Knit in Comfort (12 page)

“Why?” She was afraid of his answer, afraid to discover she hadn't shoved her feelings for him as neatly away as she thought.

“Because when you're listening, the rest of the world stops, and the physical response to that aural beauty is so intense you can literally feel something lifting you up.” He stared into the woods, face in perfect profile, body still. “You want the sensation to go on and on, but you can't capture it; you have to accept that it's going to slip out of your grasp every time. Even knowing that, you keep wanting it back, keep trying to make the impossible happen.”

Megan's heart swelled and opened, a peculiar breathless sensation. She stood, every muscle wanting to run away again. “What am I supposed to say to that?”

“Whatever comes into your head.”

“Okay. Those were beautiful words. But you're also flirting with Elizabeth and probably sleeping with Ella.”

He burst out laughing, making her want to sock him, the way she once socked a female tormentor at another new school, pow, in the solar plexus. “You jealous?”

She was. “Get over yourself, David.”

“Believe it or not, I'm trying to get over myself.”

“With alcohol and anger? By sleeping with someone who—”

“I'm not sleeping with Ella. I'm flirting with Elizabeth, but we both know it's harmless. Alcohol and anger…at least they're real.”

“Not real. They're escapes. Easier.”

“Than telling yourself nothing's wrong?”

“Than doing the hard work of confronting what's hurting you and keeping on in spite of it.”

“And you're doing the hard work of confronting Stanley how?”

She sucked in a breath, suddenly annoyed by having to talk over the constant chattering of water. “That's not what I meant. I'm still living. I'm not trying to destroy myself.”

“Not trying, maybe, but you are. Shut into the house, serving children and your mother-in-law and your part-time husband. That's your chosen life?”

“And you're
not
shutting yourself away?”

“I am shutting myself away. So is Ella. We're deep in anger and depression, playing them both to the hilt. She's good company when I need to dive into the bitterness, and vice versa for her. Because there's no avoiding the pain, just postponing it. Grief will have its day one way or other.” He picked up a rock, flung it toward the water; it hit a stone with a sharp crack.

“Both of us are still counting the pain in months. How long have you known about Stanley, fifteen years?”

“What do you want from me, David?”

“I thought I told you.”

“You want me to leave Stanley.”

“Yes.”

“So you can have me.”

“Not for that reason.” He looked away to pick up another rock. “But that summer we were together…it ended because of circumstances, not emotion.”

She fisted her hands, ready to tackle him to the ground. “You never told me that. Just that it was over.”

“I thought I was doing you a favor.”

“Some favor, breaking my heart for no reason.”

He threw the second stone into the woods, probably wishing he could have aimed it at her, got up and brushed his hands together. “You married Stanley about ten seconds later.”

She was nearly panting with rage. She wanted to find the rock he'd thrown and hurl it at his head. “I married him because my father was moving the family again. Because I was eighteen and finally old enough to fight being dragged all over the country in a futile search for enough success to satisfy my father's black-hole ego. Do you think if I'd known how you felt I would have made the same—”

“Megan?”

Stanley. Tramping through the woods on his big feet, lips smiling under his sienna mustache, gold eyes taking in the situation, judging, no verdict yet.

“Hi.” She took a guilty step toward him, trying to control her shaking. “We were—”

“Hi, David. The kids wanted their breakfasts, Megan. I gave them cereal, wasn't sure if there was anything else.”

“Cereal is fine.” She wondered if he could see her tears, knew it would give her away to wipe them now.

“Everything okay here?”

“Yes. Fine.” She walked to him, zombie on the outside, cement mixer on the inside. “I'm coming home.”

He put his arm around her when she stood next to him. “Hey, you have designs on my wife, David?”

David didn't respond to his laughter, stood quietly watching Megan. “Why shouldn't she have as good a deal as you do?”

Beside her, Stanley's body went still. “I'm going to pretend you didn't say that.”

“Fair enough. For what it's worth, her virtue is intact. But I probably didn't need to say that either.”

“No, I trust her completely.” He hugged Megan to him. “Oh, meant to ask the other night, David, how's your book coming? Think it'll outsell your wife's?”

David smiled grimly, a boy lost in the woods next to Stanley's huge and commanding presence. “Undoubtedly not.”

“Stanley.” She tugged him toward the path. “Let's go.”

“I'm ready.” He swung around, keeping her next to him, though there was scarcely room on the path for two. “See ya, David.”

Megan's tears rose again; she stumbled on a root. Stanley's powerful arm tightened to keep her from falling. On the road she pulled out of his embrace, squeezing him first so he wouldn't take offense.

“What was all that about, Megan? He giving you trouble?”

“Not really. He makes me tired is all.”

“He's so miserable, he wants everyone around him to suffer too.” Stanley made a sound of disgust. “First rule of sales, never surround yourself with negative people. They suck the positive energy out of you.”

“So you've said.” Over and over.

She made herself breathe normally. Stanley didn't deserve her delayed rebellion. If she were going to take a stand, fifteen years ago was the time. Not now, when he had every reason to believe they were settled, and so had she.

