Let it Sew (3 page)

“Sounds like my Break-You-Buy policy at the antique shop. That, too, was put in place
because of Ethan Devereaux. He broke an antique mirror from the late 1800s shortly
after I opened the shop. Ethan being Ethan, he refused to help me clean it up.” Rose
tsked under her breath as Leona continued. “Of course, Charlotte hurried over and
made amends on all fronts.”

“She’s been doing that since he was two.” Rose shook her head sadly. “And I suspect
she was still doing it until the day she died . . . or at least during any periods
of lucidness she may have had.”

“How old is this kid?” Tori finally asked, anxious to put an age-appropriate image
to the name being bandied about the room.

“He’s not a kid,” Melissa answered. “He’s got to be in his late thirties, at least.”

Georgina quickly concurred. “Brian is coming up on fifty-five, I believe, so that
would make Ethan about forty-one, forty-two.
”

Tori pushed Margaret Louise’s stocking from her mind once and for all. “Who’s Brian?”

“Charlotte’s older son. He’s mentally challenged but quite high functioning.” Dixie
wandered over to the stone hearth and peered at the various framed photographs displayed
across the mantel. “Charlotte never said it, but I always assumed Ethan was pampered
the way he was because he was . . .”

“The normal son,” Rose finished. “The one who would eventually take the helm of Parker’s
company, though from what I’ve heard, Ethan sits at a desk and watches TV most days
while Brian and Jerry Lee keep things running.”

“Jerry Lee?” It was like Tori’s first sewing circle meeting all over again. So many
names she simply didn’t know.

Dixie shuffled her way along the length of the mantel, studying each photograph with
the carefully culled skills of a busybody. “Jerry Lee Sweeney. He was Parker’s best
friend and right-hand man.”

“And a saving grace for Charlotte once Parker took off for the hills.” Rose periscoped
her head over the back of the couch and narrowed her gaze on Dixie. “What in heaven’s
name are you doing over there, Dixie?”

“Just looking, I guess. Charlotte’s passing has me feeling a little restless and out
of sorts.”

“When
aren’t
you out of sorts?” Leona quipped.

Anxious to avoid the war of words that was sure to follow, Georgina, too, stood, the
warning glint in her eyes aimed at Leona even while her words were meant for Tori.
“It’s a shame you never got to know Charlotte, Victoria. She was a true talent with
a needle
and
a pencil.”

“Oh? Was she a writer like Colby?” Tori asked.

Debbie shook her head at the reference to her author husband. “No. Charlotte was a
gifted artist. That pencil sketch of my bakery that hangs on the wall beside the front
door was done by Charlotte as a gift shortly after I opened.”

“And that drawing there”—Georgina pointed toward the mantel—“by Dixie’s right hand?
That was done by Charlotte as well.”

Tori studied the framed sketch of the Sweet Briar Town Hall and marveled at the details.
The trees, the sidewalk, the building, and even the cracked window were skillfully
drawn.

Resting her hand along the back of the sofa, she gestured toward the picture with
her chin. “What’s with the crack in the front right window?”

Georgina laughed. “Charlotte was a stickler about details. You remember what it was
like when Tropical Storm Roger came knocking, Victoria?”

“How could I forget?” she asked. The storm had caused some flooding damage to the
library as well as extensive tree-related damage to Rose’s neighborhood.

“Well, we had one like that here about seven years ago. In that one, a tree had fallen
against that very window of Town Hall just days before she sketched this picture.
Fortunately for us, the tree had been removed. But as you can see, the crack remained.”

“She couldn’t simply draw the window without the crack?” Tori asked, her curiosity
aroused.

Leona lowered her magazine to her lap. “Charlotte called a spade a spade when it came
to her art. If the crack was there when she sat down to sketch, the crack was part
of the drawing.”

Rose rubbed at her arthritis-ridden fingers and did her best to disguise a wince.
“Too bad she didn’t employ that same attention to detail where Ethan was concerned.
Might have saved her some heartache.”

“Not to mention embarrassment.” Dixie stepped back from the mantel and came to stand
beside Tori. “I sure hope you take good care of that sewing box Leona gave you after
you moved here. It meant a lot to Charlotte even if she wouldn’t admit it.”

