By Katlynn Fox

A quilt for a new marriage, one for an unborn child, another just to stay warm through the unforgiving winter.

“You rub your lips together like she did,” my mother told me, “Like you’re thinking too hard about something.”

She was Betty Louise, but everyone called her Red. Red hair, red fingertips, and rosy red lips. She served freshly sliced tomatoes with every meal — no matter what was on the menu.

Red was born in 1927, the Year of the Rabbit. She was married to an action photographer who infamously laid on the ground at the Texas rodeo and let bulls trample him for the perfect shot. Red divorced him when he became a pastor in the Baptist church. She then married a man 12 years younger than her.

Red adopted my grandmother in the late ‘50s and raised my mother 16 years later, after my grandmother got pregnant at 15.

She died years before my birth, at 73, with gray hair, red fingertips, and pale pink lips. Red was a strong spirit that didn’t quite haunt my house, but resided there nonetheless. Her presence loomed like strong perfume on a silky blouse, with notes of magnolia grandiflora.

“You sigh the same way she did,” my mother told me. “Like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

Maybe I did. It certainly felt like it sometimes.

I think my mother pointed out the parallels between Red and me to keep Red alive. My big sighs and pondering gestures kept Red’s lips rosy and cheeks colorful. I know the similarities we shared are proof that Red existed in the first place. A thin piece of white lace tied Red to me, attached right in the middle of each of our chests. No biological ties or genetic sameness, just lace and legacy.

The only reprieve from the tugging feeling in the soft part of my chest came when I lay to rest at night. I hang my head, letting the water leftover from the shower drip off the ringlets of my drenched curls. I crawl on my hands and knees into my bed and wrap my tired body in Red’s old quilt: a simple, clean design with no patches or scraps sewn together. Just a daffodil yellow fabric with scalloped edges and threads fraying in the soft, worn parts. It has ornate stitching that almost looks floral. I run my hands along the textured surface as I wrap myself in her embrace each night. Her presence lulls me to sleep. I feel the phantom scratches of her long, almond-shaped nails on my back, winding in soothing circles.

I yawn like a dog and stretch like a cat with the weight of the world on its shoulders.

I stole the quilt about six months ago. I had fished the forgotten fabric out of my mother’s linen closet at the beginning of summer. I was getting ready to cart my belongings back to the city so I could start my new job for the summer.

“You’re slowly taking everything that used to belong to her,” she said.

I couldn’t tell if there was sadness or acceptance in her voice — perhaps both.

When she says everything, she’s talking about the watch. I swiped Red’s old wristwatch from my mom’s jewelry box last summer. Amidst a few dainty gold and silver pieces, I picked Red’s out of a lineup, almost like it was a test. It was a thin gold band with a rectangle watch face and a busted old battery. The small and large hands couldn’t quite keep up with the constant passing of time — something we seemed to have in common. My mother nodded her head slightly when I grabbed it with greedy hands.

My mom is the kind of person who keeps things — reminders of people — tucked away, just like the watch and the quilt. I often wonder why she does this, because out of sight never really equates to out of mind. She keeps Red’s sewing kit tucked in the back of her closet. I used to sneak in and slip an old thimble onto my finger, simply amazed by all the trinkets left behind.

Maybe she didn’t need to see the objects to feel the weight of their presence. Perhaps simply knowing that the quilt was under her roof gave my mother some sense of security, like the feeling she had as a little girl eating sliced tomatoes and accompanying Red to the beauty salon for her weekly treatments.

I hope she finds comfort in knowing that the quilt is in nightly use, swaddling me like a child.

I finally close my eyes now, rubbing my lips together as I sigh a real big sigh.

It’s fall now, and when I dream I find myself drifting back to autumn many years prior, which, in Texas, didn’t feel much like autumn at all. I suppose it’s quite fitting: things aren’t always what they seem; the sweltering weather was just more proof. Grief wasn’t always sad, sometimes it was confusing. Similarities weren’t always inherited like belongings, sometimes they just appeared.

When I think of fall, I always end up at the state fair, dreaming of it for weeks — of funnel cakes and ferris wheels. Going to the fairgrounds was a bit less glamorous in reality. I recall dragging my feet in the blazing heat and looking for a place to rest after only a few short strides. 

My family and I would stumble out of the treacherous late-September sun and into the air conditioned convention centers. Though the temperature was set at a nearly unbearable 77 degrees. We’d make our way past vendors selling cowboy hats and bubble wands (southern delicacies) and into the exhibits. My eyes widened instantly. I found myself face-to-face with patchwork quilts twice as long as my own body — no, three times as long, perhaps. Colors and patterns were stitched together with the utmost care. They were showcased proudly, with graceful posture. Blue ribbons don the best of the best, prized ponies of the highest pedigree.

I always preferred the patchwork kind, the ones that looked like storyboards with different images stitched together. Patches show the silhouetting of a horse by itself, and then one being ridden by a cowboy with spurs on his boots, horseshoes peppered in between them. A simple story, but beautiful nonetheless.

I imagined the kind of person who made them. Always, I pictured an old woman in a rocking chair with big wire glasses like Red had, and wrinkly hands that were still nimble. She rocks and sways and hums as she sews. She links her life together with scraps of discarded cloth, fingers raw and bleeding, and thimbles strewn across the floor. A drop of blood from her calloused hand falls on the yellow fabric. She sighs and keeps going. She’s such a clear figure in my head that I feel like I know her.

People have been quilting for centuries, creating a collective history through pictures on patches. They pass down their life’s work to their family, the warmth and care preserved for generations. The earliest evidence of quilting is traced back to ancient Egypt, and its history winds through endless generations and regions. Tucked away in the British Museum is an ivory carving of the first recorded quilt. Worn by the First King of the Egyptian Dynasty, the 12th century quilted mantel cover is now preserved in hard stone instead of soft cloth. It’s peered at by tourists who aimlessly glide by the continuous exhibits. They have no idea that the carving carries more weight than just the ivory stone.

Six centuries later, southern women were picking up the thread in the south. Women began sharing their craft, gathering to create one beautiful mosaic. A quilt for a new marriage, one for an unborn child, another just to stay warm through the unforgiving winter. A thin piece of thread tied them all together, right at the chest. They would hold court around the cloth, sharing their lives and their spewed thoughts, immortalized in the stitches. I wonder if the people who inherited the quilts can still hear their faint whispers.

When I wake up, I find that I’ve shed the yellow quilt in the middle of the night to escape its overwhelming warmth. I reach my hand out to roam over my bedside table. I nearly knocked over the glass of water from the night before onto the ground. I pass my fingertips swiftly over the gold wristwatch in search of my glasses. I yawn like a dog and stretch like a cat under the frayed scallops on the bedding.

And so I think if I could sew, I would add a patch onto Red’s quilt. Maybe I would use a scrap from one of my worn-out shirts, a scrap of a shirt I've collected from my travels — maybe the one that says I <3 Paris, or a memento from my time at school. I would add a piece of my heart; I would add on to her story. When it was time, I’d give it away to my daughter, too. I would teach her that we can’t take things with us;, we can only find comfort in them for just a little while. ■