short story no. 2 | my quilt
inspired by true events, Sarai navigates how she can best honor her grandmother's legacy after most of its physical remnants have been lost to a house fire
written in fall 2019 as a part of a creative writing certificate
In and out.
In and out.
In and out the stitching went, connecting the orange, cloth cutout of Winnie the Pooh to the white fabric beneath. She had sewn this herself, as she had countless other quilts. One for Cousin Buster. Two for Uncle Tony. Three for Miss Luella, who lived down the street. And dozens for me, my mother, and my siblings. She had taught me years ago, and I sewed a tiny quilt for my dolls. It was made up of triangles of spare fabric found around her house, a medley of patterns grounded by solid squares opposite them. The border was pink and tied the quilt together. It lay at the bottom edge of my feet, on top of Pooh.
“Sarai!” My mother called me. I heard her footsteps on the stairs adjacent to my bedroom. I looked back at the quilt covering my body and realized I had been lying here for hours. What day was it? “Sarai, are you going to get out of bed anytime soon? It’s 10 AM on a Saturday. Beautiful day outside…”
“No, this project…” I refuted. I never gave her any details to spoil the would-be surprise.
“This project,” she mocked. “Does the project involve lying in bed, staring at sheets?” She scoffed, opening my blinds. “My mother never let me waste a good day. If she was up, the whole house was up. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but look.” She gestured outside. The sun was still journeying to the top of the sky, casting a glow on everything capable of a reflection. Birds communicated the day’s tasks among themselves as the low hum of the occasional car punctuated the otherwise peaceful ecosystem. It was truly a beautiful sight, and unfortunately, I was not in the mood. Sensing that her attempts were not getting through to me, she said, “I’ll let you and your project continue,” waving her hand in dismissal as she left my room with the door ajar, per usual.
I reached for my laptop on the floor and opened it to see the page I had hastily closed last night in dismay. It was my grandmother’s house for sale. They were requesting half a million dollars, which was a fortune compared to what she paid. My mother and her siblings had to sell it once it caught fire a few years ago, unable to repair the damage. I often thought of the limited memories I had in that house, and the quilts she would sew restlessly all day long. I was younger than my other cousins when she passed. My mother was the youngest and, accordingly, provided the last of the grandchildren.
I kept looking at the webpage as if the price would magically change. Maybe if it were left on the market for too long, they would cut the price in half. I could do a quarter million… barely. I could do more freelance writing, maybe submit to a literary magazine. Or, better yet, I could finally publish that book I’ve been writing… as if anyone would buy it.
I slouched down back into my bed and threw my hands on my face. The anniversary of her death was coming up, and I would never save up enough for the down payment and the continued mortgage in two months. Some affluent gentry from the city over would surely out-bid me. Maybe I could sleep through my disappointment. I threw the quilt over my head and felt it grow heavier, as if it were consciously trying to provide comfort.
As I was consumed in my self-doubt, my phone vibrated at my hip.
“FN Zone. 15 minutes.” A text from Brené said. I let out a sigh as I pulled myself up from my bed and threw on the closest clothes I could find. Although I didn’t have the energy to move, a distraction was just what I needed.
I arrived outside the desolate building previously known as the FUN Zone before the U went out 8 months ago. It was one of the only places from my childhood that had survived the neighborhood renovations started years ago. The owners refused to give it up, despite its chipped red paint on its A-frame roof, its stripped and uneven pavement in its parking lot, and the perpetually open front door that required the weight of three people to shut.
As I entered the building, I spotted Brené almost immediately. It was extremely hard to miss her big, curly hair, which fell past her shoulders.
“What’s up?” I overlooked the arcade game she was immersed in.
“What do you mean, ‘what’s up’?” She didn’t break eye contact with the little pixel men. “I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
“Yeah. I’ve been busy.”
“With what?” She turned suddenly. “I know you love to hole yourself up and write, but this,” she gestured to me, “is new.”
“I haven’t been busy writing,” I turned around and started to take in the space. We were the only people here, which the owners seemed to love, as they looked at us and smiled periodically. The carpet was straight out of the 80s with its purple backdrop against the colorful yellow, blue, and red shapes. The ceiling lights flickered on and off, one day promising to go out forever. This place was falling apart, but somehow it was the closest I could get to feeling ten again. She brought my cousins and me here when we were bored at home. I remained the high-score champion at skee-ball.
“Sarai?”
“Yeah?”
