Beyond the Storm: Quilts of Love Series Read online

“No doubt about it, Mike. Aside from the actual twister, complacency is probably the most dangerous thing of all.”

  12:34 p.m.

  Selma’s Quilty Pleasures simply oozed charm. Aside from absolutely everything a serious quilter could ever dream of needing, there were knickknacks and ornaments and aprons and hot pads and more—all quilted and stitched together with love. If it could be quilted, a customer could be certain that Selma carried it in her shop. Abigail had grown up with the scents of potpourri, candles, new fabric, and orange-oiled wood; and—though she wasn’t into quilting herself—nothing filled her with contentment faster than a lunch hour with Aunt Selma in her homey shop.

  In her aunt’s cluttered quilting classroom Abigail was finishing the last of the sub sandwich that she’d shared with Selma while she listened to her pitch some ideas for her speed quilting theme.

  “So, you’re saying ‘no’ on the candy theme, ‘no’ on the pumpkin theme, ‘maybe’ on the wedding ring theme, and a ‘don’t-make-me-barf’ on the baby animal theme, right?”

  “Eh,” Abigail said and shrugged. “Auntie Sel, I’m the wrong person to ask. Don’t hate me, but I just don’t see why people get so excited over a blanket made out of a bunch of scraps when you can just go to the store and buy a comforter already made.”

  Selma stared at her. “And you came from my sister’s daughter’s loins? You come from generations of quilt masters, and yet, you don’t appreciate the wonder and beauty of telling a story and painting a picture with fabric? Who are you?”

  Abigail leaned back and hooted at the fierce expression on Selma’s face. “I like to tell a story with hair?” she offered as an olive branch.

  It was Selma’s turn to laugh. “What would you think about a quilt called ‘hairstyles through the ages’?”

  “I’d love it!” Abigail sat up at that idea. Now Selma was speaking her language. “I might even buy a bunch of those raffle tickets! I might even,” the creative wheels were suddenly turning in her head, “have some sketches of hairdos you could copy—”

  A ruckus out in the store interrupted her train of thought. There was a whole lot of giggling going on out there. “To be continued,” she called after Selma, who’d gone to see about the noise. Curious about the laughter echoing from out front, she gathered up her paper plate and napkins, tossing them in the trash on her way after her aunt. A smile bloomed on her lips as she wove through the tightly packed rows of merchandise to discover that the source of the silliness was big, silver-headed, Dan-the-handyman Strohacker balancing sixteen-year-old Elsa Lopez on his feet and counting as Elsa giggled, a hapless rag-doll in his arms. “One, two, three, one, two, three . . . Get it?”

  “No!” Elsa fell into more gales of laughter.

  Selma, along with her employee, Guadalupe—who was also Elsa’s mother—and Jen were hooting and catcalling as Dan did his best to teach Elsa to waltz to the Muzak piped in through the store’s stereo system.

  “Dan,” Jen called to her husband, “put the kid down. We all know you are just trying to get out of material shopping. Come on. I have a quilt to make and curtains to sew.”

  Abigail squeezed between Selma and Guadalupe for a better view. The absurdity soon had her giggling nearly as hard as Elsa. “Shucks, Danny, you are a regular twinkle toes!” Abigail called. Seemed like just yesterday it was her balanced on Dan’s feet and learning to waltz, just before prom. How the time did fly. He blew a raspberry at her and Abigail whooped.

  “Come on, girl!” Dan commanded. “Put some backbone into it!”

  “I can’t,” Elsa’s hilarity came out in shrieks and gasps and her head lolled limply back on Dan’s arm. He swung her into a row of material bolts and knocked them on the floor.

  “Now look what you made me do,” Dan said, razzing Elsa for his clumsiness. She was laughing too hard to respond.

  “Dan,” Jen chastised when she could speak, “let the poor kid go. We have material to choose!”

  “What? And let her go to the prom not knowing how to waltz?”

  “We don’t waltz!” Elsa hollered as Dan steered her down the notions aisle. “We slow dance.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so? Slow dancing is easy. I’m great at it, just ask Jen.”

  Jen shook her head until Dan glanced her way and then she nodded vigorously.

  “So,” Dan said, “first off, you stand in one room and the boy stands in the other.”

