Read Online Pieces of the Heart by Karen White - Free Book Online Page A

two girls, seated at a large plank table holding hands with their heads bowed. The Ryans had left Hart’s Valley forty years before, but they’d left an impression on their house. Jewel wondered if maybe other people could see them, too, if only they’d open their minds wide enough.
    She looked down at the bright scraps of fabrics that littered the table and the double row of squares that had already been stitched together. These first squares were made from her mother’s baby blankets and sleepers, the yellow and pink bunnies and floral patterns completely at odds with the memory of a mother who had favored bright geometric shapes of her own designs.
    But, she supposed, that was what a memory quilt was for. It showed a life from the beginning to the end, mapping out the changes of a person in the course of a lifetime, the stitches tying the squares together like days tying together years.
    Jewel looked up and saw that Caroline was standing apart, as if afraid to come closer. Her grandmother and Mrs. Collier had finished arguing and were picking up various scraps of fabric and talking excitedly to each other.
    Mrs. Collier held up a light-blue-and-white-checked gingham dress. “Oh, I remember this! Was it kindergarten or first grade? For Halloween, Shelby was Dorothy, Caroline was the Wicked Witch, and Jude went as Scarecrow—remember?” She fingered the light cotton fabric in silence for a moment. “I’m surprised this isn’t worn out. Caroline wore hers every day for a month.”
    Caroline looked at her mother. “Jude was in second grade, I was in third, and Shelby in fourth. And I was Glenda the Good Witch and Jude was the Lion. He wanted to be Scarecrow, but you had already made the lion costume. The kids made fun of him at school.”
    Mrs. Collier put down the gingham dress, her face pinched like she was sucking on a sourball. “I don’t remember that.”
    Caroline came closer to the table and lightly touched the pleated skirt of a cheerleading uniform. “You wouldn’t. Jude never told you because he didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
    “I never knew,” Mrs. Collier said softly as she laid her hand gently on the gingham fabric again.
    Caroline looked as if she wanted to say something else and even lifted a hand as if to touch her mother, but quickly dropped it and with a jerk of her chin went back to examining the items on the table.
    Jewel watched as the three women circled the table as if waltzing with memories. She felt a little zing in her head again as the tension in the room became almost touchable. If Caroline and her mother accidentally bumped into each other, Jewel figured there’d probably be lightning.
    Caroline leaned closer to get a better look at a class photograph, the one that showed Jewel’s mom in fourth grade holding hands in a playground with a boy who came up to her shoulders. Suddenly Jewel realized who that boy was. A deep blue aura seemed to grow around Caroline and crept into Jewel’s head again, giving her blind spots on the edges of her vision.
    Grandma Rainy put a hand on Caroline’s arm. “You made such beautiful memory quilts when you were in high school. I would love for you to help me and Jewel make Shelby’s.”
    Caroline’s aura deepened almost to purple. If grief and old sadness had a color, it would be that one. Her dad had it sometimes, too.
    Caroline backed away from the table, shaking her head. “I . . . can’t. I haven’t quilted in years. I wouldn’t even know how to begin.”
    Jewel watched as her grandmother and Mrs. Collier exchanged glances, and the sharp, stabbing pains in her head nearly obliterated her sight. The door opened and she felt her dad walk into the room, and the tension in the room came crashing down on her head. Whatever was between Caroline and her mother was even worse when it came to Caroline and her dad.
    Her father turned to Grandma Rainy. “I’ve put all the chairs in the back room. I’ll bring the table next time.” He