The Quilt - Leann Sweeney

I looked at Candace, completely confused. “You mean about the . . . ?” About the what? I had no idea. I wondered if my new friend had gone off the deep end.

“Go ahead, you can say it. Tell her about your cat.” Candace moved her brows and eyes in Daphne’s direction, instructing me to go ahead.

And then I got it. “Yes. My cat,” I said. “Your father stole my cat, and I was wondering if you had any idea why he might do that?”

Candace’s shoulder was touching mine and I felt her relax a little.

“Oh, poor baby. He stole your cat, did he? Well, guess what? He stole mine, too.” She looked at Candace. “Do you have a cat?”

“Not really,” she said. “I’m—”

“If you did have one, he would have stolen yours, too. That’s what he did. Took things people loved.” The cigarette had held strong until now, but when she was finished speaking, the thing fell to the floor. She knelt, picked it up and flung it away from her. It didn’t go far.

When she looked back at us, her eyes were bright with tears.

Quietly I said, “What kind of cat did you have?”

Daphne’s breathing had sped up, and she took a few seconds before speaking. “What are you really doing here?”

“I’m trying to find answers.” A little truth wouldn’t hurt—in fact, I believed this woman needed some truth.

“Why do you care? I understand from the police you got your cat back. See? I know more about you than you know about me.” She took a slender silver cigarette case from her jeans pocket and jabbed another white-filtered cancer stick between her lips.

“We’ve learned a bit about all the cats found here. Did you know your father broke a window and got into my house?” I said.

“Again, no surprise. He was good at breaking things.” She began pacing in front of us.

Like your heart , I thought. “You said he stole your cat, too. Can you tell me about that?” Maybe the exotic shorthair or the Siamese belonged to her. If so, then almost all the cats we’d found would be accounted for.

Daphne didn’t reply. She kept walking back and forth, apparently lost in thought.

“I have three cats,” I said. “My husband named them all for different wines. We used to love to drink wine in the evening.”

“Used to?” Daphne’s gaze was on her feet, her combat-style boots clunking on the floor.

“My husband died. We all miss him—the cats and me.”

The sound of the clock chiming the half hour broke the subsequent silence.

Daphne said, “I am so tired of that stupid clock. Either of you have a clue how to shut it up? There’s no plug to pull.”

Candace stood. “I can manage that. My mee-maw had a grandfather clock. Let me see what I can do.”

Daphne pointed left. “It’s in the living room.”

I started to ask Daphne about her cat again, but she spoke first. “Did you love your husband?”

“Very much,” I said.

“Is it easier to get over someone dying when you love them?” She removed the cigarette and sat on a straight-back upholstered chair across from me.

“I don’t know. Are you asking because you didn’t love your father?”

She was rolling the cigarette between her thumb and fingers and seemed a million miles away. “I never thought I loved him. He was a horrible man.”

“How was he horrible?” I asked.

She looked at me then. “He never cared about anyone but himself. No one was good enough, especially my mom and me. How do you love someone like that?”

“Better question is how do you grieve for them when they’re gone?” I said.

“There you go.”

“He was your father and he’s dead. You were connected enough—maybe merely by pain—to come here. To me, that means you have unfinished business.”

“You sure some church didn’t send you?” she asked. But the harsh tone was now subdued. “I mean, I’m not against religion or anything, but this was a house of hatred and I tried not to visit here much after my father bought it.”

“So you didn’t grow up here?” I said.

“No. I didn’t even grow up in this town. He moved here after my mother died. Bought the place as an investment. As you may have noticed, he didn’t exactly take care of that investment.”

“It must have been beautiful once. Could be again,” I said.

“Do you have another agenda?” she said. “Did the neighborhood improvement people send you to convince me to spruce the place up?”

“No one sent me. And by the way, this is your house now and if you need that cigarette, then—”

“I quit ten years ago,” she said. “But when I learned I had to come to Mercy, first thing I did was go out and buy a pack. Haven’t smoked one yet, but I think I might with every passing minute I spend here.”

“I’d like to help you if I can,” I said. This was a troubled person, and I felt this odd connection to her. We may have had very different ways of grieving, but I knew what she was going through.

“Okay, your visit is not about God. You’ve got to be a shrink.” The guarded look and angry tone had returned. “But I don’t need that kind of help.”

I smiled. “I am no shrink. When I said I’d like to help I was being practical, not esoteric. You said something about an estate sale, and obviously you’re getting ready, but this is a huge house. I’d be glad to help you sort things, trash things, do whatever is necessary.”

She cocked her head. “You’d do that for a stranger?”

“Sure. I’d love to.” And even though Candace might think I’d scored big-time if I were invited to hunt around in here, it wasn’t like that for me. I did want to help this woman. It just felt right.

Candace returned and said, “The clock won’t bother you anymore.”

“Thanks,” Daphne said. “Tell me your name again?”

“Candace Carson,” she mumbled, reclaiming her spot next to me on the settee.

Not Deputy Carson , I thought. Wonder why. And I was also wondering why we couldn’t go into the living room, where it would surely be more comfortable.

“You know,” Candace said, “Shawn Cuddahee’s animal shelter took all the cats your father had here, but he didn’t have room for all of them. I agreed to take home a Siamese until we either find the owner or someone adopts the poor guy. Could he be your cat—the one your father took from you?”

“Or an exotic shorthair?” I said. “He had one of those, too.”

But Daphne shook her head. “No. Sophie wasn’t a Siamese or whatever else you said. She was a gray long-haired sweetheart.When my father came to visit me in Columbia—we were actually on speaking terms at the time—he was all over her, how pretty she was, how affectionate. Then he took off with her in the middle of the night.”

“Are you kidding me?” But why should I be surprised?

“I wish I were kidding. I got in my car and drove here when I discovered she was gone. But though he had several other cats, no Sophie. And he claimed he didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance.”

“Then what was his explanation for leaving your place in the middle of the night?” Candace said.

“He said he was tired of me. And since I’d heard that before, I didn’t argue. And like a fool, I believed him when he said it was a coincidence that Sophie disappeared when he did, that maybe she slipped out when he was leaving. But I know different now.” The more she talked, the more the contempt returned to her voice.

“What changed your mind about this coincidence?” I asked.

“This last month he’s been calling me. Same old thing. He wants to make things right between us; he doesn’t want to die with us being estranged. I’ve heard it all before.”