The Quilt and the Cairn
Edna closed her eyes and turned her face toward the midmorning sun. The early summer warmth of the South Dakota prairie was so different from the last time she had been here. “So very different,” she said to herself in a whisper. Her eyes opened and saw bright greens and vivid blue, not the flat browns and gray skies of her memory. The smells of new life and road dust filtered in the small gap of the car window. Such another contrast. She closed her eyes again and could smell the frozen earth and feel the bone aching chill of the north wind of almost eighty years ago. Tears began to well up as she again looked out at the passing landscape.