Confessions from the Quilting Circle - Maisey Yates Page 0,62
At first it seemed impossible. When I came here with nothing—nothing but a dream for what this place might become. But gradually... I fell in love with this house, I fell in love with being your mother, and then what I’d lost didn’t seemed to matter so much.”
Michael was gone. Thomas was gone, and her love for him had faded a long time ago. There was no one left for Anna to love but her family and herself. And no life for her to love but the one she would go and make.
So she supposed she would have to start making something.
16
It’s really a terrible thing to fall in love. You can forget who you are, thinking so much about another person.
—FROM THE DIARY OF SUSAN BRIGHT, AUGUST 1961
EMMA
Emma had spent her shift in a state of discomfort, because she had chosen her outfit based on what she wanted to wear to have dinner with Luke that night, and not based on practicality.
She had on flat shoes because she wasn’t that much of a martyr to beauty, but she was wearing a pair of tight high-waisted jeans and a crop top, which made maneuvering around for the job difficult. And her waist was beginning to feel constricted beyond the point of reason.
They had spoken a little. A few stolen conversations with him during lunch delivery.
They’d kept it light, not getting into details about their lives, but mostly talking about the people in the town, TV shows and other ridiculous things.
She liked him so much more than she’d imagined she even could.
When the to-go order came in at closing time, Luke had placed it for two. She didn’t even have to make her own order. Which made it feel much more like a date than the initial request had been.
He had paid over the phone, and she beat a hasty retreat as soon as the clock rolled over and her shift was finished, the bag of food in hand as she scurried across the street to the garage.
He was standing there by the bench and stools that he had eaten at yesterday, but his hands were clean, and the surface itself was entirely clear, with a cloth set over the workbench itself.
“Wow.” It wasn’t a fancy restaurant, but somehow it felt better. More significant, because he had prepared it all himself.
“Well, I know you’re always a little concerned about the cleanliness.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I... Yeah.” She held up the food and wandered over to the bench, and he brushed off the stool quickly before she sat down.
“I hope you got extra French fries,” she said as she watched him get the food out of the bag.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Extra?”
“Don’t look so surprised. French fries are serious business.”
“True,” he said. “Fortunately, I did anticipate that.”
He pulled out a container that did indeed contain only fries. And she dug into them happily.
There was a soda machine in the corner, and he walked over with a couple of dollars. “What do you want tonight?”
“Orange?”
He smiled and shook his head, putting in the dollar and then pushing the button for orange soda. And he got a Coke for himself.
He brought them back over to where she sat and extended the soda to her, which she took, tapping the can thoughtfully.
“Orange soda,” he said. Suddenly, concern she hadn’t seen before marred his brow. “How old are you?”
Heat touched her cheeks. Well she hadn’t exactly been looking forward to this part of the getting-to-know-you. “I’m almost eighteen.”
The crease between his eyebrows deepened. “How almost?”
She laughed. “Three weeks. I’m graduating this year.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s not so bad.”
“Why? How old are you?”
“Old enough to drink,” he said.
“By how much?”
“Well... That depends. Do you mean from a legal standpoint or when I actually started drinking?”
“You’re the one who introduced it is an age marker.”
He shrugged. “I turned twenty-one last month.”
“Okay,” she said. “I guess that’s not so bad.”
“Graduating, huh? What’s the plan after that?” He got out his hamburger and started to eat, and she followed suit.
“I’m going to OSU,” she said, looking down at her food. “I guess.”
“What you mean ‘you guess’? That wasn’t your first pick?”
“I’m studying marine biology. And it’s a great school for that. It is. But... I wanted to go to Boston. They have a great marine-biology program there, and a partnership with an aquarium that I was really interested in.”
It never got much easier to think about that, even now that it had been a couple of months. But then, none of