Confessions from the Quilting Circle by Maisey Yates (ebook reader color screen txt) 📕

our squares. Sometimes here, but we can take everything home, because when we’re finished with the squares we’ll join them all together on the quilt. So, if we can each choose a few fabrics that we like best, we can work them into the pattern that Grandma made. And it looks like we’ll each be making...three squares, and there’s a guide for a big centerpiece, but I can do that.”

“Okay,” Avery said. “That makes sense.”

She stood up from the chair and gave Lark a distinct dirty look as she moved past the crowns, a clear warning that if she were to engage in a guerrilla coronation she would not blithely accept it the way that Mary had. “The parlor curtains,” Avery said, squinting at the page. “Those are pretty.”

In spite of herself, Mary was curious, and she found herself getting up out of her chair and moving closer. The parlor curtains were a rich burgundy velvet brocade. It didn’t surprise her that it appealed to Avery, who liked a traditional looking home, and probably liked the feeling that there was something connected to a family. But a fancy one.

“Those are in this bin,” Lark said, indicating a box of fabric. “If you want to take it home and then go through it, and see what else is there...”

“Sure,” Avery said.

“What’s this one?” Hannah leaned over and tapped a piece of peacock blue fabric that was filled with silver beads. “The party dress.”

Mary noticed that Hannah didn’t seem quite as into this as Avery or Lark, but she could also see a secret fascination shining in her eyes when she looked at that particular fabric.

“I assume it’s a party dress,” Lark said.

“Thanks,” Hannah said, rolling her eyes.

“Well, I don’t have any more information than that.”

“I’ll do that one. It’s pretty.”

“You’ll have to dig until you find it,” Lark said. And Hannah set about busily rifling through the boxes.

Then Lark leveled her gaze at Mary.

“What are you going to pick, Mom?”

“You’re not going to choose first?”

“I can’t decide. There’s so much, and I really like all of it.”

Mary took the book from Lark’s hand and began to turn the pages. She stopped on some cream colored lace that seemed delicate and pale compared to the other fabrics. It simply said wedding dress.

She’d just take that. She didn’t much care and there was no point waffling about it.

“I like this.”

“Was that Gram’s wedding dress?” Lark asked.

Mary shook her head. “No. It couldn’t be. She and Dad didn’t have a real wedding. She wore blue silk for that. They had a picture when I was small. I remember it clearly.” Her dad had kept it, always. It had never made sense to Mary, not when she knew how angry he was with her.

Mary’s father was not a man to speak ill of others, but the icy look in his eye when Addie was mentioned said it all. He’d never remarried. As far as Mary knew, he’d never dated again after his wife had left him. His anger had been like a stone. Silent and heavy and present, whether it was remarked on or not. And after he’d died fourteen years ago, Mary had taken it upon herself to hold at least one corner of her heart in contempt of her mother. Making absolutely certain that full forgiveness was never on offer.

That unspoken tension and resentment lingered in the air between them at birthday parties and holidays. She did more than simply cutting her mother out of her life. She had allowed her in while making her aware that all was still not well. It had felt satisfying when her mother had been there to witness it. And now that she was gone there was something unsatisfying about it. Strangely unfinished.

And it was the oddest thing, because Mary had never meant to resolve things with the woman who had abandoned her when she was four years old.

Because just as she couldn’t go back and remake herself so those insecurities and feelings of failure didn’t exist inside of her, an apology couldn’t undo what had been done. Coming back couldn’t restore what had been destroyed in the first place.

“I’m not sure where any of this fabric came from,” Mary said softly.

“Honestly, with Gram it could have come from anywhere. It could be from different rummage sales. Or people she knew in town...”

“She liked to collect things,” Mary said. “She could make anything sentimental.” It was one of those things that had bothered her about her mother. That she could be so attached to objects, and had left people so easily.

She touched the small square of lace as if it might teach her something. As if she might be able to understand her mother’s connection to such things.

She didn’t. She couldn’t. But she understood that this mattered to her girls. Standing here, in the middle of all this, feeling out of her element completely, for the sake of her daughters.

“I’ll do this one.”

After that, Lark began to talk about quilt construction, and the way that they would work a square. She had one partly finished, and began to explain the steps with the efficiency of a practiced teacher.

“Have you been teaching classes?” Mary asked.

“Here and there,” Lark said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t leave my house. I mean, drawing in your own home and communicating with everybody over email is pretty solitary.”

“I didn’t know that you were teaching.” Mary looked down at the practice square in her lap.

“It didn’t really seem important.”

She had the sense then, when she looked at Lark, of sun slipping behind clouds. Bright and warm, but elusive. But she lived far away for so long, Mary supposed it was only natural for her to forget to include her mother in the details of her life.

It was normal, not a slight.

Mary chastised her nervous fingers as they shook, trying to get the thread through the needle and finding little success. She said nothing, and instead watched her daughters chatter and laugh, looking more and more like