see that the family had made too much out of hiring a companion and completely antagonized the old woman in the process. Helen had no choice now but to assert her independence and refuse Sam’s request.
Elisa stood before Helen could deliver the bad news. Setting her mug on the table, she wandered over to a quilt rack in the corner. “I’m sure you don’t want a stranger in your house. I don’t want to trouble you about this. I’ll find another place, but I’m glad I had a chance to visit. Is this one of your quilts?”
Helen was silent a moment, as if she had to reorient herself before she answered. “Just something to take off the chill. I never got cold in the summer before Nancy went and put in an air conditioner.”
The quilt was red and yellow, with bright splashes of blue in some of the symmetrical blocks. Elisa discovered several more quilts underneath.
“Oh, they’re all beautiful. Such fine workmanship.”
“I’ll show you more.” Nancy got up.
“You don’t have to bother the girl none.” Helen sounded flustered. “It was a simple compliment, not a request for one of your quilt shows.”
“Elisa, would you like to see a few more quilts?” Nancy asked.
“I really would.”
Nancy opened a wooden trunk beside a comfortable armchair. “I keep some of my favorites down here. If Mama had her way, she’d pile them in a corner upstairs, where nobody could look at them.”
“I sure didn’t teach you enough about vanity, did I?” Helen demanded.
“There’s vanity,” Sam said, “and then there’s good old-fashioned self-respect.”
Nancy pulled out a quilt and held it in front of her. “This is a new one. Mama calls it ‘Oklahoma Made a Monkey Out of Me.’”
Elisa stepped closer to admire the quilt. Helen had used a number of fabrics, mostly greens and browns, like the colors in a forest.
“This is a Monkey Wrench pattern,” Nancy explained. “And this is the Road to Oklahoma block. See the unique way she combined them? And if you look carefully, you’ll see monkeys in lots of the prints.”
Elisa smiled, delighted. “I do. Look at that.”
“It’s just a silly quilt,” Helen said. “Nothing to fuss over. Reese likes monkeys, that’s all.”
Nancy pulled out several others, each completely different from the last. Obviously Helen enjoyed variety.
Elisa touched the last one Nancy took out and felt as if she had come home.
“This one is...” For a moment English failed her. She thought in English as often and fluently as she thought in Spanish, but sometimes the right word was in the wrong tongue. “You did this by hand? All by hand? And the colors? This is a rainbow.”
“So you like quilts?”
“I know very little about them.” As always, she paused, then decided to go ahead. “In the place where I grew up, there were weavers who made beautiful cloth in every color. This reminds me of that.” She fingered the quilt. Tiny vertical strips in bright colors met horizontal strips in a variety of lengths and widths. “This quilt would keep anybody warm, wouldn’t it? Like sunbeams.”
“I just tried something new, one of those art quilts, only I didn’t see any reason not to make it big enough to use. I take my art on the bed, and that’s the only way I want it.”
“Utility and beauty. That’s what the weavers believe. And each piece is part of who they are and where they come from.” She turned. “The way your quilts are.”
“Nancy told you to say all this, didn’t she?”
Nancy sputtered. “I didn’t tell Elisa to say a blessed thing.”
Elisa laughed. “I’ve been in trouble a time or two for not doing what I’m told, but never the reverse.” She glanced at her watch. “We’re keeping you too long.”
“Did you ever learn to weave?” Helen asked.
“It’s like so many things. I thought the chance would be there forever, and now I’m here and the chance is gone.”
“You could quilt.”
“I have never sewed much,” Elisa said doubtfully. “I don’t have a machine.”
“I have three. You’ll be living right here. You can have your choice, and I’ll teach you.”
Surprised, Elisa heard the offer and everything that came with it. She had a home if she wanted one. She also had a responsibility to this woman if she accepted the offer. This would not be as simple as she had hoped. If she packed and left in the middle of the night, Helen would be alone. And Helen would not take in another companion.
Yet what could she do? She was certain that if she refused, Helen would not offer this invitation to anyone else. And living here would solve Adoncia’s problem, as well as Elisa’s own.
“I would like to try,” she said carefully.
“Just so everybody in the room knows it,” Helen said. “I like Miss Martinez, and that’s the only reason she has been invited to stay here.”
“Mama, there’s not a person in this room dumb enough to think you’d do anything just because we wanted you to,” Nancy said. “You can count on that.”
* * *
Elisa was surprised at the way the remainder of the afternoon developed. Instead of going home, she and Sam stayed at Helen’s house to help. Assuming that his fiancée was still in town, she had expected Sam to make their visit short so he could spend the rest of his day off with her, but he had explained—too casually, she thought—that Christine had driven to Washington on Saturday to spend some time with old friends before she returned to Georgia.
Sam’s personal life was none of her business, but she wondered about his engagement. She knew from the little she had picked up that Sam and Christine rarely saw each other. If Sam were her fiancé, she would not be inclined to spend so much time with other people.
As the others packed, Elisa was pressed into service as Reese’s nanny, while Sam helped Zeke Claiborne pack the old minivan he had bought for the trip. Zeke was a young man still growing into a lanky physique, but Elisa could see how seriously he took his responsibilities.
Manual labor agreed with Sam. He seemed to relish physical activity, running up and down the stairs with boundless energy. For someone who spent so much of his life in spiritual and intellectual pursuits, he had the body of an athlete. Ten minutes into multiple trips outside, he had changed from khakis and a sport shirt into shorts and a T-shirt he kept in a gym bag in his car. He had muscular calves and thighs, and arms strong enough to have lifted George Jenkins off the ground Wednesday night and held him there until he sobered up.
Tessa came downstairs and showed Elisa where to put the baby, who had finally fallen asleep in her arms. Tessa had managed a brief hello earlier, but there hadn’t been time for more.
“Gram
