Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund

Byron aloud. In Kentucky, only the Bible was read aloud when we gathered, but Mother had always read me her poetry books from the trunk when Father was away. When bedtime came to the Lighthouse, my mother went to her traveling locker and took out a quilt she had made for a gift. My aunt exclaimed, “Twelve stitches to the inch, Bertha,” and Uncle asked the name of the pattern.
    â€œLog-cabin,” my mother said, “light and shadow.” It was a very beautiful quilt, pieced with strips, like logs of different lengths, instead of blocks, except there was a small square block in the center, and the section as a whole formed a square before the pattern repeated.
    â€œThe red square in the center represents the hearth,” I said, my mother having explained it to me in Kentucky. “Because it is the center of the house.” Actually, the fireplace was in one end of our cabin at home, and not in the center, but I had known that my mother was speaking symbolically.
    â€œThe dark green tones are for the forest all around us,” Mother said. “The brown tones are for the deer and the bear and the trunks of the trees.”
    â€œAnd everything pale is the light, when it can get through.”
    â€œWe will let Una have it on her bed,” my aunt said, “and it will remind her of home.”
    â€œI should very much like Una to keep up her own sewing,” my mother said.
    â€œI’ll make you a quilt,” I promised, and I went to stand beside her,feeling again that it would be hard to let her go home. I thought of my father and his black beard and long black hair. And the whip with a handle of black, braided leather, and its long black lash.
    â€œBertha and I used to run races with our needles,” Aunt Agatha told me.
    â€œFrannie,” her father said, “show your auntie and cousin your seashells now.” I knew that he had seen the shadow of memory darkening my mood; he would defer bedtime till ocean charms occupied my thoughts.
    After Frannie fetched her collection, housed in a basket woven of sea grass, with a woven lid, Uncle took out shells one by one and explained that many had come from far away. As I touched their whorls and knobs and spines and admired their spots and shadings of brown, pink, purple, he described to me what oceans the shells had lived in, and what kinds of people and what languages were spoken in those distant places, and what the people wore and ate. It was the most marvelous telling I had ever heard, and yet I grew sleepy listening. Sometimes Uncle himself was in the stories, for he had been a sailor to the South Seas.
    I was nodding when he said, “The mouth organ is a proper sailor’s instrument because it slips in a pocket. There’s no room to spare on a ship. Would you like to learn to play, Una?”
    I said yes, but then I thought of sliding my mouth in the same place as his, and I did not like the idea.
    â€œWe’ll wash it off with good strong soap,” he said, “and then you can play with it.” I stole a shy glance at him, that he should have known my secret thought, that he should have responded so kindly!
    â€œNow,” Auntie said, “let’s go outside so you can see the light. Close your eyes, Una, and we’ll lead you down to the point, and then you can look back.” I got up, half asleep, and Uncle took one elbow and Aunt the other.
    â€œI’ll tie a scarf over her eyes,” my mother said.
    So they led me out. My feet felt afraid of the unfamiliar slants and textures. I felt the night’s chill on my arms. Ocean waves were splashing against the rocks, and I heard a goat nicker. I listened to our pairs of feet, sometimes on stone, sometimes on grass, and then on crunchy sand.
    â€œNow there’s a large rock behind you, to sit on,” Aunt Agatha said.
    Someone untied the blindfold, and there it was—so high in the night my heart flew into hiding. The light