Pieces of the Heart (27 page)

She kept her head on his chest until she slept, dry eyed. He kissed her lightly on the top of her head before he, too, fell asleep.

Caroline put her hands to her face for about the thousandth time that night, feeling the heat in her cheeks as she remembered the mortification of the previous day. She tried to focus on the embarrassment instead of the other emotions that seemed to bombard her every waking thought. Like the feelings caused by Drew holding her tightly in his arms. And the feeling of his warm breath on her neck and on the top of her head when he’d kissed her.

Most of all, she remembered the feeling of being under the water again, of the cold wetness against her skin like soft hands, and the power she felt as she pushed it aside to propel her body. In the moments before the chilly iciness had taken over her senses, she had almost forgotten why she’d given up swimming, why the self-punishment had been necessary, and how she could have once thought that the joy and rightness of her moving through water could ever be taken out of her life.

I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.
She buried her face in the pillow again, remembering his words. How could he know just the right thing to say to her? The last time she’d seen Shelby, after Jude’s funeral and before Shelby returned to college, she’d visited Caroline in the hospital and been witness to Caroline’s battered body and soul, and to the hollow numbness that beat in her chest. And Shelby had said those same words to Caroline. Right before she’d told Caroline to get off her ass and stop feeling sorry for herself. Not in those exact words, but they had been just as effective.

She’d always meant to write or call Shelby after that, but by the time she was recovered enough to think about it, Shelby had gotten married. It had always seemed the ultimate betrayal to her, but now, years later, she couldn’t help but wonder if there had been an underlying reason. After finally meeting Drew, she could almost understand. Almost.

Giving up on sleep completely, Caroline threw back the sheets and sat up to glare at the clock. One thirty in the morning was becoming way too familiar to her. Sliding on her slippers, she tried to look at the bright side of things. At least at this hour she could brew an entire pot of real coffee all for herself instead of that tepid stuff her mother was making her drink.

She put the coffeemaker in the laundry room so her mother wouldn’t hear it, then wandered into the great room while waiting for the coffee to brew. Flipping on a lamp, she paused by the quilting table and gazed down at the scraps of fabrics, smelling the new cotton batting, her fingers itching to feel the tug of needle and thread. A stab of alarm hit her as she realized what little progress had been made. A few photographs had been silk-screened and attached to large squares of the blue fabric her mother had picked out, but everything else was scattered about the table in a haphazard mess with no sense of placement or continuity. Nothing had actually been attached to the backing piece at all.

Pulling the full carafe from the coffeemaker in the laundry room, she moved it to the folding table by her side and poured herself a cup. She had almost finished the entire cup before she decided to sit down and see if she could at least help get them started.

She spotted the yellow piece of satin and picked it up, smiling to herself as she remembered Shelby trying on for her the dress it came from. Somewhere in the boxes of photos, there was a prom picture of Shelby in the dress and Jude standing next to her. When she found it, she decided, she’d put it in a frame for Rainy. But right now she’d cut out a miniature yellow dress from the scrap and lay it down on the backing just to help them out.

When she first picked up the needle and began threading it with pale yellow, the old excitement gripped her and she could feel her brain working separately from what she was telling it to do. It was in those moments that she’d always thought of the most creative things. Jude had once told her that when he sat down at the piano to play, he felt the same way.

With a fabric pen, she drew an outline of the dress as she remembered it, then began to cut. In the silence of the sleeping house surrounded by the smell of coffee, she could almost believe that things were the way they had been when she was a girl, and she found comfort in it. But somewhere, in the back of her mind, she did know where she was—that her mother was sleeping alone in a bedroom nearby, that Drew and Jewel were in the house next door, and that an injured loon was being taken care of by a woman who had fought cancer and won—and that it wasn’t such a bad place to be.

Jewel and her grandmother knocked on the Colliers’ door at seven thirty a.m. Jewel didn’t complain, because once she was on the swim team, she’d have to wake up even earlier on school days to practice or for meets. She hoped her dad had noticed how sprightly and alert she was when she’d stuck her head in his workroom to tell him where she’d be.

The door was opened by a bright-eyed and perky Caroline wearing a long sleep shirt and fuzzy slippers. Jewel almost looked past her shoulders to find out where this person standing in the doorway had hidden the real Caroline.

Grandma Rainy smiled, too, but it looked like the kind of smile you gave somebody who was wearing her shirt inside out. “Well, aren’t you a breath of sunshine this morning.” She moved inside the house as Caroline stepped back. “Is your mother up yet? I’m sorry to be here so early, but Jewel wanted to pick up the place mats you made before school.”

Mrs. Collier made her appearance wearing an apple-green flowy dress thing with pants and matching house slippers with bows. Jewel had always thought that only people on TV commercials dressed that way.

“Good morning, everyone. I’ll be dressed in just a moment—I just want to get the coffee started.”

Caroline appeared not to have heard. She pointed to the craft table. “I actually have a bunch of place mats for you, Jewel. I can’t seem to stop myself once I get started.”

The bench that had been practically bare the previous week now held about fifteen multihued place mats. Jewel walked closer and picked one up. “Hey, they all have a bird outline stitched on them.”

“It’s a loon. I used to put them on all my quilts as a sort of signature. I hope it’s all right.”

“It’s perfect—it makes them really stand out, I think.” She held it higher to get a better look. “Wow, look at these tiny stitches. Did you use a machine for them?”

“Absolutely not. And I’d watch what I say if I were you. In some quilting circles, those can be considered fighting words.”

Jewel laughed, then started picking up the place mats. She was startled to hear Mrs. Collier calling loudly from the kitchen.

“Caroline—why is the coffeepot in the laundry room?”

Caroline swore under her breath, using a word Jewel was pretty sure would send her to her room for a week.

“That’s not regular coffee, is it?” Mrs. Collier marched into the room holding an almost empty coffeepot with the electrical cord dangling.

Caroline crossed her arms over her chest. “It might be.”

Mrs. Collier let out a heavy sigh and put the pot down on a side table before approaching her daughter. “How do you feel?”

Her face brightened. “Really alert. Almost perky.”

Mrs. Collier grabbed hold of one of Caroline’s wrists, and Jewel watched her count beats as she looked at the clock on the wall.

“It’s really fast. Have you checked your blood pressure this morning?”

“No, I haven’t. And it was only caffeine—it’s not like I OD’d on heroin or something.” Caroline stumbled a bit and held her hand to her head. “Whoa. Just a little light-headed, that’s all.”

Pulling her daughter over to a sofa to sit, Mrs. Collier asked, “Did you drink any water?”

With her eyes closed and her head against the back of the sofa, Caroline shook her head. “I wasn’t thirsty. I’d been drinking coffee all night and hardly felt the need for water.”

Mrs. Collier turned to Jewel. “Could you please go get a glass of water from the kitchen and bring it here?”

Jewel nodded and raced to the kitchen. Even without watching the mother-daughter tug-of-war, she could still hear the battle being fought from the words that weren’t spoken. But she noticed something else, too. Besides what was being said or not said, it was clear to anybody listening that both women were on the same side of the battlefield.

Jewel handed the glass to Caroline, then sat next to her on the sofa. “Why can’t you have caffeine?”

“Good question. Why don’t you ask the warden?” She indicated her mother with her elbow while taking a long drink of water.

Mrs. Collier crossed her arms over her chest the way Caroline had done when her mother first entered the room. It was so weird how much they looked alike. If Caroline ever got married, Jewel would have to tell her husband to look long and hard at Mrs. Collier because that’s what he’d be married to in thirty years. Which, except for the fact that she was old, wouldn’t be such a bad thing.