As soon as I heard the first crack of his belt on her bare skin and her scream of abject horror, I knew I had to escape. I stopped listening. My breathing became slower, deeper, more even, more controlled. I shut my eyes tightly, and went some where else. Nothing existed except the steady rhythm of my labored breathing and the focal point of my choosing. I reached down and fingered the quilt my mother spent the summer and most of the fall sewing. I could see her so clearly, sewing stitch after stitch. She had no pattern or experience making quilts, and it was still the loveliest one I had ever seen. I remembered everything about her sewing that quilt.
One of the ladies from a church she used to send me to when she wanted to get rid of me brought over a box of rags. She must have been embarrassed to give us that, because she just set the box by the door and left. I remember her heels clicking on the porch as she hurried away. Mom waited until she heard the car drive off and went outside to get the box. She had been watching that lady from the window with a strange look on her face. Looking back, I think it was a mixture of anger and envy, but I didn't know that then. Then, I just knew it was a strange look.
It was a pretty big box, and I guess it was heavy, because I remember her huffing and puffing as she dragged it inside. Sometimes I still feel bad for not helping her bring that box in the house. When Mom opened up the box, I was as disgusted as any 15-year-old would be to discover a box full of scraps of cloth, but Mom wasn't. She smiled softly and started looking through all the bits of someone else's rejected pieces of material. For a minute, I remembered the Coat of Many Colors song she sometimes sang to me when I was little, and was afraid she was going to sew a coat from the scraps and make me wear it to school.
"Mom, why did that lady bring us garbage?" I asked with contempt. "You aren't going to keep it, are you?"
"This isn't garbage", she said happily, ignoring my tone, "I'm going to make a patchwork quilt with all these bits of cloth. There should be more than enough."
Mom didn't get excited about things very often, but when she did she had this infectious enthusiasm about her. I couldn't help but actively look forward to what she was preparing to do. When she grabbed a double handful of the cloth and told me to start separating it by color, my earlier disgust had nearly vanished. I was glad to be included, not that I would have admitted it.
For what seemed like an eternity to me, Mom sat in her old rocking chair and did little else but sew and sew and sew. She used to tell stories and sing songs while she sewed. Sometimes she asked me to read to her. After awhile, she would tell me I was disturbing her peace and to go find something else to do. I was disappointed to go when she said to, but I always went anyway. Mom only asked nicely once.
I don't know if she ever knew it or not, but when she'd tell me to leave I would peek around the doorway and watch her while she sewed for a little while. I guess most children think their mother is beautiful and I was no different in that aspect, but I was looking deeper than that. I think I was struggling to find some kind of connection to her. I was searching for the evidence that part of the woman she was, was asleep inside me just waiting to bloom and merge into the woman I was becoming.