Threads by Patsy Brookshire Read Free Book Online Page A

How big should my drawing be?"
    I was glad to talk of anything else. The last thing I wanted to hear was how happy he
and Amy were. I preferred to forget her. As for the quilt I wasn't sure what size the middle piece
should be, so he said he'd draw up several sizes and I could choose which one I liked best.
    As I got up to leave he put his hand on my shoulder. "I often see you walking on the
beach. Please stop by and talk to me again."
    "But I don't want to bother you."
    "Sophie! I love to talk with you. Your laugh makes me glad."
    I smiled at that.
    "And sometimes I just get lonely here by myself. Promise me you'll come again."
    "If you want me..."
    "I do."
    For the next week I saw him on the beach every day, and armed with the invitation
always found my way over to him. I limited my time with him and hated leaving, but I was
skittish, afraid that if I stayed too long he would know what a dummy I was, or at least what a
dummy I thought I was.
    For up 'til then no one had ever talked to me, with me, or maybe even more important,
listened to me. He wanted to know what I thought. What I thought about books he'd read,
whether I ever went out and just looked at the stars at night? Did I believe in God? What was my
family like? What did I think happened after a person dies? Did I think there would ever be
another war?
    Funny things: had I ever seen a ghost, and did I think people had more than one life? If I
could travel, where would I go, and why? Did I want to get married and have children? What did
I want to do with my life?
    I wasn't used to so many questions, and certainly none about most of the things he
thought about. I'd take the questions home with me, the strange and new ideas and thoughts
spinning in my head, and work out my answers while I sewed and cleaned, or walked on the
beach.
    Next day I'd go back full of answers and questions of my own and we'd be off again,
talking and laughing a mile a minute, until I pulled myself away, frightened by the pull he had
upon me. David would always touch me somehow, lightly across my shoulders, fussing about to
make sure I was settled comfortably on the sand, taking my hands to help me up when I was
leaving. And once he insisted on helping me brush the sand from my skirt when I stood up,
causing such a feeling in me that I ran away.
    The feelings he raised in me! I was sucked into him, completely absorbed in him, but,
oddly, I also felt separate, unique. With him I felt at peace. Alone, or away from him I was
confused.
    He's married, I kept reminding myself, but the pull just kept getting stronger.
Every day I would tell myself, Today I'm not going down there, I'll stay at home . But
then, he would pass by in the morning and wave, and I'd decide, Well, just for a little while
this afternoon if I haven't got anything else to do . And the day would go on forever, until I
left the cabin, and went to him.
    Every day I used the excuse of the drawings to go talk to him. "Are they done yet?" I'd
ask and for a couple weeks I waited, wondering if he was really working on them or just a talker.
You know how lots of men are... And every day he'd say, "Just a little bit more, almost done,"
until it got to be almost a joke for me to tease him and him to pretend that he was working on a
masterpiece and I needed to wait for the, "magic of the muse," whatever that meant.
    The day it happened... One day, about a couple of weeks later, after the boys had left for
work, I was rummaging through my scrap bag when I heard what I knew was his knock on the
door, what they used to call a shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits knock. I jerked and scraps fell on the
floor. I tidied my hair quickly in the small mirror in my bedroom and tried to appear casual when
I opened the door.
    He'd never come into the cabin before. He took some time to look around. I let him
wander and started coffee, just to have something to do besides stare at him. The fire in the stove
was low, it didn't take much but a couple pieces of wood