make you cry.'

'I take it you're not staying to watch,” she said, knowing how much he hated watching chick flicks with her.

'I wish I could, but after dinner I've got to go back to work. A small group of patients are well enough to be neutered, which is one of the hurdles they have to get over to move toward adoption.'

'That's so sad,” Harriet said. “It seems like all they've known in their lives is pain, and now, in order to help them, you have to cause them more pain.'

'I try not to think of it in those terms,” Aiden said. “And we will provide anesthesia and pain medication.'

'I'm sorry-I wasn't trying to be critical. I just feel bad for the dogs.'

'Well, I feel sorry for you. You were only trying to help a friend, and someone had to do this to you.'

'I just wish I'd learned something that could help DeAnn.'

'Well, superwoman, sometimes it has to be good enough that you simply survived to fight another day.'

He was holding her hand when Aunt Beth and Mavis came back into the studio. Beth carried a tray with the guacamole and chips and Harriet's soup. Mavis followed with a stack of plates, utensils and the foil-wrapped burritos.

'I can't eat another bite,” Harriet announced when she'd finished all of her guacamole, her soup and half of her barbacoa burrito. “Jorge once again outdid himself.'

'The man can cook,” Mavis said. “I'll give him that. He's nosier than my pappy's old bluetick hound, but he can surely cook.'

'Can I quote you?” Aiden asked with a grin.

'Brat.'

Aiden looked like he was going to say something, but his cell phone rang, interrupting their banter. He listened, letting his caller do the talking.

'Wow,” he said after a moment. “I do remember that.'

He gestured toward Aunt Beth, making writing motions in the air. Beth got up quickly and grabbed a pen and pad from Harriet's desk, then put it into his outstretched hand. He lodged the phone between chin and shoulder and scribbled a name and address on the tablet.

'Thank you so much for getting back to me,” he said. He talked for another minute, pacing across the room as he asked how his caller was and listened for the reply before saying goodbye and ringing off.

The three women were looking expectantly at him when he turned around and returned to the sitting area.

'Ladies, I think we just got a piece of the puzzle.” He sat down and picked up the large cup of cola he'd brought with him from Tico's, taking a drink before continuing. “That was Nabirye Obote. She said she didn't have any half- sisters who could fit the bill, but she did have a cousin who had been adopted as a baby.'

'What's the cousin's name?” asked Harriet.

'I'm coming to that. This cousin was adopted in America and…” He exaggerated the and. “…she happens to have visited Africa while I was there.'

'And her name was Neelie Obote,” Harriet interjected.

Aiden looked at her but continued his story at his own pace.

'While she was visiting, I was working in the same village Nabirye was. It was the rainy season, and just before the visitors arrived we had a mudslide that filled the hut I was staying in with slime. I had to temporarily share Nabirye's tent.'

'Ah, it all becomes clear,” Harriet said.

'No, it doesn't. I wasn't the only one who had to move to the water project tent, but maybe her cousin didn't realize that.'

Harriet started to interrupt, but he went on speaking.

'Her cousin's name was-'

'Neelie,” Harriet guessed.

'No,” he said. “It was Nancy-Nancy Lou, to be exact. I'm sure she picked Neelie because it's an African name, and honestly, would you have believed her story about bringing her sister's child if she'd said her name was Nancy Lou?'

'Good point,” Aunt Beth said. “And who knows, maybe her birth name was Neelie.'

'Did your friend say how old her cousin was?” Mavis asked.

'She said she wasn't sure. She was a child herself when the adoption originally happened. And the aunt who gave Nancy or Neelie up for adoption died from AIDS when Nabirye was a teenager. Given her age now and her memories of the incident, she's guessing Nancy Lou was probably in her late twenties when she visited.'

'So, she went back to discover her roots or something,” Harriet said. “Then she saw her cousin and a man with