To Finish A Quilt

By Grant Staley

Is Eunice Tweed Sissons a monster or a victim of circumstance? To Finish a Quilt chronicles her journey from impoverished small-town Kansas teenager to wealthy Southern California matron and examines the human damage she leaves in her wake. Spanning 20th century America, the two-part book blends literary and popular fiction in a story that unfolds through the eyes of a third-person narrator.

In the early pages of Part I, Eunice suffers the worst kind of violation by her father and the experience shapes the path her life will follow. After he takes most of the family’s savings and leaves Eunice, her brother, mother, and grandmother to barely scrape by, Eunice knows that it will be up to her to change their circumstances. She works and saves until she has enough money to move her family to what she believes is the Promised Land. Post-Depression California is a world apart from Kansas farm country and Eunice is determined to seize all it offers. Once settled in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena, she and her family fall into a comfortable routine; but mere comfort is not what Eunice sees as her destiny. Grasping for opportunities to gain status and wealth, she marries a much older man and virtually turns her back on her blood relatives. This sets in motion a series of events that profoundly affects all of them, inflicting deep pain on both her younger brother and the son she bears only to please her husband.

Part II reunites Eunice’s brother Tommy (known to all as Tomás in his adopted homeland) with her now-adult son Gary in South America. Tomás is a successful author tortured by long-hidden family secrets while Gary is escaping his unfulfilled life on a quest to understand family events that have left him confused and defeated. The two dance around the issues, Tomás unwilling to dredge up old hurts and failures and Gary desperate for answers only Tomás can provide. Through a series of honest and painful admissions, the two finally reach a point of revelation and peace.

To Finish a Quilt’s epilogue has put readers in two distinct and vocal camps: those who view Eunice as a tragic victim who did not mean to harm anyone in her quest for a better life and those who believe that she used her early trauma as a weapon and deserved the isolation of her final moments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grant Staley
• Release date: Jun 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476118468

Grant Staley

Author of: To Finish a Quilt - early 2012 Wall of Shadows - mid 2013

Book preview

To Finish a Quilt

A Novel

Grant Staley

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 by Grant Staley

A few words of acknowledgement and thanks …

No matter the subject, time, or place, all novels have one foot in the writer’s history and another in his imagination. To Finish a Quilt is no different. Certain parallels to my life and the lives of my antecedents unfold across the chapters. Those events provide only a sketch, however, leaving most as a work of fiction. The characters portrayed herein are not factual representations of people I know or knew but are inventions or hybrids of multiple people. As such, any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

I dedicate this book to the memory of my uncle, Dr. Theodore Grant Twitchell and our wonderful times together. He was my mentor and always challenged my thoughts and assumptions; starting a passionate discussion seemed to bring him glee. A man of letters and distinction, he wrote books, plays, music, and poems until the end. Without him, I might have turned out far differently.

With love, I want to thank my wife Kathryn for her support and input. Her ideas and critiques helped deepen the emotions presented.

My friend Susan Ronn, who is a writer and editor, also made this a better work with her thoughtful insights.

Betsy Gilbert guided this novel through its various iterations. Her hand is on To Finish a Quilt from our many discussions of its characters and story. I have enjoyed working with her discerning talents of editing, character development, and structure on this and another novel.

Cover design and its background photo by Joleene Naylor. Thank you.

Additional information about the author and other projects available at grantstaley.com

Chapter 1

Wait–a noise. A lock clicks. Then I hear a door creak open behind me. A second ago, there was no door there, but now I see in the mirror that it cuts the corridor’s length in half.

I turn to see who comes through the door. When I do, a gust of wind knocks my hat from my head. Flowers drop from its brim, carpeting the brook now flowing along one side of the hall. They drift away on the silent stream and disappear from view just before I turn and see him.

No, not again. I struggle to get away, to move. But, the brook has broken free of its borders, filling the hall higher and higher, making movement laborious and staining the wallpaper a blood red.

And suddenly, he is on me. One of his scaly hands clasps over my mouth. He yanks at my gown, pawing at it, leaving me without decency. I look away to heaven and see my nightgown quickly disappearing like a balloon hurrying off into the sky.

