Confessions from the Quilting Circle - Maisey Yates Page 0,56
how much she felt for him. That she missed him, even while she was angry at him.
But she let the smell of dinner rolls wash away her angst. The cleansing scent of yeast, white flour and butter combined with the satisfaction of a perfect bake helped to dull some of the pain.
“Wonderful,” Wendy said. “I’ll take these out now.”
Her mother swept the bread out of the room with a wide smile on her face, and Anna’s insides glowed.
Here, now, everything was moving smoothly. Yes, there were a lot of issues left unresolved. But she was happy to slide into the ease she felt when they cooked together.
“Everything looks great,” Rachel said, testing the temperature of the roast. “I think it’s going to be a big hit. And bring more business in.”
“We’re good at that,” Anna said. “We’re good at making people feel like they’re home.”
And maybe they didn’t have it all perfect between them, but these were the things that helped. A home-cooked meal, sitting around a table with friends. Or, in the case of Anna, Rachel and Wendy, cooking together.
Because it took her back to a simpler time, because it meant home to her, even if she couldn’t quite grasp the feeling of it now.
She took her potatoes au gratin out of the oven, followed by honey-glazed carrots. Then, as her mother swept back in, she handed her the bowl of tossed green salad. Her mother came back into the kitchen and they all quietly began to eat some of the misshapen rolls that had not gone out to the dinner table. They all liked them with copious amounts of butter. And as they stood there, all three leaning against the island at the center of the crowded kitchen, their eyes caught while they were chewing, and they smiled.
It made her feel hope for the first time. Like there might, in fact, be a path back to something. Something better than what she had now.
“I’ll take out the next one,” she said.
She grabbed two of the sides, and Rachel followed behind her with the meat. Her steps faltered as soon as she went out into the dining room and saw Laura and two other women that she knew from afternoon bible studies at the church. Her mom wouldn’t have known to give her a heads-up, because she probably didn’t know any of them.
Sunset Church was large enough that it was impossible to know everyone unless you were part of smaller groups they were in, and since Anna had been a part of most of the small groups, she was more familiar with more of them than her mother would be.
Laura smiled, and the woman next to her—whom Anna was reasonably certain was named Hannah—shot her a chilling glare. Laura, for her part, kept her expression resolutely friendly, and not focused on Hannah at all.
Anna set down the dishes on the table, and the explanation for them faltered on her tongue, so Rachel took over, brilliantly explaining each element of food before the two of them began to head back toward the kitchen.
But Anna paused, taking a sharp turn toward the sitting room, then made her way over to the front door and tugged it open, letting the cool ocean air wash over her.
It was like every time she thought she had a minute to start over, she was reminded that she couldn’t. Not here.
But what would happen if she left here.
She might be able to start over, but she wouldn’t have...
Rachel and her mother. Emma.
This house.
It would be like splitting herself in two again, and she had already done that. She didn’t want to do it again. She didn’t want to believe that she could only have a new life if she left pieces of herself behind.
The door cracked open, and she turned, expecting to see her sister. Instead, it was Hannah.
“I didn’t know you worked here,” Hannah said, the crystalline words brittle, sharp and deadly. “I would’ve thought that your mother would’ve had the good sense to distance herself from you.”
Anna felt like she had died and was floating up outside of her body, because she couldn’t actually believe this was happening. It was like watching it happen to another person. Like one of her fevered arguments with herself had manifested and was playing out in front of her, with Hannah acting as her self-loathing essence while her actual self scrabbled to make justifications for everything she was. Everything she’d done.