Clay's Quilt by Silas House

me now?”
    â€œWhat did you do?”
    â€œNothing!” she screamed. “What’s the difference, anyway? Look at me.” She was aware of her mother and brother entering the room.
    â€œWhy would he do this to you?” her mother asked, her voice full of tears.
    â€œBecause I live.” She could taste blood in her mouth, as thick and black as used oil. “I have to quit him. I can’t live a life like this. I won’t.”
    â€œHush now,” Thomas said, rubbing her hand. “The Lord takes care of all things. Divorce ain’t the answer to everything. You have to work through this. You can’t just give up on your marriage.”
    â€œI’ll be giving up if I stay with him. One of these days he’ll kill me.”
    â€œWhat you all need is to get back in church,” Thomas said. After a few minutes, he got up slowly, quietly, and went outside. She hoped that he was going to kill Denzel. That was what she wanted. She tried to rise up off the couch to go with him.
    â€œLay down now. You will leave him, no matter what your daddy says,” her mother whispered. “You get out of there as fast as you can. There ain’t no changing a man like that. I’ve seen it before.”
    When Alma awoke the next morning, her mother was still there with her, rubbing her back in a perfect circle. Her fatherwas sitting across the room, propped up in his chair and staring out the window. He had not slept, but from his expression, she knew that he had not changed his mind, either.
    â€œDaddy, I’m leaving him,” she said weakly. “I don’t care if it makes your singing group look bad or nothing else. Why in God’s name would you want me to stay with him?”
    He said nothing.
    W HEN SHE WAS SURE Evangeline had passed out, she felt around in her purse until she found her Jean Ritchie tape and pushed it in. Jean had not even gotten out the first verse before Evangeline put her face up between the seats again and muttered, “Alma. Pull over.”
    â€œYou ain’t getting sick, are you?” Alma asked, turning down the volume again.
    â€œYeah,” Evangeline said, her mouth already filling up. “I sure am.”
    Alma pulled to the side of the road and held Evangeline’s hair back while her sister vomited. Evangeline sat right down on the shoulder of the road and told Alma to leave her alone for a minute. Alma stood at the open door and looked up at the black mountain towering beside the road. The cliffs stood dark and solemn and made the silence more noticeable. There was no sound except the redundant bell signaling that the door had been left open. The stars were spread out as if spilled, and the moon was a smudged spot of gray on the black sky. The tears that had lingered in her eyes began to spill, although she didn’t have a clue as to where they might have come from. After what she had been through in the past two months, she couldn’t see how she even had any tears left, but they fell fast and straight down.

7
    E ASTER AWOKE TO WHISPERING —low, cool whispers like the wind off a falling leaf. When she opened her eyes, there was no one, nothing. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, and in that space of time, she felt a slight breeze in the room, like the barely noticeable wind of someone’s leaving. An image came to her mind: a woman quickly, gracefully leaving the room, clad in a dress made of silver winter air.
    She had expected to wake up to someone there with her. Anneth, perhaps. She had been troubled by dreams of her sister all night long—dreams in which Anneth did not laugh, did not throw her head back, did not show her beautiful, straight teeth and red lips. They had been dreams of Anneth coming to her as she would have looked if she had lived to be very old. Her beauty had faded, changed into a different kind of loveliness, the kind that only very old women possess: the shadow of a lost