Perfect in My Sight by Tanya Anne Crosby

embroidery in its center. A closer inspection revealed a threaded needle still
     embedded within its folds, and a strand of dark blue thread. The embroidery appeared
     to be a set of initials. She could make out the C quite clearly, but the next initial
     was unclear... maybe a J?
    She sat down upon the wood floor and reverently traced the embroidery with a finger.
     She had never known Mary to embroider; but she was quite certain it was Mary’s effort.
     The stitches were far from perfect, but lovingly done. Had she been stitching the
     blanket just before she’d died? Or had she given it her best effort and found her
     patience lacking and set it aside?
    Knowing Mary, and Sarah liked to think she did despite that they’d parted ways so
     long before her death, she had decided to embroider, and embroider she did, and hadn’t
     set it aside at all. No... Sarah was near certain she would have finished the task
     she’d set herself, and if the blanket was for Christopher, she hardly would have lost
     the passion for it.
    The initials... C for Christopher. But J…
    With a sigh of disgust, she realized she didn’t know Christopher’s middle name. John?
     Jack? God! Life was unfair. She hugged the blanket to her breast and allowed herself
     to grieve once more. For Mary...
    Her throat closed. Her cousin had been her closest friend. Her sister, for all purposes.
     They had been confidantes, had shared everything together, and here was such an enormous
     portion of Mary’s life that Sarah knew nothing about.
    She couldn’t help herself. She began to weep silently.
    She sat on the floor in this room where Mary had died, hugging a blanket Mary had
     been sewing for the child Sarah had never known, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
    Who was this man who had taken everything from her?
    Who was Peter Holland really?
    And why had Mary thrown away so much to be with him? How could she face Mary’s husband
     in the morning after sleeping in this room where Mary had died? Burying her face in
     the blanket, she wept quietly... lest someone overhear.
    She would face Peter Holland because she must.
    There were no choices to be made here.
    Mary hadn’t been given one, and neither had Christopher, and she owed it to both of
     them to make things right.
    Peter Holland might have the face of an angel, she reminded herself, but he had the
     heart of a jackal—at the very least for throwing Mary away so coldly.
    Sarah was determined to see him pay.
    Someone must.
     
     
     
    It wasn’t Peter’s idea of a warm welcome.
    He’d insisted upon seeing Cile home only because he didn’t particularly like the thought
     of leaving her to fend for herself on New York’s streets at night. Cile Morgan rather
     liked to think herself a match for any man, but the truth was that she would be little
     more than dessert for some of the city’s seedier sort.
    He lived already with one woman’s death on his conscience. He certainly didn’t intend
     to add another.
    His sister greeted him at the door in a fit of temper unlike anything he had ever
     witnessed in her before. The best he could make from her rambling was that she’d had
     words with Sarah Hopkins, and that their guest had eschewed dinner with her new pupil.
     Christopher had been heartily disappointed, and to say Ruth was angry was an understatement.
    He left Ruth, promising to speak to their guest, and ignoring her protests that he
     should do precisely the contrary—that if Miss Hopkins didn’t care enough to make the
     effort, he must be wrong about her character. Peter didn’t think so. One did not fake
     the sincerity he’d heard in her voice when she’d spoken to his son. He didn’t know
     how to explain it, but his gut told him that Sarah Hopkins was good for Christopher.
    Pausing at her door, he started to knock and then halted abruptly at the faint sound
     of weeping coming from within. Something about the way she sobbed took him back...
     evoked memories that made his