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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