He looked down again. The last row was blank, pale cloth waiting.For memories still to come.
He traced the edge with a fingertip.
Tom laid his palm flat over the blank square.
He pictured the next square. The next turning point in their lives.
Lauren—blazing, furious, magnificent.
The woman who’d thrown him out because she still believed in herself.
The woman who’d taught him that love wasn’t about taste or polish or perfection.
He closed his eyes.
He could still see it: her standing there on that frozen Christmas night. Anger burning through her grief, beauty shining behind her in the tangle of garlands and handmade snowflakes. The moment she’d saved them.
He needed to sew that. For her.
To get the thread the exact color of her eyes. To find a fabric that could catch the fierce line of her jaw, the way her breath had fogged in the cold, the wild courage of her tears.
He could build houses out of blueprints and concrete. He could make walls straight, angles true. But could he create that moment? Could he do justice to the woman who’d made this quilt?
He had to try.
When he looked again, the empty fabric didn’t look so empty. It looked like a promise.
Tom had never realizedhow loud a needle could sound.
Every time it punched through the fabric, the noise cracked like judgment.
He sat at Linda’s craft table, shoulders hunched, surrounded by a small apocalypse of failed attempts. The first square was bunched up like a wrinkled napkin. The second had frayed edges that refused to lie flat. The third was—he didn’t even know what the third was supposed to be anymore. A triangle that might have been a roof? A door? A disgrace.
The trash can was a graveyard of fabric scraps.
The plan had seemed simple: work on the square, take a few tries until he made it perfect, and when he had done that, sew it to the quilt.
Tom threaded the needle again. The thread slipped. His fingers weren’t built for this—too thick, too clumsy. He sucked his thumb where the point had pricked it. Blood dotted the fabric anyway. He wiped at it with his sleeve, which made it worse. The stain spread into a rusty little bloom.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, pushing back from the table.
This—this messy, quiet, fragile act—this was her world.
He wanted to learn her language.
Tom set the fabric down again. How did you make thread look like light?
He tried sewing a little cutout of red cotton onto the background. The edges curled. He pressed them flat and burned himself on the iron.
He didn’t curse this time. He just sat there, thumb in his mouth, staring at the scrap, feeling pathetic.
Every stitch he’d ever watched her make had looked effortless. Her hands had moved in rhythm, easy and smooth. She’d hummed sometimes. She’d looked peaceful.
This was not peaceful.
He started over again. Cut another square. He exhaled, slow.
Maybe he could trace. He found a pencil, sketched a tiny outline of a door. Not perfect. But… better?
