The Giving Quilt (24 page)

Noah, who appreciated a challenge and saw himself in many of the young people slouched behind the battered, graffiti-strewn biology lab tables, gravitated to the students who fell on the lower end of the academic spectrum. He set high standards for students who had been dismissed as incorrigible by other teachers and kindled school pride in even the most apathetic by encouraging them to go out for track and field. He had a rare ability to find the smallest spark of talent within even the least-athletic children and matching them to a distance or an event in which they could excel. In addition to coaching, he directed the annual science fair, organized field trips to science museums, and helped place his most promising students into summer enrichment programs where they could meet actual scientists, work in labs or in the field, and discover career options they had not known existed. Twice he was named Michigan Teacher of the Year, and he was well-known even beyond their school district as a demanding but beloved educator who changed lives.

Jocelyn was enormously proud of him. He was the sort of teacher she aspired to be, patient and tireless and smart, refusing to give up on even the most unmotivated, belligerent, exasperating students. He couldn't save them all, although she loved him for trying. Some kids dropped out and disappeared; some got into trouble so serious it was beyond the power of the schools to help them. But some discovered dormant academic interests that flourished with Noah's mentoring, and some enrolled in college against all odds. Others learned what it meant to be a part of a team, to work with others toward a common goal, to see that sometimes a group was stronger and more powerful than the sum of its parts. Years after they graduated, former students returned to tell him all that they had achieved and to thank him for setting them upon the right path and insisting they go forward.

Jocelyn had success stories of her own too, but she was no Noah. She lacked his charisma, his relentless optimism. There were days she wanted to give up, days she wanted to throw up her hands in despair and kick troublesome students out of her classroom so they could be someone else's problem. But Noah inspired her just as he inspired the kids, and so even in her lowest moments, she knew, deep down, that she would not quit, and that even when she felt exhausted and frustrated and was sure she had given all she could, she could still find deep within herself untapped wells of strength and ingenuity.

Noah was her rock and her second wind, and as the years went by, he proved to be as wonderful a father as he was a teacher. Every night before she went to sleep, and every Sunday at church, she thanked God for her husband. He and their beautiful daughters were proof, if ever she needed it, that God was good and loving and merciful.

They lived in the same district where they taught, and Jocelyn and Noah were perhaps more excited than their eldest daughter, Anisa, when she started sixth grade at Westfield Middle School. Naturally Noah encouraged Anisa to go out for cross-country in the fall and track in the spring, and if she rolled her eyes as they pulled into the faculty parking lot in their Ford every morning and hurried ahead of them on the sidewalk so she didn't have to enter the school flanked by her parents, she seemed glad to have two capable tutors at home and two protective advocates watching her back as she learned to navigate the complex social hierarchy of her new school. Her sister, Rahma, two years younger, thought Anisa didn't appreciate her good fortune. Rahma couldn't wait to drive to WMS with the rest of the family and have her parents as her teachers and her dad as her coach. Anisa thought that Rahma was too young to understand how embarrassing parents could be in public, even when they were otherwise very good parents.

When Anisa was in seventh grade and Rahma in fifth, Noah and the assistant coaches took a group of eighth-grade runners on an overnight trip to Ann Arbor to participate in the Blue and Gold Invitational track and field championships on the University of Michigan campus. Anisa, an exceptionally swift half miler, had wanted to participate, but the competition was open only to students aged fourteen to eighteen. “Next year, baby,” Noah promised Anisa when they dropped him off at school. He swept the girls up a hug, gave Jocelyn a quick kiss, slung his duffel bag over his shoulder, and grinned and waved as he climbed aboard the orange school bus with the rest of the coaches and athletes.

He called home later that evening to report that his runners had made him proud in the first day of competition, putting forth their best efforts and demonstrating good sportsmanship both in victory and defeat. Several runners had performed well enough in the preliminaries to make it to the next day's finals, two had set personal-best times, and based upon what he had seen, the relay teams stood a good chance to place in several events. Jocelyn congratulated him and passed the phone on to the girls so Noah could wish them good night. She missed him, but he sounded so proud and happy that she was glad he had made the trip.

