Richard was horrified when she told him the story, although he tried to hide it and appear worldly. But he kept seeing it as Dorcas, her soft flesh bruised, her lovely face swollen.
“What the devil would make a man do a thing like that?” he said angrily. “He knew she was coming here, didn’t he?”
“Yes of course. She told me she had to ask him.” Dorcas paused. “No she didn’t. She said, I’ll have to—” Have to what? “I thought she meant she had to ask her husband. But maybe what she meant was she’d have to see if she could do it without his finding out.” She looked at Richard. “And he did find out.”
Business stayed brisk in Dorcas’s shop. Winter wore away. March blew in on a wild wind, bringing with it one last snowfall, heavy and wet, that broke limbs and knocked out power for a time. Dorcas and Richard lit candles and sat close together by the fire. Rain followed the snow and brown bare spots appeared on the hills around the village. There were freezing nights still, but during the sunny daylight hours there was thawing. Dorcas put on her boots and walked around the small back yard behind the shop, seeing raccoon tracks, like those of little human hands and feet, rambling about in the snow that remained. There were skunk tracks too, stodgy and less wandery.
Lillian Shaw did not return to the shop.
The dealer who had taken Lillian’s quilts sold them. He sent Dorcas a check. Dorcas wondered about sending the money to Lillian. She kept seeing the man with the stony jaw and the way his cold eyes had moved around the shop. She decided to wait. She made a note of the amount — owed to Lillian Shaw, she wrote — and put it under the drawer in the cash register. When the dealer called and asked, “Any more where those came from?” Dorcas said she would let him know.
The wind began to lose its sharp bite. The birches showed yellow-green buds. Crows left the woods out beyond the village to feed in the bare spots, then gathered to talk it over noisily in the pine trees. Mud was everywhere. Signs of spring appeared daily, although people meeting on the street told each other as they did every year that it certainly was uncommonly late.
Then on a Sunday in April, with jonquils poking up through last year’s matted leaves, the sheriff’s car went tearing through the village with a look of urgency. Richard walked out to buy the Sunday papers and learned that a man named Reuben Shaw had been found dead at the foot of the cellar steps in the old farmhouse he and his family lived in out on the Spoon Hollow Road. His wife had been in the field behind the house gathering early dandelion greens. She had come home and found him. Her basket, with greens scattered all around, was beside the body.
Later word had it that the sheriff had investigated and had confirmed that Reuben Shaw had died of a deep head wound. The sheriff pointed out a jutting stone shelf built into the foundation of the house — such things were used in the old days for storage. No doubt the man had hit his head on it as he fell. A bit of blood was found on it. It had been thought at first that the victim might have encountered housebreakers; there had been such trouble out that way recently. In which case, the sheriff theorized, he might have been struck over the head first, thrown down the steps afterward. Unlikely, the sheriff said, refuting his own argument. Shaw was a heavy man, and strong. Not the likely work of two hurrying burglars. And in broad daylight? No, accidental was the way he saw it. Accidental, he entered in his report. Shaw was known as a heavy drinker. Smelled of it when they found him.
Then on a day in May Lillian Shaw appeared at the shop with her son Edward. The boy was carrying an armload of quilts, randomly stacked.
“Lillian! I’m so glad to see you!” Dorcas cried out, but then paused because Lillian looked in some way different to her. Subdued, withdrawn. Not unhappy, not troubled. Quiet, rather, and serene.
“You said you could use more of these,” Lillian said.
“Yes, of course. Oh, I have missed you, Lillian,” Dorcas could not help saying. She turned to the boy. “Hello, Edward.” He looked different in the warm May air. The sleeves of his blue denim shirt were rolled up, his hair was riffled by the breeze. He smiled in his quiet way and placed the pile of quilts on the counter.
“And I have money for you, too. From the others you left with me.” Dorcas hurried to write a check and hand it to her. Lillian stared at it, holding it carefully. “Thank you,” she said quietly. Then she added, “Edward’s leaving tomorrow.”
“Oh?”
“For the Marines. He’s been wanting to.”
“I know — you said. Good luck, Edward. And Lillian, you must stop in again now that you’ll be — by yourself. You will, won’t you?”
The corners of Lillian’s mouth went up slightly. A wisp of a smile, no more. She dipped her head a little to acknowledge the invitation. A sort of thanks. Perhaps, she indicated, but did not say. Dorcas did not press it. Then Lillian looked at her. A meeting of eyes. And there was the thing between them again, each seeing it in the other. Understanding. With a shock of realization Dorcas knew that Lillian Shaw would do whatever she chose to do now. Strength glittered around her like a medium’s aura, striking life into her dull hair, squaring her tired shoulders. Dorcas swallowed as a slow, freezing chill seemed to start up in her, shivering its way from deep inside to surface along her arms where the small hairs rose.
“Will you be wanting material to take home with you today?” she asked, but only for something to say because already she knew the answer.
“No,” Lillian said quietly. “I don’t need anything.”
That night she and Richard sorted out the quilts upstairs. Dorcas arranged and rearranged them until she thought she had the order right.
“This one’s first, of course,” she said. “It’s called the Double Wedding Ring.”
“Yes. And then this one?”
“That’s called Sawtooth.”
“Why is that next?”
“Oh — realization, sharp edges, pain.”
“I suppose. Then what?”
“World Without End. That’s this one here.”
“Hopeless, you mean—”
“Yes. But then, you see, here’s Flying Geese.”
“I don’t get that.”
“Dreams, I think. She must have dreamed.”
“How about that next one?”
“That’s called Drunkard’s Path.”
“Self-explanatory,” Richard said.
“And this one’s called Storm at Sea.”
“Storm at sea?”
“Well, mostly the storm part. Terrible turbulence. Indecision.”
“And this one’s last?”
“Yes.” Dorcas unfolded the Tree of Life. It lay before them, spread over her knees, the growing green and vibrant pink, the little trees made of green triangles, all fashioned with thousands of determined tiny stitches, all reaching, stretching as if toward the sun.
“It’s Edward,” Dorcas whispered. “It’s her love for him. That’s what this one is. It’s his chance.”
Richard said slowly, “Do you think — I mean, could they possibly, the two of them—”
But Dorcas had stood up suddenly. The Tree of Life fell from her lap, and she leaned over to pick it up. Began folding it with short choppy gestures. Her mouth was thin-drawn, a severe line Richard had not seen before.
“You heard what the sheriff said.” It was a sharp, hard voice, new to Richard. “That’s all I know. All I want to know.”
Richard, feeling that he was in the presence of some awesome woman-knowledge, some secret freemasonry that excluded him, decided nervously that he wouldn’t bring it up again.