“He's always had an attitude, like he's better than everyone around here. His dad was nowhere, his mom was a drunk, but you'd think he was Prince of England the way he acted. Well, what goes around comes around.” He stopped outside their house. “People get what they deserve.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say,
I don't deserve what you did to me.
But maybe she did. She'd gotten herself engaged af
ter an absurdly short time, and then put blinders on and let life happen. Even the day she found among their papers the misplaced mortgage statement for his other house. Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Morgan, 110 Allgood Street, Roxboro, North Carolina. Everything changed, except…David was right. Nothing really had. She'd just put on bigger blinders.

“So I must deserve you, my beautiful one.” Stanley glanced down the street, then smiled lovingly into her eyes and bent down, insisted on a longer kiss when she tried to pull back. She complied, responding with obedience, then enjoyment, then passion, the familiar touch of his lips safe and reassuring after her emotional bruising in the woods.

A noise behind her, footsteps climbing to the porch next door, and she realized, sickeningly, why Stanley had kissed her out in the street like this, with so much love and so much possession.

Her brilliant salesman husband had just closed another deal.

Megan pulled the pie pan of oatmeal shortbread from the oven. The cookie was plain, like her mother, Aileen, used to make, and its nutty fragrance took her straight back to their kitchen in Memphis, where the treat had been Megan's first experience baking. Instantly she'd been hooked. The second time, she'd changed the recipe, added a touch of cinnamon, which her mother agreed was an improvement. After that triumph, the dessert became her signature experiment: cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove, ginger or cardamom, alone or in combination, different every time depending on her mood.

Tonight when the dishes were done, kids dispersed—Lolly upstairs, Deena and Jeffrey to play with the neighbor twins just back from an Orlando vacation—and Stanley off getting ready to spend the evening with one of his high-school friends, she'd lingered in the kitchen, postponing getting ready to go to Dorene's for the next Purls Before Wine meeting. She wasn't sure what had possessed her to dig so deeply into her mother's old recipe file, or why she chose to honor Mom by making the shortbread without spice. As it turned out, she still had the ingredients memorized, though she hadn't trusted she did.
One cup butter, one half cup brown sugar, two and one half cups oats, one cup flour
, written on a stained card in Grandma Bridget's careful hand.

She put the plate on a hot pad, scored the cookie with one of the knives Sally's late mother gave her and Stanley for their wedding, and cut small, neat wedges, then left the pan on a rack to cool. At the sink she washed the knife, gazing out at the mountains beyond her garden that seemed higher tonight, starker, more confining.

“I'm off.” Stanley strode into the kitchen, put his arms around her and pressed her against the sink, burying his face in her neck. “Will you miss me?”

“Not a chance.” She laughed to take away the sting, burdened by his constant need for reassurance that she loved him, needed him, wanted him still.

“I'll miss you.” He moved back a few inches, slid exploring fingers down her hips. “I'll miss you a
lot
.”

“
Stanley.
” She bucked to free herself, glancing toward the hall. “Someone might come by.”

“Maybe I shouldn't go tonight at all, since you were so upset last night.” He murmured suggestively in her ear, arms tighten
ing to keep her in place, rocking against her. “I still owe you.”

“Nonsense. You go have fun.” She twisted and pushed playfully against his chest, anxious now to get him out of the house, away from the memory that she hadn't been able to climax last night, afraid he'd start asking why. What could she say?
Because after fifteen years of tolerating the situation, I suddenly can't bear that when you're away, you're with her?

“I'll come back early, how's that?”

“I've got a Purls meeting tonight.” She saw him to the door, let him kiss her good night. He wouldn't come back early even if she was staying in. She knew him better than that.

The minivan started, revved, drove away chirping—he still hadn't taken it to Valyne Service to have Dick look at it—and Megan's muscles relaxed. Usually Stanley's being around was a relief, a break from being in charge of everything. Maybe her turmoil was from watching Elizabeth judge their marriage on appearances, admiring Stanley, eating up his admiration of her—the way he got people on his side. He was a good salesman, her husband. If all his successes came home to Comfort instead of half, they'd be doing fine.

She climbed to the second floor, step by step, using the bannister to help haul herself up, feeling older, heavier, burdened by her own body. A hot bath with Hemingway would be a slice of heaven. But the Purls couldn't be put off, they had the blanket to finish, and Sally would want ideas for her dress. Megan had a few, but nothing worth sharing yet.

In her room, she balked at getting ready, even knowing she'd be late, wandered to the window. Down in the yard, her garden was enjoying the summer, plants stretching for the sun, bean vines tangling across the trellis. A breeze blew, fluttering heart-shaped leaves surrounding the delicate pink-white blossoms.

Megan caught her breath. Into her head popped a lace design, better than any she'd tried to force, spiderwebs, diamonds, fans, some opaque, some cobwebby and indistinct. An edging of ring lace. A lace holes border.

