Chapter 23: The Quilt

I carried the quilt up his porch steps at eight on Sunday morning, folded over both arms.

It was my grandmother's wedding quilt, yellow and blue, with a burn hole near one corner the size of a quarter.

The hole was the one I had told him about on the ramp.

He opened the door in socks and jeans, with coffee in one hand.

He saw the quilt and set the cup down on the nearest shelf without looking.

"You brought it."

"I said I wanted it here."

"I thought you were joking."

"I never joke before nine."

He took one end of it and helped me carry it down the hall.

In the bedroom I shook it out, and it settled over his gray blanket and smelled faintly of old lavender.

We stood on opposite sides of the bed and smoothed it flat.

His thumb found the burn hole and stayed on it.

"She'd have liked you," I said.

"I'd have liked her."

"She'd have made you eat breakfast."

"I eat breakfast."

"You eat a granola bar standing up in the ambulance bay. I've seen you."

He smiled, and the smile reached his eyes, which I still wasn't used to.

I looked around the room.

It had a plain bed, a window on the creek, and one chair.

It looked like a place where a man waited between shifts.

There was no clutter.

There was nothing on the walls.

"You've lived here five years," I said.

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