Confessions from the Quilting Circle - Maisey Yates Page 0,32
life for other people all this time,” she said, bald and simple. She could tell those words hurt Anna. She wasn’t trying to accuse her of anything; she was just...saying.
She kept so much back to protect her mom; she had to. From having to do makeup work for shaky grades over the years when her dad’s health had been compromised, her crush on Luke, any problems with friends... She hadn’t ever wanted her to worry. But she could see now that it amounted to a wall. Not stones that Emma carried; rocks that she had built up into a barrier between them.
Anna was offering honesty, and even if Emma couldn’t quite believe some of it, she wanted to answer honestly. Wanted to take this moment, this space, to say something that was true.
“Yeah, I guess so. But I don’t even mean that you have to be selfish. Because I don’t believe in being selfish, either. I know that there’s a whole congregation full of people who would laugh at me saying that. But I just mean... If you bend too much, you’re going to make weak spots in who you are. And eventually those weak spots will give. And you will break. Like gluten-free dough. No stretch, all break. Because you can’t do it forever. And if you wait until you break, it’s going to be a pretty spectacular break that hurts a lot more people than it had to. So if I were you, I would avoid being me. I would maybe hold firm on the job I wanted. So you know... You don’t break your marriage vows later.”
Emma’s eyes felt scratchy. “I guess that makes sense. But I don’t want to hurt anyone, least of all Mom.”
“I know. But you know what would hurt her worse? If you ended up resenting her. If you ended up angry at her because you didn’t know how to be the person that she wanted you to be. If you didn’t find a way to lovingly show her that you have to do what’s right for you. Because eventually, you lose the ability to do that lovingly. Speaking from the other side.”
“Right. Well. Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Anna said. “For...loving me enough to be on my team.” She breathed out, long and slow, like she was considering the next few words carefully. “You didn’t believe him, though, did you?”
Emma thought about it. “I didn’t care.”
“So you didn’t believe him. Because I feel like if you had...you might have cared a little bit that I cheated on your uncle.”
“I know you,” Emma said. “And whatever I believed, I knew you didn’t do something to be cruel. Or just to be selfish. I’m seventeen, and I know enough to know that. I don’t know why everybody else can’t figure it out.”
“You know, not to cast aspersions on your youth or anything, but part of it is because you never had a husband. Look at your mom, Em. She stuck by your dad through everything. All of his illness and all of that... I couldn’t even stick by my husband, who is perfectly fine, and is good to everyone, and—”
“No one’s going to think of it that way.”
“Honey, everyone thinks of it that way. People can’t help but compare. And on the comparison front, I come out badly. That’s just the truth.”
“You’re not the same person. And Uncle Thomas isn’t the same person as my dad. Which I think might be an even more important piece of that.”
Anna smiled sadly. “Yeah. Maybe. Go get that diner job if you want it, though. Okay?”
“I promise,” Emma said. Anna stood and pulled Emma in for a hug. “If your mom gets mad at you, just blame me. Everyone already thinks I’m a bad person, anyway.”
“I don’t,” Emma said, resolute.
“You have no idea how much that means to me.”
Then Anna walked out the front door, and Emma could hear her heavy footsteps on the porch.
And her words replayed, over and over again. She could already see that they were true.
Emma trudged upstairs, her hands running along the familiar banister. She stopped, right across from her parents’ room.
She didn’t want to go in. Because he still wasn’t there.
She paused for a moment and wondered. What he would tell her if she went in to talk to him. If she asked him what she should do.
He would take her hands and walk her up to the lighthouse, when he’d been able, and they would watch the beam of light go out