Knit in Comfort (13 page)

“Neither was Mom.” The dig came out before she realized it was going to. Her father didn't respond. She wandered to the window, gazed out at the mountains, early evening light sharpening their colors in anticipation of sunset. “Well that'll be nice, then.”

“Maybe you can visit sometime?”

“Sure, Dad.”

“It's a smaller place, I'll have to downsize. I'll be going through my things here.”

“Okay.” She didn't understand why he was telling her this. She sensed he wanted something from her. Permission? Forgiveness? He didn't need her permission. He didn't deserve her forgiveness. “Did you need help?”

“Tricia will help me.”

“Is there…anything of Mom's still?” She didn't like the idea of this new woman picking through her mother's things.

“I doubt it. You and I went through everything after she died. If I come across anything else, I'll send it to you.”

“Thanks.” She turned away from the window. More should be said; she wasn't sure what.

“So…I'll let you go now.”

Megan sighed. She hated the ploy that made her out to be the one wanting to end the call. Even though she was. “Bye Dad. Good luck with the move.”

“I'll be in touch soon.”

“Okay.” She hung up, experiencing as always the complicated wave of resentment and sadness that dealing with her father engendered.

“
Megan?
” Vera, downstairs. “You ready? Elizabeth's waiting.”

“Just about.” She brushed her hair, even more tired now, tucked it behind her ears, tried to perk herself up with a rare squirt of her mother's favorite
eau de cologne,
4711.

“Lolly, Deena, Jeffrey—Elizabeth and I are off to Dorene's. Grandma will be here.”

“Hey, Mom?” Jeffrey wandered out into the hall for a hug.

“Would you be okay if you could only eat foods with the letter B in them?”

She laughed with a mixture of enjoyment and exasperation. “I guess so, maybe. Bananas and peanut butter on bread anyway. Be good tonight, and if you can't manage to be good, at
least stay away from your sisters so you don't drive Grandma crazy.”

“Yes, Mom, bye Mom.”

The girls shouted good-byes over whatever boy-band garbage they were listening to in the room they shared.

Downstairs, Megan put the still-warm shortbread into a waiting tin. Dorene hated cooking, baking in particular, so Megan always offered to bring something. Yes, she was being nice, but she also loathed the store-brand boxed cookies Dorene adored and served every time.

“I'm ready. Bye Vera.”

“Have fun.” Vera handed over her finished blanket squares.

“I've joined these already, Megan.”

“Why don't you come with us, Vera?”

Megan stiffened. Could Elizabeth leave nothing the way it was?

“Go on, go on.” Vera waved her away. “You don't want some old woman intruding on your fun.”

“No, we don't. But we do want you.”

Vera's offended look barely had time to get started before she laughed in delight, cheeks coloring pink. “You are something else, Elizabeth.”

“Megan, make her come with us. Lolly's old enough to watch the others and we won't stay long. I'm sure Dorene wouldn't mind one more, and Vera can help sew up the blanket.”

If people only had the muscle to support a certain number of faked smiles in their lives, Megan must be nearing the end of her ration. “The kids will be fine. Feel like it, Vera?”

“Well.” Vera hauled herself out of her rocker. “I guess I'll go. A nice change to the evening. Thank you, Elizabeth. You two go on ahead, I'll freshen up and be right there.”

“We'll wait.” Megan stood, feeling like her parents had just volunteered to chaperone her senior dance.

“Don't wait. Go. I'll catch up. Go, go, go.”

“We'll take your row.” Megan led Elizabeth down the steps and they started out on Wiggins, past David's house.

“Here, let me carry that.” Elizabeth took the blanket squares, leaving Megan with the shortbread.

They turned the corner onto Snowden. Hot tonight, probably rain on the way. Perspiration dampened Megan's skin. She imagined herself in Shetland, walking the cliffs like Great-Grandma Fiona in the stories. The air there must always be cool and fresh, alive with grassy, salty-ocean scents. Next time Stanley was away Megan should pack up the kids for a trip to the Carolina coast so she could see the ocean again. If Elizabeth stayed and paid rent next month, and if Megan saved carefully, it might be possible.

“Have you had any ideas for Sally's dress?”