“I said, if you haven’t been writing, what have you been doing? I miss you. Everyone at The Pen does too.” I chuckled lightly. The Pen was a new writing club on 76th Avenue. It hosted writing competitions and had an array of literary-themed drinks, The Oxford Coma being my favorite. It was funny to think that they missed me. I never allowed another author to win.
“It’s personal.” I looked to Brené, who didn’t seem satisfied with that answer and continued. “It’s my grandma’s house. I was thinking of buying it as a surprise for my mother, but it costs more than six years’ salary.” I turned to take a seat at the table nearby and whispered, “It’s ridiculous,” as I sat down.
“Well, why do you want to do this? Gifts shouldn’t make you bankrupt.” She took a seat next to me.
“It would make my mother happy for one. My grandma was her best friend. Even when we moved to Sacramento, she would drive two hours every weekend back to Oakland just to say ‘hi’, taste her cooking, do some housework for her, anything…”
“But is it the only thing that can make your mother happy?” I didn’t respond. She didn’t seem to get it. “Look, if it’s that important, have you considered crowdfunding. People love a good sob story. The story of the fire would earn you a pretty penny. Throw in some stories of your childhood and… and… THE QUILTS. You for sure can earn enough in a few months’ time.”
“I only have two months until her anniversary. This was a spur-of-the-moment thought. I guess I got really excited and caught up in it that…”
“You lost your sense of reality? And what are you realistically able to do?”
“Yeah…”
I arrived home and found my mother in the kitchen cooking dinner.
“You went out?” She asked rhetorically with a smile on her face. “Being in your room all day isn’t healthy. If I were Granny, I would lock you in the backyard for a few hours. Consider yourself lucky. Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” I answered, darting to my room.
“Well,” my mother called out. “Be sure to come out later to have some of this 7-Up cake. It was Granny’s recipe.”
“Ugh!” I yelled into my pillow when I hit the bed. All my grandma’s hard work had gone up in flames, courtesy of the outdated in-floor gas furnace-style heater in her living room. It didn’t cause many problems—outside of a few burns on a cousin’s feet here and there—but had we known the disaster it would eventually cause... If I could buy it back, all of that strife would be moot. Her legacy could be renewed.
I reflected on what Brené said about crowdfunding. I would only need ten percent for the down payment and a little more for the subsequent fees. This dream of mine wasn’t dead. I got out of bed and reached for my laptop, but something prevented me from doing so. I looked back at the bed and noticed that the Pooh quilt was wrapped around my arm. I tried to pry it off, but couldn’t get a good grip as another piece of the quilt entangled me and started pulling me towards the bed.
“What the f—” I let out before the doll quilt covered my face and pulled me down. I pulled and pulled until my muscles began begging me for a break. As I broke to regain strength, I was suddenly sucked into the bed. I felt a falling sensation in the pit of my stomach as the bright light from my room turned into a dark, pitch-black vacuum. I tried to scream, but no sound came out of my mouth. I shut my eyes and braced myself for an impact that never came.
I slowly opened my eyes and was greeted by a row of houses tinted by a sepia-like glaze. They looked familiar—nostalgic even—as if I had been here before.
“Hello?” I called out, but no one answered. There were no cars on the road, no people outside, and no sounds to be heard. I stood up from the ground and started walking down the street, shouting out, “Hey,” “Hello,” “Is anyone out there?” only to be greeted by the same silent response.
As I came to see the end of the road, a light from one of the houses began illuminating the street, and the sound of Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Achy Breaky Heart” swallowed the silence of the surrounding air. It was her house and her favorite song. I approached the house but lingered in the driveway. What was this place? Did I die? Is that why—
“Well, don’t just stand out there, child. Come in.” It was her voice. I continued up the steps and into the house. Lo and behold, she was there pinning fabric to the quilting frame she had used for years.
“Granny…”
“Hi, Brownie Cookie.” That was the nickname she had given me. “It’s been a while.” My throat began to tighten and become sore as I fought to hold back tears, but the moment she said, “Come over here,” I lost all composure and ran to weep in her arms. I sat there for what felt like hours before she said, “Alright. Get it together. We have a quilt to finish.” I sat up to look at the quilt. It looked like nothing I had seen her work on before. The designs looked like photos. In them was a woman smiling. The woman looked like a younger version of herself.
“What is this, Granny?”
“My life, or at least snippets of it. That’s me at the laundromat I used to work at,” she said, pointing to one of the fabric squares, and then to another. “That’s me with your oldest aunt. My marriage day. Your mother’s birthdate. And look at that, that’s me with you.” I looked around at the photos, many of which I hadn’t seen before. There was a picture of us walking to the corner store, the day we surprised her at the hospital for her birthday, and… and one of her with the house. A house we were in, a house that no longer existed. Not in that state. I felt tears swell up behind my eyes as I touched the memory.