Tori looked from her sewing box to Dixie and back again, her fingers instinctively
reaching out to trace the horse-and-buggy carving once again. “I don’t understand . . .”

Leona set her magazine on the end table to the left of her chair and sighed. “Remember
how I told you Charlotte made amends after Ethan broke that antique mirror?” At Tori’s
nod, Margaret Louise’s twin continued. “Well, one of the ways she did that was to
give me that box for my shop. I refused to accept it at first on account of not wanting
to be burned at the stake by certain women in this room if I had, but Charlotte insisted
I add it to my inventory. I never felt right about it, though, even going so far as
to turn down a number of offers from interested customers. But then, when you came
along and fell in love with it, I knew I’d found someone who would treasure it for
more than just its antique value.”

She let her hand glide across the legs of the horse and the wheels of the buggy, the
sensation beneath her fingertips transporting her back in time to some of her earliest
memories of her late great-grandmother—the woman who had taught Tori how to sew.

Blinking against the prick of tears that threatened to bring down the mood of the
room, Tori found her smile and directed it up at Dixie. “Charlotte’s sewing box is
safe with me. You have my word on that.”

Chapter 3

One look around the funeral home and it was apparent Charlotte Devereaux had been
a well-loved member of Sweet Briar. Council members, business owners, and residents
alike mulled around the viewing room with story after story to share of a woman Tori
had met only through the eyes of her sewing circle sisters.

But just as Rose’s and Dixie’s stories stopped at the time Charlotte left the circle
five years earlier, so, too, did everyone else’s. And it wasn’t hard to understand
why.

Charlotte had married her husband, Parker, when they were just nineteen. The next
five decades together yielded a family and a lucrative company dreamed up over a shared
glass of wine. Based on the snippets of conversation Tori heard throughout the night,
they were the epitome of the perfect couple.

So it made perfect sense why Charlotte had retreated from the world when one half
of that perfect couple simply up and walked out on her with nary a hint as to his
plans. To venture out her door after that would have been akin to ripping off her
heart’s Band-Aid again and again and again.

“If you keep frowning like that, dear, no amount of makeup advice I give will have
even a hope of making a difference.”

Tori released her lower lip from its nibbled hold between her teeth and glanced up
at her self-appointed life coach on all things southern and beyond, shrugging as she
did. “Don’t you find it so sad that Charlotte lived the last five years of her life
in so much pain? I mean, think about it. Those six months or so after I caught Jeff
cheating on me were virtually unbearable. I can’t even imagine five years like that.”

Rose elbowed her way between them to claim a pair of white folding chairs to the left
of Tori. Pointing a middle-aged black woman to the one in the middle, Rose slowly
lowered herself to the other. “That’s why the Alzheimer’s was actually a blessing
in disguise. She was able to forget the pain at times, wasn’t she, Frieda?”

Before the woman could answer, Rose grabbed hold of Tori’s white silk blouse and tugged.
“Victoria, this is Frieda Taylor. Frieda was Charlotte’s personal nurse right up until
the very end, isn’t that right, Frieda?”

Her face grim, Frieda nodded. Slowly. “That’s right, Mizz Winters.”

Margaret Louise cleared the receiving line and pulled up a chair, her feet looking
more than a little out of place in black patent leather dress pumps. “Did ya’ll see
Ethan just now? Why, he was textin’ up a storm while the lot of us were waitin’ to
offer our condolences to him and Brian.” Pulling her hand down the front of her face,
Margaret Louise took in a deep, deliberate inhale. “You’d think he was sittin’ on
a park bench instead of mournin’ the mama that catered to his every whim.”

“What’s going to happen to Brian?” Leona asked.

One by one, they all turned in the direction of the receiving line, their collective
gazes moving from the well-dressed, albeit despised, Ethan to his slightly rumpled,
yet older, brother, Brian. In contrast to the younger Devereaux, Brian’s focus was
trained on the face of each person who stopped to shake his hand, his expression serious.

Rose sighed. “I imagine Ethan will shove him in a group home for the mentally challenged.”

An uncharacteristic cluck emerged from Leona’s mouth but was quickly dwarfed by a
garbled sound from Charlotte’s nurse.

“Frieda?” Margaret Louise leaned across the circle of chairs and laid a calming hand
on the woman’s knee. “Is everything okay?”

