by Susan Wiggs
Not so long ago, she didn’t have to check anything with anyone. And she’d liked it that way. Now she couldn’t make a move without thinking of the children. They were the first thing she focused on when she woke up each day, and her last thought each night.
“Well then, let’s get started,” Virginia said.
Everyone pitched in. Caroline’s mother used the restaurant menu printer to duplicate the flyer and a supply of business cards. Within days, they were placed all over town—the restaurant, the library, public restrooms, shops, schools, and churches. Caroline fielded a few calls—one from a shaky-voiced teenager who hung up on her. Another from a tourist staying in a bungalow near the dunes. There were a couple of emails. Maybe, she thought, just maybe this thing was going to work out. She hoped it would. One day the kids would be older and they’d have questions. She could only hope that she would have answers for them.
On the evening of the inaugural meeting, Caroline and Virginia arrived at the police station and parked in the annex lot. Sierra was already there, checking her makeup in her car mirror. Caroline posted a neatly lettered sign with an arrow directing people to the meeting room. The three of them brought in boxes of literature.
“Good choice of meeting space.” Virginia looked around the plain, spare room. Folding chairs, a long service table, a bulletin board, and a sink and counter prep area. Beige walls, linoleum floors—a blank canvas.
“I think so,” Caroline agreed. “Even the most persistent stalker is going to think twice before accosting someone here.”
“Does that happen?” Sierra glanced at the door.
“According to things I’ve been reading, it’s been known to. But right here next to the police station? I’m hoping our get-togethers will be blissfully uneventful.” She looked at the clock, then checked her phone. “What if nobody comes?”
Sierra shrugged. “Then we’ll go drinking and try again next week.”
Virginia organized some pamphlets and a sign-in sheet on a table by the door. “Where’s Georgia?”
“She said she was running late.” Caroline checked her phone once more.
“And we’re early.”
“I’m worried. I created a dedicated email address for the group contact, and I got all excited when I heard from some people, but no one said they’d actually come.”
“That’s a bad habit of yours, worrying about things that haven’t happened yet,” Virginia said.
“Is it? Is it better to anticipate trouble and worry, or to wait for the trouble to happen and then deal with it?”
Virginia thought for a moment. “The latter,” she said. “And that’s something straight out of my divorce therapy. I loved my marriage. I was happy every day—until Dave dropped the bomb that he wanted a divorce. So I have to wonder, if I’d spent my time wondering and fretting about why he was such a workaholic, why he was so emotionally absent, why he was always boasting about Amanda at the firm—would I have been able to do something about it? Or was it better to be blissfully ignorant? Should I be glad he hid it from me?”
“He should have said something,” Sierra said instantly, her voice sharp with vehemence. “Anything less is cheating. He knew that.”
“Whoa, okay, I guess we know your opinion,” Caroline said. She noticed the way Virginia was eyeing Sierra. A tiny unsettling question stirred in her mind, but she crushed it. “I still don’t know if I should wait or worry.”
The chairs were arranged in a loose circle. Flyers and name tags and pens set out. A whiteboard on which she’d written, We believe you. We believe in you. Then she wrote the mission statement under that.
Everything was ready. Caroline was ready. But nobody came.
Sierra glanced at the clock over the door. The hour was straight-up seven o’clock. “Okay, now you can worry.”
Virginia nodded. “This is going to take time, Caroline. We just need to keep showing up, right?”
“Right.” Caroline felt defeated. She’d hoped maybe one or two women would come. “And where’s Georgia? Did she ditch us?”
“Maybe something came up with one of her kids,” Virginia suggested.
“Maybe.” Caroline sighed. She started halfheartedly packing up the flyers and other supplies. “I wonder if seven isn’t a good meeting time. I suppose we need to do more outreach and try again next week. Or it could simply mean this was a bad idea.”
At that moment, the door pushed open. “Who’re you calling a bad idea?” Georgia demanded, bustling into the room. Behind her came Lindy Bloom, carrying a couple of trays. “Sorry we’re late. Had to grab some things from the restaurant on the way.”