“A few.” She wiped the sweat from around her hairline where it always started, enjoying the familiar simmer of creative excitement beginning again. “I'm thinking of a panel, neck to floor, wide at the top, tapering to her waist, then widening again to the floor, and a border of lace around the hem.”

“Oh Megan! That sounds gorgeous! I was thinking little patches all over, like daisies in a field. But your idea is better.” She swung the bags of knit squares, bumping them against her knees as she walked. “Wait, what about Sally's shoulders, though? They still wouldn't be covered.”

“I have something she can use.”

“Ooh, what? Something you made already?”

“A Shetland wedding shawl.”

“From your wedding?”

“No.” All these questions. How much farther to Dorene's? They should have waited for Vera. “It was just a project.”

“Have you ever been to Shetland?”

“No.” Megan transferred the shortbread to her other hand and walked faster in spite of the heat. “It's too expensive to get there.”

“Oh, that's such a
shame
!”

Megan still couldn't understand Elizabeth's emotional intensity; she reacted as if everything she heard about was happening to her. “It is what it is.”

“Sally's dress will be gorgeous. Did you ever study design?”

“With my mother.”

“Did she have a degree?”

“No.” They were turning up Dorene's front walk. Not a moment too soon.

“What did she die of?”

“Sweet Jesus, Elizabeth.” At the bottom of Dorene's front steps, a second away from entering and safety, Megan lost it.

“Do you
ever
stop asking questions?”

Elizabeth's mouth dropped; her eyebrows rose, then she surprised Megan by giggling. “I know. I'm sorry. I drive Dominique crazy too. Ignore me.”

Her grace in the face of Megan's rudeness made tears of shame rise. “I'm sorry for snapping. Elizabeth. I don't know what came over me. It's the heat or something.”

She dug in her shorts pocket, came up empty, crossed hands and tried the other pocket, sniffling. Damn it. This was not a good time to fall apart.

Elizabeth slipped a tissue into her hand, grabbed the shortbread as Dorene opened the screen. “Hey, Dorene, good to see you again. Thank you
so
much for including me tonight.
Here are Megan and Vera's rows for the blanket, and Megan baked this incredible shortbread, which you need to take
now
because otherwise I'm eating it all on the spot. Doesn't it smell incredible?”

Dorene took the shortbread, looking slightly stunned at the full conversational attack. But Megan, able to sneak in a careful eye-wipe and silent nose blow, was grateful. And even more ashamed of losing her temper.

“It's beautiful. Come on in, Elizabeth, welcome to the Purls. Megan hey, c'mon in. Leave the bugs outside, though.” Dorene laughed heartily and led the way into her living room, hodgepodge and angular as she was, upholstered here, modern metal there. Black and white rug, dark red walls in the living room, burnt yellow in the dining room, no pictures on three walls, then on the fourth a huge print of the Seurat painting of people enjoying the banks of the Seine. Ella and Sally were already seated, Ella on a blue couch, Sally on a black leather chair.

“Here they come.” Sally beamed. “We're ready for your rows. Look in the dining room.”

Megan peeked and couldn't help smiling. Laid out on Dorene's dining-room table, the blanket was pure, cheerful fun, missing only the blue and indigo above the violet to weight it at the bottom.

“It's gorgeous!” Elizabeth stepped into the room and drew her hand over the arranged rows. “You guys should totally win.”

“Not in this town.” Ella snorted. “Unless you want to spread for Roy. Dorene, you need help opening the wine?”

“Thanks.” Dorene stopped tugging on the corkscrew and handed the bottle to Ella.

“What do winners get?”

“Cheesy plaque.” Ella popped the cork with ease and started pouring red table wine into the mismatched stemware on the coffee table. “And five thousand dollars.”

“
Wow.
” Elizabeth accepted a silver-rimmed glass. “That is pretty nice.”

“Megan, I have juice for you.” Dorene started for the kitchen.

“Actually.” Megan cleared her throat, startled by her immediate objection. She hadn't planned this. “I think I'll have wine tonight.”

“Well, well.” Ella poured her a generous glass and lifted it in salute before she passed it to Megan. “Welcome to the dark side.”

“Let's get started.” Dorene crunched a handful of peanuts from a wobbly clay dish her nephew, Clara's son, had made.

