The Goodbye Quilt by Susan Wiggs

together, every stitch in place with hand-smocking across the bodice, the full skirt crisply ironed. She wore white ankle socks and Mary Janes, her hair held back in a blue band, and she looked like a dark-haired version of Alice in Wonderland.
    “I’m not going in.” I can still recall the exact sound of her little-girl voice as she balked at the door to the recital hall. It was an intimidating auditorium, filled with echoes. On the stage, the Stein way crouched like a slumbering black dragon.
    “Okay,” Dan said, immediately agreeable. “Let’s go home.” He had come under duress to begin with and was already chafing in his good shoes and starched shirt. He reached up to adjust the bill of the baseball cap that wasn’t there. “Better yet, let’s go for ice cream.”
    “We can’t leave,” I said, shooting daggers at him with my eyes. “Look, Moll, your name’s already on the program.” I showed her the printed sheet the piano teacher’s son had given us at the door.
    She refused to let go of Dan’s hand. He was herally and suddenly I was the enemy. We stood on either side of her, locked in a silent tug-of-war.
    Not for the first time, it occurs to me that he was always quick to back off while I played the ogre, pushing her into new situations, sometimes against her will. I wonder if I’m doing that now, pushing her across the country to college. Dan, like Travis, would prefer for her to go to the state school.
    Elsewhere on the quilt is a rosette of red stretchy fabric from the swimsuit she wore when I delivered her to her first swim lesson. At the YMCA pool, she had clung to me like a remora. Her howl of panic ricocheted around the pool deck, and her slippery, strong little body strained toward the locker room. Dan had rescued her that day, coming out on deck in his board shorts, looking like a hunk on Baywatch as he snatched her up. I was furious with him, but didn’t want to make even more of a scene, so I bit my tongue. He took her by the hand and led her away from the noisy echo chamber of shrieks, punctuated by coaches’ whistles.
    An hour later, I found them both in the rec pool. “Watch me, Mommy, watch!” Molly yelled, and leaped off the side, disappearing under the surface. She sprang up and swam, struggling like a puppy,straight to her waiting father. “See?” she said, her wide eyes starred by wet lashes, “I don’t need lessons.”
    This is different, I thought at the recital. He can’t save her from the piano. He can only help her run away.
    In the end, the decision was taken from all of us. “There you are,” said Mrs. Dashwood, the piano teacher, bustling forward. “Let’s go backstage and get some lipstick on.” The teacher, who had an MFA and the face of a pageant winner, was idolized by her little-girl students. Mrs. Dashwood was wise, too, under standing the power of the promise of stage makeup to distract a kid from fear. She took Molly by the hand and walked her down the sloping aisle of the auditorium.
    Molly glanced back once, her eyes filled with uncertainty, yet she was unresisting as Mrs. Dashwood led her away. I watched the teacher stop at the edge of the stage to point something out. By the time Molly disappeared behind the curtain, there was a discernible spring of excitement in her step.
    I found myself clutching Dan’s hand. I didn’t even remember grabbing it, but I would never forget what he said. Leaning down to kiss my cheek, he said, “Relax. She’s in good hands.”
    “Hey, if it were up to you, she’d be at the ice-cream parlor.”
    “And guess what—the world wouldn’t come to an end.”
    As the youngest on the program, Molly went first. Mrs. Dashwood welcomed everyone, then introduced her. A smattering of applause and a few adoring “Awws” came from the audience, which consisted of carefully dressed parents, grandparents and the occasional doting aunt or restless sibling.
    Molly walked slowly with a curious dignity, her full skirt tolling