Ashes Page 23

“ God rest your Pete’s soul,” Reba said.

  “ Bless you,” Alma said to her.

  Morris glanced at his wristwatch. Thirty column inches to go, plus he had to knock out a sidebar on a weekend bluegrass festival. All with the Kelvinator looking over his shoulder. Kelvin Feeney, Journal-Times editor and all-around boy wonder, a guy on the come who didn’t care whose backs bricked the path to that corner office at the corporation’s flagship paper.

  “ So, Alma, when did you start sewing?” Morris thought of making a pun on “so” and “sew” and decided to pass.

  “ Oh, maybe at the age of five,” she said. Her eyes stayed focused on the tips of her fingers as she ran the needle through a scrap of yellow cotton. Laney was working the scene, twisting the lens to its longest point, zooming in to get the wrinkled glory of the old woman’s face.

  “ Did you learn from your mother?” Morris asked, scribbling in his notebook. Maybe he could use some of this in the Great American Novel he’d been working on since his freshman year, which had been tainted by a professor who thought Faulkner was the Second Coming and Flannery O’Connor was the Virgin Mary.

  “ She learnt it from me,” Daisy Eggers said, her eyes like wet bugs behind the curve of her glasses. Daisy might have been anywhere between eighty and ninety, her upper lip collapsed as if her dentures were too small. When she spoke, the grayish tip of her tongue protruded, constantly trying to keep her upper false teeth in place.

  “ Good, we’ll get back to that.” Morris made a note as Laney’s shutter clicked. “Tell me about Threads of Hope.”

  “ You really need to talk to Faith about that,” the other Alma said. “She’s the one started it. We were all sewing anyway, and figured why not get together on it?”

  Reba, who appeared a little less inclined to defer to their absent leader, said, “Threads of Hope gives blankets to sick kids in hospitals. Like the Ronald McDonald House and the Shriner’s Hospital. It’s all about the kids. But you’d best talk to Faith about that part of it.”

  Okay, Morris thought. It’s not Pulitzer material but at least it has sick kids. Now if I could just work a cute babe and a puppy into the story, I’d hit the Holy Trinity.

  “ Is it local kids, or someone with a specific type of illness?” Laney asked the obvious question. She was actually better at that than Morris.

  “ Oh, just ones sick any old way. Faith, she’s a nurse at Mercy Hospital, and she comes in about once a month and collects them, takes them off. We’ll get a dozen done on a good morning.” Reba held up the quilt she was working on and pointed to a scrap of denim. “That come from Doc Watson. You know, the famous flatpicker.”

  Morris had written about Doc a dozen times. Doc was also up in his golden years, with six Grammys on his trophy shelf. The musician had tried several times to retire, but every time he did, someone would launch a festival in his honor and he’d feel obliged to perform there.

  Lillian spoke for the first time since giving her name. “These scraps have stories in them. They’re like pieces of people’s lives. And we figure the kids get some of the life out of those pieces.”

  “ And a little hope,” the other Alma said.

  “ Threads of Hope,” Daisy said, knitting a fishnet-style afghan. Her knitting needles clicked like chopsticks, pushing and hooking yarn. The janitor came into the room, and though it was cramped, he managed to sweep the tiny scraps off the floor without once brushing against Laney. Morris wrote it all down, and they were back in the office by lunch time. The ladies had been all smiles by the time they left, speculating on how many copies of Friday’s edition they were going to buy and which relatives they would call.

  The phone call came shortly after eleven in the morning. The edition couldn’t have been on the street for more than an hour, and those who received the paper via home delivery probably wouldn’t see theirs until late afternoon. Morris dreaded the post-edition phone calls. The tri-weekly had a low circulation, but the reading audience was exacting.

  “ Journal-Times news desk,” Morris answered, in his most aloof voice.

  “ Are you Morris Stanfield?”

  “ Yes, ma’am.” It was always bad when they guessed your name.

  “ We have a serious problem.”

  “ Ma’am?” Morris’ finger edged toward the phone, planning a quick transfer to the Kelvinator. Serious problems were beyond the capabilities of an ink whore.