With a flourish, she covered the table with a crisp linen drape. Everything about Georgia was assured and efficient, from her wash-and-wear jersey top and low-heeled sandals to her pixie crop haircut. She was excellent at many things, but her true passions were baking and running the show.
Now she showed a different side of leadership—strong but compassionate. “Well, don’t just stand there,” she said over her shoulder. “Give us a hand.”
Caroline and the others broke into action. Virginia fetched the coffee service from Georgia’s minivan. Caroline helped Lindy set out the trays of baked goods and savory bites—some of Georgia’s most popular items from Star of the Sea.
Caroline stole an iced raisin bar and rolled her eyes, savoring the perfect balance of sweetness and spice. “No wonder Mom always liked you best,” she said.
“Right.” Georgia smiled. “The oldest always has to break the parents in. Remember that.”
Caroline polished off the cookie. “Thanks for coming tonight. I wish some actual people would show up.”
“What am I, chopped liver?” Lindy set down a stack of cocktail napkins and fanned them out with a twist of her fist.
“You know what I mean,” Caroline said. “We plastered announcements all over town, but there are no takers.”
“It’s not like you to give up so quickly,” Georgia said. “Honestly, Caroline, I’m super impressed. This project . . . It’s going to be something special.”
“You’re all overachievers, the lot of you,” Sierra declared. “I don’t know how you do it all on top of kids and jobs and everything else.”
“You make time for what’s important, I guess,” Georgia said.
The simple statement lit up an uncomfortable truth for Caroline. Her art and her career had consumed her entirely for nearly a decade. She wondered what she’d missed with those blinders on. As she helped her sisters transform the plain beige room into a welcoming meeting space, it occurred to her that maybe she should quit regarding her situation as a fiasco. Maybe she should view it as an opportunity instead.
Sierra helped Lindy with the coffee service. “So are you one of the organizers, too?” she asked.
The older woman lifted her brows in a flash of irony. “I plan to help out when I can,” she said. “But no. Not an organizer. That honor belongs to Caroline. I’m a survivor.”
With that, she scrawled her name and the word survivor on a tag and stuck it to her perfectly tailored blouse. Then she looked at Sierra. “Close your mouth, dear. You’ll be catching flies. It’s a long story, but if no one else shows up, you’ll hear it all tonight.”
“Oh, Lindy. I didn’t know.”
“Exactly. That was a huge factor in my situation—the secrecy.” She handed Sierra a name tag. “You look beautiful as ever,” she said. “I always loved it when you came to the shop to model things for Caroline.”
Sierra stuck on the tag. “You were a wonderful mentor. I hope the shop’s doing well.”
“Well enough.”
Caroline was thrilled with the support of her sisters and friends, but still disheartened by the low turnout. She was contemplating drowning her sorrows in lemon squares and espresso brownies when the door opened, and a woman slipped inside.
“Echo,” she said. “Hey, I’m glad you came.”
“You have no idea how tempting it was to spen
d the evening with a glass of wine and a trashy novel.” Echo looked worn out as she helped herself to coffee. Then she noticed the spread of Georgia’s goodies. “I take that back. This looks amazing.”
Caroline felt a rush of gratitude—and sympathy. In addition to working at Lindy’s, Echo drove a school bus in the morning. Caroline hoped the sewing gig would take some of the pressure off Echo. Of course, that meant more pressure for her. She’d had a good meeting about a small-business loan from a local bank, but setting up her own outfit was not going to be easy.
The door opened again, and to Caroline’s astonishment, women began to arrive, most of them one by one, a couple with a friend or relative. Some of the visitors were furtive, avoiding eye contact, like shoplifters convinced they were about to get caught. Ever the preacher’s daughter, Sierra greeted each arrival like a special guest. Nadine, who had rebuffed Caroline, showed up, still in her waitress outfit from the restaurant.
Caroline felt the unexpected heat of tears. These women, most of them total strangers, had come to the Sewing Circle. Please don’t let me disappoint them, she thought.