“That was me when I bought this house,” she rested her hand on my back. “It did a good job, didn’t it? Kept my family warm and safe when it needed to.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“It’s gone, and I can’t get it back.” I looked around. The wooden floorboards that used to give everyone who walked barefoot on it splinters; the gray ceiling that used to be white before the cigarette smoke stained it; the couch I often slept on when I spent the night. They were all gone with the fire.
“What do you mean it’s gone. It’s right there,” she pointed to the fabric square. “What do you think these quilts were for, huh? You thought this house would be here forever? It’s just sticks and stones. Those are what matter,” she pointed to the quilt again. “My quilts were my legacy. Something you can easily take with you from place to place. Something to keep you warm. You can’t do this with this house.”
“These memories were in this house.”
“Yes, and now they are inside of you, inside of my quilts.” I looked back at the quilt and, almost as if on cue, the pictures began to move and talk over each other. I focused on a particular square. It was my mother on her high school graduation day.
“Congratulations, I’m so proud of you!” Granny said.
“Thank you, Mama.”
“Here,” Granny smiled while handing her something. “It’s not much, but it’s all I could do.” Her smile turned into something else. It was still a smile, but an emotion of pain seemed to lurk behind it. My mother opened her hand to reveal one thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills.
“It’s more than enough.”
“And it was.” Granny interrupted the memory. “She finished and is a great psychologist, I’ve heard. She keeps a lot of people in the family emotionally and psychologically together. That’s her legacy.” She nodded, trying to hold back a tear. “At her college graduation, I gave her a gift.” Granny pointed to a square that showed her giving my mother a quilt. It was at least as big as a queen, with purple butterflies fluttering around its stitching. It was the quilt that was currently on my mother’s bed. “That was my legacy.”
We fell silent as Billy continuously played in the background.
♪♫ You can tell the world you never was my girl,
You can burn my clothes up when I’m gone. ♫♪
“What’s your quilt going to be?” She finally broke the silence.
“I—I don’t—,” the music suddenly stopped playing.
“It’s time for you to go home.” Granny sighed as she reached for the lamplight illuminating the house.
“Wait, no. I need more time.” She pulled the switch, and everything went pitch black. “Granny? Granny!” I jolted up from under the quilt on my bed. Everything in my room was the same as I had left it.
“Sarai, the cake’s ready,” my mother called from the kitchen. I tossed the quilt off to the side of the bed and reached for my laptop, watching the quilt intently as I did. I opened my laptop to check on the house again and saw that the price had gone up by fifty thousand dollars. This could not be my quilt. I closed the tab, opened a blank Word document, and started precipitously typing.
“Sarai, you made it!” Brené came to hug me as I entered The Pen.
“Oxford Coma, please,” I gestured to the bartender.
“Are you presenting tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“You seem in a good mood. You work out a way to buy your grandma’s house?”
“No. I did something better.”
“Okay, where am I supposed to sit?” My mother asked, fidgeting with her car keys behind me.
“Front row, please.” Brené looked at me, perplexed, as if she were trying to solve a puzzle that she didn’t have all the pieces to yet. “You’ll see,” I gestured for her to sit next to my mother.
“Next, we will be hearing a story from Sarai Turner.” The announcer said into the microphone.
“That’s my cue.” I walked up to the stage and took a seat on the stool provided, clutching the pages I had written in my hands. My breath staggered as I looked to my mother in the crowd. Just calm down, she’ll love it. “Hello. A lot of you know me from past competitions, but over the past few months, I’ve taken a break from writing. I found myself consumed by a needless mission, one that wouldn’t really make a difference or bring back the memories of a loved one. But today I have a new mission. A more impactful mission.” I looked to my mother as she smiled. I adjusted the loose pages in my hands. “I call this one, ‘My Quilt.’”
Weekly Novel Progress Report #7:
Chapters Edited: /RESET/
this week, i read through my entire novel, noting the current outline that the story has. woo boy, do i have a lot of changes to make! but, i found some gems to keep, too.
this week’s goal: outline my story as i want it to be, taking inspiration from what it currently is. i also plan to read On Writing, by Stephen King, which i recently checked out from my local library.
join us: If you are writing something, feel free to add your progress below. I promise to be one of your cheerleaders along the way!
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