Dad was sitting on the front steps when we pulled in, under the porch light, with the moths going around it. He had a long white envelope in his hands, and he stood up as the Buick's headlights crossed him, and he came down the walk, and he didn't go to the quilt first. I've thought about that since too. He went to Carla's side of the car and opened her door and stood there while she sat with her hands still on the wheel, and after a while he put one hand on the top of her head, very lightly, the way you'd touch something you weren't sure you were allowed to touch.
"I'm sorry," she said, without looking at him.
"I know," said Dad. "Me too. Come inside."
We laid the quilt on the dining-room table. Carla moved the boxes off it herself, all of them, red tape and yellow tape and green, and stacked them in the corner without looking at the labels. Dad unfolded the muslin and laid the cut triangle in its place at the corner, edge to edge, and it fit, of course it fit, a clean straight seam of nothing between the two pieces. Then he handed me the envelope.
It had been opened and read and folded back up so many times the creases were going soft. It was addressed to Mrs. Ivy Calloway, 1140 Calloway Branch Rd., Harlow Fork KY, in blue ink, in a round, careful hand, with a yellow forwarding sticker over the corner. I took out two sheets of lined paper and read them standing up.
Dear Mrs. Calloway,
I was so very sorry to read of your passing in the Richmond Register. I am writing this letter anyway, to whatever family may receive it, because I promised Margaret I would try every door before I told her there were no more doors.
Your letter of January 14 meant more to her than I can say. She has read it until it is coming apart. She has asked me to tell your family that she understands completely if no one wishes to be in touch, and that she wants nothing from anyone. She is sixty-four years old. She was a third-grade teacher in Frankfort for thirty-one years. She lost her husband last spring. She has no children of her own. She is scheduled for a heart valve replacement at UK in November, and she said to me last week, and I am quoting her, "I would just like to know if I had a name, before they open me up."
You wrote that you had something to show her. If anyone knows what that was, I would be grateful to hear. If not, I thank you for your time and wish you peace.