Read Online Ada Unraveled by Barbara Sullivan - Free Book Online Page A

face, clearly in anticipation.
    “Ada would have brought us a quilt to sew in
March, I think. Or maybe April.” Ruth said.
    Ada. The woman I’d replaced. Finally a
name.
    “Perhaps you should tell me who this Ada is.
Ada is the woman who died that I’m replacing.” I made the
statement, forcing someone to contradict me, or leave it said. No
one did. The room closed in upon itself.
    Maybe this was the real meaning of their
name. They quilted and they were very secretive. And I hated
the butterflies dancing in my belly. The women sewed like robots in
silence. Ah, the anonymity of hiding in a group—a gentler form of
mob psychology was spread out before me.
    Finally, Geraldine stood, stretched and
faced me. “The answer is yes. She died three months ago. We had a
hell of a time finding you, but we did and you’re perfect. And I
need a potty break.” She flounced out and into the barely lit
zigzag hall.
    Still no answers.
    But that was all I would get now. I moved
back toward my chair and asked, “How long has this group been
meeting?”
    “Our quilting group has been in existence
now for over three hundred years,” Abigail said, perking up. She
launched historical essay.
    “It began in the year 1678, in the
Colonies,” Victoria Stowall intoned. “One of my female relatives
sewed at that first one.”
    Her pride imbued the room with lighter
feelings. Abigail rose from her sadness. And promptly joined a
debate with Abigail and Elixchel over how many generations ago the
group had begun. And promptly joined the debate over how many
generations ago the group had begun. Turned out it was forever, as
far as Victoria knew.
    “Do you mean the bee has always been in your
family, Victoria?” I asked.
    She nodded yes.
    “And how is it you know the exact year?”
Then I remembered. “Wait…that was the year of Pilgrim’s Progress,
wasn’t it?” My reference librarian’s brain had called up one of its
many disassociated pieces of information.
    Victoria beamed, which was a lovely sight to
see. Until Elixchel said, “John Bunyan’s real message, his
underlying moral, is that mankind lives in a corrupt hell and
heaven sits above us.”
    And Elixchel believed that this was
true?
    I looked at Elixchel. What a harsh
philosophy for such a beautiful young woman.
    I said, “Maybe you should tell your story
now, Elixchel.” She nodded agreement and took a breath.
    “My story is about how my parents died. I
was almost ten. This event abruptly ended my childhood.
    “They were shopping in Mexico. My mother was
from Mexico. They had an accident…and they were trapped in the
car…on fire...” her voice wavered and she paused in her story.
Finally she resumed.
    “They’d left me home with tia…an aunt. I
have little memory of it, just the hysteria, the rage and
frustration. They were forced to return to a Mexican hospital
barely better than a prison—which is where they would have been
sent next, if they’d lived. It was years ago. The hospitals back
then were….”
    “They were primitive,” Andrea said. “And
they would have gone to prison because their laws presume guilt
before trial, the opposite of ours. Napoleonic, it’s called.
Primitive, I call it.”
    Elixchel sighed again. “Yes, but the
American consulate did nothing to help them. The guilt is on both
countries.”
    “Wasn’t much they could do back in those
days; it was like a diplomatic dark age between Mexico and the US,
wasn’t it?” Andrea.
    “I don’t know. Do you want me to tell my
story or not?” Elixchel snapped.
    Andrea smiled—I thought smugly--and bent to
her sewing.
    “Anyway they both died, my mother within
days from the injuries, my father from pneumonia after several
weeks. It still makes me very sad. And yes, it makes me angry…at
this country and its attitude toward us. I mean toward us
Chicanos.”
    “I’m sorry about your parents, Elixchel. You
have every right to be angry over their deaths. But, do you think
things are