Georgia nudged her. “Let’s go ahead and start. If more people show up, I’ll look after them.”
Caroline swallowed hard to compose herself. “Welcome,” she said, and composure failed her utterly. “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” She grabbed a tissue. “I didn’t expect to get so emotional. My name is Caroline Shelby and this is the first meeting of the Oysterville Sewing Circle.”
She took a deep breath, then blew it out. “Whew, sorry. Anyway, thanks for being here,” she said. “Shall we begin?”
There was a murmured assent.
“Let’s open with our mission statement. I stayed up way too late last night, trying to get the words right.” She indicated the writing on the whiteboard. “‘The Oysterville Sewing Circle was founded to provide a safe, supportive community for survivors of domestic violence and their friends and family members.’ Okay, so it’s not Shakespeare. Just want to be transparent. We’re not a crisis agency—for that, you need to contact the numbers listed on the flyer. We’re completely volunteer-run and self-supporting.” She passed around a clipboard with a phone list. “I’m really grateful to those of you who showed up. You’re welcome to share only what you’re comfortable sharing, even if it’s nothing at all. And please take care with other people’s information.”
She introduced her sisters and Sierra. “Bear with me,” she said. “I’m new to this. I guess tonight we’re all new.” Then she paused as a young woman slipped in and hovered near the door, gave a curt nod, then took a seat.
“I’m Ilsa,” she mumbled, staring at the floor.
Friendly murmurs rippled through the group.
“Thanks for coming,” Caroline said, her heart pounding. Oh, she wanted this to go well. “Let’s get started.” She took a basket out from under her chair. “This is a collection of mostly household items. The idea is to pick an object from the basket that has some kind of meaning to you and tell the group a brief story about it.”
There were a few beats of hesitant silence. Caroline clutched the edge of her chair. Shoot. Was the icebreaker activity too dorky? Too boring? Too threatening?
“I’ll give it a shot,” someone said. “I’m Amy.” She wore a shapeless hoodie, sweatpants, and scuffed sneakers, and she looked to be in her twenties. Taking the basket, she returned to her seat and made a serious study of the contents. Caroline had gathered a collection of common items—kitchen tools, a paperweight, a ticket stub, the usual junk drawer detritus found in anyone’s home.
“Okay, here’s something.” Amy held up a key chain with a flashlight attached. “A key chain doesn’t seem very important, but to me, it’s everything. I saw a notice about this meeting at the library, and I drove myself up from Ilwaco in order to check it out.” Her voice was harsh, maybe from smoking or drinking or both. “That doesn’t really sound like a big deal, and to most people, it’s not. To me, it’s everything. A year ago, I didn’t even know how to drive. My goddamn husband wouldn’t let me learn. See, if I could drive, I could get away from him, and then he wouldn’t have nobody to beat up on. Best thing that happened to me was he got sent up for grand theft auto. Motherfucker’s doing time in Walla Walla. First thing I did when he was gone, I took driving lessons. Hocked my wedding ring to pay for it—he would’ve flattened me for taking it off, but I have no regrets. I was determined. I learned to drive like a boss, and it was drive, drive, drive, for miles and miles, and I loved it. Felt like pure freedom. The day I got my license was a new beginning for me. I’m scared about what he’ll do when he gets out, but for now I’m safe. I love to drive. It’s, like, my favorite thing. I deliver pizzas, I drive for Uber, run errands for folks. Oh, and there’s a dry cleaner down in Astoria that’s got me doing pickups and deliveries. Ain’t much of a living, but it keeps me on the road.”
Silence fell over the group. Amy merely shrugged, placed the key chain in the basket, and passed it to the woman beside her. “Anyhoo, glad I came. Awesome cookies, by the way.”
The next woman—Evelyn, calm and grandmotherly, the kind you’d see in church—sorted through the basket and picked out an empty checkbook register. “Ah, here we go,” she said, her voice a soft contrast to Amy’s rough speech. “This sparks something, for sure. The third time my husband put me in the hospital, the judge made a no-contact order against him. Now, I know the judge meant well, but it created a huge problem in my life. I had no job and no skills, I was raising my daughter, who needed medical treatment I couldn’t afford. I went to court and begged the judge to undo the no-contact order, because my husband controlled all the money.”
