The Star She Gave Away Twice

I believed her. I have known Gwen Tolliver for eleven years, and I have watched her pass the plate at church without putting anything in it these last two winters, and I had not let myself understand what that meant.

“I don’t want the money,” I said. “I wanted my name on my star. That’s all I ever wanted.”

She nodded, and kept nodding, and could not stop. Hugh came out the library door with an iron under each arm, saw us, and walked very slowly to the truck so we would have more time.

I did not hug her that day. I want to be honest about that. I was not ready.

I told her I would see her Thursday, and she said she would be there, and she got into her old Buick and drove away down Washington Avenue with her blinker on the whole way, the way she always forgets.

The kit sales stopped by themselves.

I did not post anything. I did not write a review or tell anybody in town what had happened.

But thirty women went home with a free pattern that had my name on the top, and some of them took pictures and put them on the library’s page, and some of them had friends who had friends.

By Wednesday a woman from Thayer had commented under one picture that she had seen the same star for sale for forty dollars and had almost bought it.

Nobody bought a Hollow Star kit after that Saturday. Pam checked Sunday afternoon and called to read me the number like a ballgame score. Three hundred twelve. By Monday morning the listing was gone.

Thursday came.

I had not been to guild in five weeks. I drove to the extension office at eight forty-five, like always, and parked in my usual spot beside the bulletin board where they post the soil test results and the 4-H notices.

My hands were shaking on the wheel. Hugh had offered to drive me, and I had said no, and he had made me eat a biscuit before I left.

They were all already there. Sonya, Ilse, Bonita and Rae, at our long table at the back of the meeting room, with their sewing machines set up and none of them sewing.

Gwen sat at the end. Somebody had brought lemon bars. Nobody had touched them.

I came in and set my machine down at my old place, across from Gwen, and plugged it in. Nobody said anything for a long time.

Rae broke first. She is the youngest of us, fifty-four, and she cries at commercials.

She put her face in her hands and said, “Marla, I’m so sorry, I should have asked you, I knew I should have asked you, I knew it the whole time.”

Then Sonya said she had known too, deep down, and had pretended not to, because the five dollars a kit was paying for her husband’s insulin while he was between insurance.

Bonita said she had told herself it was just cutting fabric, that she was only a pair of hands.

Ilse said nothing for a long time and then said, very quietly, that she had been ashamed every single Thursday since Christmas, and that she was glad it was over.

I let them all talk. I did not make it easier, but I did not make it harder either. When they were done, I folded my hands on the table.