Chapter 11:

Grammy’s Gift

“In the house of the righteous there is much treasure…”

Proverbs 15:6 (NKJV)

December arrived unusually warm, with temperatures in the upper sixties. Gracie found it hard to think about Christmas shopping when the weather reminded her more of late spring with balmy breezes and blue skies. Even so, she knew it had to be done and forced herself to stick to her self-imposed “to-do” list and got ready to go to Brotherton. Her energy level was good today. She’d strike while the iron was hot and get at least the first shopping trip under her belt.

“I’m gonna help Uncle J.T. clean up his patch’ler pad,” said Dinky on his way out the kitchen door earlier in the morning. He had a mop in one hand and a bucket in the other as Gracie helped him out.

“Go get ’em, tiger,” Gracie said as she kissed him on the head. “Be good and mind Uncle J.T.” He assured her he would.

“See ya later, Mom,” Elizabeth said, carrying a broom in one hand and a pan of slightly warm cinnamon rolls in the other.

“Love you. Behave yourselves.” Gracie helped her daughter out the door. “And don’t fight with your brother.” She knew Elizabeth was still miffed at Dinky over the pumpkin pie fiasco at Thanksgiving. “Even though he is a little stinker,” she added.

“I’ll try. Love you, too. Bye, Mama,” answered Elizabeth obligingly.

Gracie watched her children walk off the old back porch, down the three wooden steps onto a worn brick path leading to the kitchen garden. They continued along the outside edge of its fence onto a gravel walkway that led to J.T.’s door, where he was waiting for them to help him with his annual Christmas spruce-up.

He waved to Gracie.

“Make them mind,” Gracie shouted to her brother as she waved back. J.T. nodded.

The old bunkhouse had been home to many fruit pickers throughout the years during harvest times. J.T. laid claim to it in his late twenties. By then, it had been unused for a decade or more.

It was a one-room, long, narrow wooden structure, roughly 14x60, dotted along its length by a window here and there, a front door, and a back door.

Its furnishings included a sofa, a recliner, an entertainment center (complete with TV, DVD player, and stereo), a twin bed, a chest of drawers, a full-length mirror, and a computer desk and chair. In the middle of the expanse was a small table with two rocking chairs and a cast iron pot-bellied stove accompanied by a matching empty coal bucket. Baseboard heaters were added years ago to replace the inadequate heat source. There was also a small microwave and a dorm-sized refrigerator on a lone cabinet under one of the windows.

There was a bathhouse, too, complete with toilet, sink, and shower, built onto the back, whose only entry was from the outside—a major reason J.T. gave for disliking long, cold winters.

Armed with her checkbook, a cell phone, Elizabeth’s wish list, and Dinky’s letter to Santa, Gracie took advantage of J.T.’s need for once-a-year housecleaning help and headed for Brotherton, where she spent the better part of the morning in a “big box” store. She came home with a pirate ship and a sword that made clinking and clanging sounds for Dinky, along with some white long johns he could wear under his jeans when he went out to play in the snow. She bought a new comforter set for Elizabeth’s bed, plus a few odds and ends and some groceries.

She was glad she’d made arrangements with J.T. to keep the kids until she called for them so she could get some rest and find a place to hide her Christmas “loot” away from their prying eyes. The best place would probably be the large closet in her room upstairs that used to be Grammy’s.

Then she would have to fix something for lunch. She was certain the kids and J.T. would be hungry. After that, she’d check her email. Up until now, Maggie O’Riley had not responded to her request for an appraisal of her tea set. Gracie was growing more and more certain that it was not her mother at all, but she had a hard time getting it off her mind.

She felt a little anxious these days anyway. There was so much to be done before Christmas. The house needed to be cleaned from top to bottom before they could decorate.

Viney always had so much energy. Holleyhock Haven was decorated beautifully for the Christmas season (her house and the floral shop), and she’d even gotten Brotherton Arms’ lobby and conference rooms done.