  “ Did you write the Threads of Hope article?”

  Sometimes they called to say thanks. Sometimes, but not often. “About the sewing circle.”

  “ Where did you get your information?”

  “ From the ladies.”

  “ The ladies.” She sounded like a high school English teacher who was upset that a student had opted for the Cliff Notes during the Hawthorne semester. Her voice sounded familiar.

  “ It was a feature about a group of friends who get together and sew. A people feature.”

  “ You were supposed to call me.”

  “ Are you Faith Gordon?” He had meant to call her, really, but between the domestic dispute that led to a police standoff and the damned bluegrass festival sidebar, Morris had been forced to slam his story out an hour before deadline. The Threads of Hope web site had provided some history on the organization, about how the effort had been started by a seamstress in Kentucky whose son had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. A story of courage and perseverance, a true sob story, fraught with unsung heroes and all that happy bullshit.

  “ This is Faith. The ladies said you would call.”

  “ I’m sorry. Deadline caught me. What’s the problem?” Morris tried to replay the article in his mind. Often, by the time he finished writing one, it was seared into his memory until the next pint of whiskey or the next skull-numbing city council meeting, whichever came first. Writing was all about remembering, while the rest of Morris’s life was all about forgetting.

  “ The headline,” Faith Gordon said. “It says ‘Local Women Stitch Blankets For The Needy.’ These blankets are for any sick child, not just those of economic difference.”

  “ I don’t write the headlines,” Morris said.

  “ But it has your name right under it.”

  “ Yes, ma’am, but the editor wrote that headline. Perhaps you can speak to him.”

  “ It says ‘Local Women Stitch Blankets For The Needy’ by Morris Stanfield. You’ve done serious damage to the organization, not to mention insulting the women in the sewing circle. You should be ashamed.”

  “ How did I damage the organization? I don’t think many people in our readership have even heard of Threads of Hope.”

  “ Exactly. Your callous disregard for the facts has tainted Threads of Hope for the whole community. And the ladies… poor Alma Potter was in tears.”

  “ I’m really sorry to hear that,” Morris said. He couldn’t remember if Alma Potter was the “other Alma” or not.

  “ No wonder people no longer trust the media. If this is any example of how you take the good intentions of an innocent group and twist it into a sensational story-”

  “ Whoa,” Morris said. “If I made a factual error, I’d be glad to run a correction. But I took my information directly from the sewing circle’s own words, with some Internet research on the parent organization.”

  “ You didn’t talk to me,” Faith said.

  Morris at last saw the real problem. Faith Gordon’s name hadn’t appeared until the third or fourth paragraph. She obviously felt she was the real story, the tireless organizer who was practically an entire spool of hope, one who lifted the entire project on her shoulders and inspired everyone who could navigate the eye of a needle to great acts of charity.

  “ I’ll transfer you to my editor,” Morris said, and punched the buttons before she could respond. By leaning back in his chair, he could see out his cubicle to the glassed-in office of the Kelvinator. Feeney was checking on stock prices, probably in the middle of an editorial column on the dubious merits of fundin
g public libraries. Morris waited until the editor picked up the phone, then turned his attention to his own computer. He opened his e-mail and found six messages about the Threads of Hope story. Three were from Faith, reiterating her displeasure. Two were from Reba, who was concerned about a misquotation, and the last was from Lillian, who said she thought the article was good until Faith had told her what was wrong. Now, Lillian wrote, she was ashamed to have her name associated with either the Threads of Hope or the Journal-Times, and she was canceling her subscription “right this second.”

  Morris was in the midst of deleting the messages when the Kelvinator appeared in the mouth of the cubicle.

  “ Morris,” the editor said. He was ten years younger than Morris, with a personal digital assistant in his shirt pocket. His eyes moved like greased ball bearings.

  “ Bad headline, huh?”

  “ No, it was problems in your copy.”

  “ What problems?”

  “ Faith Gordon has a list. You can talk to her about them when you see her.”

  “ See her?”

  “ Write a follow-up. That’s the only way to fix the mess you’ve made.”

  “ There’s no fucking mess. I didn’t say anything about the blankets being for needy children.”

