Still Waters by Lindsey Brackett

Author:Lindsey Brackett [Brackett, Lindsey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Firefly Southern Fiction
Published: 2017-09-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

By the time the whirlwind of incorporating Hannah into their simple routine subsided four days later, Cora Anne longed for those innocent childhood days again. Back then, she and Hannah had been united in their attention to details, hunting unbroken snail shells or mollusks with perfect bore holes for twining into a necklace.

Now Hannah’s focus was primarily aesthetic—she insisted on rehanging the gallery wall, not so the pictures were chronological, but so they were symmetrical—and she delighted in the knickknack décor that drove Cora Anne’s practical mind mad with clutter.

“But Cor, Nan’s had these sailor men on the mantle for years. They’ll look adorable on a shelf in the boys’ room.”

Then there was the matter of Tennessee Watson. The morning after Hannah arrived, he’d stopped by to say he’d be pretty busy all week with the Myrtle house punch list. She hadn’t seen him since, and the downstairs bedroom was now sectioned off by half-finished drywall. It was unlike Tennessee to leave a project undone for so long.

And she missed him, a realization that settled deep in the pit of her stomach right alongside the recognition of Nan’s deterioration.

Nan panted coming downstairs to give an opinion on the rug they’d found at a thrift store in Walterboro. She barely made it back up and then lay down for two hours. Her habit of early morning tea eased into mid-morning. Her laugh had become brittle, as though the action pained her.

Cora Anne hated admitting Hannah was right about more than design choices.

Late in the week, after a simple dinner of ham sandwiches and cucumber salad, Nan gathered her quilting basket and sat on the screened porch settee with Hannah beside her. Cora Anne perched on a chair and cast idle glances from the quilt to the windows overlooking the street, telling herself she wasn’t watching for him.

Nan handed over her quilting frame to Hannah and tucked a light afghan around her legs, despite the warmth of the late evening sun. She advised a stitch, and then asked the question Cora Anne figured she’d been chewing on for the last few days.

“Hannah, darling, how did you really steal away? Your mother always reminds me summer’s the busiest wedding season of them all.”

“It is, but I needed some time off.” She finished the stitch with flourish and grinned at Nan. “Besides, Mom is thrilled you’re domesticating me.”

“She’s been trying that all summer with me.” Cora Anne slid from the chair’s arm down into the lumpy cushions so she couldn’t watch Point Street. No more pining. “I’ve learned to fry chicken and make crab cakes and boil shrimp. But quilting’s not taking.”

“That’s because you’re too much of a perfectionist, dear. You have to be willing to take out the stitches and start over, instead of becoming angry and giving up.”

She curled into the chair, arms wrapped around her knees. “I don’t get angry.”

“Yes, you do.” Hannah and Nan spoke at the same time.

“Is this some sort of intervention?”

Hannah rethreaded the needle. “Nope. Just stating the facts.

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