brought a selection of light and dark fabrics for us to use for the “shady” and “sunny” sides of the house, but for the center of each block, the “hearth,” she told us to find our own fabric, to cut the center squares out of something that had a special meaning for us. I chose the outgrown clothes the kids had worn in their pictures with Santa the year before, a red cowboy shirt for Bobby and the red corduroy jumper for Bethany, and cut out little squares, making them as even and perfect as I could, to place in the center of each block.
And then, something strange happened. As I sewed that quilt, stitching strip after strip around those red squares that had lain next to my children’s skin and hearts, I started imagining each sunny and shady strip as a piece of a protective wall that was guarding my little ones and somehow, in a way that all my counselors’ repeated affirmations never could, the idea that I could keep us safe, that I could make a real home for all of us, started to sprout in my mind. As I sewed, the idea became a belief and the roots of that belief pushed their way through all my doubts and muck to take root in my heart.
I would keep my children safe, no matter what. And we would have a home, a real home, not sleeping in a car, or bouncing from shelter to shelter and town to town like a bad check, not continually looking over my shoulder, ready to pack up and run every time I had a bad dream or heard a grinding of gears that sounded like a garage door opening. We’d be a family. Everything would be all right. I would make it happen.
As this…this torrent of conviction flooded my heart, my eyes began to flood, too. I sat at the sewing machine, not sewing, scissors open in my hand, a silent baptism bathing my cheeks.
Across the room, Evelyn was bent over another student’s machine, helping adjust a too-tight tension. She saw me but made no move toward me, just looked at me for a long moment, as if trying to see into my real meaning, questioning the reason for my tears but not my right to them.
Seeing her, I sat up a little straighter in my chair and gave her one quick nod. She smiled, as if knowing and approving that there, among the soft, steady whir of needles passing through fabric and the silent concentration of other women crouched over their sewing machines, bent on making something beautiful and useful out of the discarded scraps of their lives, I had made my decision.
I was done running.
2
Evelyn Dixon
Walking out my front door, down the porch steps, through the garden gate and onto the sidewalk on a perfect late spring day in New England, I was reminded again what a great commute I have. Just three blocks from the cozy, two-bedroom cape where I live at a very reasonable rent, to my shop, Cobbled Court Quilts.
My shop! I love saying that. In a week’s time, it will have been my shop for two years, but sometimes I still have to pinch myself to believe it’s true. Less than three years have passed since, in the wake of a painful divorce and a general upending of everything I’d thought was sure in my life, I got in my car and drove from Texas to Connecticut to see the fall colors.
On its face, there’s nothing too remarkable about that, but anyone who knows me knows that spontaneous gestures are not my strong suit. I am a big fan of lists, not just to-do lists but the kind where you write down all the pros and cons of doing something and mull it over for days, weeks, or even months before taking action…or not. If you don’t believe me, ask Charlie Donnelly, the owner of New Bern’s finest restaurant, the Grill on the Green, and my boyfriend.
Boyfriend. At fifty years of age, it feels silly to say I have a boyfriend, but what else can I call Charlie? He’s more than my friend and less than my fiancé, which is what he’d like to be, but I’m not ready yet and Charlie knows that.
Initially, when Charlie and I became “a couple” (are there any words for a romantic relationship between two mature people that don’t sound so ridiculously precious?) right after my double mastectomy, I wasn’t sure I was ready for a relationship. Now, I’ve worked through a lot of those issues in my mind, but…how do I explain it? After a lifetime of being someone’s daughter, wife, mother, of defining my existence in terms of whom I belonged to, I’m enjoying being just me by myself for a while, steering my own ship. Charlie knows that and he’s willing to be patient. In fact, I think he’s kind of proud of what I’ve accomplished. And the truth is, so am I. Not that I got to this place alone, far from it, but none of it would have happened if I hadn’t finally decided to tear up my list of lists and take a chance on life and on myself.
Did you ever know, just know, that you were supposed to do something, even though, on the face of it, that thing you wanted to do made no sense to anyone else? That’s the way it was with me and the quilt shop.
Window-shopping at the end of an absolutely picture-perfect fall day in New Bern during my unplanned escape from Texas to New England, I happened upon an alley paved with old cobblestones that led into a spacious, square courtyard and found a dilapidated storefront that had been empty for about twenty years. The windows were cracked, the wood casings were eaten away by termites and rot, and the roof was leaky, but, for reasons beyond understanding, I was absolutely sure that my destiny lay in renting this ramshackle ruin and opening it as a quilt shop. So, throwing caution to the winds twice in one week, that’s what I did.
Everybody, and I mean everybody, said we wouldn’t last six months. They were almost right. In a turn of cosmic irony, on the very night before I was to host Cobbled Court’s first Quilt Pink event to benefit breast cancer research, my doctor informed me that I had breast cancer myself. I was sure it was all over, that the predictions of the naysayers would prove true: Cobbled Court Quilts would be forced to close its doors and the door to my dreams would close along with it.
It would have happened exactly that way but for the help of three strangers—Abigail, Margot, and Liza—who became my best friends, supporting me through my cancer treatment and basically running the shop while I was recovering. I owe them everything. Not to mention my son, Garrett, who left a high-paying computer programming job at a big company in Seattle to help me develop and grow our Web business. He works with Margot on marketing strategy. And then there’s Charlie, who loves me, encourages me, and who, if I get too tangled up in my lists to move forward, gives me a gentle nudge in the ribs or a swift kick in the pants, usually the latter. Charlie is an Irishman who doesn’t suffer fools gladly or at all. He has many fine qualities, but subtlety isn’t among them.
Abigail, Margot, Liza, Garrett, and Charlie. If not for them, Cobbled Court Quilts really wouldn’t have lasted six months.
I almost forgot Mary Dell! Mary Dell Templeton is an old friend from Texas. If she hadn’t flown all the way up from Texas to literally pull up the shades in the dark room where I’d been lying and feeling sorry for myself after my mastectomies, I’m not sure I’d ever have gotten up and gotten on with my life.
Mary Dell is as Texas as chicken-fried steak, Dr Pepper, and the Alamo all rolled into one. She’s also an amazing quilter. Once she decided to make a quilt with Texas Stadium on it. I watched while she cut out the pieces and then sewed them together without using a light box or even a pencil for outlining, and when she was done it was absolutely perfect; you practically expected to see cheerleaders lining up in the end zone, she’s that good. The only piece missing from her quilting talent is…well…taste.
Mary Dell has pretty much the worst taste of anyone I’ve ever met. The louder, busier, and more garish the color combination, the more Mary Dell likes it. Fortunately, Howard, her twenty-four-year-old son with Down syndrome, has a highly attuned appreciation for colors, patterns, and textures. Howard chooses all the fabrics for Mary Dell’s quilts. Together they make an unusual—and unbeatable—team. Like Mary Dell says, “If not for Howard, I’d be known all over the world for making the best-constructed, ugliest quilts in the state of Texas.”
Instead, Mary Dell’s quilting abilities and Texas-sized personality caught the attention of the people at the House and Home television network where, every Tuesday and Saturday, you can tune in to watch Quintessential Quilting with Mary Dell and Howard. Isn’t that something?
When Howard was born, Mary Dell’s husband was so upset that