Her hands itched for needles, for the warm, soft slide of wool. This hadn't happened in years, designs coming to her this way, like visions. Not in years. She turned away from the window as if in a trance. The clear picture of the lace stayed in her mind, now clean cream against the green backdrop of her garden, now flying to a mountaintop, interwoven threads fanning the firs. Beautiful lace, wafting on the wind over the treeless expanse of Shetland, fixing itself onto Sally's plain dress, decorating the bodice and skirt, ornamenting the hem.

And to cover her shoulders…

Megan closed the door to her and Stanley's room, crossed to their closet, feet directing her path. In the back of the highest shelf lay a flat box where she'd shelved it fifteen years earlier, loathing everything it stood for but unable to throw it away.

On their bed she now sat, box balanced on her thighs, lifted the cover and pulled back the tissue paper, tears obscuring the details of the lace. A Shetland wedding shawl she'd designed herself, tree-and-diamond center, a shell border and clematis edging, gossamer weight, light and delicate enough to pass through a wedding ring. Mom had taught her the craft, Megan had inherited the art.

Her last lace project, the shawl was supposed to have been a surprise for Stanley at their fifth-anniversary vow-renewal ceremony. A month before the event, on the eve of sending out invitations to most of Comfort, Megan had found out about Genevieve. She'd canceled the church, put the veil away and told Vera they had better things to do with their money than
throw parties, that she'd lost interest in knitting, that she was a one-shawl wonder.

Vera hadn't believed her. Megan hadn't expected her to. But Vera's capacity for denial had worked in Megan's favor. Nothing had been said; Vera had asked no questions, though Megan had spent the next fifteen years under a smog of disapproval for rejecting lace and the ceremony rebinding her to Stanley. Ironic, since Megan had spent those same fifteen years protecting her mother-in-law from the truth of her son's life.

Out of the box, the fine threads of the shawl caught on her work-roughened hands. She'd never been as proud of anything in her life as she was of this, except for her children. Few things had hurt more than stuffing it away to be forgotten.

Soft shawl pressed to her cheek, she imagined Fiona knitting lace in anticipation of a wedding to Calum. Imagined her doing so with as much love and care as Megan had knitted this, before Gillian's arrival made Fiona's heart turn to stone, before Genevieve's had done the same to Megan's.

She gave a short laugh. Ridiculous to be so caught up in her mother's invented triangle, though the similarities were eerie. Megan had wondered about Stanley's other wife in the early dark days when she still let herself wonder, before she found the picture in Stanley's wallet that confirmed her fears. What kind of other woman did Stanley need? A woman with everything Megan was missing. Tall and dark with a toned, lean body, a loud contagious laugh, an overtly sexual nature. Ginger to Megan's Mary Anne. Gillian to her Fiona. A woman so sure of herself and her place in the world that sharing a man fit right into her independent life. Who maybe had a lover of her own for the weeks Stanley was gone. Another Ella. How Stanley must have missed her once he found himself tied to Megan.

Megan took the comforting wool away from her cheek. As divorce rates soared, as people sought more and more sophisticated forms of self-actualization, the notion of a one man-one woman family might become quaintly old-fashioned and die out, leaving a tangled civilization of beings striving to be “completed.” Maybe Stanley wasn't a self-indulgent egoist, but a man on the cutting edge of social change.

Maybe.

She refolded the lace into the tissue paper, thrust the box back onto the shelf and banged the door closed with her hip to get it to latch. Useless to torture herself like this. She changed into a light green cotton sweater, frowning at the neckline, which had started to unravel and would need mending. Deep rose lipstick on, she gathered up her finished blanket squares, which she'd joined with the other four into a row a few days earlier, and put them in a plastic shopping bag.

On her way out of the room, the phone rang. Wearily, she turned back and picked up the receiver on her night table. “Hello?”

“Meg, it's your father.”

Megan closed her eyes and leaned back against the bed. “Hi Dad.”

“You busy?”

“Always am.”

He cleared his throat, henh-henh-
henh
. Megan stiffened in Pavlovian response. Dad's warning system for bad news:
Henh-henh
-henh.
I hear the jobs are better in fill-in-the-blank-city…

“I told you I was moving to New Jersey.”

“Yes.”

“There's a woman involved.”

She tried to be happy for him. He'd run her mother into
the ground, ignored her worsening symptoms as isolation, depression and stress exacerbated her diabetes and sucked away her will to take care of herself. After they'd left Comfort her weight had ballooned. She'd ended up in the hospital, pieces of her regularly amputated to try and save what was left. Dad never did make the connection to the life he'd made them all live. Or maybe he couldn't face the truth. Or maybe that was just the way the world worked—men did what they wanted and women followed along. For Victoria's
When Women Rule
book to become reality, widespread social deconditioning would have to take place. “That's great, Daddy.”

“We're moving into a retirement community near where her children live.”

Megan tightened her lips. Typical Dad, dropping the news in pieces. Not just moving to New Jersey. Moving in with a woman. Moving into an independent living community. “Wow, Dad. Aren't those places…I mean, people don't really…leave.”

“This is my last move, Megan.”

She pushed herself away from the bed. He was only sixty-seven. “You're not ill, are you?”

“Just ready to stay put. Tricia isn't one to move around.”