The grimy stubble of his rough beard chaffs my young breasts as I struggle beneath him, trying to scream but finding that my voice has deserted me. He pushes at my legs as we float on a river, the roar of the falls now filling the hallway and my ears, and I ...

-

Eunice sat straight up in bed with the remnants of a gasp echoing in her ears. She whirled around, looking behind her for that hallway door and that man, but they had vanished. Only a tufted headboard, one she had designed, stood silently staring back at her as a shiver romped down her body from her cheeks to her toes.

Just that damned dream again, she thought, trying in vain to dismiss it permanently from her existence.

Through the glass sliding doors, she watched bright moonlight skitter around the surface of the swimming pool outside of her bedroom and felt her heart’s rhythm pounding at her temples.

Bastard, she murmured.

This same dream had awoken her many dozens of times over the years, and each was a virtual copy of the preceding one. Their appearances held no pattern that she could discern, and they seemed to arise quite apart from dates or events that should have triggered them. Months could pass without a single occurrence, but this week was different for some reason. She had tried but failed to escape from her attacker two nights in a row.

Dabbing at her forehead with her index finger, she felt the barest trace of sweat coating her skin. Then the hushed groans of her infant girl came up the hall from the nursery. Perhaps a chronic lack of sleep was the cause of those returning nightmares.

She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers hoping the child would not need her attention. Seconds ran by as she sat silently and held her breath, as if from forty feet away Julie could hear the sound of air flowing in and out of her body. When she did finally release the pent-up pressure, the baby called again.

Crap, she said as the earlier cold shiver from the nightmare made room for a glassy sense of vengeance.

During her pregnancy, the signs had been present but hardly overt. Even in the first weeks after delivering, that had changed little. Now the child approached four months of age, and Eunice’s inner vehemence gathered strength daily, making her contempt impossible to deny.

She had never wanted any children, but at least the first one was a guarantee that her husband would never leave her–not with the threat of losing more than half his assets hanging over his head. Having the whole of what she possessed rather than a portion of it was worth putting up with one child. This second one, however, the result of a moment of forgotten passion, really another sex act against her desires, was worthless to her.

What would follow was a given in her mind, clear as a Southern California sky after a rain. This child was the center of her husband’s attention, and she his wife was last week’s fish. Sure, he denied that with his usual salesmanship cajoling when her icy stares fell upon the two of them, but that did not fool her or mitigate her disgust.

‘How vain can that man be, naming her after himself?’

He had exposed the start of his obsession early on, insisting throughout her pregnancy to call the child Julie. She had hated that name from the start and told him so. Although there for every step of the way for him, and having rescued him from terrible blunders, he treated her as an afterthought. No, that was not right–she was a necessary but barely tolerated inconvenience to him. She had awoken in the hospital to find the birth certificate filled out, just as she had with the first one, with names he had chosen.

Purposely folding the bed covers back into a perfect triangle, she set her feet onto the awaiting slippers and turned to look over at Jules, her sleeping husband. They always fail us, she thought, just their nature–a flaw waiting for fate.

She had meant to stand and get Julie back to sleep, but with patterns of moonbeams echoing about the room, Eunice remained seated on the edge of the bed with her feet still in slippers and refused to move as memories came flooding back that made her cast about for answers.

‘Why did I deserve that abuse? What indecency did I have that made you turn away from me when I called?’

She had asked that very question tens of times almost every day for over two decades. She waited for God to speak to her, but she heard no reply so she searched within her memories for a cause. The same minor trespasses came to mind: a trivial curse when she bumped her knee on a pew, an unkind word to her grandmother, lying to her brother Tommy. Those were not real answers to her question so it was probably as her father had said in his last words to her. Somehow, she had failed God with the deep stains she wore.

That night when she was sixteen, she had been curled up on the bed wearing her long white nightgown with flowers embroidered around the neck, praying with all her might that her father might just go on to bed without another sloppy conversation. The periods of icy silence and cutting jabs between her mother and him had been bad enough, but by that point, talking with a drunk had become intolerable without disgust-soaked words filling her voice. Those prayers had been in vain.