Laying a hand across her mouth, Frieda shook her head, her long dark lashes mingling
atop her cheeks before parting to reveal a pain so raw, so real, it drew a gasp from
Tori and her friends. “Mizz Devereaux was convinced Ethan would step up and take care
of Brian when she passed. She believed it so surely she insisted on making a list
of all Brian’s likes and dislikes just so Ethan would have them to consult as needed.”
Frieda dropped her hand to her lap, her already hushed voice morphing into a near
whisper. “She used one whole day’s energy writing that list.”

“I knew Charlotte was sick and that she wasn’t doing well, but I had no idea she was
so close to death.” Rose’s hands shook ever so slightly as she pulled the flaps of
her cotton sweater close against her delicately patterned floral housedress. “If I’d
known, I would have stopped by to see her.”

“I didn’t know she was so close, either.” Frieda looked up, her large eyes moving
from face to face, searching for something Tori didn’t understand. “Every day she
had a good spell. She’d tell stories—mostly about her husband, Parker.”

“She shouldn’t have wasted her spells.” Leona’s voice dripped with the unmistakable
bitterness of one who understood the kind of hurt Charlotte had endured at the hands
of her wayward husband. “He didn’t deserve them.”

“Some days, I worked up the courage to say those exact words. I even tried to encourage
her to use her energy on other things—like accompanying me on a walk around the property
or doing something simple like icing cookies or playing a game with Brian when he
wasn’t working . . . but then she’d ramble on about mistakes, looking at me with the
most heartbreaking emptiness in her face.”

Rose and Margaret Louise exchanged looks as Frieda continued. “That’s when I started
to realize the emptiness came
after
Mizz Devereaux rambled.”

Tori looked at the faces assembled around them but saw the same confusion she knew
was mirrored on her own.

“I tried to tell Ethan some of the things she said, but he chalked it up to the Alzheimer’s
just like Mr. Sweeney, and the night nurse, and the doctor, and even”—Frieda worked
to contain the emotion that permitted a tear to slip down her round cheeks—“
I
did for far too long.”

Leona backed into the upholstered chair behind her and sat down. “What are you saying,
Frieda?”

The nurse lifted her head and looked toward the receiving line, the sight of Ethan
texting and Brian still greeting mourners relaxing her too-rigid shoulders a hairbreadth.
“Miss Devereaux was insistent that Mr. Devereaux loved her.”

“It’s called denial. It’s one of Kübler-Ross’s grief phases.” Leona rubbed her heavily
moisturized hands against one another. “Charlotte was just too old and too sick to
reach the acceptance phase, that’s all.”

Frieda leaned forward across the center of the circle, her hands nervously clenching
and unclenching in her lap. “I don’t think it was denial. I think it was real.”

“If that louse truly loved her, why did he walk out?” Leona hissed.

Frieda swallowed. “I asked her that. Many times, in fact. And every time I did, she
answered the same way.”

“And what way was that?” Rose asked.

“She would say, ‘Parker loved us both.’ And then, when I would question her words,
she would say, ‘I did as he would have wanted.’” Frieda swiped at her face as a second
and third tear rolled down her cheeks. “But then she’d get this fearful look on her
face and she’d quit drawing completely, mumbling over and over about being a fool.”

“You tend to feel that way when you’ve been dumped.” Leona shot a pointed look in
Tori’s direction. “It’s the anger phase—only in the case of a broken heart, the anger
tends to go inward as much as it goes outward.”

Margaret Louise held her hands up, successfully cutting off her sister mid-tirade.
“Wait just a minute. Charlotte was drawin’ while she was sick? I didn’t know that
was possible.”

“She wasn’t dead, Margaret Louise,” Rose groused.

Frieda straightened up once again, this time reaching her hand into a large black
purse she’d set on the ground at her feet and pulling out a leather-bound book. “I
bought this book for Mizz Devereaux about four or five weeks before her death. I’d
had an Alzheimer’s patient once who seemed to come alive when he painted. When I saw
all those lovely sketches Miss Devereaux had made over the years, I hoped a sketchbook
might do the same for her. I guess there was a part of me, too, that hoped it would
help her communicate more effectively.”

