Knit in Comfort (2 page)

Down the front walk, she stepped onto the cracked, uneven pavement. At this time of night North Carolina's July became a friend, free from vengeful sunlight, with crickets chirping and floral smells magnified by lack of daylight distraction.

Even after twenty years here, and after nearly another twenty moving around the country year after year whenever her father got restless, Megan couldn't get Newfoundland, her birthplace, out of her blood. When the thermometer reached toward a mild eighty degrees, natives glowed with languid enjoyment of the summer weather while she wilted and sweated and dripped dark stains through her clothes.

She strolled to the end of Snowden, turned left onto Wiggins, not letting herself hurry even though she needed to relieve her mother-in-law from kid duty. At fifteen, her eldest daughter, Lolly, was old enough to sit for the other kids, but Megan wouldn't bet on the younger two having a healthy or stimulating time in their sister's care. The thought made her smile and slow her steps further. On warm nights she could still believe in romance, still craved it. Dancing under the stars, necking on an old porch swing…

From David's darkened porch she heard the tinkle of ice against the side of a glass. “How was knitting class?”

Megan took a couple of steps, to the edge of his front walk. The lights were off in his house, but she could see his dark shape sprawled on the oak bench his great-aunt Delia Cooper had bought shortly before she died the previous spring.

“Fun.” She wouldn't bother elaborating. He knew the cast of characters, knew the general drill. He'd come to Comfort only a couple of years before Megan, though with his great-aunt already here, he had more to root him in the community than she did.

His ice tinkled again. Bourbon tonight. He drank his martinis straight. “All that hard work to benefit those less fortunate. True nobility.”

“Thank you.” Megan didn't react to his sarcasm. She'd figured out that if you extended a hand to help David with his pain these days, he'd try to bite it off.

“Join me for a drink?”

The invitation startled her. “I don't—”

“I know you don't. I've got juice, water, milk, Sprite…”

She hated not being able to see his face. “No. Thanks. I have to get back to the kids.”

“Ah, such a good mom, Megan.”

She took a step back, unsure if he was being sincere or making fun. In high school she flattered herself that she'd gotten to know David better than anyone. Seemed a silly, romantic notion now, but the two of them, outsiders both, had been drawn to each other, eventually having a brief fling before he blew out of town for college and career.

On his subsequent visits to see his great-aunt, Megan had been half intimidated by the man he'd become, felt left behind and stagnant, especially when he showed up with his wife, Victoria, the type of glamorous intellectual who made Megan want to apologize for being born.

But when he came alone, increasingly in recent years, he'd seek her out when Stanley was out of town. They'd sit in her backyard late into the night—Vera hovering disapprovingly—and talk the way she hungered to. Books, culture, movies, politics…

“Any calls about your guesthouse?”

Megan breathed in the soft night air and sighed it out. Since David's marriage fell apart, she'd felt as if she had a
target painted on her back. He kept calling the apartment over their garage a guesthouse, probably because he could tell it annoyed her.

Stanley hadn't liked the idea of renting the apartment out. Said he didn't want a stranger living in their backyard. Megan thought he hated more the public sign that he couldn't support his family. Bitten off more than he could chew, had her darling husband. But he wasn't the one home all four weeks of the month trying to juggle three kids, his mother, too many bills and not enough paychecks. “Not yet.”

“After three weeks? Can't see why. That's prime real estate—Stanley Morgan's backyard. And with the steady flood of eager tourists coming weekly to view the fascinating non-sights of Comfort…”

“You never know.” She turned and started walking, not in the mood for David to take out his failures on her. Life changed everyone. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes not. In David's case, she hoped one day it would change him back.

“Good night, David.”

“Leaving so soon?”

She kept walking. “Got to get home to my kids.”

“Megan Morgan, devoted part-time wife and full-time mother.”

“David Langley, bitter ex-husband and full-time boozer.”

She could hear him laughing as she closed her front door. The sound hurt.

“I'm home.” She called upstairs to her brood and got one weak “Hi Mom” in response, making her think back to not that long ago, when the sound of her voice catapulted the three of them downstairs in a thunderous tangle of eager legs.

Maybe it was that long ago. “Vera?”

“Watching TV.” Her mother-in-law's deep voice sounded from the living room. Most warm nights they sat together on the front porch, but when Vera babysat, she'd knit in front of the set so she could hear better upstairs.

“Kids do okay?” Megan paused opposite the living room where Vera half-lay in Stanley's recliner wearing her purple flowered housecoat, thick needles predictably busy.