The twenty-one year old echoes of her father bumping his way up the staircase filled her with a medley of hate, shame, and guilt. The sobbing and pain, the stench of alcohol, and the taste of blood inside her lip were still as real as that night when her pale eyes had felt about to burst from their orbits as if the pressure of her imprisoned screams were pushing them out. As always, she decided that desire was not on her bastard father’s mind that night. It was punishment.

More than punishment, her father was a first taste of what men really were. Her brother, who had deserted the family, and her husband, who like all men could not help himself around loose women, confirmed the message of that awful lesson even if they had never assaulted her physically. Her brother’s emotional abandonment had concluded with irreparable and devastating consequences. There was nothing that would rectify what he had done. Her husband’s throwing her over for an infant; however, was a grievance she would not permit. Something must change the course of his infatuation. She needed to prevail this time.

That damn baby was making more noise. Without more of a true-ringing answer to the question of why she had suffered so at the hands of men, she walked away from the bedroom, her head throbbing with every step and every cry of the baby.

Halfway down the hallway, she paused to take in the commanding panorama from high above the San Gabriel Valley. She loved this house, the prestigious address, and the outlook of the city that always gave her a sense of accomplishment. But, the baby’s cry broke the spell an instant later, causing her to sigh before she stole into her daughter’s room.

She walked through the full moon’s blue light that filled the nursery and looked down into the crib. The child kicked her chubby legs in gleeful anticipation, and her mouth arced into a pudgy heart that cooed her welcome. The child had begun to recognize her over a month ago, and she took that as a sign of intelligence. This child would be clever, probably not as smart as the son but crafty and, as a girl, able to manipulate her father.

Watching the child wriggle in its crib, she felt the night’s anger and disgust rise again. She hated this baby. She could right that wrong. It was all in her power. Jules would be sad for a while, but he would get over the loss. She would be there to help him through the pain. Babies die in their sleep all the time; she knew that to be true.

Julie started to fuss again and seemed about to let out a cry. Eunice bent over to caress the tiny, buttery face with the back of her hand. Solemnly she took the pillow from under the child’s head.

Shhh, there there, she whispered as she placed the pillow over the baby’s face and pressed it down along her ears.

There were sounds, painful ones that brought back her own vain pleas from long ago, but she could learn to live with those too. The infant’s legs started to dart frantically in every direction. Seconds dragged by as Eunice looked out the window.

How much longer could this take, she asked herself as the convulsions continued. She heard a click and decided it was the crib uttering a final creak.

Mom? she heard a second later and flinched.

Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she saw her son Gary slumped on the doorframe behind her. His red plaid pajamas hung from his lean five-year-old body.

Without hesitation, Eunice slid the pillow away, and the baby started to bawl. She spun in Gary’s direction and stomped her way close to him.

Damn it Gary. See what you’ve done? I almost had her down, but you’ve ruined that.

The boy, recoiling away from her, said, I was having a bad dream.

And what can I do about that?

Gary brought a hand to his mouth and started to gnaw on his thumbnail. He turned back to his room.

Nothing, I guess.

Chapter 2

Naming this place Hope proves God has a sense of humor, the town’s people would wisecrack as they shook their heads and endured another bitter winter or summer as pallid as sun-scorched straw. A crumbly, fretful place, the town offered its residents few benefits other than basic goods and a network affiliate of a national broadcaster for those fortunate enough to afford a radio. The downtown area was a small box of shops and eating establishments with the town square at its center. Modest houses and a dozen or so stern churches covering the major protestant denominations fanned out from the commercial zone and soon gave way to open farmland. Like so many towns on the prairie, it never had a prime, but years later, it did become famous. When the Great Depression had been in the midst of wringing the promise out of the people of the United States, Hope, Kansas had become the symbol of the state’s desperation.

Even before the stock market crash of 1929, life had been hard in Dickinson County, and Eunice’s mother, Fanny, lived that struggle every day. She was an only child and of the third generation since her family had settled on their land.

Fanny’s father died when she was eighteen, leaving her and her mother, Nana, with a farm that they poured their entire effort into managing. They split the physical labor evenly, but all of the banking and figuring fell to Fanny as Nana could neither read nor write. Deep in the thick of their labors, she and Nana were overmatched by the challenges of running the animals and had no time to realize the fact that theirs was a doomed endeavor. Only when Fanny’s paternal uncle Vess arrived unannounced two months to the day after her father’s funeral, did the futility of their efforts come clearly into sight.