“I got the Arms finished today. It’s gorgeous. Love for you to see it. I had an observer as I decorated the lobby. A beautiful older lady that lives there. She offered to hold some things for me until Amy came in. She didn’t say much, but later, she brought Amy and me a couple of chai lattes from the coffee shop in the hotel. Sweet! I’d love to be that gracious someday.” LaVinia rattled on in a call a few days after Thanksgiving.

“That’s great, kiddo. I’m glad it went well for you. When I can, I’ll stop in and look at it.” Gracie hated to tell her she couldn’t find a parking place today, but maybe next trip. She’d driven around the block several times and did enjoy seeing all of the outside Christmas decorations—the greenery and bows above the old town clock, the bells hanging from every old-fashioned street lamp, and all the store windows with flocked Christmas trees and lights.

It inspired her to “want to” make peanut butter fudge and listen to Christmas carols. She turned on Grammy’s old radio that she always kept on the kitchen counter near the window and found a station playing a familiar rock’n’roll Christmas song.

It evoked a wonderful memory of Viney and herself “cutting a rug” with Grammy in the living room by the fireplace next to the old record player. Their Christmas tree stood in the opposite corner, decorated with shiny lights and bulbs, green and red paper chains, and red honeycomb bells. They giggled and danced, and each held one of Grammy’s hands while their brothers colored Santa Claus in coloring books on the floor. They had her play the old forty-five record over and over again until their short-round Grammy got tuckered out. Then, Pop came in from town with oranges and Christmas candy. He said he’d seen one of Santa’s elves peekin’ round and that everybody should be real good—including Grammy.

Get up, Gracie! She admonished herself after her sweet daydream, half an hour’s rest, and a cup of tea. The day’s a waistin’. For some reason, she remembered her mother saying that very thing to her with a thick Irish accent when she was a little girl. Gracie smiled at the memory of that, too, as she took the packages up the stairs and into her bedroom.

The closet was exceptionally large and dark. She had been meaning for a while to replace its burned-out light bulb, but she needed a chair or ladder to stand on. Groping in the dark, Gracie pushed her way into the closet past her clothes, stepping on shoes on the floor as she went. This was a good hiding place because the kids would have trouble getting to the end of the closet if they went searching. Not that they would.

She continued to press and elbow her way to the back when suddenly her foot hit something unfamiliar under the lowest shelf. Gracie reached up high and sat her first package on the top shelf to free her hands before kneeling down on the floor to feel what she had stepped on. It was a large plastic box—something she and Viney had evidently missed when they put the last of Grammy’s clothes away.

Gracie pulled it across the closet floor and set it out into the light of the bedroom, where she saw that Grammy had written Gracie on top of the red lid with a black permanent marker.

“Awww.” Grammy had written her name. She had loved her grandmother more than anything else in the world until she had her children. Her brown eyes always twinkled with a light from within. She was cushy, sweet, warm, and a comfort to them all. Her years had been filled with life, love, wisdom, and Jesus, which she’d imparted to her grandchildren.

“What in the world?” Gracie said, astonished at the find. She couldn’t imagine how she had overlooked the box before.

Gracie examined it carefully. There appeared to be a quilting of some kind inside. She anxiously opened it with trembling hands. The box contained a beautiful unfinished quilt top, and laid on it were two stacks of letters and a picture.

Grammy had wrapped each bundle of letters in white notebook paper and tied them with a red ribbon. She had written From Joshua on the larger bundle. The small bundle, which contained only three letters, was marked From Maggie. Gracie gasped and put her hand to her heart.

She’d wondered whatever happened to any correspondence her dad had sent home. Grammy had tucked them away for safekeeping. She hastily read the first letter in Joshua’s stack. Sadly, it was the last letter he wrote home to Maggie. She would read the rest of his letters another time.

A note Grammy pinned to the quilt read:

Maggie’s quilt top she pieced for Gracie in ’69.Quilt squares were cut out of scraps left over from Maggie and Gracie’s Easter dresses that Maggie made in the spring of ’69.

Gracie was astonished, trying to take in the flood of heretofore unknown family history. After thirty-two years, she’d found a treasure that her mother’s hands had made. Now, her fingers gently touched the quilt top, and she slowly lifted the picture of her mother and herself.

