Sweet Saturday

Welcome back! I have the next part of my work-in-progress. This week I have a little insight into my heroine, Sophie:

The ladies in the quilting group kept up a lively conversation, but Sophie remained silent as she cut the pieces for her own quilt. She loved the weekly meetings because she could live vicariously through their stories. All of them had families, and she enjoyed listening as they shared their trials and joys.

Sophie loved children and had wanted to become a teacher, but there had been no money for college. Her grandparents lived simply in rural Indiana and couldn't afford extras. Jeffrey had promised she could go to college as soon as he finished his own degree. But as soon as the wedding license had been signed, he began to groom her into what he felt a successful businessman’s wife should be. She needed to wear the right clothes, and wasn’t allowed to leave the house without her hair and makeup in perfect order. She had to eat right to keep her weight down and her complexion clear. She had to watch her speech and not use that “hillbilly language” as he had called it.

At first she had been flattered that Jeffrey wanted her to look and act her best. She absorbed everything she could from magazines and books, and observed the wives of Jeffrey’s colleagues to learn about style and deportment. But it seemed nothing she did was ever good enough. She always fell short of his expectations.

“Sophie, I can’t get these pieces to line up correctly. I know the squares are cut correctly because I double-checked. But every time I sew them together they shift or something and the corners don’t match up. What am I doing wrong?”

She quickly put her thoughts away and turned a smile toward Sylvia. “Let's take a look. Did you pin your pieces together?"

Helping her customers with their questions kept her occupied for the next hour. The ladies were at various levels of expertise and some needed more help than others. Sylvia’s problems stemmed from the fact that she had recently purchased her machine and wasn’t totally familiar with it. Sophie had helped her select the machine and felt responsible for helping her use it.

“Did you hear about the convict who escaped from the prison in Indianapolis?”

Kirstie’s question sparked a lively conversation among the other ladies, but Sophie didn't hear any of it. Her blood ran cold and she froze, her heart beating furiously. And then her world went black.

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