Georgia nudged her. “Let’s go ahead and start. If more people show up, I’ll look after them.”

Caroline swallowed hard to compose herself. “Welcome,” she said, and composure failed her utterly. “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” She grabbed a tissue. “I didn’t expect to get so emotional. My name is Caroline Shelby and this is the first meeting of the Oysterville Sewing Circle.”

She took a deep breath, then blew it out. “Whew, sorry. Anyway, thanks for being here,” she said. “Shall we begin?”

There was a murmured assent.

“Let’s open with our mission statement. I stayed up way too late last night, trying to get the words right.” She indicated the writing on the whiteboard. “‘The Oysterville Sewing Circle was founded to provide a safe, supportive community for survivors of domestic violence and their friends and family members.’ Okay, so it’s not Shakespeare. Just want to be transparent. We’re not a crisis agency—for that, you need to contact the numbers listed on the flyer. We’re completely volunteer-run and self-supporting.” She passed around a clipboard with a phone list. “I’m really grateful to those of you who showed up. You’re welcome to share only what you’re comfortable sharing, even if it’s nothing at all. And please take care with other people’s information.”

She introduced her sisters and Sierra. “Bear with me,” she said. “I’m new to this. I guess tonight we’re all new.” Then she paused as a young woman slipped in and hovered near the door, gave a curt nod, then took a seat.

“I’m Ilsa,” she mumbled, staring at the floor.

Friendly murmurs rippled through the group.

“Thanks for coming,” Caroline said, her heart pounding. Oh, she wanted this to go well. “Let’s get started.” She took a basket out from under her chair. “This is a collection of mostly household items. The idea is to pick an object from the basket that has some kind of meaning to you and tell the group a brief story about it.”

There were a few beats of hesitant silence. Caroline clutched the edge of her chair. Shoot. Was the icebreaker activity too dorky? Too boring? Too threatening?

“I’ll give it a shot,” someone said. “I’m Amy.” She wore a shapeless hoodie, sweatpants, and scuffed sneakers, and she looked to be in her twenties. Taking the basket, she returned to her seat and made a serious study of the contents. Caroline had gathered a collection of common items—kitchen tools, a paperweight, a ticket stub, the usual junk drawer detritus found in anyone’s home.

“Okay, here’s something.” Amy held up a key chain with a flashlight attached. “A key chain doesn’t seem very important, but to me, it’s everything. I saw a notice about this meeting at the library, and I drove myself up from Ilwaco in order to check it out.” Her voice was harsh, maybe from smoking or drinking or both. “That doesn’t really sound like a big deal, and to most people, it’s not. To me, it’s everything. A year ago, I didn’t even know how to drive. My goddamn husband wouldn’t let me learn. See, if I could drive, I could get away from him, and then he wouldn’t have nobody to beat up on. Best thing that happened to me was he got sent up for grand theft auto. Motherfucker’s doing time in Walla Walla. First thing I did when he was gone, I took driving lessons. Hocked my wedding ring to pay for it—he would’ve flattened me for taking it off, but I have no regrets. I was determined. I learned to drive like a boss, and it was drive, drive, drive, for miles and miles, and I loved it. Felt like pure freedom. The day I got my license was a new beginning for me. I’m scared about what he’ll do when he gets out, but for now I’m safe. I love to drive. It’s, like, my favorite thing. I deliver pizzas, I drive for Uber, run errands for folks. Oh, and there’s a dry cleaner down in Astoria that’s got me doing pickups and deliveries. Ain’t much of a living, but it keeps me on the road.”

Silence fell over the group. Amy merely shrugged, placed the key chain in the basket, and passed it to the woman beside her. “Anyhoo, glad I came. Awesome cookies, by the way.”