  “No!” Elsa giggled. “Teach me for real.”

  “Okay. For real. Stand right here in front of me. Now then. The boy should put his hand here at your waist and not one inch lower, or I want you to use the pepper spray I’m gonna give you.”

  Elsa shrieked.

  “He’s so sweet to do this for us,” Guadalupe said to Jen. Abigail knew Elsa’s daddy had been deported last year, so she didn’t have very many moments like this.

  “Anytime,” Jen murmured and patted her husband’s Bible. She was cradling the heavy book in her arms, as if it was a baby.

  “Practicing for the real thing?” Abigail teased, pointing to the Bible she bounced.

  “Oh!” Jen grinned. “I’ve been doing that to everything lately. Instinct, huh?”

  “That’s a unique cover,” Guadalupe noted and brushed the bright red fabric shot with heavy threads of primary color with her fingertips. “Handwoven. Mexico?” Guadalupe was Selma’s go-to gal when it came to fabric history and type.

  “Yes, it was a gift to Dan, when he was down there building houses as a teenager. He built most of one woman’s house and she was so thrilled that she wanted to give him something special in return. She saw that his Bible was getting kind of beat up, so she made it just for him.” Jen opened the book to the inside flap. “See this? It’s a prayer pocket. She told him that people always promise to pray, but forget. So, he was to write the prayer request down and put it there, and then he’d never forget to pray.” She fished her finger around inside. “There’s a paper in here,” she murmured.

  Abigail and Guadalupe leaned closer. “What’s it say?” Abigail asked.

  Tears brimmed at Jen’s lower lashes and her smile was tremulous. “It says, ‘Remember to pray for Jen and my son today.’”

  5

  1:00 p.m.

  Justin leaned against the door of his truck as he finished jotting a list of supplies he needed to bring with him on Monday. He was checking it for anything he may have forgotten when a distant rumble had him looking up. It wasn’t the sound a jet would make. If the sky hadn’t been cloudless, he’d have thought it was thunder. Didn’t you have to have clouds to make thunder? There were no clouds, but the sky had taken on a sickly color. As if it were pale and sweating. Feverish. Dying. The air, the sky, the sound . . . everything felt terminal.

  He wondered how Rawhide was doing and figured he’d better head home, let him out, and make sure he had plenty of water. Danny had talked Justin into taking the dog after he’d seen him featured on a morning news show. Poor, mangy old Rawhide was allergic to everything and had chewed his hind end half off. Jokingly, Justin had called him “Rawhide from Rawston” when he first got a good look at the mixed breed dog, and the name had stuck.

  A quick glance at his watch told him he had just enough time to take an icy, refreshing shower, play with Rawhide, and eat some lunch before he had to head back to the lumberyard and take over for Danny. He ducked back inside to let Bob Ray know he was going to head out.

  “Okay,” Bob Ray grunted from where he lay at the bench press, straining against some massive weights that rattled at the ends of his bar. After his last rep, he shoved the bar into its holder and sat up. “I’m headin’ out in a few minutes, myself. Gotta put in a shift out at Low Places later.”

  “Gonna arrest anyone?” Justin joshed.

  “No dancing tonight.” Bob Ray grinned. “I’m just going to be stocking the bar and some other grunt work.” He lay back down and prepared to lift another set of vein-popping reps. “See you Monday.”

  3:00
p.m.

  Heather paused at the mailbox. The poor thing listed slightly toward the road, as if it yearned to follow the outgoing mail. Not that she blamed it. The flat, dusty, broken-down Barnaby Estates was the last place she’d have thought they’d ever call home. Everyone called it “Beer-belly Estates,” which she had to admit fit. Aging single- and double-wide trailers were crowded side-by-side, sharing the shade of an occasional tree. Driveways were crammed with junk and junker cars and even junkier washing machines and junkyard dogs that were chained to stakes in the dirt. Heather guessed it was just a step above prison, or maybe hell, but she and Bob Ray could afford the rent and, at this point, that’s all that mattered. When she reached inside the mailbox, the usual stack of bills awaited her perusal. Bills, and of course, junk mail. All of it advertising stuff she and Bob Ray could never buy. Looked like there was a $29.99 deal for cable TV this month. She’d love to have that. Anything to break up the tedium of sitting all day in the single-wide with Robbie.

