The Healing Quilt (5 page)

“That's why I called to remind you last night, too. You know you are supposed to have a mammogram every year.” Kit plopped a handful of berries in Teza's narrow wooden box, built to fit between the rows. A sturdy wooden handle enabled Teza to move it along easily. The fragrance of sun-warmed strawberries reminded her she was inhaling summer.

“I know that, but my year isn't over—yet.” Teza moved the box forward and continued brushing the leaves from side to side to find the ripe red berries among the green. Strawberries could hide better than small children. “Besides, with only one breast, I should only have to go in every other year.”

“Teza!” Leave it to her aunt to come up with that. “How much more do you have to go?”

“On the berries or my year?” Teza stopped to pop a perfect berry into her mouth, closing her
eyes
as the flavor exploded over her tongue.

Kit groaned and followed suit. Some berries pleaded to be eaten immediately. The season had been perfect for strawberries, just enough moisture and plenty of sun. She was convinced that nowhere else in the world would strawberries grow with more flavor than in the Pacific Northwest. As with other plants, the soil had a lot to do with it, but unlike large growers who planted varieties that could be shipped without so much loss, Teza insisted on planting the more flavorful Ogallala.

“Do you think there are strawberries in heaven?” Teza pushed her crate forward. “You know how Amber always loved strawberries.”

Kit swallowed the tears that hit the backs of her eyes and blinked to keep them inside.
No fair, Teza, I've been doing fine up to today, up until now.
Why after all this time, do I fight the tears?
God, shouldn't I be over them by now?
“I…” She swallowed again and willed her throat to unclog so she could speak normally. “I don't know.” What she did know was that it was a rhetorical question.

Or was it like so many other things in her life for which there were no answers?

“She'd come out here to help me weed, and we'd have a contest to see who found the first ripe strawberry. In August our hunt was for the first ripe peach, and in the fall—ah, how she loved apples. I never trusted her to tell me when they were ripe. Amber loved them green.”

“Just like Ryan and Mark. You always said they'd get a stomachache from too many green apples, but they never did.”

“Speaking of which…” Teza stood at the end of the row and handed Kit the crate mounded halfway up the handles with berries. “Make him strawberry shortcake for dinner and he'll love you forever.”

Apparently Teza didn't realize Mark hadn't been home lately either. Good. Kit had decided to keep this as her secret. “You sure you don't need these?” Kit ate the biggest one before it could roll off its perch, ignoring the clutch in her stomach.

“No, there's plenty more where those came from. Make Mark some freezer jam.” She kneaded her middle back with strong knuckles. “By the way, remind him he promised to build me some more of those planters, would you? I need to get the flowers out of the greenhouse before they take it over.” Teza lifted her face to the sky, her straw hat falling over her shoulders, dangling by the rawhide string. “I sold every planter he made last year. People went nuts over them.”

Kit let her aunt talk on. Who knew when Mark would be home? Even more, where in thunder was he? Six months he'd been gone, a record. Surely she was worrying unduly. Surely he was just busy. Surely she knew better.

The two women headed for the house, walking shoulder to shoulder, looking more like sisters than aunt and niece. Both with shoulder-length hair worn pulled back in a rubber band, Tezas more salt and Kit's still pepper. Tall at five nine, Teza had long legs that still looked good in jeans and a stride that covered the ground with unconscious grace. They'd inherited their strong facial bones from a Sioux warrior generations earlier and their wide smiles from a Norwegian grandmother. Tezas gray
eyes
could be turbulent like a storm-tossed sea or, more usually, quiet and gentle as a garden pond. Kit inherited her father's hazel eyes with flecks of green, the only one of her siblings to do so. Hands with long fingers and nails clipped short were equally adept with needle as trowel—they both had the quilts to prove it—and both were imbued with a sensitivity that brought comfort to whomever they touched.

As if strung by the same puppeteer, they stopped at the Calypso rosebush near the garden gate and leaned to sniff its spicy fragrance. Kit brushed an aphid off the stem. “If you're leaving these for the birds, those Bushtits better get busy.”

“I know. I hate to use the systemic, but I might have to.” Teza pulled the clippers out of her back pocket and snipped two stems, the floribunda habit of many blossoms on a stalk giving a full bouquet with one or two stalks. “I'll put these in water, and you can take them home too. I can't keep ahead of this one, need to pick from it every day it seems.”

“Are you bragging or complaining?” Kit teased. She started to sniff the flowers and pulled back to let a honeybee escape. “One of these days I'm going to take a cutting from this one. Looks like a sunset gone berserk.” She set the berries in her car keeping cool under the shade of a maple tree and followed Teza up the steps to the back door of the two-story farmhouse. A pillared porch skirted the house on three sides, with hanging baskets of rioting fuchsias already dropping blossoms on the wide board topping the railing.

While all the Aarsgards inherited greens thumbs, Teza had ten of them.

Kit sniffed as strawberry scent intensified by cooking wafted out the open door. “You have preserves cooking?” She followed Teza into the sunny kitchen.

“Yep, in that new copper kettle you gave me for Christmas. Makes the best jam I've ever tasted.” Teza filled a glass pitcher with water and stuck the rose stems in it up to the blossoms. “Sold the first batch almost before I got it bottled. Folks drove up for berries and smelled that aroma… Why, some of them waited until I poured it in the jars. All I do is put whole berries and sugar in the kettle and remember to stir it once in a while.” While she talked, she set the red enamel tea kettle to heating and reached for the tea boxes above the stove. “You want licorice or Red Zinger?”

Kit knew there was no chance of leaving before sharing a cup of tea, so she retrieved the bone China cups from the glass-fronted cupboard. “Zinger, I guess.”

