The Call My Husband Never Ended

The hardest part of those eleven days was not the lawyer’s office or the compliance meeting. It was Thursday quilting circle, sitting two chairs down from Nolabelle with a needle in my hand, listening to her talk about baby names and nursery colors while I already knew what the trust attorney had done with my father’s money that same morning. I stitched a straight, even line the whole two hours and did not miss a stitch, and I have never been prouder of anything small and stubborn in my life than I am of that.

On the twelfth day, I asked Merlin to come home for lunch instead of going to the diner with the other loan officers like he usually did. I asked Nolabelle to stop by too, told her I wanted to show her the baby quilt I had almost finished, one I had, in fact, been sewing in secret fury every night that week, a Wedding Ring pattern in blues and yellows that I intended for a very different purpose than comfort.

They sat across from me at my own kitchen table, the same table where Nolabelle had cried into her coffee two years earlier and told me God was not finished with me yet. I set my phone in the middle of the table and pressed play.

I watched the color leave both of their faces as their own voices filled the kitchen. Merlin’s mouth opened and closed twice before anything came out. Nolabelle put both hands over her belly like she could shield the baby from the sound of its own father’s voice.