"There was a quilt," I said. "A white one with blue stars. Grandma Ivy's."
Opal's face changed. She was a big woman with soft white hair that she wore in a bun and reading glasses on a beaded chain, and I watched her understand something, and I watched her not want to.
"That was Ivy's?" she said. "Oh, honey. Oh, I didn't know that. It wasn't marked. I'd have—" She put her hand flat on her chest. "Nell took it."
"Who's Nell?" said Carla.
"Nell Brewer. From over by Berea. She comes in every Thursday about three-thirty, regular as the mail, and she goes through the linens and buys up any old quilts that are too far gone to sell whole. Five dollars apiece. She cuts 'em up." Opal looked at me with real pain. "She makes those little bears out of them, and pillows, and Christmas ornaments, and sells 'em at the fairs. She's got a booth at the Harvest Fair in Berea this Saturday, she was telling me. She said she was behind. She said she'd be up all night cutting." She sat down heavily on a folding chair. "I sold her that one myself. I said, 'Here's one for you, Nell, it's had a hard life.' I didn't even look close. It had that bad corner and the smell. I'd have known Ivy's stitching if I'd looked close, I would have. I'm sorry, June. I'm so sorry."
For a second nobody said anything. The dehumidifier hummed. I felt my knees going and I put my hand on the folding table and it wobbled, and the stack of dollar towels slid against my arm.
"Where does she live?" said Carla.
Opal looked up at her.
"Nell Brewer. Where does she live? Do you have a phone number? An address?"
"I've got her number," said Opal. "In my book. Hold on." She dug in a canvas tote at her feet and came up with a little spiral address book held together with a rubber band, and licked her finger and paged through it. "Brewer, Nell. Here." She read it out. Carla already had her phone in her hand, and she dialed as Opal read, and put it on speaker, and we all stood there in the sorting room and listened to it ring.
It rang eleven times. Then it stopped ringing, and there was nothing, the dead hiss of a line that doesn't pick up and doesn't take messages either, and Carla hung up and dialed again, and it did the same thing.