“There are ginger cookies in the cookie jar. Made ‘em fresh just this morning.” Teza took the lid off the copper kettle and stirred the contents with a long-handled wooden spoon. “Recipe book says this makes great apple butter too. I can't wait to try the blueberries.”

“How about I pour while you get your calendar?” Kit took a matching China plate over to the apple cookie jar on the blue-and-white-tiled counter. “In case you haven't figured it out, there is no way you are getting out ofthat mammogram. I lost mother and Amber to cancer, and I won't lose you, too.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Teza had the grace to look sheepish. “But I know you would have taken Vinnie in too.”

Kit sighed and shook her head. So, let Teza have the last word. Kit would reschedule the appointment and hogtie her aunt to get her there if need be.
‘Bout time you did your own, too
, reminded her inner critic,
only not the same day as Tezas.

Following church on Sunday, which she'd attended alone again, Elaine idly flipped through the Sunday paper without much hope of discovering something of interest. Doodlebug lay curled in her lap, but every time he yawned, his pink tongue curling out and in, he slipped around on the silk of her lounging outfit. She'd changed from her white silk suit into something more comfortable as soon as she walked in the door.

After reading the society column, where she wasn't mentioned for a change, she read the
Parade
section. The health columnist made another diatribe against unnecessary surgeries, face-lifts at the top of his list of horrors. But then, men could age gracefully while women had to fight tooth and toenail to stay young enough to hold their place. Just think of all the lovely young beauties coming up, each seeking a wealthy husband, who would be future trophy wives for those who could afford them.

And George could. But did he dabble? The question plagued her more nights than she cared to count. Especially nights when the phone had rung and he'd flung on clothes for an emergency surgery, the price of being the best general surgeon in a hundred-mile radius.

She stroked Doodlebug's sleek head with one hand and turned the pages of
Parade
with the other. A recipe for barbecued turkey breast caught her attention. That might be a tasty alternative. George insisted on low-cholesterol meals, said his heart had to stay strong. She ripped out the recipe, the sound loud in the stillness.

Until the roar of a motorcycle, pipes rattling, came down the street.

“So much for peace and quiet. Those hooligans ought to be locked up.” Motorcycles were prohibited by the homeowners covenants. Another restriction they'd not bothered to enforce.

“Why me, Bug? Why does every decision in running this house have to rest on my shoulders?” At the shift in her legs, he slid off to the seat of the leather couch, scrambling to get a footing. He glared up at her, sniffed, and went to curl up in a corner of the white leather cushion.

“I'm going now.” Juanita Hernandez, her dark hair pulled back in a bun, made the announcement from the dining room. “I set the table. All you have to do is heat the turkey piccata and the salad is ready for dressing.”

“Thank you, Juanita.” Elaine picked up the torn-out recipe. “Here is something that looks good for our file.” Juanita, full-time cook, housekeeper, and sometime confidant, crossed to take the paper.

“Hmm, does look good. You want for tomorrow?”

“No, I have a dinner meeting tomorrow night, and George has that meeting with the hospital board. He won't come home before that, and the meeting will run late. He'll most likely eat at the hospital.” Elaine turned to look over the couch back. “If you'd like to take tomorrow off, you're welcome to do so.”

“You sure? Termite man come in the morning.”

“That's all right. Ill be here.”

“Good, then I stay at my sister's. Be home in evening.” Widowed Juanita lived in a small apartment over the garage, but her family lived about twenty miles away in another small town. While not a recent immigrant, she'd never lost her Hispanic accent. Elaine had helped her get her citizenship papers as soon as she qualified, so she no longer had a green card. George had been adamant about that process, back in the days when he paid attention to what was going on at home, before he became head of the surgical unit of the hospital.

“Why don't you take the rest of the cake with you. The children might enjoy that.”

“Gracias.
I bring back fresh strawberries from the farm.”

“Only if you let me pay for them. Your sister needs every penny she can get from her produce.”

“We see.”

Elaine shook her head, the motion setting her hair to swinging and falling back into perfect order, as if she had not moved. “Sometimes I don't know what to do with you.”

“You give much, people want to give back. You have everything, make it hard to give back. You need accept good as you give.”

“You've been listening to too many of Father Spencer's sermons.”

Juanita chuckled.
“No hablo inglés.”

Elaine laughed in return and laid her hand on
Parade.
A thought struck. She stood and looked fully at her helper. “See all these lines?” She pointed to the edges of her eyes and down her cheeks. “Do you think I need a face-lift?”

“Do you need a new hole in your head?”

“That's not exactly what I meant.” What she wanted to ask was,
Do you think George is having an affair?
but she kept her hands on her face and her gaze on the woman across the room.

“You mean this?” Concern drew lines on Juanita's broad forehead and deepened the slashes from nose to chin.

“Yes, I do.”
I'm not taking a poll for the media for Pete's sake.
She could almost hear the thoughts grinding through Juanita's mind.

“You are beautiful now. Why mess it up?”

“Thank you, but in American society, all women want to look younger.”

Juanita shook her head and a torrent of Spanish burst forth.

Elaine held up both hands in a stop motion. “Too fast, I can't follow you.”

Juanita waved her hands, her whole body screaming the negative. “No can translate, but no, no you do that.”

“All right, I get the message.” While Elaine had learned some Spanish, rapid fire and unusual words did her in.

“You no do, you talk with Doctor Giovanni first.” Both face and tone pleaded for Elaine's agreement.

Fat chance FU ask him. In the first place he won't listen, and if he does, he'll throw a holy fit. Now, ifyoudgone into plastic surgery, dear George, and set up practice in a real city, wed be affluent, such a satisfying word, not just well off.
Of course they weren't poor by any means, but income was relative after all.