“We’ve got something to tell you. We knew that Lucy was dying, but it wasn’t the first time we intervened and made her go to the doctor. That quilt up there on the wall was the last one that we all worked on together. After that, she had trouble concentrating on sewing anymore. We helped her get the ugly one that she made with remnants of all you kids’ clothes in the frame just weeks before she passed. She had a bubble in her brain, and the doctor said that when it burst, that would be the end,” Stella said.

“We begged her to tell Matthew and Isaac, or even you kids, but she refused.” Vivien’s chin quivered, but she didn’t break down. “We think it was because she didn’t want to have the surgery, and the boys would have tried to force the issue. With it she would have had a fifty-fifty chance to survive, but she wouldn’t do it.”

“What kind of surgery?” Nessa asked.

“She had an aneurism in her brain,” Stella answered. “The doctor said there would be risks if she had surgery. Like she might lose her motor skills and have to go to a nursing home or live with her sons.”

“Did it hurt?” Nessa pulled two tissues from the box and blew her nose.

Vivien and Stella both shook their heads.

“No pain, but there at the end, she kept telling us that she wanted to go before Christmas Day. You kids usually found a way to come home sometime during the holidays, and she was afraid you might suspect something was wrong,” Stella answered.

“She just got absentminded. We didn’t know if that thing on her brain was pushing on something that made her forget things, or if maybe it was worry, or if the depression she’d fought for years was the cause,” Vivien chimed in.

“I’m so sorry, honey.” Stella sighed and headed for the door with Vivien right behind her. “We hate to leave you after telling you all that, but I’m glad you know. We’d best get on our way.”

“Thank you,” Nessa said, and then she remembered that she’d made cookies and had planned on offering them to the ladies while they examined the quilt. “Let me give you some coffee in a to-go cup and some cookies to snack on as you travel.”

“That would be great,” Vivien said.

Nessa hurriedly filled two disposable cups with coffee and put a dozen cookies in a paper sack for the ladies. They each gave her a hug and told her again what a great idea it was to hang the quilt the three of them had finished. She followed them out to the porch and waved until they were out of sight.