  “ You must have, or I wouldn’t have put it in the headline. Anyway, the easiest way to handle this is to interview Faith. And use a tape recorder this time, so you won’t misquote her.”

  “ But it was just a chummy little feature-”

  “ It’s gotten bigger than that. I had a call from the Threads of Hope’s national office. Apparently Faith Gordon has been blowing smoke up their asses, too.”

  “ So let them sue for libel.”

  The Kelvinator tossed a sticky note onto Morris’ cluttered desk. “Two o’clock today at the church. Polish it up for Monday’s paper.”

  “ Can Laney come with me?”

  “ We already have enough photos. She has to cover a flower show at the mall.”

  Morris crumpled the note as the Kelvinator returned to his office. He wished there were enough threads to make a noose. A noose of hopelessness, by which to hang himself before he had to write another quilt story.

  The church sat in a valley and a fog hung over it, rising from the river that ran beside the road. The church parking lot was empty. That seemed odd, even for a Friday afternoon. He thought he was supposed to meet the entire sewing circle. Maybe he had a solo showdown with the legendary Faith Gordon. He shuddered, opened the dashboard, and retrieved the pint of Henry McKenna and a vial of Xanax. Substances that provided his own threads of hope, or at least stuffed cotton wadding between him and his anxiety and despair.

  He stuck one of the tranquilizers on his tongue and toasted the stained-glass Jesus. “Here’s to you, Big Guy.”

  Belly warmed, Morris entered the quiet church. He had been raised Baptist but had recovered quickly, and his only religious experience since then had been a foray into the Unitarian church in a half-assed attempt to meet women. Still, the polished oak of the foyer, the sermon hall with its carefully arranged pews, and the crushed velvet drapes invoked feelings of solemnity, as if he were actually in the presence of something mystical and important. He stepped carefully, afraid to break the hush.

  “ Mr. Stanfield.”

  He turned, recognizing the shrill, strident voice of Faith Gordon. He had expected a beefy, shoulder-heavy woman with a broad face and hands that could strangle an ox. Instead, she was diminutive, even pretty in a severe way. Her cheeks were lined from years of not smiling. She was about Morris’ age but had none of his gray.

  Morris attempted a boyish grin, knowing this was a time to turn on the charm, even if he came off like Clint Eastwood miscast in a comedy. “Miss Gordon. I’m sorry my story disappointed you.”

  “ It’s not me I’m worried about. It’s the ladies in the circle. They were so excited about being in the paper until I told them about your errors.”

  “ We can make it right.”

  “ You can never make it right. The damage is already done. Feelings have been hurt. And what about the children who received blankets from Threads of Hope? How will they feel when told they are ‘needy’?”

  Morris dropped his grin. He wanted to scream at her, tell her that a fucking space-filler in the back pages of a dinky local rag didn’t cause empires to rise or fall, and, truth be told, didn’t sell a single goddamned car for the dealer whose ad ran right beside it. A newspaper was fucking fishwrap, a dinosaur walking in the shadow of the Internet that was too dumb to know it was going extinct. The only people who’d read the piece of brainless crap had been the members of the sewing circle.

  “ I didn’t write that ‘needy’ part,” Morris said. “My editor put that in. He thought it was more of an eye-grabber.”

  “ The article has your name on it,” Faith said. “You’ve damaged all the children who have been blessed by Threads of Hope. God can’t forgive those who don’t accept their sins.”

  “ God doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “ If you can’t apologize to the Lord, you can at least apologize to the circle.” She stood to the side and motioned down the hallway, indicating that Morris should go first.

  He resigned himself to go on and get his “mission of contrition” over with, then hurry back to the office and type it up with Henry McKenna as his co-author. He was halfway to the meeting room when he felt a prick in the back of his neck. At first he thought he’d been bitten by a spider, and he reached to wipe the creature away. The janitor came out of the meeting room, eyes bright, jaws making gravel.

  “ Let’s get him upstairs,” Faith said.