The next day they expected him home in time for supper, but at four o'clock, he called to explain that the meet was running late and they hadn't left Ann Arbor yet. “Go ahead and have dinner without me,” he said.

“Of course we will,” Jocelyn teased him. “Dinner will be ready in an hour. We're not going to go hungry just because you lost track of time.”

“Don't blame me,” he protested, laughing along. “I'm not running this show.”

If he had been, everything would have been on time to the minute. “When do you think you'll head home?”

“It's hard to say. They're just about to start the three hundred hurdles and we have three more events after that.” He sighed, mildly exasperated. “It's a good thing they have lights in this stadium. I think it'll be dark before we get to the sixteen hundred relay.”

“Oh, baby, really? At that rate you won't get back to school until close to ten.”

“I know. I don't like it either. Don't worry about picking me up. I'll get a ride home with one of the other coaches.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. It'll be way past the girls' bedtime and they need their sleep. When are you planning to set out tomorrow morning?”

“Seven o'clock sharp.” Jocelyn had been looking forward to the Traditional Arts and Crafts program at Greenfield Village in Dearborn for months. The weekend seminar was designed to give secondary teachers an opportunity to observe artisans such as glassblowers, blacksmiths, and weavers creating authentic period crafts using techniques of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Jocelyn was especially looking forward to the quilting workshop on Saturday afternoon. Her grandmothers had quilted but her mother had not, so Jocelyn had never been taught how, and she was eager to learn. Unlike glassblowing and making horseshoes, quilting was a traditional craft she could easily work into her American history curriculum. For several years in a row she had applied to the school district for a grant to pay for her tuition, room, and board, and at last they had come through with sufficient funding. Her suitcase had been packed for days, the gas tank filled, the road maps neatly arranged on the front passenger seat.

“Seven o'clock, huh?” said Noah. “Then you should be sure to get to bed on time too.”

“Don't be silly. I'll wait up for you.”

“You really don't have to.”

“I know I don't have to, but I want to. It's all right. I have papers to grade.” She missed him and wanted to greet him at the door the moment he arrived, but he knew that, and she didn't need to say it.

“I wish I were there to make you a cup of tea.”

She smiled. “Me too.” It was their usual evening routine. After they put the girls to bed, Noah would fix them each a cup of tea—or glasses of iced tea in summertime—and she would make them a little snack, cookies on a plate or slices of banana bread. They would push their books and ungraded tests aside, sit on the sofa under the same quilt, and talk about their day. They didn't have the budget, babysitters, or time to go out at night much anymore, but those quiet moments together at the close of the day meant more to Jocelyn than dinner at a fancy restaurant or dancing at a club.

She felt compelled, suddenly, to tell him so, but before she could, he said he had to go. The runners were lining up for the start of the next race and he didn't want to miss it. “See you soon, baby,” he said, and hung up.

She and the girls had dinner and cleaned up the kitchen. The girls did their homework, practiced piano, and played outside in the yard while she folded laundry and made a few phone calls to parents whose children had not turned in assignments or had missed so many classes they were in danger of receiving failing grades for the quarter. The sun was still rosy pink in the west when she sent the girls upstairs to bed, but it had set by the time she tucked them in.

Downstairs alone in the quiet house, she made herself a cup of tea and curled up on the living room sofa with a quilt, a stack of student essays, and a red pen. Every so often she glanced out the front window or at the clock, wishing that she had asked Noah to phone her when the bus left Ann Arbor so she would know when to expect him. She hoped his silence meant that it had not occurred to him to call and not that the meet still hadn't finished.

