The Wishing Thread (26 page)

Her heart swelled with gratitude and, strangely enough, with a hope that she’d never dared claim: Was this even happening, this possibility of love? Could it be that her dire projections about her long, lonely future in the Stitchery were
wrong
?

She saw Vic’s face change, his pupils darkening, his breath coming between open lips.

“God … this table,” he said. His hands gripped the edges; the tablecloth bunched. “Do you think anyone would notice if I threw it over, got it out of the way?”

Aubrey felt like a thousand little butterflies had alighted on her skin. She wanted Vic’s mouth, his hands. When she spoke, her voice rasped. “What’s stopping you?”

It took a moment before she realized that the buzzing and chiming in the back of her mind was not her overwrought imagination but was her phone ringing in her purse beside her. She hadn’t known she’d been clutching the stem of her champagne. She put it down. “Sorry.” She shoved shaking fingers into her bag until she found her phone.

The Stitchery. She answered immediately. “What’s wrong?”

It was Meggie’s voice she heard. “I think we need you. Quick.”

“What happened?”

“Craig happened. He’s here.”

“Why?”

Meggie was whispering. “He says he’s not leaving without the kids.”

“We’re ten minutes away,” Aubrey said. She snapped her phone shut. “I’m sorry,” she told Vic, her heart sinking. She had the sense of something inevitable happening, of the Stitchery herding her violently back into the microcosm of her normal life. It had been nice, she thought, to get away for a while.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I’m so sorry. I need you to take me home.”

Craig Fullen was a large man. In his youth he had been muscular and bulky, an ox of a boy with wide shoulders. But now, long past his high school years, his largeness was no longer quite so firm. He had neat black hair and a handsome face, with a good-sized nose. He was memorable, people said. Not because he said witty things or stood out in a crowd, but because of how perfectly he was just enough of everything: just enough handsomeness, just enough humor, just enough arrogance, just enough kindness—just enough and never too much. At least, this was how he appeared to good society.

Now he stood in the Stitchery’s yard, with his capacious lungs bellowing out and in, and his arm raised in a fist like an upside-down exclamation mark. Bitty had suggested he come inside so they could have a quiet, private talk. But he had refused; in the rust- and pothole-scarred hovel that was Tappan Square, there was no reason to be on his best behavior. He thundered at his wife with a tenor’s paunch and gusto, demanding that Bitty send his children outside with packed bags.

“I’m not giving you a choice here!” He raised up his cell phone in the darkness; it shone like a searchlight. “Send those kids outside to me right now or I’ll call the police.”

Bitty stood on the porch, looking down on the man she’d married. “Don’t be an ass.”

“Me—an ass? Me?”

“You’re the only middle-aged man I see standing in the freezing dark and yelling like the sky’s falling—so,
yes
, you.”

“Elizabeth,” Craig said. His voice was dark with warning. “You should think carefully before you talk.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because if you’re thinking about trying to divorce me, if it ever comes down to that, then you’ve just handed me the winning hand.”

“How do you figure?”

“Do you honestly think I would let you just take our children away from me? That I wouldn’t come looking for them? What you’ve done here is kidnapping—no question about it. You took our kids away, in secret, without my permission. You
kidnapped
them. And I’m three seconds away from calling nine-one-one.”

Bitty’s stomach began to burn.
Oh God
. Had she kidnapped the children? She’d meant to antagonize Craig a little bit by disappearing and leaving only a note. But … kidnapping? Could what she’d done be misconstrued that way? She began to tremble.

“I didn’t
abduct
them.”

“No need to waste your time convincing
me
that you didn’t take them,” he said. “Save your breath for when the cops get here.”

“You wouldn’t put our kids through that,” she said.

“Oh no?” He laughed. “Try me.”

“I won’t let you have them,” she said between her teeth.

“I won’t let
you
have them,” Craig said. “Not now. And if you’re going to be a bitch about it, not
ever
.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know I won’t go in that dump.” He gestured toward the Stitchery, his lip curled in disgust. “So—fine. You’ve managed to keep them away from me for a few days. But if you’re thinking you’ll get the upper hand by divorcing me, think again. I’ll have better lawyers than you. Much better. You’ll have a state-assigned rube and a rap sheet for child abduction.”

Bitty laughed as if he’d just told a joke over the fizz of champagne. But her fear was rising, rising from her belly to the middle of her chest and tightening, rising up to the base of her throat and clotting there. She reached out for a porch post and hoped the gesture looked more breezy than desperate.

“And what would you do with our children twenty-four hours a day while you’re at the office, or going to cocktail parties, or going—wherever you go? I don’t think you have any idea of what it’s like to raise your own children; and I don’t think that’s something you’d even
want
to do alone.”

“Who says I would be doing it alone?” Craig said.

