Hanging Them
I hung them in order
Hanging Them
I hung them in order, oldest first, starting at the barn end of the first line. It took me a while to figure out how to do it so the wind did not tear them down. In the end I folded each one over the line by about a foot and pinned it every eighteen inches.
The wind took them right away. They lifted and fell, lifted and fell, like the whole yard was breathing.
There is no other way to describe what it looked like when they were all up. Three long lines of color between that white barn and the dark green cedars. Reds and blues and yellows, stars and squares and flying geese, all moving in the sun.
Grandma in Her Chair
My mother drove Grandma out from town at a quarter to ten. Mom’s knee was healed enough by then for short trips, and she walked slowly with her cane.
I had set Grandma’s green lawn chair out on the grass beside the lines, where she could see all three of them. She wore her lavender cardigan over a flowered blouse, and her short white hair was combed neat.
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She did not sit down right away. She stood at the edge of the first line with one hand on my arm and looked at the quilts for a long, long time.
“Oh, Bethany,” she said, and that was all. She did not cry. She just squeezed my arm.
Then she sat down in her lawn chair, set her glasses straight on her nose and said, “Well. ”
The Families Come
By a little after ten the grass beside the drive was full of pickups and minivans. My mother’s brothers came from Kansas and Minnesota with their wives. My cousins came with their kids.
Some of the great
Some of the great-grandchildren were babies in car seats, and some were teenagers who had clearly been told to put their phones away.
The wind had pulled two quilts loose from the last line by then, and I was pinning them back up with Grandma’s wooden clothespins while she pointed from her lawn chair and told me which one belonged where.
Twenty-two grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all told. Plus their parents, plus Grandma’s four children, minus one.
Lori was not there yet.
My own two came running from the car the minute I let them loose. Gabe is eight and Millie is eleven. They had on jeans and their hoodies, because it was cooler than it looked in that wind, and they went straight under the quilts, reaching up to run their hands over the squares.
”
“They’ve been washed a lot,” I said. ”
The Stories
Here is how we did it.
Grandma sat in her chair, and one quilt at a time, she told the year and the scraps. The kids walked the lines and listened. When everyone had heard about every quilt, the youngest would choose first, and then the next, all the way up.
I walked her down each line, quilt by quilt, and she pointed.
“That is 1995,” she said, pointing at the very first quilt by the barn. “Nine Patch. The first one I ever finished. ”
She did not explain. I did not ask. I went on down the line.
“That one is 1997. Log Cabin. Grandpa’s worn-out overalls went into the dark strips. ”
“That one is 1999. ” She looked over at my mother. ”
My mother put her hand over her mouth and started laughing so hard she had to lean on her cane.
“I forgot that,” Mom said. ”
“I didn’t,” said Grandma.
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