Steenie rubbed her eyes and neck, inhaling deeply. The sewing machine hummed with energy, even as she faded. She glanced at the clock. 1 a.m. What was the point in going to bed anyway? Every night, she lay awake for hours, tired but sleepless, twisting herself in the sheets. She could not find a comfortable place in that bed. Always, she woke up contorted around his empty space, as if he were still in her spoon. Always, the cold blankets on his side of the bed were a surprise for a split second, and she could pretend in her half-sleep that he had gotten up early and was sitting in the kitchen with a newspaper and two glasses of orange juice. Always, the trance broke and she remembered all over again.
Yes, she would stay awake tonight until the blanket was finished.
When Julie, their only daughter, announced that she and her husband were going to have a baby, Bobby went to the hardware store that very day and got to work. The poor kids were lucky to have any say in the nursery’s paint color. They could choose between 3 swatches of blue Bobby brought to them. ‘What if it’s a girl?’ they asked. To which he replied, ‘Oh, it’s a boy, all right’ and winked. He pinstriped the bottom half of the walls with white and painted the top solid blue. Then, he ripped up the room’s ugly green carpet, revealing oak floors, and carefully sanded and refinished the boards until they gleamed in the sunlight. He left the frilly things, like curtains and bedding, to Steenie and Julie – who waited until AFTER the ultrasound to pick any theme for the room. Bobby was right. It was a boy.
The pregnancy seemed both to drag and fly by for everyone. Steenie and Bobby had trouble restraining themselves from buying too many toys and layette clothes for the baby. Embarrassed that they were already spoilers, they hid a stockpile of gifts in their hall closet and tried to leave them nonchalantly at Julie’s house when they visited. She always caught them and half-smiled as they glossed over their own generosity. The truth was they were as excited as they were when Steenie was carrying their own baby. At night, they talked about it in bed while she ran her fingers lightly over Bobby’s bare back. They reminisced about their early years as parents… how little they knew about what they were doing. How scared they were at first… how amazed they were at how much they loved that little girl the moment they laid eyes on her.
Weeks before the birth, Steenie came home to find Bobby unconscious in the hallway with the phone in his hand. That picture was burned into her memory – but the events that took place afterward were a blur. She could barely remember doing CPR, or the paramedics arriving, but she knew it happened. She heard people talk about it. And there must have been a ride in the ambulance, because she ended up at the hospital, but that was gone from her recollection, too. Just Bobby’s face was left for her, in the end… white as the pillow behind it. His hazel eyes never opened for her again.
When Julie made her go through his clothes, she ended up sitting in their closet, leaned against an old set of crutches, pressing his shirts against her face and breathing his lingering scent in the lining. She cried. He never even got to meet his grandson. In that moment, she knew what to do with her pain. She would make it useful.
Steenie went through all of Bobby’s clothes and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening sorting through colors and textures. By nightfall, she had pieced a quilt. Each square was made by a different one of his shirts, filled with a design of ties – some laughably outdated, but all familiar. Every day she worked, as Julie’s belly grew bigger and bigger, tenderly stitching with arthritic fingers the connection between Bobby and his grandbaby.
On the eve of little Bobby’s birth, at 4 a.m., Steenie cut the last string. With puffy eyes, magnified by thick glasses, she inspected her work. Pride filled her, because she knew it was her best yet. Too gratified to sleep now, she lay next to the blanket across her bed and looked at it for a long time, playing out every memory she had of Bobby in each shirt, running her hands over the fabric like it was warm skin. She made herself some hot chocolate and sat on the balcony, letting the heat of the mug soothe her aching fingers. The stars glistened in the heavens above her… points of light scattered across the darkness.
She wondered if Bobby was watching her from one of them.
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