“We should be able to finish tonight.”

“Then we'll want to get started on Sally's dress!” Elizabeth said. “Oh, Dorene, Vera's coming. I thought we could use an extra pair of hands.”

“Perfect.” Dorene led the way into the dining room. “Seven colors, six seams, one for each of us. You know how to crochet, Elizabeth?”

“Yup. My grandmother taught me that, too.”

“
Before
she died?” Ella asked archly.

“Ha ha.” Elizabeth grinned. Apparently she wasn't letting Ella get to her tonight. Maybe they'd bonded over martinis at David's. Megan sipped her wine, found it biting and rich. Stanley didn't drink because of his father's overindulgence, and she'd gradually given it up when pregnancies and kids came along. Not that she ever drank much, except the summer she dated David. They'd get together at nighttime, sneak out to sit
in the woods, tie one on and talk and talk and talk. He'd rant about how small Comfort was, how frozen—
congealed
was the word he'd used—how he'd bust out and make a name for himself somewhere, somehow, with his writing or with his passion for education. She'd talk about her lonely roaming life, about her lace, about her mother and about Shetland. They'd make love, then talk some more and finally sneak home in the middle of the night.

“I thought we could sit opposite, on alternating rows so we don't tug the material away from each other.” Dorene hovered nervously.

“Good thinking.” Megan opened the shopping bags and laid blue and indigo in their proper places.

“I bought black yarn to join the rows as we agreed. Everyone brought a crochet hook?”

“Ye-e-s, Dorene.” Ella rolled her eyes. “Drink your wine and calm down.”

“Hey, anyone heard from Cara and Jocelyn?” Sally asked.

“I got an e-mail from Cara.” Dorene fussed with the blue and indigo rows. “She said they have slept an average of three hours a night.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Ella moved into place by her red row. “Any sugar-daddy cosmetic surgeons or what-stays-in-Vegas encounters with bodybuilders?”

“If there was, they're not telling me. Ella, you join red and orange on this side. Elizabeth, you join orange and yellow over there.”

“Knock, knock, I'm coming in.” Vera came into view in the living room and ambled over to join them. “Megan, the kids have strict instructions to stay in the house.”

“Thanks, Vera.” Megan had the absurd impulse to hide her wine; her hand actually darted to cover up.

“Welcome, Vera, nice to see you.” Sally stood by her green row as instructed.

“It's nice to be here. Elizabeth wouldn't let me stay home.” A glance at Megan implying she should have been the one to invite her. Another glance, taking in her wineglass. “Well.”

Megan sighed. So shoot her.

“Megan green to blue over there. Vera blue to indigo on this side and I'll do violet over there. Everyone know the stitches?”

“Ye-e-es, Dorene.”

“Remind me,” Elizabeth said.

“Pick up one loop from each side, slide the hook through, wrap with yarn, bring back and pull one loop inside the other.”

“Got it.”

“She's very good.” Vera walked toward her row, giving Megan's wineglass another measuring glance. “I'm already teaching her lace knitting.”

“You must be a fast learner, Elizabeth!” Sally beamed. “My dress already thanks you.”

“Vera's a good teacher.”

“Nonsense.” Vera put her authoritative stamp on the conversation. “Anyone could have put the chart in front of you and you would have picked it right up. You have knitting in your blood, going back generations. Like Megan.”

Dorene chortled. “So when you cut yourselves,
wool
comes out?”

“Vera?” Ella pointed to the last glass on the coffee table.

“Glass of wine?”

“Well…” Vera shifted in her chair.

“Come on, Vera, live a little,” Elizabeth said.

“I suppose one glass couldn't hurt.”

Megan nearly dropped hers. Vera hadn't touched a drop in years. At least not in front of Megan. Who knew what she did on her card-playing afternoons?

“Woohoo!” Ella set her glass down and pumped her fist.

“The dark one is converting them in droves tonight.”

“Really, Ella.” Vera shook her head, scowling, but reached eagerly for her glass.

“Okay, battle stations.” Dorene made sure the women were armed with crochet hooks and the small balls of black yarn she'd wound for each of them. Megan made sure Elizabeth was started off properly before she made her way back to her blue row.