Threads by Patsy Brookshire Read Free Book Online

teased me about
my eternal, infernal stitching, and complained about the little pieces that seemed to float into
every nook and cranny of the house. And here David was calling me an artist.
    He changed the subject. "So, Sophie, you make quilts, and plant roses. I'm learning more
about you every day. Tell me, which of the brothers is your husband, and how long will you be
here?"
    Me, married to one of my brothers? The idea was so ridiculous and too, my nerves were
just stretched thin. I hooted and laughed 'til I got a stitch in my side, thinking first of Willie and
then Zack as a husband to me.
    "What's so funny?" he kept asking.
    I finally got control of myself. "I'm here to help the boys, cook and clean for them. They
pay me a little from their wages and I get to live at the beach. I was tired of being with my
sisters. Willie and Zack and I, we all three like it."
    "I wondered... I'm glad. The older one seems so gruff and unlike you that I didn't like to
think of you married to him. I see him sometimes outside when I pass by in the evening, and he's
barely civil. I don't think he approves of me." His eyes twinkled. "And the younger one, he
stopped and talked to me on the beach, last year, and seems to like my painting...but he's too
young, too immature. So..." "I wondered." While he was discussing my brothers as husbands, my
mind was on his wife. I didn't want him to speak of her, but maybe I'd made the same mistake he
had.
    "But you, David, you're married, aren't you?" I hoped he'd laugh too and tell me she was
his sister, or his housekeeper, anything but his wife.
    "Of course I'm married."
    He didn't notice my disappointment. I swallowed it and kept smiling brightly at him,
while I murmured, "How nice," or something polite.
    "Amy and I've known each other all our lives. It seems we've always been married. It's
been about twelve years now."
    "But where is she?" I insisted. "I never see her." I wasn't happy with his tone in speaking
of her. He didn't sound at all like a miserable husband.
    "You haven't seen Amy because she seldom comes to the beach. She used to come often
when we first moved here about seven years ago, but now she's satisfied to stay at home, reading
and taking care.
    "She writes. When she's not off selling my paintings for me, that is. That's where she is
right now, in Salem. She left a week ago. I have a dealer there who sells for me. She delivers a
few to him. She has a regular route she follows all around the state, visiting small galleries, and
shops, and people she knows who are particularly interested in what I have to sell. She loves to
travel. And she really has a knack for selling, which is good, because I hate it. Getting out,
seeing all her old friends and meeting new people, it's good for her. Sometimes," he said quietly,
"she's gone all summer."
    "Then she's not...sickly?" I wasn't overjoyed at the idea of such a healthy, self-reliant
woman.
    "Sickly? No. Whatever gave you that idea?"
    "Well, Zack saw her last summer here on the beach..." It embarrassed me to admit I'd
been talking about him.
    The sun went out of his face. "Oh, that. Yes, last summer she wasn't well. For a while."
It seemed difficult for him and I wished I hadn't pried.
    "We lost our baby." His face tightened. I tried to stop him.
    "You needn't tell me."
    He took a long breath. "Amy was about three months along and we were very happy.
We'd waited so long, and had just about accepted that we wouldn't have children when she
realized she was carrying a child. She was very careful... But I guess it wasn't meant to be.
Losing the baby was very hard on her. More on her thinking than on her body."
    He sat quietly for a while, playing with the sand. Gulls screeched from down by the
water, fighting over a bit of something washed up in the tide. I couldn't think of what to say.
Then he squashed the tower he'd built, "But, it's all right now. We still have time. I'm thirty-five
and she's only thirty-three.
    "On to a more cheerful subject.