Confessions from the Quilting Circle

by Maisey Yates

  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 of the time, and have for years.”

  The time for holding her tongue, hesitating...it was over. She wanted to talk to her daughter.

  “I’ve missed so much of it, Lark.”

  Lark looked away. “I was going to pull out some of Gram’s boxes in here. I still haven’t found what I want to use. There was a square... It’s in the swatch book. But it doesn’t have a label. It’s this really pretty yellow, and it’s so soft. And I thought... I thought I might want to use that. But I couldn’t find it in the attic.”

  “Well, she may have gotten rid of it during one of her purges.”

  Lark shook her head. “I just don’t think so. There was something about the quilt that mattered to her. And I think anything that she earmarked for it... It’s been here. Avery even found that diary.”

  “I don’t know,” Mary said. “You definitely understand her better than I do.” She stared at her daughter. “Sometimes I think you understand her better than you understand me.”

  Lark jerked and looked at her mother. “I don’t, Mom.”

  “You had an easy time sitting and talking to my mother. After you quit talking to me.”

  There was a ripple in the air between them, and Lark’s brow creased.

  “There were things that Gram understood about me,” Lark said. “She was... An artist. And, I know that it’s hard for you that I have that and you don’t. That it’s something I shared with her. But I never needed you to do the same things I did. You always cared about what I made, and that was what mattered.”

  Mary could feel the weight of things they hadn’t said to each other before, settling in this room, and she didn’t know where it came from. If it was all that regret from the things she hadn’t said to Addie. All of the air they couldn’t clear, resting here, choking her. There wasn’t room in her throat for it, and more unspoken words.

  Her mom wasn’t here.

  Lark was.

  “Why did you leave? I don’t mean for college. You’ve just been gone for a long time, and you know, I don’
t just mean your body.” She looked at her daughter. “It’s something about you.”

  “You’ve never asked me before.”

  “No, I didn’t. I was afraid, with all of you, that I would ask the wrong questions. I was jealous, Lark, of how my mother understood you all. I felt like I would never be able to connect with you the way she did. I felt like I didn’t learn how. That if she’d taught me I could have been a better mother. I... I shouldn’t have let that stop me. I caused you pain, didn’t I?”

  “Mom...” Lark said, pain reflected in her eyes. “There are some things that don’t get better when you talk about them.” She cleared her throat. “Now, I want to dig through those boxes that I found back here.”

  She walked away and Mary felt that with it, Lark was taking the chance for them to talk. And it wasn’t on accident.

  Lark made her way through the back of the darkened building, into the tiny bedroom that used to belong to Addie Dowell.

  Mary had avoided this, and anything like it. She had avoided being around her mother’s things. At least, in this personal sense. She had been to the house, but that house was filled with memories. She had both of her parents there for a time, and then after that, it was where she had grown up with her father. The memories there were layered. The things her mother had stored in the attic were part of other people. Things from the past, and not directly tied to Addie herself. But this room... It was all Addie.

  A shoebox full of lipstick, and she knew that every single one was on the red spectrum. She didn’t even have to look.

  Bottles of perfume and hairspray, some wigs. All red. It smelled faintly of cigarettes, even though she knew her mother hadn’t smoked in here. It was just... All of her things. There was a tin that had once contained cookies sitting on top of the vanity, and Mary took the lid off of it.

  Inside were pieces of broken costume jewelry.

  Earrings with no backs, gaudy bracelets that were missing some of their rhinestones. “She probably saved these for projects,” Mary said, sticking her hand into the tin and holding the gems up. “Either that or she just liked them, I guess. She was a magpie.”

  She wondered if her mother had worn those to parties.

  All the things she’d done during those years that she was away.

  Off being a woman instead of a wife.

  Instead of a mother.

  “I bet she just liked them,” Lark said. “She was... She wasn’t practical. Not at all.”

  “I never understood it,” Mary said. “People from her generation, they were supposed to be some kind of sacrificing and self-serving. She never really was. It was like she was lost half the time when she was home, halfway to somewhere else even when she was with us.” Mary shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say these things about her to you. You loved her so much.”

  “I love you,” Lark said. “That she hurt you hurts me. I think she really did feel bad about it. Later. But, she didn’t know how to tell you about it. How to apologize to you.”

  “Did she ever tell you? About the things she did when she was gone?” Mary had never asked. And she’d never be able to now.

  Lark shook her head. “Not really. She talked about her red convertible. And sometimes she would talk about having been to this state and that state. And I thought... I thought it was really interesting. And now I’ve kind of done the same thing, I guess. Roaming state to state. Did she tell you?”

  Mary shook her head. “I didn’t want to know.”

  Part of her regretted it now.

  There was a large box at the foot of the bed, that was taped shut. And Mary moved over to that spot, pausing when she looked at the quilt on Addie’s bed. “Do you know if she made this?” she asked, feeling suddenly sad that she didn’t know the answer to the question.

  “No,” Lark said. “I don’t. There’s just a whole lot I never asked her. Because I was waiting for her to tell me. I guess I’m not that good at talking about what matters either.”

