Confessions from the Quilting Circle - Maisey Yates Page 0,20

she didn’t know her. Clearly, judging by the look on the woman’s face, she knew Anna.

For all that Sunset Bay was a small town, Sunset Church was large. People drove in from outlying areas to attend, thanks to the popularity of her husband’s teachings. He’d garnered a small amount of fame online, which had grown when he’d written a book about peace in troubled times.

It wasn’t fame on a grand scale, but in their circles he was well-known. Consequently, so was she.

Now...

Well, now she wasn’t the only thing that was well-known.

Be sure your sin will find you out.

That scripture jumped right to the front of her mind and refused to recede. She was sure the words were hanging visibly between herself and the cashier.

Anna pushed her quinoa forward, and the woman looked down meaningfully at Anna’s bare hand.

She decided just not talking would be the best route to take in this instance.

The sound of each scanned item seemed comically loud.

When she was finished, she bagged the items.

“Have a nice day,” Anna said.

The woman just looked at her. So Anna picked up her things and carried them out to her car.

She paused for a moment and looked across the street, at the gray line where the steel-colored water met the low-hanging clouds.

There had been a time when she hadn’t been able to walk through the store without everyone talking to her. Smiling. Telling her their problems.

Taking note of what she had in her cart.

She could never buy wine. She couldn’t walk around looking sad. She could never be short-tempered with anyone.

She could never be honest about the fact that she never felt more alone than she did when she was home with her husband. Her husband, who seemed to have inexhaustible energy for parishioners and none left at all for her.

Anna had wanted an escape. Another life.

She’d gone from pastor’s wife to pariah overnight.

She didn’t know what it said about her that somehow pariah felt more natural than the other role ever had.

6

I’ve found friends in the lightkeepers’ wives. Rose and Naomi are kind, and their children provide a nice distraction. Friends help make the darkness of this endless winter seem brighter.

—FROM THE DIARY OF JENNY HANSEN, JANUARY 8, 1900

RACHEL

It had been a month and she hadn’t changed anything in the room.

The bed still sat at that strange angle, facing the window, and his nightstand was still full of medication.

It smelled antiseptic. She had washed everything. She had washed it a hundred times. She had thrown out the bedding. She had a backup saved for when it was over.

And now she regretted some of that cleaning. Because it all felt too clean. Like she had tried to wipe away his presence, when she had just been trying to wipe away that heaviness left behind by sickness and pain.

She walked over to the nightstand and picked up one of the prescription bottles. Oxycodone. She shook it and turned it over.

Jacob Henderson

His name was printed on it, along with his date of birth.

This was what was left behind of her husband. This was what she was letting sit here. These bottles of pills with his name on them. Evidence of his pain, like some men left behind a stamp collection. Suddenly, it horrified her. She went down to the kitchen and grabbed a plastic bag, and went back up the stairs. And she threw every pill bottle into the trash. Then she looked back at his photos on the wall. That picture of their hands.

Jacob. Rachel. Emma.

Those photographs that were windows into how he saw the world. What he cared about.

The beautiful views of the ocean, gorgeous angles of the house, where the light played across the stained glass.

Rachel paused for a moment, looking at their wedding picture. At the two of them so young and happy, and with no idea of what lay ahead. She was clutching him and a bouquet of yellow flowers. Bright. Happy. New. Those same flowers had been artfully dried and arranged on their dresser for years, but now it felt like a sad metaphor. She related far too deeply. From vibrant and full to simply...preserved.

She opened up the drawer in her dresser and pulled out an envelope. The envelope that contained photos of her. Photos he’d taken before she’d had Emma, and then again maybe ten years ago. Sexy photos that she had joked were only for him, but now that she was nearing forty, she appreciated them more than she had before. That there was a