Days of Love and Blood

back gently and looked at him with wide eyes and a forced smile.
    “But we’re home now baby. No more being on the road, that’s the good thing. So now, we have to start working on our plan, okay?”
    “Okay.” He shook his head for me and then waited for instructions.
    “This is your home now. Go ahead. Look around. I’m going to cover the windows before the sun goes down.”
    “Do the lights work?”
    I reached over and flicked the switch. The light above flickered and then stayed bright, illuminating the room in incandescent, bright light - a sudden change from the pale twilight which had formerly cast the room in dark grays and browns. Ronan sucked in his breath and his dimples puckered at the difference.
    “I was pretty sure we did. The fridge was still on,” I said as I motioned towards the stainless steel monstrosity. I turned the light off and it was as if we were suddenly cast into night time. The bright electric light had tricked our eyes. “But first, I have to cover the windows.” Ronan assented and left to explore the house.
    Ther e were a lot of windows but my mother had a lot of quilts stored away in the attic. Mom had been an avid quilter and never could get rid of the ones she made. They were heavy and would be perfect for the job. It took two hours and just as the sun was completely gone, I had draped the last quilt over a window in the guest bedroom upstairs.
    I put Ronan to bed in my old bedroom which still retained an air of childhood in it. I took the guest bedroom with the twin bed. I would have preferred a double, but I lacked the strength to sleep in my parents’ old bedroom, let alone their bed. The fall from exhaustion into deep slumber took only minutes.

    I pulled Ronan in close to me with my arms and stretched my legs out straight from our spooning position. He had crawled into bed with me during the night and I gratefully accepted him into my arms. I should have slept with him in my old room. Hearing the rhythmic child-sized inhales and exhales and feeling the warmth of a tiny body pressed against me is the most satisfying type of comfort a mother can feel.
    I arched my spine and rolled over onto my back, letting my arms pull my body as they reached out above me. Being in a twin bed felt like sleeping on a California king compared to living in the cramped trailer for two months.
    “Mom?”
    “Hush, baby. You can keep sleeping. Mama’s got something she needs to do.”
    “Okay,” he mumbled as he began to drift back into unconsciousness.
    “Stay inside, baby,” I said as I shook him gently. “I’ll be back soon.” He nodded his head with his eyes closed.
    It was early still. He would be sleeping for a while. After throwing on some old jean shorts and a t-shirt, I stepped into my parents’ room and headed for the cedar chest at the foot of their bed. My mother’s hope chest had all sorts of memorabilia in it. I carefully pulled out the papers, magazines and old photographs, laying each item on the bed until my desired heirloom was uncovered. The white stitching of her wedding quilt was still remarkably vivid. A few of the patches had some yellowing but not one thread of yarn was missing from the middle of each patch. An intricate pattern of white beads had been sewn into the corners of each square and beautiful lacework was added to the quilt edging years later by my mother.
    It was never meant to be used until today.
    I gathered the quilt up in my arms, found some latex gloves in the kitchen and left the house after locking it tightly back up to protect my sleeping babe.
    The family tree was planted by my great-grandmother on my father’s side. My parents were married underneath the giant willow. Oversized white ribbons of satin covered the ropes which held back the weeping boughs, making it look as if the ribbons, themselves, were parting the great tree so that my mother and father could stand beneath it. The old photographs of their wedding seemed magical to me as a child. I remember trying to duplicate the scene when I was young while ruining my mother’s white sheets.
    The tree was in viewing distance from our house, only about a football field’s length away and in the middle of a great field. When the sun would set in the summertime, it would fall down directly behind that lone tree. My mother took one picture of it every year and placed it in album. Her family tree album.
    The tree had already budded to life and its green tendrils blocked my view. As I