  Lark was looking more and more large eyed, and slightly upset. But she still didn’t speak. She grabbed the edge of the packing tape on the box and tore it open, and when they opened it, they found folded material inside. A lace tablecloth, which Lark took out and set aside, and then under that, a yellow blanket. Lark frowned. “This is it,” she said, taking it out and spreading it on the bed. There was part of a bumblebee embroidered on one side, and in the center, part of a tree. Though it wasn’t finished. Mary watched Lark stare at the item, watched as she got yet more pale.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said, dragging her fingertips over the soft material. Mary looked back down into the box, where she saw two books, and an envelope containing what looked to be more envelopes.

  “Maybe there’s explanations in these.”

  There was a nondescript blue book with a clasp that appeared to be broken. She opened it up, and saw the first page.

  Dot’s diary.

  Mary frowned. “Dot. Dot’s diary.”

  Then Mary picked up the envelope, and leafed through the envelopes inside. It was unsealed, just keeping the rest of them together, she imagined. And then she flipped the envelope over.

  “Lark,” she said. Her daughter looked at her, and she held the envelope out to her. “These are for you.”

  32

  Sam drove me to a friend who said he’d make it go away. They gave me something that made me sleep and I woke up bleeding and in horrible pain. Today I still feel awful and I’m lying here, looking at that midnight blue dress trying to remember that night when it looked beautiful. When I felt beautiful. When this all seemed like a miraculous dream. Now home is a dream. But I do not believe it can ever be real for me again.

  Ava Moore’s diary, 1924

  Lark

  Lark stared at the letters in her mother’s hand, and she looked down at that little yellow blanket with the unfinished embroidery, and dread climbed up into her heart and took hold there. Made it feel like she was frozen.

  “I don’t want them,” she said.

  “You don’t want your letters?”

  “No,” Lark said. “No. I don’t want this. Let’s put it back in the box.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Lark said. She stared at the blanket, and she didn’t know how she knew. It was only that she did. And the amount of raw grief inside her made her feel like her lungs had been torn out, left her empty and gasping.

  Because it was easy, far too easy to imagine the tiny little pink body that should have been wrapped up in this blanket. She knew. She didn’t know how she knew, only that she did.

  “I just want to put it away.”

  Her mother took out the first letter, and Lark reached out and grabbed them, holding them to her chest, her heart beating fast.

  Secrets.

  The secrets were starting to unravel. All around them.

  Quilt pieces, lying everywhere. Quilt pieces that could never actually be put together into one cohesive picture.

  Avery had secrets.

  Lark had secrets.

  None of them knew who each other was. And they never had.

  And they were trying to build something together that she didn’t think they actually could.

  She thought back to the scrapbook, and how this had called to her.

  And she didn’t want to believe in any of her metaphysical nonsense just then, because if she did, then she was going to have to acknowledge that there was a spiritual connection to this fabric. That it was what she was supposed to use. That it was something she was supposed to uncover. That the letters were something she was supposed to open, and she so desperately didn’t want that.

  Instead, she pulled the first one out, the paper on the envelope odd and stiff. She opened it, and it sounded loud in the stillness of the room.

  Lark,
<
br />   You have never gone so far that you can’t come back home again.

  There was nothing else. Nothing more. She simply stared at it. At the blanket. And she felt like she knew. She took out the next one, her hand shaking, and she could feel her mother’s eyes on her.

  Lark,

  I keep starting letters, and I cannot find the words to finish them. But I know we’ll talk about this one day. In the meantime, I’m sewing.

  Lark sat down hard on the bed, nearly crumbling.

  She put her hand over her mouth and pressed hard as tears overflowed her eyes.

  “What is it?” her mother asked.

  “It’s mine,” Lark said, words and violent grief all tangled together in her throat and fighting to be the first one out. “The blanket was for me.”

  “Lark?”

  The question, a single word, contained a thousand more.

  “It’s sixteen years old.” She touched it. And for some strange reason a smile curved her lips. “She would be sixteen years old.”

  The silence that stretched between them echoed in the stillness of the room. It mirrored the silence in another room, all those years ago. Not a word. Not a sound.

  Not even a baby crying.

  Still.

  Horribly still.

  Horribly quiet.

  She looked up at her mother, and a rolling through her chest, leaving tiny cuts all inside her. It was worse than grief, this unbearable regret. She had grieved her loss. Over the course of years, in many towns, in many places. Left tokens and tributes and pieces of herself behind. For the child that she had only held once.

  Cold and still.

  The child who had never cried.

  The child who had gone from pink, for only a few moments, to a deathly, ashen blue and been still. So still.

  Her baby.

  She had cried enough tears to flood a river for that baby. She had sent lanterns to the sky and flower petals into the water, and ashes into the sea.

  She had never known the true regret of not telling her mother. Her mother, who had children of her own. Who would have been able to imagine the loss. Her mother, who had never known that Lark had carried a baby inside of her.