“I know. If things had been different...with him...”
“Ben?”
“Yes,” Lark said.
“You could be with him now.”
She nodded. “It scares me, though. He conveniently doesn’t have a wife, and has a daughter so close to the age that my baby would be. Our baby. And it all feels a little bit neat. Like the kind of thing that might actually be poison.” A tear fell from her cheek onto her mother’s hand. “I wanted her, you know. I loved her. So much.”
“Nothing is going to replace your baby. His daughter wouldn’t be the same. Just like you’re not the same as Avery or Hannah. One of you does not replace the other. And never could. It just sort of expands, that’s all.”
“But we’re not in that space. Not at all.”
“How did you survive?” her mom asked. “Without any help?”
“I just... Kept on breathing. And in the end, that’s all it takes to survive. But somewhere in there I lost something of what I wanted to be. I lost my connection to all of you.” She looked at her mom, emotion bubbling in her chest. “Mom,” she said. “I really did think that you would look at me and think that I was... That I was broken like her.”
Guilt lashed at her, because she could see that her words nearly destroyed her mother where she sat.
“This is never what I wanted,” her mom said. “It’s not what I thought we had.”
And she couldn’t say who was at fault. Because it was like they had all allowed each other to be guests in each other’s homes, showing only the very best of themselves and hiding their secrets in a closet. Choosing to believe that each other couldn’t handle them rather than actually putting it to the test.
Even Gram had done that. Gram had known, but hadn’t reached out.
It was like they all felt so tentative in their position in the family. Gram knowing she was barely forgiven by her daughter, their mother wanting so desperately to be perfect in a way her own mother hadn’t been. And her daughters in turn wanting to make sure they didn’t disappoint that effort. And as for each other... As for the sisters...
They had let that same tendency keep them apart from each other as well.
Separate rooms, full of secrets.
Separate quilt squares.
Separate stories.
“Did anyone ever cry with you?” her mother asked, putting her hand on Lark’s face.
Her mother, who had never been able to show emotion, had tears on her cheeks. And Lark wanted to share this.
Needed to.
Lark shook her head, and Mary lowered hers, tears slipping down her cheek. This hurt. But it was a gift. This shared grief. The shared tears. And even though it was painful it was like a balm. Like a disinfectant poured onto a deep wound.
Because this pain, this grief, deserved the tears of others, because it was that deep. And she had carried it by herself all this time. Carried it inside of her, a piece of her story that she never spoke out loud.
And when they were done crying, Lark’s eyes were swollen, but her heart felt new.
“I’ll drive you back to The Dowell House,” her mom said, pushing her hair back from her face.
“Thanks,” she said.
“I feel like I have so much work to do, Lark. Getting to know you. Getting you to trust that I want to.”
“It isn’t just you,” Lark said. “You’ve just started sharing all the ways that Gram hurt you. You wanted to preserve our relationship with her, so you didn’t tell us how much it hurt. We knew it did, but it wasn’t... We knew it did. But I’m beginning to understand. And it’s complicated. Because I love Gram, but she hurt you.”
“I couldn’t ask you to sort through that when you were children.”
“We have to start trusting each other to handle these things that hurt. Because otherwise... Otherwise we just have to face them alone.”
Mary nodded, and they walked out of Gram’s bedroom and turned the light off behind them. Lark was holding the blanket, pressed firmly to her chest, but she didn’t notice until they were out the front door. But she kept on holding it, this blanket in her arms. That her grandmother had made for the great-grandchild she never held. That her mother now knew about. And even though she was holding the blanket now, she felt like she was carrying less than she had for the last sixteen years.
33
Sam threw me out. I have nowhere to go. I have nothing. Elsie says I can’t come back to the apartment. I’ll have to go back to Bear Creek. I don’t know if I can bear the shame of it. But I remember the girl I was there. She had hope. I want that hope again. I want to be loved again.
Ava Moore’s diary, 1924
Avery
It was sunny, it was summer, and Avery didn’t have to go into the store today. Consequently, she had dragged Hayden and Peyton to the Craft Café with her. Dragged was maybe a strong choice of words, but of course Hayden had to pretend like he was a little bit too cool to go to a Craft Café with his mother. Peyton... All of this had been difficult for her. It had been a little bit rocky with her friends, and she was still torn over feeling betrayed by what her dad had done, and loving him. And Avery didn’t have an easy answer for that. Because it wasn’t as if she had stopped loving David the day that he had hurt her.
She was thankful the school had been supportive. They’d offered the kids scholarships for next year if she couldn’t afford to pay, and it went a long way in soothing some of her worries.
But it didn’t ease their pain.
She still loved the idea of him. She could still see the man that she had walked down the aisle toward,
