Harriet's face burned, and she took a deep steadying breath before she spoke.
'I actually came to order take-out for my aunt and I.'
'What? No food for the senor?'
Jorge couldn't have missed the look that passed between Harriet and Aiden. He clapped his large hands together.
'Well, then, mija, what did you have in mind for dinner? You want to try something different? How about some nice barbacoa burritos?'
'Sounds good,” Harriet said.
There were more than burritos in the bag when she unpacked it. Aunt Beth came through the studio door into the kitchen as Harriet was pouring a glass of lemonade for each of them. She glanced at the two place settings on the island bar, and her eyebrows rose.
'No Aiden?” she asked.
'He had to be home for dinner,” Harriet said, and busied herself dividing the generous carton of guacamole into two smaller bowls. She pulled out a small bag of tortilla chips from the main package and poured them into a basket she placed within reach of both places.
'Are you regretting sending Carla to be his housekeeper?'
'No,” she said, too quickly. “No. I couldn't in good conscience let her continue living in a car with a baby.” She set a container of salsa by each plate-mild for Aunt Beth, medium for herself.
'You didn't have to suggest Aiden. She could have stayed here.” Aunt Beth settled at the bar, and Harriet handed her a plate with a foil-wrapped burrito.
'Aiden does need a housekeeper. It works for both of them. He would have had to pay someone anyway. It might as well be Carla. It's a win-win.” She knew her response lacked the enthusiasm usually associated with such words. She set her own plate and burrito on the counter.
'But…'
'No but,” Harriet said and sat down beside her aunt. She unwrapped her burrito and carefully folded the used foil with one hand. “It's just that I'm starting to feel like the other woman. They have all kinds of plans, and I have to fit in around the edges.'
'It's only natural for people who live together to have to coordinate their schedules.'
'How many times did Avanell have to miss dinner out with the Threads to be home to eat with Rose?” Harriet asked, referring to Aiden's mother and their family housekeeper.
'That was different. Rose came to Avanell and George when they had their first child. She helped with the baby and took care of the house. They were both working, and she had to contend with their schedule initially. Then, as the kids got bigger, she had to work around their classes and activities, too.'
'A big part of me totally gets it. I want Carla living there where she and Wendy are safe and Aiden can keep an eye on her new boyfriend. I just liked it better when she was living at his house and he still had the apartment over the vet hospital. I was getting used to having him around all the time.'
'Are you sure it isn't that you liked having everything your way?'
'Thanks for your caring support,” Harriet said and dipped a tortilla chip into her bowl of guacamole.
'What good would I be if I only said what you wanted to hear?'
'You're right. It's one more reason why Aiden and I don't belong together. I got used to having things my way. I'm not used to accommodating anyone else's needs anymore.'
'That's not true,” Aunt Beth said around a bite of burrito. “You can be a very flexible person. Look how you helped Lauren through her tough spot. And you don't even like her.'
'You're right. I can be. It's just hard. Aiden and I are still figuring out our relationship. Adding another person or persons makes it harder.'
'I'm going to be going over there tomorrow after Threads to see how the changes she and I talked about are working out, housekeeping wise. She feels so grateful-she thinks she has to work constantly to earn her keep. She may be using the time we freed up from cleaning to cook. I'll see what I can do.'
'Don't tell her I said anything.'
'Don't be insulting,” Aunt Beth said and then smiled. “I'll feel Marjory out, too. She cut back Carla's hours at the quilt shop when the girl moved to Aiden's so she could get settled. I'll put a bug in her ear about restoring the old schedule. If Carla doesn't have so much time on her hands, it'll be easier for her to stick to a reasonable housekeeping schedule.'
'You're the best,” Harriet said and hugged her aunt with her good arm.
Chapter 15
Harriet and Fred were in the kitchen the next morning when Aunt Beth came downstairs.
'Are you trying to put me out of a job?” Beth said when she saw Harriet's cereal bowl.
'You're helping enough, taking on all my quilt jobs; especially the one for the woman in Angel Harbor.'
A woman they had met at quilt camp had pieced a quilt she hoped to enter in the upcoming Jefferson County Quilt Guild show. It was a blended floral quilt, and the woman had asked for stitching that suggested a small iris image combined with some equally small cross-hatching. It would take at least twice if not three times the amount of time to finish as for an average quilt of the same size.
'Honey, I could do that job in my sleep,” Aunt Beth said.
Beth's familiarity with the long arm machine aside, Harriet knew her aunt was more tired than she let on. In the few short months since retiring, she'd become accustomed to a life of leisure, or at least a life of not being on her feet all day.
'My collar bone and shoulder are feeling a lot better already. I'm supposed to start exercises today.'
'For your shoulder?” Aunt Beth asked in disbelief.
'No, no, not my shoulder-my wrist and elbow. It says so on that paper they gave us when I left the emergency room. I'm supposed to squeeze a rubber ball. I thought I'd squeeze a needle through fabric at Loose Threads today instead. I was going to go rummage through projects in the studio when I finished my cereal and see if I could find something I'd already cut out that would be easy to hand piece.'
'You have so many UFOs that shouldn't be too hard,” Aunt Beth said, making reference to the euphemism that quilters used for unfinished projects or “objects.'
Harriet laughed as she got up and put her empty cereal bowl in the sink.
'Come on, Fred, we have work to do.'
It was a good thing I started early, Harriet thought later. It had taken almost thirty minutes to wade through her partially started projects one-handed. She'd finally picked up a Lemoyne star project she'd started in a class years ago on one of her visits to Aunt Beth. The stars were made up of eight diamond-shaped pieces with setting triangles and squares in a background color. Harriet had cut her diamonds from brown-and-red print Civil War reproduction fabrics. Fred batted at the pieces as she tried to gather them up and put them into her quilting bag.
'You're not helping, you know,” she scolded. “This is hard enough one-handed without having to pick pieces up off the floor where you keep knocking them.'
'Are you ready?” Aunt Beth asked as she came into the studio, her purse in one hand and her quilt bag in the other.
'I am in spite of excessive feline help.'
