"Look at this one," said Carla.
She was at the far end, in the last row. I came around the table. The block she was pointing at had the same feathered wreath, the same tiny white script in the center, but it was shorter than the others.
Doris H. Boy. 2-11-62.
And then nothing. Not a blank, exactly. Ivy had quilted a small, perfect, empty circle where the name should be, stitched round and round so tightly the cloth inside it puckered.
"She didn't name him," I said. I knew it the way you know something in a dream. "She wouldn't. She thought it would hurt worse."
Carla put her hand over her mouth.
There was one more thing, and it was Nell who showed it to us. She went to the cut corner, the triangle lying by itself, and slid the lamp along its arm until the light fell across it, and in the border, where the quilting changed from feathers to a simple running cable, there was another line of script. It ran along the edge of the quilt, I'd learn later, all the way around, but the start of it was on the piece Nell had cut, and her rotary blade had gone straight through the middle of the first word.
We w, it said on the cut piece. And on the quilt, picking up across the gap: ere here. Bethany Home, Pine Gap, Ky. July 1961 – Feb. 1962. Every one of us. I.C.
We were here.
"I'll give you the piece," Nell said. "Of course I'll give you the piece. It can be put back. I could do it for you, if you wanted. Or you could do it. It's a straight cut. It's the easiest thing in the world to put back." She looked at me over her glasses. "It's yours, honey. All of it's yours. I'm just sorry I touched it."
"You stopped," I said. "You didn't have to. You could've just kept going."
"No," said Nell Brewer. "No. I couldn't have."
Carla had her phone out. I thought she was going to call Dad, and I almost said let me, but instead she stood very still at the end of the table and held the phone up over the first block, and then reached over and moved the gooseneck lamp an inch, and then another inch, until the shadows on the stitches were sharp, and took a picture. Then she looked at it, frowned, deleted it, and took it again.