Confessions from the Quilting Circle, Maisey Yates [animal farm read TXT] 📗

kids’ school, to represent her when the divorce proceedings started. And she was overall feeling pretty positive.

There was one other person—a woman named Suzette, who had a nose ring and purple in her hair—but she was running back and forth doing inventory while Avery managed the store. Suzette was Avery’s age, which had shocked her at first.

She liked Suzette. She’d had a couple of shifts with her, and she was funny and talked about the deathly dating situation locally with gothic tones.

Suzette didn’t know anything about Avery’s life. And Avery found that freeing. They talked about general things, not specific things.

Politics—Suzette’s tended to be on the fringe, any fringe, she didn’t seem to care which—essential oils, gel nails and the great lettuce heist of ’09, when one of the restaurants in town had set up a camera to discover who was stealing their lettuce shipment, and discovered it was the smaller restaurant next door.

Mostly, she was just happy to have someone to talk to like that. Someone who felt like a friend. Someone who didn’t feel sorry for her, or treat her like she was a tragic disappointment, or a potentially contagious pariah.

They were in the middle of discussing the parking space scam one of the older men on the city council was constantly running—talking new business owners into buying parking spaces from him that he didn’t own—when one of the most striking men Avery had ever seen walked into the store.

He was tall and broad with golden brown skin and black hair, eyes that were so dark they almost looked nearly black, but were in fact a very deep brown.

“I’m Nathaniel Oak,” he said. “I have an account here. I just came to collect my check.”

“Oh,” she said, blinking. “Oh. You’re one of the...the artists.”

“I suppose so,” he returned. “I make the antler handle knives.”

“Those are very popular,” she said. “Which... I guess you know. But, I’m learning. I’m new. I’m... Avery.”

He smiled, slow and laconic. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

It was weird, talking to an attractive man without a ring on her finger. Without any obligations at all. And that... Well, that was interesting. No, she really didn’t want to be in a relationship, and the sight of a handsome man wasn’t going to make her forget that. But she was suddenly giddy with freedom and she couldn’t quite do anything to tell her body to settle down. She dug through the files, and pulled out an envelope with his name on it. And when she handed it to him, his rough fingers brushed hers.

She felt an arc of heat, and she really didn’t know if it was just because he was attractive—which he was—or if it had something to do with suddenly realizing what it really meant to not be tethered to David anymore.

That there was another life, and other men, and an endless possibility for happiness in all the forms that it could take, because she had chosen to walk through that door and out of perfect, into a field of endless wildflowers. And she could pick any one of them. She could be single, and go out with friends, and go back to school, figure out what she wanted to do for a job. She could date someone. She could date a lot of someones. She could marry someone else. But she didn’t have to. She could be as blissfully happy as she wanted to be. She could be whatever she wanted to be. And that... That was what was going to make her a better mother. A better sister, a better daughter. The very best Avery that she could be.

And somehow, it had all hit her in the brush of those fingertips against hers.

“I hope I’ll see you in here again,” he said.

“You will,” she said. “You definitely will.”

He turned and walked out, and she felt Suzette watching her. She turned and saw the woman leaning against the doorway.

“You said there were no men,” Avery commented.

“No. I said the dating situation was tragic. I don’t date men.”

“Right,” Avery said. “Well.”

“Even so, I think he’s kind of a rare find.”

“Well I’m not in a space where I want to find someone.”

Suzette shrugged. “Well, who knows?”

Who knows.

And suddenly, unknown didn’t seem like such a bad thing. Unknown seemed like a gift. “I guess we will.”

31

I wonder how long you can keep sorrow inside you, how long you can pretend things are well, when each breath makes it feel like you’re crumbling. Things should be better now. But I am not healed.

Dot’s diary, 1958

Mary

They’d gone out to dinner to celebrate Avery’s first day at work. Hannah had claimed a headache early and had gone back to The Dowell House, while Joe was headed back to work on signs and Avery and the kids went to do homework.

That left Mary and Lark standing there in front of the Craft Café. “Do you want to walk down to The Miner’s House?”

“Sure,” Mary said, delighted to get to spend a few minutes alone with her daughter. There had been a time when her youngest had been her constant companion. Avery had gotten a couple years to herself, Hannah never had, and then Lark had again when her sisters were both in school. She wondered if that was what had carved the very different relationship between them. Or if it was just how she was.

Lark, her open, sunny girl who had taken her light elsewhere.

And now she just didn’t know. They walked into the small building, engulfed by warmth.

“You probably shouldn’t keep the heater so high when you’re not here,” she said, as they walked in.

“It’s just the heat from the day,” Lark responded, giving her mother a look. “I never turn the air-conditioning on. I just opened the windows. It was so pretty.”

“Sorry,” Mary said. “It’s a habit. We all do treat you like the baby, don’t we?”

Lark lifted a shoulder. “I act like it sometimes. But, I also live on my own, away from all of you most