The Oysterville Sewing Circle

by Susan Wiggs

  Dedication

  For the survivors

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part Two Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part Three Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part Four Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part Five Chapter 21

  Part Six Chapter 22

  Part Seven Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Susan Wiggs

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  In the darkest hour before the breaking dawn, Caroline Shelby rolled into Oysterville, a town perched at the farthest corner of Washington State. The tiny hamlet hung at the very tip of a narrow peninsula, crooked like a beckoning finger between the placid bay and the raging Pacific.

  She was home.

  Home to a place she’d left behind forever. To a place that held her heart and memories, but not her future—or so she’d thought, until this moment. The chaotic, unplanned journey that had brought her here had frayed her nerves and blurred her vision, and she nearly missed seeing a vague shadow stir at the side of the road, then dart in front of her.

  She swerved just in time to miss the scuttling possum, hoping the lurching motion of the car wouldn’t wake the kids. A glance in the rearview mirror reassured her that they slept on. Keep dreaming, she silently told them. Just a little while longer.

  Familiar sights sprang up along the watery-edged roadway as she passed through the peninsula’s largest town of Long Beach. Unlike its better-known namesake in California, Washington’s Long Beach had a boardwalk, carnival rides, a freak show museum, and a collection of oddities like the world’s largest frying pan and a carved razor clam the size of a surfboard.

  Beyond the main drag lay a scattering of small settlements and church camps, leading toward Oysterville, a town forgotten by time. The settlement at the end of the earth.

  She and her friends used to call it that, only half joking. This was the last place she thought she’d end up.

  And the last person she expected to see was the first guy she’d ever loved.

  Will Jensen. Willem Karl Jensen.

  At first she thought he was an apparition, bathed in the misty glow of the sodium-vapor lights that illuminated the intersection of the coast road and the town center. No one was supposed to be out at this hour, were they? No one but sneaky otters slithering around the oystering fleet, or families of raccoons and possum feasting from upended trash cans.

  Yet there he was in all his six-foot-two, sweaty glory, with Jensen spelled out in reflective block letters across his broad shoulders. He was jogging along at the head of a gaggle of teenage boys in Peninsula Mariners jerseys and loose running shorts. She drove slowly past the peloton of runners, veering into the oncoming lane to give them a wide berth.

  Will Jensen.

  He wouldn’t recognize the car, of course, but he might wonder at the New York license plates. In a town this small and this far from the East Coast, locals tended to notice things like that. In general, people from New York didn’t come here. She’d been gone so long, she felt like a fish out of water.

  How ironic that after ten years of silence, they would both wind up here again, where it had all started—and ended.

  The town’s only stoplight turned red, and as she stopped, an angry roar erupted from the back seat. The sound jerked her away from her meandering thoughts. Flick and Addie had endured the tense cross-country drive with aplomb, probably born of shock, confusion, and grief. Now, as they reached the end, the children’s patience had run out.

  “Hungry,” Flick wailed, having been stirred awake by the change in speed.

  I should have run that damn light, Caroline thought. No one but the early-morning joggers would have seen. She steeled herself against a fresh onslaught of worry, then reminded herself that she and the children were safe. Safe.

  “I have to pee,” Addie said. “Now.”

  Caroline gritted her teeth. In the rearview mirror, she saw Will and his team coming toward her. Ahead on the right was the Bait & Switch Fuel Stop, its neon sign flickering weakly against the bruised-looking sky. open 24 hrs, same as it had always been, back in the days when she and her friends would come here for penny candy and kite string. Mr. Espy, the owner of the shop, used to claim he was part vampire, manning the register every night for decades.

  She turned into the lot and parked in front of the shop. A bound stack of morning papers lay on the mat in front of the door. “I’ll get you something here,” she said to Flick. “And you can use the restroom,” she told Addie.

  “Too late,” came the reply in a small, chastened voice. “I peed.” Then she burst into tears.

  “Gross,” Flick burst out. “I can smell it.” And then he, too, started to cry.

  Pressing her lips together to hold in her exasperation, Caroline unbuckled the now-howling Addie from her booster seat. “We’ll get you cleaned up, sweetie,” she said, then went around to the back of the dilapidated station wagon and fished a clean pair of undies and some leggings from a bag.

  “I want Mama,” Addie sobbed.

  “Mama’s not here,” Flick stated. “Mama’s dead.”

  Addie’s cries kicked into high gear.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” Caroline said, knowing the soothing, overused phrase could never penetrate the five-year-old’s uncomprehending grief. With a scowl at Flick, she said, “That’s not helpful.” Then she took the little girl’s grubby hand. “Let’s go.”

  A small bell chimed as she opened the door. She turned in time to see Flick heading the opposite way at a blind, angry run toward the road. “Flick,” she called. “Get back here.”

  “I want Mama,” Addie sobbed again.

  Caroline let go of her hand. “Wait right here and don’t move. I need to get your brother.”