Seeing how you women folk are getting on, he said upon entering the house.

That was his gentle entrance into a visit that plainly settled upon him with all the comfort of chewing broken glass. After some lemonade and a reasonable period of general catch-up conversation, he stood, walked to the front door, and asked Fanny to come along.

Talked to a feed company sales rep the other day, he mentioned on the way to a paddock.

Fanny followed behind, watching his odd walk. It was an almost exact copy of her father’s, whose gait had resulted from years of hard farm work and chance collisions with spooked animals.

Yes? Fanny asked.

Made me wonder about things, he said and put a boot up on the lowest rail of the fence that held the stock.

Such as?

Those cows are looking a little scraggly. Fences too.

We’re out here from sun up till dark and …

Vess brought his hard, wrinkled hand up, and that cut her off. Fanny, I understand.

He nodded and walked off for a time to run his hands over the bumpy ribs of a cow and then another and another. He returned to her, focused on the ground just in front of his steps.

Me and mom are doing all we can is what I meant to say.

He stopped and then locked his eyes into Fanny’s.

Sometimes that’s just not enough.

Vess stayed on for a few days and then shuttled back and forth to his own land a couple counties away, until the matter settled. They all but gave away the small herd of milkers and a sty full of pigs. He brokered the deal with the neighboring farmer to the west who bought the twenty acres at a fair price given the local economic conditions. All told, they had just over $5,000 in the bank when the two women, two cats Fanny never fed, and a sparse collection of furniture and household goods moved into a two-bedroom cottage several blocks from downtown Hope. Fanny and Nana slept in one bedroom, and the other became a piano studio.

Although picking away to make a bare life had been her father’s full-time focus, he had insisted on Fanny’s learning to play the piano in the hope that one day she might, if good enough, be able to play hymns at their church. She had taken to the instrument with a natural ability and had grown into a talented musician. Besides her role at the Methodist church on Sundays, she had connived her way into performing a recital that the town’s radio station broadcast once a month. Once moved into town, she grew a small following of music students that was enough to make the expenses but little more.

Freed from the duties of the land, Fanny fully blossomed into an alluring woman who found her new life liberating–too liberated for some. New bravado in her playing and added flourishes to the hymns made fine topics of conversation in the small groups that met after church services. Even Nana reminded her on occasions to stick to the notes without embellishments. Her self-promotion on the radio station also fell under scrutiny, as did her courtship by too many fellas for the gossipmonger’s liking.

‘Tall, great legs, and all the right curves,’ was how the men around town would describe her on days other than the Sabbath. They would generally add that she also had an inviting face, but could try a man’s patience to its breaking point.

Fanny’s future husband, Cristofer, arrived in town mid-March of 1926. Turning his brand new Model T Tudor sedan off the main road onto Teller Street, he parked in front of the radio station. With a grin and purposeful movements, he straightened his coat and tie before popping his cuffs to make sure his pearl cufflinks showed.

He threw the car’s door closed and marched his athletic frame to the station’s door to take in a measure of the place, beaming with pride as if conquering an exotic land and inspecting the spoils.

Hello, he bellowed and came face to face with the receptionist inside the door. I’m the new station manager.

I’m sorry?

Cristofer Tweed. Your new manager. He offered his hand to her.

Claire, she said and then turned to scurry off. I’ll get Mr. Lee.

A moment later, a squat man with a full, rounded face returned with Claire trailing behind him. The man marched like a wind-up duck towards Cristofer and asked, What’s this about?

I’m Mr. Tweed, from the network. Have somewhere we can talk?

After a quick termination meeting with the now-former manager, Cristofer assembled the staff and told them this was a position he had coveted for a long time. He also let them know that Lee’s abrupt departure would not be the last firing if ratings and revenues did not improve. Unsaid was his plan to stay only long enough to impress the network and move up the ladder.

