The story opens with a mother waiting for her long-absent daughter. The mother lives with her other daughter, Maggie, a simple and shy girl who bears the burn scars of a house fire several years ago. From the minute the older sister, Dee, arrives, she overpowers both the mother and Maggie. She arrives in a gold and orange dress with a man who may be her husband, insisting that they call her "Wangero" instead of Dee. After a meal "Wangero" eyes a set of old and tattered quilts that have been passed down from and asks her mother for them. The mother has already promised these quilts to Maggie and doesn't want to give them to Dee, who wishes to hang them on her wall. Dee claims that they do not understand their heritage. The mother realizes that this is the opposite of the truth, considering that "Wangero" has cast aside her name, her family's history, her poor family, and the culture of her mother. "In both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's Paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece . . . that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War." The mother thinks about this as she considers what the quilts are made of. Their composition reflects the fact that these quilts were made from everyday things for everyday use, and that to leave them hanging on a wall somewhere would be denying their original purpose. The mother then gives the quilts to Maggie. .