Clay's Quilt Read Free

smoke and lighter fluid came to him, filling his lungs with the sensation of something that would cleanse him.
    On one side of the road, the shoulder dropped off to a kudzu-covered slope that slid down to the river. In some places the river was so shallow that he could make out the small slate rocks lining its bed. The houses all sat on the other side of the water, with swinging bridges leading out to the shoulder of the road, where the people parked their cars. In one of the shoals, a mother in a denim skirt and faded blouse held the hand of her little daughter. They walked in the river, passing under blue shadows of sandbar willows. Their feet looked pink when they brought them out of the water to take a step. When the woman let go of the child’s hand, the little girl fell heavily into the water. The woman laughed, bending over to look the child in the eye, and they began to splash each other. There was always something to remind Clay of his own mother.
    The valley widened out somewhat and small businesses began to come into sight. He passed a green highway sign that read BLACK BANKS just before he came up the last little hill and stopped at the red light where the highway became Main Street. There was a family-owned grocery store here, but a huge billboard on the mountain behind it told everyone to shop at the new supermarket in the shopping center. A new factory was out on the bypass now, and they were already building another lane on the highway that took travelers up to the Daniel Boone Parkway. A federal courthouse stood just up the street, and on the outskirts of town, rows of stores jutted from both sides of the Wal-Mart.
    At the other edge of town, he sped up again and let the wind rush in to wash around the cab of the truck. The road grew wild again, following the path of the winding river beside it. His house sat between the road and the river, two stories, with the bottom half full of his landlord’s storage. Clay sprinted up the wooden staircase and made his way across the high porch. Between the porch railings and the floor, ivy grew through the lattice like living cross-stitch.
    He had rented the house when he was eighteen. On his eighteenth birthday, he had gone to the Altamont Mining offices and was hired on the spot. All his life, every boy he knew wanted to escape having to go down in the mines, but Clay thought it the most noble profession any man could have. As soon as he left the foreman’s office, he had gone down into Black Banks and rented the house by the river. He had announced it over supper that evening, and Easter had cried until her eyes were red and swollen.
    â€œWhy in the world would you want to leave here? Why spend all that money on rent, and you just starting out in life? Don’t make no sense. Is it one of us you running from?” she asked.
    â€œI’m not running from nobody,” he said. “I just want to see some more of the world.”
    Gabe laughed heartily, slapping the table. “I got news for you, buddy,” he piped in. “Living on the other side of that little town ain’t seeing nothing.”
    â€œThat ain’t what I mean.” Clay wanted to see what it would be like to be on his own, but he also felt like there were too many ghosts there. Still, he couldn’t have told them this. His family was one that didn’t leave one another. They did everything together, warm in the knowledge that kin was nearby. Gabe and Easter were both torn all to pieces, and he was only moving ten miles away.
    â€œA family should live right together,” Easter said. She was being unusually hard-shelled about this, as she had always encouraged him to think for himself. “It ain’t right.”
    â€œWhat if I was moving plumb across the country, or going into the service?”
    â€œArmy’s different,” Gabe told him. “Your people know you off doing for your country.”
    â€œWell, I need to do this. It’s