Patchwork

FICTION

by Andrew Siegrist

        In the morning we watched the snow out the window. 
         Eucalyptus leaves soaked in a bowl of hot water. 
         It was still autumn.
         Late November.
         The neighbor lay on a couch beneath a quilt he said his mother had sewn.
         We were in the cabin he’d built behind his house.
         There was no electricity.
         A wood stove was burning too hot.
         There were white dresses hanging where the curtains should have been.
         He asked me to crack the door.
         A dust of snow blew across the floor.
         The lace sleeves of the dresses quivered.
         You’d be more comfortable in the house, I said.
         I dipped a cloth into the eucalyptus water.
         I unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and laid it across his chest.
         I won’t die in that house, he said.
         My father says you’ll be fine in a couple weeks, I said.
         Your father is a pharmacist, he said.
         Besides, he said, the house smells like old fruit.
         The dresses hanging from the curtain rods were mended with red thread.
         He’d bought a box of donated baptismal gowns from a Salvation Army.
         The hems of the dresses didn’t reach the windowsill.
         I closed the door.
         The snow on the floor began to melt.
         I touched a jagged red stitch in the breast of one of the white dresses.
         My mother never taught me to sew, he said.
         Who are these for? I said.
         He reached for a log next to the stove.
         The cloth fell from his chest. 
         On a small table beside him was a wooden music box in the shape of a piano.
         He slid the log into the fire and shut the door.
         I hung them in the light to see where they were ripped, he said.
         The new wood popped and splintered.
         I imagine it frightens the people driving by, he said. 
         Broken dresses, he said, hanging from the windows.
         You can’t see here from the street, I said.
         He picked the cloth up and draped it over the stove.
         It sizzled and steamed.
         A church woman and her husband brought the box in, he said.
         I was in line behind them, he said.
         The husband worried they wouldn’t sell, they were in tatters.
         The woman said someone could cut them up to use as dinner napkins.
         She said the fabric was beautiful.
         She said she couldn’t bear the thought of throwing them out.
         The red thread looks like scars, I said.
         He turned the key on the bottom of the miniature piano.
         You can’t see the scars from the street, he said. 
         The music box played a familiar song but the notes were too slow.
         I have to go, I said.
         I can come back before dinner, I said.
         Tell your father to send something stronger next time, he said.
         He brought the bowl to his lips and sipped the eucalyptus water.
         He spat out a leaf.
         I opened the door and touched the pill bottle in my pocket. 
         Snow was thin in the yellow grass.
         I turned back and watched him pull closed the white dresses.
         I could see through the window beneath the hems.
         He buttoned the collar of his shirt.
         He drank from the bowl.
         He pulled the quilt over his shoulders and touched the seams that held the fabric together.