Bitty wanted to double over—her stomach hurt so bad. Her fingernails dug into the wood. “What do you want?”

“This ridiculous power play of yours ends now. I’m taking the kids back. They’re
my
kids. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll send them out here. I’ll give you five minutes. Why are you still standing there? Go!”

“Okay, I get the point. The whole neighborhood does,” Bitty said. She could barely hear herself over the banging of her heart in her ears. “Just—hold on.” She turned around. The front door gaped and the hallway enfolded her, and then she was inside and Craig was in the yard, and she actually felt a little relieved to be behind the Stitchery’s walls.

Since her adult personality had first begun to take shape, Bitty had spent her time trying to take control of her circumstances. And she had succeeded admirably—without needing the unreliable and pathetic fallback of magic to help her succeed. She had taught herself how to make men love her; then she nabbed Craig. She had thrown in her lot with him because she knew he would give her a stable, respectable life; like her, he wanted an orderly existence, with everything just so. The problem, of course, began when Craig’s idea of a good life began to conflict with—and even encroach upon—Bitty’s idea of it. And now it had come to this.

She headed to the kitchen, where she knew her family had taken refuge. Aubrey was still dressed from her interrupted date, having slipped through the back door by way of a neighbor’s yard. Meggie was beside her, her pixie’s face rumpled with concern. Bitty’s children were standing so close to each other that their shoulders were touching.

“Mom?” Carson said.

“Everything’s okay,” Bitty said. She went to him and kissed his head, his baby-fine hair. She did the same to her daughter, who smelled of strawberry shampoo.

“Let me guess,” Nessa said. She mocked her mother’s voice:
“This is between me and your father.”

“That doesn’t help,” Bitty said. The Stitchery had grown hot. She was sweating. “I need you to take your brother upstairs right now.”

Nessa sighed. “Oh
brother
. Come on.”

They went, Nessa holding her brother’s hand. The kitchen was different without them in it, as if some of the air had gone out of the room with them. Bitty looked at her sisters, who were looking back at her. She was too overwrought to be embarrassed now that the truth about her life—the classless,
coarse vulgarity of it—had come out. She was what she was, what she had always been at heart. She was Bitty who had never left the Stitchery. And her sisters, they knew.

“Is he drunk?” Meggie asked. “Is he a drinker?”

“No,” Bitty said. She could feel a line of moisture at her hairline. “He just has temper tantrums sometimes. He bottles things up, then
boom
. An explosion. But this … this is epic.”

“What should we do?” Meggie asked.

Bitty sighed. And then she spoke the question that had been haunting her since the day she realized her husband no longer loved her but wasn’t willing to let her go. “What can I do?”

Her sisters said nothing. They seemed to have realized that telling Craig no was not an option; he wouldn’t leave the Stitchery without his children. Even if Bitty could offer him a rationale, the kids had become a point of stubborn pride.

Bitty pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m not sending the kids home with him,” Bitty said. “It’s not safe. He isn’t in a condition to drive himself around, let alone the children.”

“Good,” Meggie said.

“So I’ll drive them myself.”

“Bitty!” Aubrey’s exclamation was so pointed Bitty nearly jumped. “No!”

“I have to. He’s right. They’re his kids, too. And I did just … take them.”

“To a
funeral
,” Meggie said. “You took them to a funeral that
he
should have been at, too, if he was half a man.”

Bitty couldn’t hide her disgust.

“Oh Jesus, Bit.” Meggie held out her hands. “I’m not criticizing you. The guy turned out to be a total crapbag. It’s not your fault.”

“He’s not a … crapbag. He works really hard. He makes more money in a year than some people see in their lifetimes. And regardless of how he feels about me, he loves those kids.” Bitty pushed away from the wall. When she spoke again, she knew she was trying to convince herself, to firm up her resolve that she was doing the right thing. “Okay. Everything’s okay. I was thinking that maybe we needed to leave anyway … with Nessa knitting and everything, I’m not sure we should stay.”

“What if there was a way?” Aubrey said. “If you could stay at the Stitchery for a while more, would you
want
to?”

The kitchen grew quiet. The house was quiet, too, and Bitty thought it seemed the Stitchery itself was listening for the answer. Aubrey had asked the question that Bitty had not wanted to ask herself. She looked at Meggie—her silly hair, her creamy, child’s skin. She looked at Aubrey—her makeup smudged under her eyes, her mouth bracketed with frown lines. Perhaps Bitty didn’t want to stay in the Stitchery forever. But she was not yet ready to leave. She could see that her sisters were ready to fight for her, to do whatever it might take. And their loyalty, their dedication, moved her. She’d forgotten what it was like to love her sisters when love was a thing that was right in front of her and not projected from afar.

“Yes,” she said. “I want to stay.”