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With the morning routine that now included Chrissy’s needs accomplished, Autumn went into her second-floor office. She had taken over the far spare bedroom off the wide upstairs hallway. Visits to her office had been scarce over the last three months, because it had to pass her mother’s sewing room.
Her mother had taken the middle spare bedroom for this use. The sound of her mother’s Singer sewing machine beating a tune as she made pillow covers, curtains, and other décor for the house used to disrupt her thoughts as she worked. Now the silence disquieted her more than the noise.
Despite the reluctance of going by the empty room, Chrissy’s situation gave her purpose. Sunlight splashed against pale yellow walls. Cream-white bookcases lined two of them and her whitewashed oak desk wit
