“Remember the next Christmas, when I’d just found out I was pregnant with Kristen?” she said fondly. “Our gift to each other was a second-hand washer.” In the early years of their marriage, they’d struggled to make ends meet. Yet in many ways, those had been the very best.

Jake smiled. “We were poor as church mice.”

“But happy.”

“Very happy,” he agreed, sliding his arm around her shoulders. “I thought it was clever of you to knit Christmas stockings for the girls the year Noelle turned four. Or was it five?”

“I didn’t knit them,” Sarah said sadly. “Mary did.”

“Mary?”

“Don’t you remember? She knit all the kids stockings, and I baked the cookies and we exchanged?”

“Ah, yes. You two had quite a barter system worked out.”

“If we hadn’t traded baby-sitting, none of us would’ve been able to afford an evening out.” Once a month, they’d taken the girls over to their dearest friends’ home for the night; Mary and Greg had done the same. It’d been a lifesaver in those early years. She and Jake had never been able to afford anything elaborate, but a night out, just the two of them, had been heaven. Mary and Greg had cherished their nights, as well.

“I miss her,” Sarah admitted. “Even after all these years, I miss my friend.”

“I know.” Jake gently squeezed her shoulder.

“I’d give anything never to have borrowed the silver tea service.”

“You were trying to help someone out.”

“That’s how it started, but I should’ve been honest with Mary. I should’ve told her the tea service wasn’t for my open house, but for Cheryl’s.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She’d had years to think about the answer to that question. “Because Mary didn’t like Cheryl. I assumed she was jealous. Now…I don’t know.”

Sarah remembered the circumstances well. She’d recently begun selling real estate and Cheryl Carlson had given her suggestions and advice. Cheryl had wanted something to enhance the look of the dining room for her open house, and Sarah had volunteered to bring in the tea service. When she’d asked Mary, her friend had hesitated, but then agreed. Sarah had let Mary assume it was for her own open house.

“You were so upset when you found out the tea service had been stolen.”

To this day her stomach knotted at the memory of having to face Mary and confess what had happened. Soon afterward, Cheryl had left the agency and hired on with another firm, and Sarah had lost touch with her.

“I’d always hoped that one day Mary would find it in her heart to forgive me.”

“I did, too.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Sarah whispered, resting her head against her husband’s shoulder.

“Why are you apologizing to me?”

“Because you and Greg used to be good friends, too.”

“Oh.”