On the next page was a graph. A design for a quilt, with each piece laid out on the grid.
“Grandma was making a quilt,” she said. “This is...”
She turned the page. There was a scrap of lace affixed to it, and underneath it in that same handwriting it said: wedding dress.
“It’s like a swatch book. With fabric for the quilt.”
“That’s interesting,” Hannah said. She got up from her seat and moved down to the end of the table, peering over Lark’s shoulder. “What else?”
She flipped the page where there was a very colorful fabric in silk and velvet. “‘Parlor curtains.’” She went to the next page, which had a fine, beaded silk. “‘Party dress.’”
“There’s all kinds of stuff like this up in the attic,” she said. “Remember when Gram used to let us go through her collection and choose things to craft with? Broken earrings and old yarn and fabric. And always tons of unfinished projects lying around. Obviously she intended to make this quilt. Maybe she even started it. And it’s somewhere up there with all of the...the unfinished things.”
Unfinished.
That was the word that kept echoing inside of her.
Because it was why she was here. She was one of the unfinished things.
Being here, opening the café, it would give her a chance to finish some of what her grandmother had started.
Maybe along the way she’d manage to join up some of the unfinished pieces inside her own soul.
2
April 15th, 1864
How far is the trip to Oregon? I have heard it’s long, and perilous. It is kind of you to offer to pay for my passage, but I will sell most of what I own before departing. There is nothing left for me here, and no reason to come back. If you have a parlor or sitting room, I might bring my curtains.
Signed, Anabeth Snow
Avery
Avery stopped at the store on her way home to pick up two things, which turned into roughly fifteen things. That was always how it worked. Go in for milk and realize you need bread, cheese, salad and hey those tomatoes look good too. And so had the four boxes of cookies she’d thrown into her cart too.
The automatic light on the porch illuminated when she walked up the paved path that led to the neat little front door. Like every house in the square, it was immaculate. Painted in Victorian colors that would have been used during the era, in accordance with the historic colors ordinance. Which was an actual ordinance that the City Council enforced with a great deal of vigor.
She didn’t mind.
It made everything look like a postcard.
This was her dream. This clean, beautiful street with neatly kept hedges and trees planted every three feet. Small but lush green lawns that didn’t dare have so much as a stray leaf on them.
She’d grown up in a slightly older part of town, 1970s tract houses that felt flat and rectangular, rather than grand like the homes that populated her neighborhood. And of course, she had always asked her mother why her parents had chosen to live in houses with green check carpet. At the time, she hadn’t understood about money. She did now.
But thanks to David’s job, they could well afford this. These houses weren’t historic, of course, not really. They only looked like it. And inside they were outfitted with every modern convenience imaginable. And reliable plumbing.
For which she was grateful. It was better than historic.
Avery’s parents had worked hard to give them a good life but she’d had a sense of dissatisfaction with it ever since she’d seen the way other people lived. Maybe it hadn’t been fair, but Avery had known she’d wanted more from an early age.
Her mom had always been so practical. She’d never wanted to spend money on trendy clothes. She’d cut their hair herself. Mary Ashwood had let her own hair go gray the minute nature ordained it, while so many of her friends’ moms had stayed frozen in a time capsule brought to them by the beauty salon.
Avery had wanted that life. Bright and shiny and perfect.
She had it now.
Her hands full of paper bags, she leaned her shoulder against the cranberry color door and maneuvered so that she could wrap her hand around the knob, turning it and shoving it open.
“I’m home,” she called.
Not surprising at all, Hayden and Peyton said nothing. Also unsurprising, David assumed she was announcing it for the benefit of the children, and he said nothing either. Though, she heard his footsteps in the kitchen.
She walked through the entry, toward that room, and paused in the doorway. She put her hand on the door frame, brushing her fingertips over the wood.
The paint was chipped.
She frowned, then stepped forward. “I stopped to pick up a few things.”
“The kids are eating us out of house and home,” David said.
“They’re teenagers.” She shrugged as she set the bags onto the island. “It’s what they do.”
“Sure,” he said, his focus on his phone.
She busied herself putting the groceries in the fridge and the pantry, her mind blank for the first time all day. It had been filled with everything she’d had to do and this was the first time she’d slowed down long enough to have her own thoughts. If she wanted to.
But she was too tired for thinking today.
When she exited the walk-in pantry, her husband had put his phone away.
He looked at her and smiled. Something inside of her lit up.
He was just as handsome as the day she’d met him. They’d been young. Just finishing up college. He wasn’t from Oregon, but he had always wanted to go there. It so happened Medford had a good couple of hospitals, and there was ample opportunity for a new surgeon who was young and full of enthusiasm.
So she had moved back home. And he had moved with her.
“How is your mom?” he asked.
“She’s good. I mean, fine. You know how my mom is. She’s a big believer in sucking it up and soldiering on. She doesn’t talk about her feelings. But I think Gram’s death affected her a little bit more deeply than she expected it to. Considering they weren’t exactly that close.”
“Your gram always came to Sunday dinner, it’s not like they were strangers.”
“No, no I know.” But Avery also knew they were distant from each other. Gram was so easy with her, and with the kids. But a tightness came over her face when Mary entered the room.
And with her mom, who could even tell?
Avery sighed, sadness settling over her. This Sunday would be a dinner-at-Mom’s Sunday. They’d had one other since Gram’s death and Avery missed her sweet presence so much. Missed her giving the kids craft projects to do. Missed her rocking in that ratty old recliner her parents had had in the living room for at least thirty years while she ate her dessert.