"I'm not going to say but," she said. "I want you to know that's the rule. I worked it out last night. Whatever I say to you this morning, there's no but in it anywhere."
"Okay."
"I'm sorry I took the quilt off your bed. I'm sorry I put it in a box. I'm sorry I didn't ask. I'm sorry I decided what you needed without knowing a single thing about what it was. And I'm sorry about the mugs." She looked down at her own coffee. "Your mama's mugs. In the basement. They're still there. I never threw them out. I'm not sure why. I think some part of me knew." She took a breath. "And the afghan's in my car. In the trunk. In a bag. Since last September. I keep meaning to take it to the church, and I keep not doing it."
I stared at her. "The green one?"
"The green one."
"It's in your trunk?"
"I know," said Carla. "I know. It's insane. I'm a person with a spreadsheet." And she laughed, and then I laughed, and it was a terrible sort of laugh, from both of us, the kind that's mostly something else, and I spilled coffee on the mattress pad and neither of us cared.
When we were done she wiped her face on her bathrobe sleeve and said, "I'd like to help. With the quilt. With all of it. I don't mean take over. I know I take over. I mean help. You tell me what you need and that's what I'll do, and if you need me to stay out of it, that's what I'll do too." She hesitated. "But I'm good at one thing, Junie. I know how to keep a record so it doesn't get lost. And I know how to keep a secret that isn't mine. I do it every day. Thousands of people's. I think that's what your grandma needed. I think that's what she was trying to build out of thread, because she didn't have anything else to build it out of."
I thought about it. I made myself think about it, which was harder than saying yes and harder than saying no.
"Okay," I said. "But you ask first. Before you touch it. Every time."
"Every time," said Carla.
* * *
We spent all that Friday at the dining-room table.
We pulled the blinds on the east windows and left the west ones open, and in the afternoon, when the sun came in low, we didn't need the lamp at all. The quilt lay across the table with its corners hanging off the edges