Realizing the nurse was holding the book in her direction, Tori took it from the woman’s
hands and unsnapped the tab that kept it closed. The first page showed a picture of
a fireplace that played host to a series of tiered candles where a fire would normally
burn. All but one candle was lit, casting the scene in a magical glow of warmth and
peace. The mantel above held framed sketches, various knickknacks, and even a carelessly
placed piece of paper dangerously close to the far edge. Tori brought the book closer,
squinting at the framed sketches in the background.

“Did Charlotte draw all of these?” She heard the awe in her voice and knew it was
well deserved.

Rose peered over her shoulder, her breath warm against Tori’s cheek. “You mean the
ones on the mantel?”

Tori nodded, her gaze skimming across the main sketch as she drank in still more details—the
empty rocker in the corner, the sleeping cat on the hearth, the stethoscope lying
on a table beside the rocker . . .

“She did,” Rose confirmed as Margaret Louise left her seat for a better view. “See
that one right there?” Extending her bony index finger toward the book, Rose pointed
at the framed photograph on the far left of the mantel. “Don’t you remember that picture
Georgina mentioned at the circle meeting last night? The one Charlotte drew of Town
Hall with the crack in the window? That’s the original right there. And do you see
the one right next to it?”

Tori followed Rose’s finger from one sketched photograph to the next, marveling at
the perfect scale. “That’s the Gazebo in the town square during a festival!”

“
That
one there is my favorite.” Margaret Louise reached over Tori’s shoulder and indicated
the picture in the center of the mantel. “I reckon that’s because it captures just
how purty Sweet Briar is during the holidays.”

Margaret Louise was right. It did. Right down to the perfectly decorated tree in the
middle of the Green.

“I like that one.” Leona’s chin jutted in the direction of the second-to-last frame
on the right. “Something about seeing the Sweet Briar Fire Department just makes me
feel . . . warm.”

“I reckon that’s because you’ve spent the past five years or so datin’ your way through
the volunteer ranks, Twin.” Then, without giving Leona a chance to respond, Margaret
Louise continued. “Charlotte sure did love this town. Loved the buildings. Loved the
people. Loved the spirit. Cryin’ shame Parker had to humiliate her the way he did.”

Tori heard the words yet didn’t respond, as her attention had shifted to the final
frame. “Oh, my gosh, that’s my building. That’s my library!” Leaning still closer
to the original sketch, she took in every detail of the smaller, framed sketch in
the background—the hundred-year-old moss trees that graced the grounds, the steps
she’d sat on for lunch nearly every day despite the picnic table the Friends of the
Library had donated three years earlier, the large stately windows that overlooked
the town . . .

It was all there.

Picture perfect.

“Beautiful, ain’t it?” Margaret Louise asked.

Nodding, Tori looked up from the first page of the book and sought Frieda’s eyes.
“Where is this?”

“You mean the fireplace?”

“The fireplace. The mantel. The room. All of it,” she answered.

“That’s Mizz Devereaux’s study. That’s where we went when she had her clear moments.
She was sitting in her favorite recliner when she drew that. That’s why the recliner
isn’t in the picture—because that’s where she was sitting. In that one, I’d gotten
out of the rocker to get her some tea yet left my stethoscope on the table.” Frieda’s
shoulders dropped, her words, her tone taking on a broken quality. “By the time I
got back with her tea, she’d slipped away again.”

Silence blanketed the space between them as each woman took a moment to study the
picture one more time, the nurse’s words reminding them of the reason they were there
and Charlotte was not. Then, with a determined inhale, Tori closed the book and handed
it back to Frieda. “Thank you for sharing that with us.”

“But what ’bout the rest of the pictures?” Margaret Louise protested. “Can’t we see
the rest?”

Reaching up to her shoulder, Tori rested a quieting hand on Margaret Louise’s. “Frieda
needs to get home and get some rest.”

And it was true. One only had to look at the woman’s eyes to see the pain and the
sadness. It was obvious Frieda Taylor had lost far more than a patient when Charlotte
Devereaux passed away. She’d also lost a treasured friend.

The picture book could wait.

Compassion couldn’t.

Tori rose to her feet, extending a hand in Frieda’s direction. “I’m so sorry for your
loss, Frieda. If there’s anything we can do, please let us know.”