Free A Thread of Truth by Marie Bostwick Page A

She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s about to be inducted as a full member of the Cobbled Court Quilt Circle, with all the rights and privileges herein.”
    â€œRights and privileges? Such as?”
    â€œSuch as having Uncle Franklin babysit Bethany and Bobby on Friday nights so she can have an evening out with the girls and do some quilting. At least, that’s what they say they do up there. I’m not convinced there’s as much quilting as gabbing going on.”
    â€œAbigail talked you into babysitting Ivy’s kids every Friday night? Wow. You’re either the nicest guy or the biggest sucker in the world, you know that?”
    Franklin’s eyes twinkled as he gave Abigail a glance. “My boy, you don’t know the half of it. Why don’t you come to Ivy’s with me? We can make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, play Candy Land, and I can tell you about the price of loving a beautiful woman.”
    Franklin put his arm across Garrett’s shoulders and, like Rick and Louis in the final scene in Casablanca, the two men walked out into the shadowy evening and into the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
    I closed the door. Liza laughed. “What do you want to bet that Ivy comes home tonight to find those two passed out on the sofa asleep, with their fingernails painted red, and the kids still awake, watching TV and eating chocolate ice cream out of the container?”
    â€œI wouldn’t want to give you odds on it,” I said, “but that’s all right, chocolate washes out.” I locked the door of the shop.
    â€œLadies, let’s call this meeting to order. It’s time to welcome a new quilter into our ranks.”
    The word “meeting” projects a much more formal, organized gathering than the reality of the weekly gathering of the Cobbled Court Quilt Circle. That’s not to say that those kinds of groups don’t exist; there are quilt circles and guilds that have roll calls and rosters, agendas and officers, guest books and guest speakers. Over the years and in various locations, I’ve belonged to such groups and enjoyed them.
    But our little circle is as much about companionship as it is about learning the oldest, or latest, or fastest quilting techniques, probably more so.
    The Cobbled Court Quilt Circle has just four members: Margot, Abigail, Liza, and me. I started it as a means of thanking the others for supporting me through my breast cancer treatment, but in the end I think I’ve gotten as much out of it as they have.
    These Friday evenings are a welcome break at the end of a long week, something we all look forward to; a safe, private space where we can talk, or laugh, or cry with friends or, if quiet is what we are most craving, just sit and focus our attention on the quilting, working in companionable silence with people who know our stories and understand our stillness. Sometimes our meetings are peaceful and calm, marked by low voices, the metallic snip of scissors, and the soft whir of sewing machines. Other nights they are punctuated by raucous, uncontrollable laughter, and the giddy sound of female voices interrupting one another, jockeying to take over the role of narrator for a story they can’t wait to tell.
    I love Friday nights.
    When I was going through my cancer battle, those few hours on Friday were the only times I really felt like myself. For that thin slice of the week, I forgot about the disease that had invaded my body, or if I couldn’t forget about it, at least lived with it, embraced by the warmth of good women whose kindness and determination to see me through my darkest hours gave me hope that, one way or another, everything would be all right. And, in the end, it was. Not that I don’t still need them, or they me. The scars of my surgery have faded considerably but not completely, and the others all carry their own kinds of scars, healing at their own, individual rates. That’s