QUILTING

I had burned my India-born son—not with fire, but with boiling, sweetened tea. He lay in a semi-comatose state upon the quilt, in the middle of the floor, under a ceiling fan. I lay beside him, not so much out of his need as of mine.

Matt & Isharah 12-22-77

It had happened on a particularly hot day in Tirucherappali, South India, where the temperatures often soar above one hundred-fifteen, and where disease runs rampant. My toddlers, dehydrated from heat, had been crying, because they wanted me to make them something to drink. Both were just behind me as I methodically boiled the water for the required twenty minutes, put the tea leaves into it and then the sugar. No sooner had I strained and poured the tea into the flask than Matthew grabbed it and commenced to drink. Whether it was the heat on his hands or the heat that touched his lips we’ll never know, but he dropped the bottle, and the tea broiled him. His skimpy T-shirt acted as a poultice, holding the tea onto his tiny torso. Impulsively, I stripped the shirt and brought with it the skin of his entire stomach and chest.

A domestic employed in the house began rocking from side to side, chanting words in her native tongue while I tried to give Matthew some measure of relief before taking him for professional help. Running, I carried him down the gravel road toward the nearest hospital, the servant like a shadow behind me. There had been no car, and even if there had been, I couldn’t have driven on the left side of the road amidst pedestrians, oxcarts, bicycles, and wandering animals.

Dr. Jeremiah (his Anglo name) came to meet me in the dark hallway and said in a half whisper, “Omygod, is it fire burn?” I didn’t even have to tell him why I was there. He saw the bare, oozing, flesh where the bronze skin had been. He gave ointment for the healing, antibiotics for the infection that would come, and pain medication. There was no way Matthew could stay in the hospital since the conditions were far from sanitary. Dr. Jeremiah told me that my house would be relatively free of staff infection and that Matthew must go back there.

At home, we lay on the quilt, under a fan, trying to ignore the agony that covered us—his physical and mine mental. I read to him mostly, and the sound of my voice soothed his nerves. I talked at other times of things he could do when he was able to raise his body from the floor. I talked of the quilt he lay on: how this odd scrap had come from his sister’s blouse, or that scrap had come from my dress, or another from his daddy’s shirt. Then I waited for the medication to take effect and make him sleep, and watched the swelling come, and the liquid seep.

Thoughts of the quilt circled in my brain like a kaleidoscope. There had been good days—days represented by plain or printed fabric. The prints, like Jacob’s ring-streaked and spotted cattle, were in abundance, and their gay colors bounced, circled, and swam before my watery eyes. Each piece of patchwork represented a time in our lives. These times had been brought together under the artistry of a quilter, and the quilt gave me hope because there had been good days.

Today was a pale block. Splashes of beautiful, bright colors had already been painted throughout, and, in contrast to this one, stood out like flowers in the snow. Death is a pale patch; today was as close to that color as any. Yet all of the colors seemed to blend marvelously. Overlooking the pale, mismatched, and badly sewn lines—life looked beautiful. I wondered what it would look like if I had been the only designer.

Matthew’s quilt was so short, and the border had seemed ready to be quilted in. I wondered about the patterns that might be woven into his life—how long his quilt would be. I imagined his marriage with his bride weaving the threads of her own life into his. Would the threads be beautiful, colorful, and long, or would they be suddenly ripped apart, leaving a terrible gaping hole to cause agony and unrest. I wanted to be the one to help make those patterns, but his immature little fingers would also begin to work the colors together, without my help. My fingers had faltered. Yes, my fingers had almost helped to sew that pale border that I wished would never come.

Matthew recovered, and though he was scarred, he was alive. He doesn’t like to talk about his scar; it is an ugly reminder of a brush with death. He likes quilts, and I am making one for him. It will have all the scenes of his life in India meshed together, the good days and the bad, the bright prints and the plain. There will be time for reminiscing and telling his children how it was.