  He was quicker than any six-year-old should be, darting through the half dark across the damp asphalt parking lot. Within seconds, he was shrouded in mist as he headed toward the cranberry bog behind the store. “Flick, get back here,” Caroline yelled, breaking into a run. “I swear . . .”

  “Whoa there,” came a deep voice. A large shadow moved into view, blocking the little boy’s path.

  Caroline rushed over, engulfed in a sweet flood of relief. “Thank you,” she said, grabbing for Flick’s hand.

  The kid wrenched his fingers from her grip. “Lemme go!”

  “Flick—”

  Will Jensen hunkered down, blocking his path. He positioned his large frame close in front of the boy and looked him in the eye. “Your name’s Flick?”

  The boy stood still, his chest heaving with heavy breaths. He glowered at Will, giving the stranger a suspicious side-eye.

  “I’m Coach Jensen,” Will said, showing a sort of practiced ease with the kid. “You’re a fast runner, Flick,” he said. “Maybe you’ll join my team one day. I coach football and cross-count
ry. We train every morning.”

  Flick gave the briefest of nods. “Okay,” he said.

  “Cool, keep us in mind. The team can always use a fast runner.”

  Caroline forgot how to speak as she stared at Will. There had been a time when she’d known the precise set of his shoulders, the shape of his hands, the timbre of his voice.

  Will straightened up. She sensed the moment he recognized her. His entire body stiffened, and the friendly expression on his face shifted to astonishment. Nordic blue eyes narrowed as he said, “Hey, stranger. You’re back.”

  Hey, stranger.

  This was the way she used to greet him at the start of every summer of their youth. She had grown up on the peninsula, with salt water running through her veins and sand dusting her feet like a cinnamon doughnut from her parents’ beachside restaurant. Will Jensen had been one of the summer visitors from the city, polished and privileged, who came to the shore each June.

  You’re back.

  Now the decades-old greeting wasn’t accompanied by the grins of anticipatory delight they’d shared each year as they met again. When they were kids, they used to imagine the adventures that awaited them—racing along the endless beaches with their kites, digging for razor clams while the surf eddied around their sun-browned bare feet, feeling the shy prodding of youthful attraction, watching for the mythic green flash as the sun went down over the ocean, telling stories around a beach fire made of driftwood bones.

  Now she merely said, “Yep. I am.” Then she took Flick’s hand and turned toward the Bait & Switch. “Come on, let’s go find your sister.”

  The entrance to the shop, where she’d left the little girl, was deserted.

  Addie was missing.

  “Where’d she go?” Caroline demanded, looking from side to side, then lengthening her strides as she towed Flick along with her. “Addie?” she called, ducking into the shop. A quick scan of the aisles yielded nothing. No movement was reflected in the convex security mirrors. “Have you seen a little girl?” she asked the sleepy-looking clerk at the counter. Not Mr. Espy, but an overweight youth with a game going on his phone. “She’s five years old, mixed race, like her brother.” She indicated Flick.

  “Is Addie lost?” Flick asked, his gaze darting around the aisles and display racks.

  The clerk shrugged his shoulders and palmed his hair out of his face. “Didn’t see nobody.”

  “I left her right here by the door, like thirty seconds ago.” Caroline’s heart iced with fear. “Addie,” she called. “Adeline Maria, where are you? Help me look,” she said to the kid. “She can’t have gone far.”

  Will, who had followed her into the shop, turned to his team of sweaty athletes. “Go look for her,” he ordered. “Little girl named Addie. She was here just a minute ago. Come on, look lively.”

  The boys—there were about a half dozen of them—fanned out across the parking lot, calling her name.

  Caroline found the clean leggings and undies in a small heap by the door. “She needed the restroom. I told her to wait. I was only gone a minute.” Her voice wavered with terror. “Oh, God—”

  “We’ll find her. You check inside the store,” Will said.

  She grabbed the clothes and stuffed them in her jacket pocket. “Stay with me, Flick,” she ordered. “Do not let go of my hand, you hear me?”

  His sweet round face was stony, his eyes shadowed by fear. “Addie’s lost,” he said. “I didn’t mean for her to get lost.”

  “She was here a minute ago,” Caroline said. “Addie! Where’d you go, sweetheart?” They went up and down the aisles, looking high and low among the stocked shelves. The store seemed no different from decades ago. They passed bins of candy and bags of marshmallows for s’mores. There were fishing supplies in abundance and a noisy chest freezer filled with bait and ice cream treats. Boxes of soup mix and Willapa Bay oyster breading and fish fry. A sign designating goods from local vendors—kettle corn, bread, eggs from Seaside Farm, milk from Smith’s Dairy. Caroline’s mother used to send her or one of her siblings to the Bait & Switch for supplies—bread, peanut butter, toilet paper, cupcake tins . . . With five kids in the house, they were always running out of something.