To entice him into relocating to Hope, the radio network had paid three months’ rent on a furnished apartment for his use in the town’s largest building. Two stories and built of red brick, it stood across from the radio station and bent around a corner facing the road running between Wichita and Kansas City and looked over a corner of the town square. The City Restaurant, a place of fundamental fare where Cristofer regularly took potential advertisers for a coffee but never a meal, took up the corner of the first floor.

Cristofer launched into his new position with a level of enthusiasm he knew would impress his boss up in Kansas City. Each night, after making sure that all tasks were completed at his station and all dollars and statistics documented, he took a late dinner at The City. Consistently he sat at the counter reading the Kansas City Star and trading bored conversation with the waitress. Most nights he chose the hot turkey sandwich accompanied by a few cigarettes and black coffee before climbing the stairs to his apartment.

Once he had locked the door behind him, he poured himself the first of several straight whiskeys, made sure to hang his pants with care to preserve the crease, and polished his shoes until they held a serious shine. The rest of the night he spent with the solitude of his drink, his thoughts, and his plans. That routine was immutable unless he was away for business or on the Sabbath.

On Sundays, he always put on his finest wool suit, a freshly laundered and starched shirt, and a favorite tie to attended service. Not a religious man, he found the dogma all religions peddled stifling to his needs, but personal opinion did not stop him from attending every week or making generous monetary offerings. It was just part of his plan, a requirement to gain acceptance by the closed-minded people of a rural backwater and then get their donations in the form of ad buys for the station.

His first Sunday in town, he had gone to the Baptist church, the following to the Lutheran church. A couple times in that first month, he had taken in two services, the early show, and a matinee as he thought of them. He asked around and found that the Methodists attracted most of the town’s business people. Going to that church was a palatable solution as their particular brand did not strike him as better or worse than most, at least they did not roll on the floor or talk in gibberish. So, he settled on the Methodists as his regular Sunday morning commitment, primarily to ensure that his listening audience and potential clients judged him well.

Cristofer’s other reason for choosing the Methodist church was its piano player. His practiced eye for a pleasing figure and a pretty face had noticed Fanny on his first visit. At the end of that service, he asked the man sitting next to him for her name and was surprised to recognize it from the radio station’s program listing. Since taking the position, her monthly recital had not aired, and he had always envisaged the pianist as some frumpish matron. With plans made to meet a woman in a neighboring town, he needed to hustle along if he were to make the most of the afternoon, so he did not approach Fanny that first Sunday.

The following Saturday, however, he made sure he was at the station just before one of her broadcasts. Shaking her outstretched hand, he looked into her deep-set blue eyes and turned on his honed charm. Fanny, I’m Cristofer Tweed, your new boss.

Nice to meet you Mr. Tweed  ...

Call me Cristofer. Can we talk?

But I gotta go and practice before the broadcast. And with that, she spun around and hurried off.

Kind of a cold fish, isn’t she? Cristofer asked his secretary.

I hear she warms up pretty fast, Claire said and slammed the file cabinet drawer closed.

Over several months, Cristofer attempted to chat her up after church and at the station if he were not away from town that Saturday. Try as he did, Fanny was clearly not interested in him. He took her indifference as a personal failing and channeled that into increased intrigue. She was clearly the best-looking woman for miles around–he had already done the research–and, it became his mission to have her. If he could win her over, she would be a fine asset to him in that religiously ingrained community. He also would not have to prowl around neighboring towns for companionship, running the risk of shaming or infuriating someone’s father, brother, son, or husband, except at his choosing. Caught with the wrong woman was never good for business.

A week before Christmas, Cristofer watched Fanny play for the hour’s recital and walked up to her afterwards while she was folding away her sheet music.

Nice show, he said.

Thanks Mr. …

I’ve got to break you of that, he said before she could pronounce his last name. Then he laughed. She laughed too and knelt on the piano bench with one knee.

Thank you Cristofer.

That’s better. I saw you run off to the bathroom during the farm report break. Hope you’re feeling okay.

Must be the stomach flu that’s going around.

He put his hand on her forehead, and she leaned into the pressure.

Might be a little warm.

Warm is good at this time of year.

She laughed again and smiled in a way that told him he was making progress with her.

