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

ached at the distance and felt pride that they were more adventurous than she would ever be.

“So have you chosen your fabric?”

“Not yet,” Lark said. “Nothing is speaking to me.”

“Do you need the fabric to speak to you?” Hannah asked.

“I would like it to.” Lark sighed. “It was my idea to start the project and I want to be in love with what I choose. I’m fast at sewing so once I find it I’ll catch up.”

“I found a...” Hannah sighed, and fussed with the square on her lap. “I found a photo of a woman wearing the dress. I was wondering if it was someone from the Dowell family. The picture isn’t labeled. And the ones of the family all are, so I’m not sure. And I didn’t see this woman in any of the other pictures. But, it was all men and dead animals, so it’s really hard to say.”

Mary frowned. “I don’t know.” She didn’t know in part because her mother hadn’t shared stories about her family. Not personal stories. What she knew, she knew from plaques around town.

More that she’d missed. Not just the keys to connecting with her girls, or mother-daughter wedding dress shopping. The layers of family. Of what made them...them.

“I should’ve brought it,” Hannah said. “I took it to my room. But I didn’t think...”

“I probably wouldn’t recognize her anyway,” Mary said. It made her feel sad. That she couldn’t ask her mother now. That she probably wouldn’t have if she had been here.

She looked down at her unfinished squares. And she wondered what her mother would say about that. She would probably wave her hands and tell her not to take everything so seriously.

That made anger burn in her chest. Because it was exactly what her mother would’ve said. And Mary would have wanted to ask her if she had any idea why Mary took things so seriously. Since clearly her husband had been fine to live with, her sons had been fine to live with, but once she had her daughter, she had no choice but to leave.

So how could a person not take things seriously, when they knew that something they’d done had been part of their mother walking away from them?

She’d done what she could with the girls. She’d been there.

She hadn’t done everything perfectly. Her biggest regret was probably the lack of support they’d given Hannah. But music had seemed like such a farfetched goal and Mary had focused on drilling the concept of hard work into Hannah, had made it so Hannah had to be self-sufficient with it because Mary felt like if that was too much for Hannah she wouldn’t be able to make a career from it anyway. Then she’d worked to pay for lessons, earned herself a scholarship, and when Lark had said she’d wanted to go to school for art...

Well they’d been different parents. Who saw things differently. Because of a trail Hannah had blazed.

Sometimes she wondered if Hannah was angry about that. But Hannah, being Hannah, would never share.

“What time is Avery arriving?” Mary asked.

She would take comfort in her oldest daughter’s presence. Because yes, having children hadn’t actually taken away her pain. But having Avery had gone a certain ways in making her begin to feel complete. And she had done... She had done right by her daughters. And maybe she wouldn’t have chosen all of the same things that they had, but they were all right.

They were all right.

“She’s probably baking a four layer cake for a school fundraiser and sewing costumes from scratch for a school play with nothing but a pack of mice and birds and her own martyrdom for help,” Hannah said.

“Hannah Elizabeth,” Mary said.

She didn’t have to say anything else. Her daughter looked reflexively chastised, and she knew that Hannah hated to be chastised. But she also knew that first name middle name was an undeniable whip to crack, even over her spiky middle child.

“Sorry. But if she walks in with frosting on her face, you owe me an apology.”

Except Avery would never look disheveled. Even if she had been baking right up until she had arrived. That was when the door opened again, and Avery came in. She had her blond hair in a bun, similar to Lark, except it was much neater, and any disarray was artful in its arrangement.

She was wearing her standard uniform of leggings and a flowing top, but there was something about her that didn’t look right. And it wasn’t until she got closer, and came into the sitting room, that Mary saw the large, purple bruise showing up as a ghost of itself beneath layers of foundation, just beneath her daughter’s eye, running the length of her whole cheekbone.

Mary felt pain radiate in her head, down her neck and in her teeth. To her chest. As if she was feeling that bruise. As if the impact it had taken to leave a bruise like that echoed in her own body.

“What happened?” Mary asked.

Avery stopped in her tracks. “What?”

“Your face,” Hannah said.

“Nothing,” Avery said, frowning at Hannah like her sister was crazy.

“You have...a bruise,” Hannah said.

Avery blinked, then squeezed her eyes shut for a second, like she was remembering. “Oh,” she said, touching the affected spot. “My makeup must’ve faded. I... I did something really stupid last night. I tripped and I basically fell down the stairs carrying a laundry basket. And fortunately the basket saved my arms. I was cushioned by a whole bunch of clothes. But I knocked my face against the banister.”

It didn’t matter that her daughter was thirty-eight. That her youngest was thirty-four. Mary could still imagine a freak disaster around every corner, like she’d been able to do when they were children. The dark, careening panic in her chest was an homage to motherhood past.

“Avery,” Mary said. “You have to be more careful. That’s how... I’m so glad you’re all right.”

“Yeah,” she said, slinging her oversize bag down off of her shoulder and setting it