She must have drifted off to sleep, because she woke to the sound of the teakettle whistling. Groggy, she sat up, scattering essays about the Continental Congress on the hardwood floor. “Noah?” she murmured. Blinking and stumbling, she made her way to the kitchen and flipped on the light switch, only to find the kitchen silent and empty, the kettle on the back burner, the stovetop cold.

Yawning, she studied the kettle for as long as it took her to come fully awake, and then, just to be sure, she touched the handle. It was cold; she must have been dreaming. She glanced at the clock—it was a few minutes after nine, and Noah was surely on his way home by now.

She returned to the living room, gathered the scattered essays, and settled back down upon the sofa, snuggling up in the tattered Michigan Beauty quilt her grandmother had made years before. Every time headlights shone through the picture window, she glanced up from her work and waited to see if the car would pull into their driveway, but they always continued down the block. By ten thirty, she had finished the last of the essays, recorded the grades on the family computer, and packed the papers into her satchel. She called Noah's cell phone, but when he didn't pick up, she left a message asking him to call her back.

He must have fallen asleep on the bus or his phone charge had run out, she told herself, although it wasn't like him to neglect simple things that would keep her from worrying. She was just turning away from the window to go upstairs and put on her pajamas when a police car, lights flashing blue and red but siren silent, pulled into the driveway.

Her heart thumped. She waited for the officer to realize he had the wrong address, for the car to back out of the driveway and pull onto the street.

The flashing lights went dark. The front doors on either side opened and two shadowed figures emerged.

Her heart pounded in her chest but she could not move. They had the wrong address and they were coming to ask for directions, she told herself silently. That was all they wanted.

The men came up the front walk, and stood on the porch, and rang the doorbell.

She did not answer.

One of the men knocked on the door. The other glanced through the front window and his eyes held hers. She held her breath and waited for him to go away, but he had seen her, and even as she stood there praying for them to recognize their mistake and leave, he spoke to his partner and they both looked at her, waiting for her to let them in and say whatever they had come to say.

She forced herself to go to the door and let them in.

They did not tell her Noah had died instantly and had not felt any pain, perhaps because they knew she would eventually discover they had lied.

The track meet had ended at twilight. The parking lot had been jammed with school buses and cars, drivers and passengers alike weary and eager to get home. Noah was standing outside the school bus door checking off the names of his athletes as they boarded when he suddenly remembered a duffel bag of equipment he had left in the bleachers. He handed his clipboard to an assistant coach, told the driver he would be right back, and jogged around the front of the bus on his way back to the track—directly into the path of a car driven by a seventeen-year-old boy who had taken second in the eight hundred meter earlier that day.

More than a dozen witnesses called 911, and coaches and parents rushed to his aid, but the ambulance had difficulty getting to him because of the throng of vehicles trying to leave the lot. Although they did all they could for him and the surgeons at the U of M hospital fought valiantly for his life, he had suffered massive internal injuries. Ultimately there was nothing they could do.

Noah had died at 9:03
P.M
., while his daughters slept peacefully in their beds, while his wife dozed on the sofa with a student paper in her hands and a cup of tea cooling on the table beside her, while his horrified students waited for news in the darkened bus in the lot in front of the stadium.

“Is there anyone you would like us to call?” the older of the two officers asked Jocelyn gently. She shook her head. “Are you sure? A neighbor, a pastor?”

“No, thank you.” Her voice sounded very faraway, very still. “It's late. You'd wake them.”

The officers exchanged a look. “Ma'am, I don't think they'd mind,” the younger officer said.

She should probably call someone. She was probably in shock and should not be left alone. Oh, Lord in heaven, she was going to have to call Noah's parents. How could she tell them?

How would she tell the girls?

She pressed a hand to her mouth to muffle a scream. The room grew blurry around the edges and a roaring filled her ears. The doorbell rang; a moment later the wife of one of the assistant coaches was sitting beside her, taking her in her arms, telling her in a choked voice that she was sorry, so terribly sorry. They all were. They were all so shocked and sorry and devastated.