Confessions from the Quilting Circle by Maisey Yates (free ebook reader for iphone TXT) 📗

already assembled the backing, and was ready to begin the design.

She threaded the needle slowly, and lost herself in the simple, rhythmic work. She had never loved sewing machines. She used them for ease, but what she really loved was sewing in the silence like this. It reminded her of sitting next to her grandmother and sisters on the porch at The Miner’s House on warm summer evenings. They would snap green beans, and when they were finished, they would sew. Sometimes quilting like this. Sometimes needlepoint.

And all of it did something to quiet that gnawing sense of never quite accomplishing enough inside of Avery.

Every stitch made its mark. Every stitch added beauty.

She took a strip of the parlor curtains, all velvet burgundy and floral. A series of triangles and stripes would create a classic heritage quilt design. The rich color of the curtains contrasted with the ivory backing beautifully, and she shrank her world down to the needle entering the fabric. To each stitch. As neat and tiny as possible.

And she smiled, imagining Lark working on her square, and Hannah. She wished she were sitting with them now.

Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked them back. She didn’t know why she was being so ridiculous.

She heard the sound of a car door, and she stilled.

Then she looked down at her phone, and saw the time. She had lost herself completely in quilting, and she hadn’t done anything with the hamburger that she’d gotten out. She hurriedly put the quilting square away, and stashed the bin behind the couch where it wasn’t visible, then went into the kitchen.

Her brain was turning on a loop. She didn’t know how she could have lost track of the time. There was really only one thing that David asked her to do for when he was home from work. He was always hungry. She needed to have dinner finished. And it wasn’t like she had a job.

And she had been distracted lately. She had burned dinner just last week, and now she had forgotten it altogether. Which was probably better than burning it, because at least when it was finished it wouldn’t be terrible.

She heard the front door, and then his footsteps heading to the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” she said, before he could say anything, moving to the kitchen doorway. “I had coffee with Alyssa today, and then I came home and lost track of time. I just need maybe forty-five minutes and I’ll have spaghetti.”

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. She recognized the look on his face. But for some reason, she didn’t have time to brace herself.

Pain burst over her cheekbone, and her head hit the door frame, sending off a shower of stars in her head that glittered like broken glass.

And that glitter shifted and turned into images. A young woman in a wedding dress and a young man in a tux. Babies and a new house and stress from work. Being kissed. Being hurt. Shattered bowls. Chipped door frames and dented walls.

A perfect house that was crumbling slowly.

Flowers and fists and those blue eyes she’d loved for more than seventeen years.

11

Sam, the man I met at the diner in Bear Creek, helped me find a small apartment to share with three other girls. It’s so different here. Vibrant and the buildings light up at night and the air is warm, even in late winter. Sam says he can get us jobs on a set. Even if it’s just fetching coffee. The prospect of it is thrilling.

Ava Moore’s diary, September 1923

Hannah

Hannah leaned over the wooden countertop at her sister’s Craft Café and stared at the shot of espresso coming out of the manual machine. Dark brown with a caramel crema over the top. She could have made a pot of coffee back at The Dowell House but she wanted the real deal.

“You can’t rush perfection, Hannah,” Lark said, her tone sage.

“I’m dying.”

“Maybe you should go to sleep earlier instead of staying up all night playing your violin?”

“I wasn’t up all night.”

“Late enough. It reminded me of sharing a room with you.”

“Sorry.” She wasn’t really that sorry.

“No,” Lark said, steaming a pitcher of milk, her concentration focused on the white froth. “I like listening to you.”

Emotion turned in Hannah’s chest like a key. She didn’t particularly like it. But it forced her to look around her sister’s café. At the scarred wooden floors that were still so familiar. The same as when Gram had run the candy store here. The counter, which was different, and the Edison bulbs that hung from the ceiling like pendants. Also different. Her sister’s quirky brand of art mingled with some of the classic paintings that Gram had always had on the walls.

“Do you remember how Gram would set a table in the back and give us paints or crochet hooks or needlepoint samplers?” She didn’t know what had brought that on. But with the memory came a wave of nostalgia.

“Yes,” Lark said. “I do. It was about the only time I felt settled. Calm. Otherwise it was just always like there were a million ants marching underneath my skin, so many feelings I couldn’t get them out. It was when I realized what making things did for me.”

“I used to think it was a distraction. But, it was about the only time I ever sat with you and Avery.” She frowned. There was so much self-isolation involved in the life that she lived. She’d been doing it for so long that it was a habit she wasn’t even aware of.

It was a strange thought on the heels of her realization that maybe she wasn’t as different from her sisters as she thought.

And she could remember, sitting in this space, while they all sat quietly and worked on different things, but next to each other.

The quilt would be like that.

And that made her chest feel slightly bruised, and made her wonder if it was one reason she’d been avoiding it.

Suddenly, she missed Addie. She had