  Heather’s parents were still pretty glacial regarding her “shame,” and had refused to grace her with a visit, let alone a handout. The message was clear. Mrs. Persona Non Grata and her baby would sully their upscale digs, and they wouldn’t be caught dead here at Gap-tooth Gulch. Though, she had to admit, her mom had started to thaw recently. They’d run into each other at the grocery store on Heather’s side of town several weeks ago, and Mom hadn’t been able to stop staring at Robbie. Her mother’s smile had been more than a little wobbly, and she’d fingered Robbie’s sticky hands with a look that spoke of deep regret. It had been a sweet, fleeting moment, and Heather was homesick for two days after. What had Mom been doing, shopping over here on this side of the tracks? Had she been watching them? Did Daddy know?

  Heather had been dying for news but had been too proud to ask, and her mother had been too stubborn to tell. But she wondered just the same.

  With a sigh, she tucked the mail under her arm and headed back to the house. It seemed to her that the sky was starting to look pretty weird. There was an almost yellowish cast to the light, giving her an eerie feeling deep in her bones. The trailer park, usually alive with dogs barking and the steady whine of grasshoppers, was oddly silent, too. The screen door slammed shut behind her, and instantly, she knew that Robbie was up from his nap and up to no good. “Robbie?” She could hear a steady stream of water rushing in the bathroom.

  “Uh-oh!” he shouted.

  Heather began to run. “Robbie? What on earth?” Water was flowing down the hallway now. A guttural growl filled her throat. She should have known better than to stand there and shoot the breeze with old lady Carmichael before she headed to get the mail, but she’d so longed for a touch of adult conversation—no matter how addled—that she’d tarried.

  “Uh-oh,” Robbie repeated. He cast her a delighted smile as she rounded the corner into the bathroom. It looked like he’d filled the toilet with several rolls of toilet paper and some toys and towels, and then tried his hand at flushing them away. When that had grown tedious, he’d turned to the tub, and it, too, was overflowing.

  “Robbie, oh, Robbie. No, son. This is a big no-no.” Huge no-no.

  “No!” Robbie shouted. “No, no!”

  “That’s right, little man.” Dropping the mail in the sink, she shut off the tub’s faucet, pulled the stack of soggy towels away from the drain, and turned her attention to the toilet. She didn’t have a clue, so she shut the lid, grabbed Robbie, and headed for the kitchen to call Bob Ray.

  Didn’t it just figure that no one had seen him at The Pump. She sighed and reached for her phone book. She scanned the list of handy people she knew—who also gave a rat’s hindquarters about her and Bob Ray—and came up with Danny Strohacker. Danny would know what to do.

  Once she’d explained the situation, Danny chuckled. “Oh, boy. I’m gonna be having these kinds of problems myself here real soon, huh? Okay, first off, don’t panic. On the wall, behind the toilet, there are two shutoff valves. Go twist ’em until the water stops. I’ll swing by later with a snake for the toilet and a shop vac and some fans and stuff, and I’ll get the toilet unplugged and your floors dried out.”

  “But don’t you have to go to Southshire tonight?”

  “Yeah, but it’s only . . . 3:30 now, and getting you squared away shouldn’t take long. I’ll finish up a quick delivery and then head by the lumberyard to pick up the stuff I’ll need and—”

  “Danny, no. This is too much.” Heather was beginning to feel guilty about pulling him away from his special evening. And Jen had told her how excited he was about seeing pictures of his baby boy.

  “Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Jen won’t mind. She’s got stuff to do at her job anyway. I’ll let her know that I’ll be swinging by your place in say . . . an hour and a half or so. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Okay.” Where would she go? Bob Ray had their piece-of-junk car. She had the 1973 single-wide “Challenger” style mobile home. Never could figure out what the “mobile” part was supposed to mean. The old girl was anything but mobile. It was, however, decades into some serious “challenges.”

