Confessions from the Quilting Circle - Maisey Yates Page 0,72
me, then.”
“Just because she doesn’t want me to ask doesn’t mean I don’t want to know.” He paused for a moment.
“I didn’t realize you knew her quite so well,” Anna said.
She didn’t mean to dig, but now she was a little curious.
“She’s a customer. A regular. We talk sometimes.” Anna knew that wasn’t the whole truth. But as someone who’d sat comfortably in lies for a number of years, she didn’t want to go forcing anyone out into the open until they were good and ready.
“I’m worried about her,” he said finally.
“Me, too. But she... You know, I was going to say she’s strong. It’s true. But she’s just human, too. And maybe she kind of doesn’t want you to ask her how she is, but I still think you should. I think she would like knowing that you care, Adam.”
She looked around the diner’s empty space. “Actually. On that subject of you caring about my family. Do you think that we can have Emma’s birthday party here? Don’t say anything to her. Rachel has been planning on making it a surprise, but she was going to have it up at the lighthouse. It’s just... I think that place is complicated for Emma right now. She and Rachel had a big fight, and she said something about it being kind of depressing there. Considering that’s where her dad died. But she likes it here. Her job here makes her happy.”
He nodded slowly. “Sure. I’ll shut the place down for her. Just tell me when.”
“Her birthday is May 13. It’s a Wednesday night, so—”
“Consider it done.”
“Thank you. For everything. And I mean it. Ask Rachel how she is.”
“I will,” he said.
Anna turned and walked away, and she felt...more accomplished than she had in longer than she could remember.
She stepped out of the diner and onto the street, and when she turned, she found herself walking right in the path of a man she recognized. It took her a second to place him.
Xavier Ramos.
She’d gone to high school with him and had seen him at church off and on over the years. He wasn’t totally regular, but he’d been around, and they’d chatted pleasantly whenever they’d seen each other.
For a moment, she forgot. And she smiled at him.
Then there was a beat. A terrified beat, where she wondered how he would respond. Would he smile back? Or would he be another Hannah. Ready to judge her and tear chunks off her.
He smiled.
“Anna,” he said. “Long time no see.”
“Oh. Uh. Yeah. It has been.”
His eyes dropped to her left hand and then back to her face. “How are things?”
“Good,” she said. “Really good, actually.”
Maybe really good was an exaggeration. But he’d looked at her hand. He’d looked for a ring. And she’d wanted to just make it clear she was more than okay with that vacant space on her finger. Whatever he’d heard or hadn’t heard.
“Oh, and you?” she asked.
He laughed and his smile lit up his face. It was a very handsome face. “Good. I fish, you know, so sometimes I’m here, sometimes I’m in Alaska. I’ve been back for a few weeks.”
So back long enough to have heard rumors about her, that was for sure. But he didn’t have any weird energy about him.
“Will you be here for a while?”
He nodded. “I plan on it. I just bought a house and I’m fixing it up. I’m hoping to be more local now.”
“Oh, right. Do you have a...fiancée or girlfriend or...”
He grinned. “No.”
And she tried to ignore the slight fluttering in her stomach.
“Same,” she said. “Except...you know. Men. Not...women. Not that... You get what I mean.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I have an appointment with a contractor, but hopefully I’ll see you around?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m around.”
When he left, she felt slightly breathless. Giddy.
She had done something for Rachel. She had done something for Emma.
And she had done something for herself.
She had built three things today.
And for someone who had felt like nothing but a destroyer for quite some time, that felt amazing.
But that, she supposed, was the great truth of life.
A hammer could demolish, and a hammer could build. It all depended on what you did with it.
She was capable of both.
She had been the one to destroy her life. And she was the only one who could build herself a new one.
19
Ron is so funny, you’d like him. Dad wouldn’t. He’s got a motorcycle.
—FROM A LETTER WRITTEN BY SUSAN BRIGHT TO HER SISTER, AUGUST 1961
EMMA
Emma felt strange leaving things unresolved with her