As she spoke, Evelyn twisted a gold wedding band around and around her finger. “I know how that must sound to you young, independent girls, but in my day, we didn’t have options like you do. The judge looked at me and said, ‘You’re willing to be a punching bag for the sake of your daughter.’” She moved her hand to her wrist as if massaging an ache there. “Even though I pleaded, the judge left the no-contact order in place. But he was clearly troubled by it all. Later he introduced me to someone who showed me how to access benefits for my daughter and to lay claim to my husband’s railroad pension. I’m still married to the man, though I’ve not seen him in years. I suppose one day there will be a divorce. For me, that would just be a formality. I’ve been free for a good while now.”
Echo Sanders selected a spool of thread from the basket. “This was a no-brainer for me,” she said, offering a flash of her bashful smile. “Sewing is my first love, and it’s cool that this group calls itself a sewing circle.” She spoke briefly, her gaze darting to the clock on the wall. She mentioned her gratitude at helping out with Caroline’s new workshop. Then she brought up the idea of sacrifice. “I read somewhere that people lose their way when they forget their dreams. Do we? I hope it’s not so. I’ve never forgotten my dreams. I know exactly what they are. My problem is, I’m too busy just trying to make ends meet. I’m not looking for pity. Just saying what’s on my mind.”
The next woman’s name was Willow. She picked out a Quo Vadis planner, its creamy white pages blank. “Oh, this takes me back,” she said. “I was an obsessive planner, had my life all mapped out to the last detail. That’s the thing about life—it doesn’t go according to plan. I married a man who subjected me to degrading tirades and episodes of rage that sent me cowering. There was a subtlety about it, though. The slow deterioration wasn’t obvious, even to me. I couldn’t see the situation clearly. The abuse eroded my independence and destroyed my self-confidence. By the time I found the fire to leave and start over, I was an empty shell.”
She flipped through the blank pages. Her hands looked chapped and raw, ten years older than her smooth, round-cheeked face. “My ex denies everything. He gaslights me—makes me think I’m the crazy one, out to get him and imagining things. I’ve tried to tell people—friends and family—but I can’t manage to convey the situation and they think I�
��m crazy, too. Some days I still question myself. He’s successful, beloved by everyone who meets him. He’s influential. Upstanding. Everything you think of when you think of a guy who runs a major hospital.”
She turned to the calendar section of the planner and studied the grid for a moment. “I got a lot of bad advice from well-meaning people. My pastor suggested ways to mollify my husband, soften his anger. One friend said I should get better at sex.”
A loud snort burst from Amy.
“Exactly. So I’m here in the hopes of finding someone who gets it.” She looked around nervously; then her gaze darted to the floor. “I think—I hope—I might have found it.”
Caroline grabbed Sierra’s hand. They looked at each other and held on tight.
“I had to get a protective order as I was in the process of leaving,” Willow continued, “and there was more gaslighting, even from the judge, because I simply couldn’t explain what emotional abuse feels like. I was depressed, probably still am, but I can’t afford to treat it. My self-confidence is in the dirt. The only job I dared to take was with a hotel laundry service. I don’t know if I’ll ever find my way back to who I was.” She smoothed her reddened hand over the pages. “And I was somebody. A justice of the peace—can you believe it? Ironically, I’m authorized to perform marriages. I had other skills, too. I’m a business analyst and a patent lawyer. I wrote business plans for multimillion-dollar corporations and start-ups on a shoestring.”
Caroline couldn’t believe her ears. A lawyer. A judge. And now the woman was a hotel laundry worker?
Willow must have caught her expression. “Just because I’m educated doesn’t mean I had some special warning that the charming, successful man I’d married was secretly a monster. My law degree didn’t make me immune to the things that went on behind closed doors.”