  Everything leaked or sagged or stunk. The carpet was so horrendous that Heather had to spread sheets across the living room floor so that Robbie could stay clean. On most days, she sat on a broken-down divan in the living room, texting an old friend about her miseries. Not that Sophia could do anything about her woes from her college dorm room, but it felt good to vent just the same. Sophia had urged her to pack up and leave Bob Ray more than once. And she would have, too. Except for the night of what she thought of as her “miracle.” Something strange and wonderful had changed her attitude about a lot of stuff.

  Robbie had been only a couple weeks old and colicky. It was late. Close to midnight. Bob Ray still wasn’t home, which was fine, because, hey, Heather was no longer at the end of her rope. Oh, no. Nope. She’d fallen clean off the rope, and the rope had slipped away to tie itself into a noose. While she contemplated the sweet relief that ending her life would no doubt give, she just sat there, holding her son and wailing right along with him. And the more she cried, the larger the self-pity grew.

  Nobody cared. Seriously. No. Body. Cared. Her mother and father didn’t care. She’d been unable to live up to the expectations of their legalistic religion, and they felt obligated to teach her a lesson. Bob Ray didn’t give a hoot. She was a wife and mother, not the centerfold material that he helped sculpt down at the gym.

  Even God didn’t care. And she told him. Loudly. “You don’t care!” she’d burst out between great heaving sobs. “I don’t get it!” Face contorted with anger, she’d thrown back her head and implored the ceiling. “Why do You love everyone but me? Why do You curse me? Why do You hate me? Why don’t You ever, ever talk to me? Can You hear me at all?” Her voice grew snarky, filled with all the vitriol of too much responsibility and not enough help or sleep. “I hear all those people at church saying, ‘Oh God gave me a word about this, or God told me to do that,’ but You won’t ever talk to me! You hate me!”

  As she thought back over her life, all she could see was the enormous burden of trying to appease her parents and their merit-based religious views by being good. But as hard as she tried—she was never good enough, and they always . . . always let her know it.

  By this point, she’d been shrieking and sobbing so hard, Robbie had stopped crying and was staring up at her. She’d wiped her nose on his blanket. “You don’t care about me. If You did, You’d give me a word. But You won’t. I’m nothing. I’m a sinner!” she’d jeered. “I give up. I give up . . . because You . . . don’t care. You don’t care. You don’t care about me.” Running out of steam, she sat rocking and repeating, “You don’t care. You don’t care. You don’t care about me . . .”

  Over and over she chanted, until Robbie’s pale pink eyelids slid closed, and she could see the blue veins moving as his eyes darted about, searching for the deep sleep of an exhausted infant. Finally, he gre
w heavy in her arms, and Heather staggered to his crib and put him down. She had to move a book out of the way to lay him flat. Strange, because she hadn’t left a book in his bed, and no one else had been in the house that day.

  She knew that Jen had mailed it to her after Robbie was born, but she hadn’t had the time or energy to read it. The next day when she’d asked, Bob Ray claimed he hadn’t put it there, and she believed him because Bob Ray wasn’t much on reading. Once Robbie was settled, she took the book to her bed. It was a devotional. Like a journal with a verse-a-day to memorize and then some Scripture and encouragement stuff written underneath. Curiosity had her opening it to that day’s date. And there, she found the words that changed her forever:

  Throw all your anxiety onto him, because he cares about you (1 Peter 5:7).

  She had gasped and sat up, wide-awake now. Not just because the verse hit her like a bolt of lightning between the eyes, but because the second half of each day’s devotion was divided into parts. Morning. Afternoon. Evening. And this verse had been for the evening. Incredulous, Heather had started to laugh, and she laughed until she cried deep, cleansing tears of sweet relief. Because those simple words were to her. Straight from God. He cared. God hadn’t forgotten her. He was there, just for her. Out of all the people on the planet, he was chatting with her. On that date and in that time zone. Her eyes devoured that afternoon’s devotion:

  But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

  While she was yet a sinner, a failure, Christ died for her? How could that be? Sobs welled from the depths of her soul. Because she was a sinner, her entire family and most of her friends had abandoned her. And—the irony was impossible to miss—because she was a sinner, the Lord died for her, Heather Bancroft-Lathrop. This dawning illuminated a lifelong darkness that had held Heather captive. Sweet relief flooded her, and suddenly it no longer mattered what her parents thought.