Chapter 3 - THE YELLOW QUILT
Sebastian hadn't heard his father agree with anyone so firmly since Margaret's funeral.
For a moment, he stood motionless beneath the breakfast room's white ceiling, staring at Harold in the doorway.
His father was wearing slippers.
That alone was unusual.
For months, Harold had refused to leave the lakeside dining room except when someone insisted he needed a bath or medical appointment.
Now he stood with one hand resting against the doorframe, his gaze fixed on the empty wall.
“Your mother made that quilt,” Harold said.
Sebastian lowered his eyes.
“I remember.”
“No, you don't.”
The words were soft, but they landed hard.
Harold continued.
“She started it when Evelyn was pregnant with her first baby. Yellow because Margaret said every child deserves a little sunshine.”
Sebastian swallowed.
Evelyn.
His older sister.
A name barely spoken inside Brooks Manor.
“Dad, that was years ago.”
Harold looked at him.
“Does that make it less important?”
Nora stood quietly beside the chair.
Sebastian's face tightened.
“We are not turning the breakfast room into a museum.”
“No,” Harold answered. “You already turned the entire house into one.”
Silence settled over them.
Mrs. Porter appeared at the far end of the hallway, carrying folded towels. She stopped when she saw the three of them.
Sebastian looked toward Nora.
“I hired you to cook.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not rearrange my property.”
“Then consider this a suggestion.”
“A rather expensive suggestion.”
Nora folded her arms.
“Does the painting make your father happy?”
Sebastian didn't answer.
“Does it make you happy?”
He glanced at the gray landscape.
He had purchased it from an art dealer in New York after a financial magazine photographed his living room and described the house as surprisingly traditional for a self-made technology investor.
The painting had been expensive enough to impress people.
He couldn't remember ever actually enjoying it.
“That isn't the point,” he said.
Nora nodded.
“That's what I figured.”
Harold turned toward the hallway.
“Agnes, would you help me find Margaret's quilt?”
Mrs. Porter stared.
Then she smiled.
“Of course, Mr. Brooks.”
Sebastian rubbed his forehead.
“Dad, you're supposed to be resting.”
Harold stopped.
“I have rested for four years.”
His voice grew stronger.
“I've rested while everybody decided what I should wear, what I should eat, what rooms I should sit in, and which memories were too inconvenient to keep around.”
Sebastian stared at him.
His father continued.
“I am seventy-eight years old, Sebastian. Not seven.”
Then he walked away with Mrs. Porter.
Nora looked toward the empty wall.
“Well,” she said, “that went better than expected.”
Sebastian turned sharply.
“Better?”
“He told you what he wanted.”
“He argued with me.”
Nora looked genuinely confused.
“Isn't that good?”
By lunchtime, the yellow quilt had been located.
It smelled faintly of cedarwood and old linen.
The stitching was uneven in places. Tiny embroidered flowers ran along the edges, and one corner contained Margaret's initials.
Harold ran his fingers over it.
“She worked on this every winter.”
Mrs. Porter helped him spread it across the breakfast room's antique wooden bench.
Sebastian watched from the doorway.
He remembered his mother sitting beside the fireplace with a needle between her fingers.
He remembered complaining that her sewing basket was always in the way.
He remembered her laughing and telling him that one day he'd miss the things he tripped over.
He had dismissed the remark.
Now he would have given almost anything to trip over that basket again.
Nora entered carrying vegetable soup, warm cornbread, and sliced apples.
Harold looked at the bowl.
“What's this?”
“Lunch.”
“What's in it?”
“Vegetables, chicken stock, thyme, and a reasonable amount of stubbornness.”
Harold snorted.
Nora placed the tray on the table.
Then she looked at Sebastian.
“Will you join us?”
He glanced at his watch.
“I have a conference call.”
“Does it need you?”
“Of course it needs me.”
“Does it need you more than your father does?”
Sebastian's jaw tightened.
“Miss Whitfield, you have a remarkable talent for asking inappropriate questions.”
“My mother used to say I came out of the womb asking why.”
Harold laughed.
A real laugh this time.
It startled everyone.
Even Harold.
Sebastian looked at him.
For the first time in years, his father's eyes held a little warmth.
Sebastian reached for his phone.
Canceled the conference call.
Then sat down.
Nora said nothing.
She simply handed him a bowl.
They ate together for twenty-three minutes.
Sebastian knew because he checked the clock afterward.
Twenty-three minutes in which no one discussed stock prices, acquisitions, quarterly earnings, or medical charts.
Harold complained that the soup needed more pepper.
Nora told him there was pepper on the table.
Harold asked whether she expected him to season his own food.
Nora said his hands still worked.
Harold laughed again.
Sebastian found himself smiling.
Then his father said something unexpected.
“Margaret used to make soup like this when Evelyn came home from school.”
The smile disappeared from Sebastian's face.
Nora noticed.
“Evelyn?”
“My daughter,” Harold answered.
Sebastian set down his spoon.
“Dad.”
Harold looked at him.
“What?”
“We don't need to discuss that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it isn't relevant.”
His father stared.
Then he placed his spoon carefully on the table.
“My daughter is always relevant to me.”
Sebastian felt something cold settle in his stomach.
It had been thirteen years since Evelyn left the family business.
Eleven since she'd stopped attending Christmas.
Four since she failed to appear at their mother's funeral.
At least, that was what Sebastian believed.
He stood.
“Excuse me.”
Harold watched him walk out.
Nora waited until the sound of Sebastian's footsteps disappeared.
Then she turned toward Harold.
“You miss your daughter?”
The old man looked at the yellow quilt.
“Every day.”
“Does she live far away?”
Harold swallowed.
“About forty minutes.”
Nora frowned.
“Forty minutes?”
He nodded.
“And you haven't seen her?”
“Not since Margaret died.”
Nora looked toward the hallway where Sebastian had disappeared.
“What happened?”
Harold's hands began trembling.
“My son thinks he knows.”
He closed his eyes.
“But he never asked me.”
That night, Nora returned to her small apartment in Asheville.
Her daughter Ruby sat at the kitchen table working on a school project.
“How was your first day with the rich people?” Ruby asked.
Nora slipped off her shoes.
“Interesting.”
“Did they have a swimming pool?”
“Two.”
Ruby whistled.
“Did they have a movie theater?”
“Yes.”
“A bowling alley?”
“No.”
“Then they're not that rich.”
Nora laughed.
Ruby looked pleased.
Then she noticed her mother's expression.
“What's wrong?”
Nora sat beside her.
“There's an old man in that house who's terribly lonely.”
Ruby considered this.
“Doesn't he have a family?”
“Yes.”
“Then why is he lonely?”
Nora thought about Sebastian's sharp voice, Harold's photograph, and the yellow quilt hidden in storage.
“Sometimes people can live in the same house and still be very far apart.”
Ruby looked down at her school project.
After a moment, she asked, “Are you going to help them?”
Nora reached across the table and squeezed her hand.
“I'll try.”
Ruby smiled.
“That's what you always say.”
Nora kissed her forehead.
“And sometimes it works.”
Little did she know that the next morning, Harold would hand her an envelope containing a photograph of a young woman.
May you like
On the back, written in Margaret Brooks's unmistakable handwriting, were six words:
Please bring our girl back home.
