Confessions from the Quilting Circle Maisey Yates (ebook reader 8 inch .txt) 📖

Avery’s mouth turned downward. “I don’t tell you things, Mom.”

And how could she? Mary didn’t know how to talk. She didn’t know how to share. She’d kept her own feelings bottled up inside her all growing up. The only person she’d ever figured out how to open up to was Joe and even that was hard.

Even with Joe she didn’t like being too vulnerable. It was why it was so hard to just go off and try new things with him.

“But why not?” Mary asked, knowing she wouldn’t like the answer.

“Mom, you always taught us to pick up and carry on. Sitting around and moping doesn’t fix anything. You have to do things and be active. I’ve done that. I’ve tried so hard to do that and I didn’t know how to tell you nothing I did was...fixing anything. That my life was out of my control. How could I tell you that when you always told us we were the ones with the power to make things better or worse?”

Mary had never wanted to hurt her kids by telling them that. She’d wanted them to feel in control. Because for all of Mary’s childhood she hadn’t felt she’d had any. She hadn’t chosen to be abandoned by her mother and sadness hadn’t helped.

Her dad had taught her to pick up and carry on and she had.

It had been the best thing for her.

She’d wanted to give her daughters that same sense of strength, of control in a life they couldn’t control. But she hadn’t known how to balance that.

With sensitivity Avery clearly needed.

That she hadn’t believed she could get from Mary.

And maybe she’d been right.

“Avery, I don’t know how to do this, you’re right. But it’s not because I didn’t want to hear it, or because I thought you shouldn’t have struggles. It’s because it was the only way I learned to deal with mine.”

Avery nodded, tears welling in her eyes. “I guess I’m the same. I guess... I just wanted to be able to act okay and to have it be okay. But it’s not. I’m a mess. I wasn’t there for the kids. I didn’t mean to be distant from them, but it was easier to get...wrapped up in schedules and doing things because it helped me not focus on what was happening with David. I was too tired to see what was right in front of me. I just... I just wanted everything to stay the way that it was supposed to. Because I can’t... I can’t see a way forward here. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know if I’m going to be okay. I don’t know if I can go on without all this and if I can’t stay strong and move on, I don’t know how to face you when I’m broken apart like this.”

Mary felt like she was barely holding herself together. Like she had cracked into a thousand pieces and only her indrawn breath was keeping her from disintegrating right there. Because there weren’t words. She could tell Avery that it wasn’t what she wanted, that it wasn’t what she had intended for her to feel, but it didn’t matter. Avery felt it. She felt it now. Mary could see it. In the anger and hopelessness radiating from her.

“All I want is for you to be safe. All I want is for you to be happy someday and you don’t have to be strong now for me to think you’re...you’re doing a good job, Avery.”

“That doesn’t mean anything when I don’t know who I am,” Avery said. “I’m like superwife and supermom. And the person who volunteers for every committee. And now I don’t have any of that.”

“Avery, none of that is what makes you special. It’s not what makes you, you. Did you think I wouldn’t love you anymore?”

“It isn’t that I think that,” Avery said. “I just didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“I’m sad, Avery. I’m heartbroken for you. I’m not disappointed in you.”

“I’m sorry. About what I said. I... I shouldn’t have said all that to you. I was angry and I was embarrassed.”

“Avery, I obviously made mistakes I didn’t mean to make.” She shook her head. “I wanted to be there for you. But that you didn’t feel you could come to me...it makes me feel like I just being here hasn’t been enough.”

“I could have told you what I needed,” Avery said. “The fact is, I didn’t know what I needed. I still don’t know.”

She sucked in a breath and forced her lips into a smile. “We should go quilt, Lark will start making flower gowns for us to wear if we wait too long.”

Mary reached out and stopped Avery’s movements. Then pulled her in for a hug. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I let...feeling like I didn’t know how to do this keep us more distant than we should be. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Avery said, her voice muffled against Mary’s shoulder.

“I want to make it okay,” she said.

They looked at each other, and she felt a heaviness there because she knew neither of them could name promises.

So they just walked into the Craft Café together, where Hannah and Lark were whispering in the corner.

“You better not be whispering about me,” Avery said.

“We’re not,” Hannah said. “You know, we have lives.”

Avery looked chagrined.

“Be nice to your sister,” Mary said.

“No,” Avery said. “Don’t be nice to me. Don’t treat me like I’m broken. I am broken. I’m... I think I might actually be broken. But if you go treating me like I am I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to... I will never be able to get past it. And I would like to not be broken forever. I would like for that to not be the end of who I am. I want to believe that there’s something after broken. I need to believe it. So don’t be nice