What soon surprised him was the rapidity of his gains. He had no idea at the time that her latest romantic relationship had just fizzled out, but did not spend any time searching for a reason. He was satisfied enough with his prize. Theirs was a whirlwind romance that suited a man like him–unwilling to sit and wait for anything or anyone–who knew what he wanted. Cristofer was as eager as she was to cement the deal and they married on January the sixteenth. After a short honeymoon in Kansas City, they moved into a large house just up Teller Street from the radio station. Fanny’s mother moved into the new house also.

Late in the morning of September 2, 1927, Fanny was resting in bed when her water broke. Contractions began soon after, placing her in intense labor. Cristofer was away to headquarters in Kansas City for a quarterly meeting that was to last the rest of the week so that left Nana to hurry the few blocks into the center of town to fetch Dr. Beilby.

Sure it wasn’t urine? the doctor asked while they quickly walked back to the house.

I’m sure, but you’re the expert.

Lotta premature ones don’t make it.

I know that, remember?

He nodded his head but continued to walk without answering.

Labor continued for another five hours during which Nana did as she was told by Dr. Beilby and his nurse who had followed a few minutes behind them carrying the doctor’s needed supplies and instruments. At four thirty on an Indian-summer afternoon, Eunice Lucy Tweed entered the world. Much to the doctor’s surprise, she weighed a healthy eight pounds even.

The baby was wrapped in a clean towel Nana had stored away for the moment and rested alongside Fanny when Dr. Beilby motioned for Nana to follow him to the kitchen.

I’m gonna wash up and give my instructions, he told the nurse. Pack up and I’ll see you back at the office.

The nurse nodded and continued looking at him until he was out the door.

In the kitchen, he turned on the tap at the sink and said, Close the door.

She did so as he rinsed away the blood from his bare hands. Nana opened a lower drawer and placed a clean towel on the counter. Then she stepped back and leaned on the door.

Here’s what you do.

She just looked at him.

Tell anyone who wants to visit that the baby isn’t strong enough yet.

She nodded.

That she came early and can’t be exposed to germs if she’s to survive. Got it?

Until?

A month should do. Not sure if this will fool too many women, but … he picked up the towel and dried his hands. I’ve said enough, he said and then turned off the faucet.

Four years and five months after Eunice was born, her brother Thomas arrived. Cristofer was at home for that birth and paraded his new son around town within the first week. Tommy, what everyone called him from the start, demonstrated that he was a precocious boy within the first year, at least to Nana, who was in love with him at first sight and dressed him in clothes of the era–dresses just like those infant girls wore. His father delighted in his fearless personality when he began to walk at only nine months.

With two children and Nana to watch over them, The Tweeds seemed to lead a good life in tough times when viewed from the flower-ringed lawn outside their immaculate, clapboard house that was, as Cristofer often said, proper looking, not shamelessly prosperous.

Fanny understood that she had done well for herself and her mother, that their lives were much better than the bone-breaking existence they had led on the farm. Her musical pursuits served as a diversion, but she felt no pressure to make money as Cristofer’s income was more than enough. She took on the students she wanted, discarded those her did not, and saved plenty of time for other distractions when her husband was away to the radio network’s main office in Kansas City or off to neighboring communities in pursuit of advertising revenue.

The truth of their seemingly lovely life was not nearly so clean cut.

As the years went by, Fanny grew increasingly glad for his absences because their relationship shuttled between periods of rage, utter frustration, and short islands of calm. Eventually, by the time Eunice was in the middle of her teenage years, even the slightest trait of passion had ebbed away, leaving them with the children as their only connection.

Was it any surprise she had fallen into unfaithful trysts? She took to them like an alcoholic to the last drams of gin and suspected that Cristofer did also, although he always had some excuse. Covering his tracks when he came home at late hours, he always told her that he had left his tie or hat somewhere along the day’s travels. He also made occasional quips about her whereabouts that indicated he harbored his own suspicions and that he did not have any interest in proving them.

Destiny dictated that this atmosphere of mutual destruction come to a climax at some point in time and one balmy afternoon it did. The vicious way it unfolded, however, was not what she or probably anyone in the family could have ever imagined, and it changed the family dynamics forever in ways only a few understood.

"Saw