The next woman—Evelyn, calm and grandmotherly, the kind you’d see in church—sorted through the basket and picked out an empty checkbook register. “Ah, here we go,” she said, her voice a soft contrast to Amy’s rough speech. “This sparks something, for sure. The third time my husband put me in the hospital, the judge made a no-contact order against him. Now, I know the judge meant well, but it created a huge problem in my life. I had no job and no skills, I was raising my daughter, who needed medical treatment I couldn’t afford. I went to court and begged the judge to undo the no-contact order, because my husband controlled all the money.”

As she spoke, Evelyn twisted a gold wedding band around and around her finger. “I know how that must sound to you young, independent girls, but in my day, we didn’t have options like you do. The judge looked at me and said, ‘You’re willing to be a punching bag for the sake of your daughter.’” She moved her hand to her wrist as if massaging an ache there. “Even though I pleaded, the judge left the no-contact order in place. But he was clearly troubled by it all. Later he introduced me to someone who showed me how to access benefits for my daughter and to lay claim to my husband’s railroad pension. I’m still married to the man, though I’ve not seen him in years. I suppose one day there will be a divorce. For me, that would just be a formality. I’ve been free for a good while now.”

Echo Sanders selected a spool of thread from the basket. “This was a no-brainer for me,” she said, offering a flash of her bashful smile. “Sewing is my first love, and it’s cool that this group calls itself a sewing circle.” She spoke briefly, her gaze darting to the clock on the wall. She mentioned her gratitude at helping out with Caroline’s new workshop. Then she brought up the idea of sacrifice. “I read somewhere that people lose their way when they forget their dreams. Do we? I hope it’s not so. I’ve never forgotten my dreams. I know exactly what they are. My problem is, I’m too busy just trying to make ends meet. I’m not looking for pity. Just saying what’s on my mind.”

The next woman’s name was Willow. She picked out a Quo Vadis planner, its creamy white pages blank. “Oh, this takes me back,” she said. “I was an obsessive planner, had my life all mapped out to the last detail. That’s the thing about life—it doesn’t go according to plan. I married a man who subjected me to degrading tirades and episodes of rage that sent me cowering. There was a subtlety about it, though. The slow deterioration wasn’t obvious, even to me. I couldn’t see the situation clearly. The abuse eroded my independence and destroyed my self-confidence. By the time I found the fire to leave and start over, I was an empty shell.”

She flipped through the blank pages. Her hands looked chapped and raw, ten years older than her smooth, round-cheeked face. “My ex denies everything. He gaslights me—makes me think I’m the crazy one, out to get him and imagining things. I’ve tried to tell people—friends and family—but I can’t manage to convey the situation and they think I’m crazy, too. Some days I still question myself. He’s successful, beloved by everyone who meets him. He’s influential. Upstanding. Everything you think of when you think of a guy who runs a major hospital.”

She turned to the calendar section of the planner and studied the grid for a moment. “I got a lot of bad advice from well-meaning people. My pastor suggested ways to mollify my husband, soften his anger. One friend said I should get better at sex.”

A loud snort burst from Amy.

“Exactly. So I’m here in the hopes of finding someone who gets it.” She looked around nervously; then her gaze darted to the floor. “I think—I hope—I might have found it.”

Caroline grabbed Sierra’s hand. They looked at each other and held on tight.

“I had to get a protective order as I was in the process of leaving,” Willow continued, “and there was more gaslighting, even from the judge, because I simply couldn’t explain what emotional abuse feels like. I was depressed, probably still am, but I can’t afford to treat it. My self-confidence is in the dirt. The only job I dared to take was with a hotel laundry service. I don’t know if I’ll ever find my way back to who I was.” She smoothed her reddened hand over the pages. “And I was somebody. A justice of the peace—can you believe it? Ironically, I’m authorized to perform marriages. I had other skills, too. I’m a business analyst and a patent lawyer. I wrote business plans for multimillion-dollar corporations and start-ups on a shoestring.”

Caroline couldn’t believe her ears. A lawyer. A judge. And now the woman was a hotel laundry worker?