“We found her diary in the hall closet.” April wondered if she should have shared that without asking Nessa and Flynn about it first.

“Then you know that he cheated on her all their married life. We were surprised when she got pregnant with Rachel,” Stella said. “I guess it was a last-ditch effort to make things work with him. We started the quilting club earlier with hopes that it would help her depression problems, and it did. Pretty soon she was selling quilts and kits and making as much money as Everett did. We tried to talk her into divorcing him, but she said she couldn’t because it would bring shame on her boys. In those days, society didn’t look on divorce like it does now. Then she got pregnant and he died.”

“Rachel didn’t belong to Everett,” April said. “Did you know that?”

Stella cocked her head to one side and then began to giggle. “Good for Lucy! She finally gave Everett a dose of his own medicine.”

“But it cost her dearly. She had a daughter to raise that she didn’t want, and then she had to raise me when my mother died. I’ve lived under that shadow my whole life, Stella.” April sighed.

Stella started on her second cage. “No wonder she always said that you were a little lost soul. She wished she had been in a better frame of mind when she was raising you.”

“She said that?” April was stunned.

“Yes, honey, she did. Now I know what she was talking about. I can’t imagine the guilt that she must’ve felt. Everett died before you were even born. There she was, a widow with teenage boys and a baby on the way. She should have been grieving, but she probably only felt relief. I know I would have, and then I would have been covered up with guilt for feeling that way.” Stella worked as she talked.

“Then she had to deal with my mother as a baby she didn’t want, who didn’t even belong to her dead husband.” April felt a wave of sympathy for her grandmother. “And she couldn’t even tell anyone because she thought it was a horrible sin.”

“Hello, are we in the right place?” A masculine voice followed the sound of the bell when someone opened the front door to the business.

Stella was closest to the door, so she took a couple of steps and asked, “Are you looking for the vet or the animal shelter?”

“Kittens!” a little girl yelled. “It’s my birthday!”

“Then come on back here,” Stella said.

The little girl skipped into the shelter, sending her long blonde ponytail flipping back and forth. She stopped in the middle of the room, her big brown eyes wide, and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Look at all of them, Daddy!”