Oh, what a sweet face her mother had! She was beautiful! Gracie had forgotten just how beautiful. They looked so happy together. She turned the picture over and read her grandmother’s familiar handwriting again:

Maggie (pregnant with J.T.) and Gracie (age 4) Easter 1969.

She looked at their dresses in the picture and then looked at the quilt top. There, side by side, sewn together for over three decades, were pieces of their dress material—one square of pink and white sear-sucker, another square of green and white floral—alternated throughout the quilt.

It was all too much! Gracie laid the picture down, put her face in her hands, and sobbed uncontrollably. Years of sorrow and hurt seemed to melt away as she felt the love that her mother had pieced together.

“Oh, dear Lord,” she cried, “my mother did love me. Thank You for revealing that to me, Lord. And thank you, Grammy, for this sweet gift.”

Any bitterness or resentment that she ever had towards her mother disappeared in an instant. All she felt towards her now was love, forgiveness, and pity. She wanted so badly to put her arms around Maggie and tell her that she loved her. She wanted to let her know somehow that she held nothing against her. Something drastic must have happened for her to leave the children that she loved; Gracie understood that now.

As she picked up the letters, Gracie was still shocked to realize there had been correspondence from Maggie after her disappearance and wondered why Grammy never told her. She took a deep breath and composed herself, but still afraid of what she might read, she cautiously opened the first envelope marked Grace. The letter inside read:

August 14, 1969

Grace,

I’m going to find Joshua—I think he’s in New York City, but first, I’m stopping at the hospital in Brotherton. I need some help. Please take good care of my babies. Tell them I’ll be back. I promise.

Love,
Maggie

Obviously, Maggie was beyond grief and not thinking clearly. She and Joshua had gotten married in New York City. In the last letter she received from him before he was killed, he said he’d take her back there someday. Poor Mama! Bless her heart! Gracie tenderly folded the letter and put it back in its envelope.

The next letter frightened her. It was postmarked July 1970, almost one year after Maggie had left. The return address was stamped Brotherton. After all these years of not knowing anything about her mother, now she was about to know. Her hands were shaking as she opened the second envelope and read the large childlike print that looked eerily like the handwriting inside the Regal Brookshire lid:

GRACE,

THE KIDS ARE YOURS. THEY DESERVE BETTER THAN ME.

MAGGIE

Gracie was convinced now that Maggie had a nervous breakdown after the death of her husband. She had loved her children in spite of what others had said. It was something beyond her control. She hadn’t run away with a strange man, but she was trying to run to where she thought Joshua was. Grammy and Pop had known, too. That’s why they never talked bad about Maggie but never tried to find her either.

The return address on the third envelope read Timeless Treasures, Dublin, Ireland, and was dated February 1975. That’s how Grammy knew! And all the letter said was:

BACK IN IRELAND LOOKING FOR MAGGIE SUE O’RILEY.

After this new revelation of Maggie, Gracie was more anxious than ever to get a reply to her email. Wiping her eyes, she put her discoveries back in the box, closed the lid, and hurried to the kitchen to turn on her laptop.

Click. Click.

You have 1 new message. Subject: tea set.

Mrs. LeMaster,

Could you please send me a picture of your tea set and the markings on the bottom so I may better assess it for you?

Maggie O

Gracie felt her heart beat faster. “Oh, Lord, please let this be my mother and help me to handle this the right way.”

She positioned the upturned box lid partially behind the tea set on the kitchen table so that only the Mag in Maggie’s name was visible in the first picture. If this was her mother, she would get the message. Hurriedly, she took the pictures that the mysterious Maggie O had requested and downloaded them into her computer, then attached copies to her email reply that read:

Attached you will find the pictures you have requested.

Gracie LeMaster

She was being bold, giving Maggie O her first name. Then, she also included her cell phone number, said another prayer, and hit the send button.

Now, she thought she could muster up the energy she needed to get ready for Christmas.

She had a feeling her mother was coming home.

Thank You, Lord! Thank You, Lord!