  At first, Morris thought Faith wanted him to help subdue the janitor, who looked as if he’d escaped from a facility for the criminally insane. But the janitor didn’t flee. Instead, he dropped his push broom and approached Morris. After a couple of steps, there were two of him, and Morris’s head felt as if it were stuffed with wet pillows, the silent walls drumming in wooden echoes. He spun awkwardly, and Faith held up an empty hypodermic needle, the tip gleaming with one drop of clear liquid.

  A kaleidoscope played behind his eyelids as he rose from the depths of a stupor. He’d experimented with a number of chemicals in his college days, but he could never recall suffering such a sledgehammer to the brain. The kaleidoscope slowly came into focus and he realized his eyes were open. He tried to move his head.

  The kaleidoscope that had heralded his return to consciousness turned out to be a stained-glass window. Jesus stood there, arms spread, catching the dying sunlight. Morris recognized it as the same window that adorned the steeple of the church. The room appeared to be an attic of some kind, and a bell rope ran the length of one wall and disappeared through a small opening in the ceiling.

  He must have fainted. Heat, stress, and a good dose of whiskey on an empty stomach. Not to mention the trank. And maybe a touch of the flu had crept up on him.

  Snick.

  Snick, snick.

  As groggy as he was, it took him a moment to place the sound. Scissors.

  The members of the sewing circle were gathered around him, stitching, darning, cutting scraps of cloth. He looked from face to face, trying to focus. Both Almas were there, though Morris had forgotten the names of the others. No, Reba, that was it. The chatty one. And Lillian. And one, wasn’t she named after a flower? Rose? Violet? No, Daisy, that was it. Daisy.

  He tried to smile but couldn’t. His lips were too numb.

  “ Looks like Mr. Big-Time Writer is awake,” Reba said, without a trace of her earlier humor.

  “ A shame he can’t be troubled to get a little thing right,” the other Alma said. “Now, what would happen if we left a few loose threads in one of our blankets just because we didn’t care enough to do it right?”

  “ Why, that would be like having no hope,” Daisy said. “Worse, it would be like giving up hope on the children.”

  “ Oh, but we know how needy
they are,” the first Alma said. “Because we read about it in the paper.”

  Morris tried again to lift his head. The women weren’t looking at him. They concentrated on their work, snipping, stitching, working threads and needles and yarn. Morris’ stomach roiled, and he was afraid he was going to vomit in the presence of these women before he could lift himself and make it to a bathroom. Flu, for sure.

  “ Don’t try to talk none,” Reba said. “You done enough harm with your words already.”

  Lillian giggled like a schoolgirl. “You tied that knot off right, didn’t you, Reba? I know how much pride you take in your work.”

  “ Wouldn’t want to go disappointing nobody. Unlike some people.”

  A door opened somewhere beyond Morris’ range of vision. The women stopped working and looked in that direction, their faces rapt.

  “ How’s our latest charity project coming along?” Faith asked.

  “ Right fair,” the other Alma said. “Not such good material to work with, but I think we can shape it up some.”

  “ Well, after all, they say we help the needy,” Faith said. “In fact, I think I read so in the Journal-Times.”

  Morris couldn’t help himself. Sick or not, he was going to tell them all to fuck off. So what if he lost his job? He could paint houses, drop fry baskets, go on welfare. At least he’d no longer have to pretend to give a damn about little old ladies making sacrifices solely because of their own selfish need to feel useful.

  He tried to speak, but his lips didn’t move. Not much, anyway.

  “ Mr. Stanfield, Reba has been sewing for fifty-nine years, as you know, since you reported it in your article. That was one fact you reported correctly. So you can rest assured her stitches are much stronger than the flesh of your lips.”

  Stitches? Lips?

  He screamed, but the sound stuck at the top of his vibrating vocal cords. Faith came into view. She leaned over him, appraising the handiwork. “A silent tongue speaks no evil,” she said.

  “ And doesn’t put down the good work of others,” Reba said, looking to Faith for approval.

  “ That’s right,” Faith said. “I’m sorry we’re having to take time from our true work. Several children won’t get blankets this week because of Mr. Stanfield. But this task is perhaps just as important in the Lord’s eyes. This is a true charity case.”