Truth and Bright Water by Thomas King Page A

that have been sewn together, patterns with names like Harvest Star, and Sunshine and Shadow, and Sunburst, my mother has also fastened unexpected things to the quilt, such as the heavy metal washers that run along the outside edges and the clusters of needles that she has worked into the stitching just below the fish hooks and the chickens’ feathers.
    My father told me that my mother started the quilt just after I was born and that it had started off simple enough, but that even before he left us and went to Truth, the quilt had begun to be a problem.
    “In the beginning,” he told me, “everything was pretty much squares and triangles.”
    “What happened?”
    “Who knows.”
    The geometric forms slowly softened and turned into freehand patterns that looked a lot like trees and mountains and people and animals, and before long, my father said you could see Truth in one corner of the quilt and Bright Water in the other with the Shield flowing through the fabrics in tiny diamonds and fancy stitching.
    “It’s one of those obsession things that women get,” my father said. “Like wanting to be beautiful or wanting to have kids.”
    After a while, my father told me, my mother began coming up with a bunch of weird things to sew into the quilt. “Chicken feet,” my father said. “And hair.”
    “The porcupine quills look nice.”
    “I bought her a really nice pair of earrings once, and they wound up on the quilt.”
    I wanted to know the story behind the needles and the fish hooks, but my father said that those came later, that I would have to ask my mother about them. My father figured that the quilt was a way my mother had of dealing with frustration and disappointment. “Finding all that weird stuff and wasting time sewing it on probably helps calm her down,” he said.
    “She’s stuck a lot of new things on since you left.”
    “Did she ever take the razor blades off?”
    “Nope, they’re still there.”
    “Not sure I’d sleep too well knowing that,” said my father. “What about you?”
    “All the dangerous stuff is on top.”
    You could see people on the quilt but you couldn’t tell who they were. My father decided that a tall figure with a yellow and blue face was him and that I was a piece of cloth that looked more like a purple jelly bean than a person. Towards one side, away from everything else, was a piece of rose terry cloth that reminded me of a sleeping child.
    “You know the difference between a bull and a steer, don’t you?” said my father.
    “Sure.”
    “Then I’d stay away from that quilt.”
    My father was probably right, but it looked as if you’d be safe enough as long as you were under the quilt and weren’t moving around on the outside, trying to get in. What I liked best were the needles. When you held the quilt up, they would tinkle like little bells and flash in the light like knives.

Chapter Nine
    T he next morning, when I get up, the shop is quiet, and I figure that my mother has gone over behind Santucci’s to sort through any flowers that Mrs. Santucci has thrown out. This is fine with me because it means that she’s not washing someone’s hair and wasting all the hot water. Even at the best of times, the water is never really hot, and if I don’t get to the shower first thing, all that’s left is luke-warm. Or cold.
    I stand in the tub and let the water run over my head and shoulders, smooth and warm, and as the bathroom turns to steam, I lean against the wall and close my eyes and try to imagine what the woman was doing on the Horns.
    My first theory is that she’s angry about something. Maybe her boyfriend or her husband has left her. Maybe she stuffs his favourite clothes into a suitcase, drives out to the river in a fury, and throws everything into the water. Maybe she’s so angry she jumps in herself. Maybe she loses her balance. In any case, the water calms her down. She swims back to shore, climbs back up to the Horns, gets in her truck, and drives