  She made her way methodically along each aisle. She checked the restroom—twice. The indolent clerk pitched in, poking around the supply room in the back, to no avail.

  Good God. Good fucking God, she’d only been in charge of these kids for a week and she’d already lost one of them. They had come from the urban pile of Hell’s Kitchen back in New York City, yet here in what had to be the smallest town in America, Addie had gone missing.

  Caroline unzipped her pocket and fumbled for her phone. No signal. No goddamn signal.

  “I need your phone,” she said, grabbing the clerk’s from the counter. “I’m calling 911.”

  The guy shrugged. At the same time, Will stuck his head in the door. “Found her.”

  Caroline’s legs nearly gave out. She set down the phone. “Where is she? Is she all right?”

  He nodded and crooked his finger. Feeling weak with relief, she grabbed Flick and followed Will outside to Angelique’s car—her car now, Caroline supposed.

  She leaned down and peered into the window. There, curled up on the back seat, was Addie, sound asleep, clutching her favorite toy, a Wonder Woman doll with long black hair. Caroline took a deep breath. “Oh, thank God. Addie.”

  “One of the guys spotted her,” Will said.

  Flick climbed in through the opposite door, his face stolid with contrition.

  Caroline collapsed momentarily against the car, trying to remember how to breathe normally. The panicked departure, the jumbled, seemingly endless days of the drive, her terrible fears and confusion, the careening sense that her life was reeling out of control, rolled over her in a giant wave of exhaustion.

  “You all right now?” asked Will.

  Another echo sounded in Caroline’s head. He’d asked her that question ten years before, the night everything had fallen apart. You all right?

  No, she thought. Not even close to all right. Had she done the right thing, coming here? She nodded. “Thanks for helping. Tell your guys thanks, too.”

  “I will.”

  After so many years, he didn’t look so very different. Just . . . more solid, maybe. Grounded by life. Big and athletic, a square-jawed all-American, he had kind eyes and a ready smile. The smile was fleeting now.

  “I guess . . . you’re headed to your folks’ place?”

  “They’re expecting me.” She felt a sense of dread, anticipating a barrage of welcome. Yet it was nothing compared to the situation she’d fled.

  “That’s good.” He cleared his throat, his gaze moving over her, the crappy car stuffed with hastily packed belongings, the little kids in the back seat. Then he studied her face with a probing gaze. His eyes were filled with questions she was too exhausted to answer.

  She remembered the way he used to know her every thought, could read her every mood. That was all so long ago, in an era that belonged to different people in a different life. He was a stranger now. A stranger she had never forgotten.

  He went around to the rear of the car, where she’d left the hatchback wide open. His gaze flicked over the crammed interior—hastily stuffed luggage and gear, her prized single-needle sewing machine broken down in pieces to fit, her serger, boxes of belongings. He shut the door and turned to her.

  “So you’re back,” he stated.

  “I’m back.”

  He looked in the car window. “The kids . . . ?”

  Not now, she thought. The explanation was far too complicated to explain to someone she barely knew anymore. Right now she just needed to get home.

  “They’re mine,” she said simply, and got back in the car.

  Part One

  The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.

  —Isak Dinesen

  Chapter 1

  New York City

  Fashion
Week

  A plume of vapor from a garment steamer clouded the backstage section where Caroline was working. She and a couple of others from the Mick Taylor design team inspected, tagged, and hung each item in readiness for the show. The area was overheated with makeup lights, klieg lights, and too many bodies crammed into the space.

  When an elite designer was about to unveil his work to the public, the bustling pre-show energy was palpable. Caroline loved it, even the stress and drama. Today’s event was particularly exciting for her, because several of the designs she’d created for Mick’s label would be featured. It wasn’t quite the same as having her own line, but it was definitely a step in that direction. Although she labored long hours for Mick, she used every spare moment to work on her own collection. She gave up lunch hours, social time, sleep. She was a striver. She did what it took.

  This was a key show for Mick Taylor, too. The past couple of seasons had failed to impress the fashion critics and influencers. Investors were getting nervous. Buyers for high-end stores wanted to be blown away. Mick and his design director were on edge. The whole industry was watching to see if he would climb back to the top of the food chain.

  Everyone on the design team had been told to focus on the wow factor that would carry the designer to even greater heights. Rilla Stein, the design director, was dogged and demanding of her staff, and her loyalty to Mick was absolutely ferocious. Most of the team members were terrified of her. Though she favored pointy glasses and Peter Pan collars and looked like a cartoon librarian, she breathed fire in the design studio and had the personality of a pit viper.

  “Hey, Caroline, can you give me a hand over here?” called Daria. She was a model on hiatus due to pregnancy, and was now working as a stylist. Her girl-next-door looks and growing baby bump contrasted dramatically with Angelique, Mick’s longtime favorite model, who stood on an upended crate. Angelique had become the hottest runway model in the city. She hadn’t even gone through casting. Mick had anointed her as his muse.