“Kids were fine.” She didn't glance up from the log cabin pattern of dark blues she'd chosen for her last blanket square, speaking as if Megan worried way too much about a little thing like her children. Given how Vera still fussed over her forty-one-year-old son, Megan figured her mother-in-law shouldn't invest in any glass houses. “How was the group? Sally get her dress yet?”

“Great. Fun.” She was suddenly exhausted, the anything-can-happen mystery and romance of a summer night sucked out of her by David and now Vera. “Sally hasn't, no, but she's picked out the one she wants.”

“Nothing more exciting than getting married.” Vera pulled at the dark blue acrylic-wool blend; the thick yarn waggled, snake-like, across her broad stomach. “Happiest day of my life. Everything about my wedding was magical. The weather, the food, the guests—all perfect. And what came after, forty-six years…Not an hour goes by that I don't miss Rocky.”

Megan rubbed her hand across her forehead. Vera rewrote history, brushing aside facts like so much eraser dust. According to Stanley, at his parents' wedding a surprise storm had soaked the guests on the way to the reception, where the maid of honor got so drunk she hiked up her gown and propositioned the groom
on the dance floor. Vera's marriage to Rocky Morgan had lived up to his first name, alternately sullen and tumultuous. Rocky finally died two years ago, after Vera had been wishing him gone several times that long; she'd moved into her son's house almost immediately. Apparently, that was how things were done in their family. Vera had hosted Rocky's mom for eight years after her husband died. Now Megan got Vera.

“I better get Jeffrey and Deena to bed.” Megan climbed the stairs, stopping to pick up books meant for Lolly's room and drawings meant for Jeffrey's.

“Oh, Megan?”

She backtracked down half the flight and leaned over the worn banister. “Yes?”

“Some woman staying at the Quality Inn in Hendersonville called. She saw your ad at the Chit Chat Café. Wants to take a look at the apartment.”

“Really?” Megan got that same hit of claustrophobic panic to her stomach as when Stanley announced his mother was moving in, only this time the intrusion had been her own idea. “Did you get her number?”

“Mo-o-om?” Her middle child, Deena, in that injured tone she'd perfected two years ago at eleven. “Will you
pleez
tell Jeffrey to stop—”

“Hold on, Deena. Sorry, yes Vera? The number?”

“By the phone in the kitchen. She wants you to call back tonight.”

“Thank you.”

“Jeffrey keeps singing another song while I'm trying to listen to this one.”

Megan rolled her eyes and turned to her daughter, plump,
dark and introverted as her older sister was golden, outgoing and athletic. “And?”

“It's buggin' me. He won't stop.”

“Boohoo, tattletale.” Jeffrey stood defiantly in the hall, a skinny, rumple-headed nine-year-old, spitting image of his father's photos at that age.

Deena fisted her hands. “Try singin' on key and you won't be so annoying.”

Megan sighed. “You're both annoying. It's late. Jeffrey, you're supposed to be in your pajamas, teeth brushed.”

“You said I had to be ready to go to bed. I
am
ready. I just don't have my pajamas on or my teeth brushed.”

Megan frowned hard so her smile wouldn't show. “When you're a famous lawyer, you can split those hairs, not while you're in my house.”

“Famous lawyer ha, famous
barber
maybe. Split
those
hairs, Jeffrey.”

“Deena…” Megan hauled out her I'm-losing-patience voice, which, she'd noticed, worked less and less the older her kids got. Maybe she wasn't tough enough. Maybe they needed their father around more…

Half an hour later, children nestled all snug in their beds, Megan went downstairs, trying not to count how many more days until school started again. Summer seemed to go on forever.

She bypassed Vera, yarn slack, nodding off over a rerun episode of
ER
, and stood by the phone staring at the number scrawled in Vera's sloppy hand on the pale yellow pad sprinkled with faint sunflowers.

Tidy up the kitchen first. She picked up a big plastic bowl
the kids must have used for popcorn, dumped the unpopped kernels into the trash and filled it with warm water bubbled up with Palmolive detergent. She had a perfectly good dishwasher but sometimes she needed to stand at the sink, gazing out into her garden, now dark and invisible, and gradually trade the chaos of used dishes for a neatly organized drain rack of clean ones.

Dishes done, she wiped the counters dreamily, passing over the burn scar where Stanley had dropped a pot he thought cool enough to carry from the stove with his bare hands, past the pitted surface caused by her youngest playing carpenter with one of Daddy's screwdrivers. By the time she'd wiped under the dish rack, put away the place mats and the butter and jelly left out, she wondered if it was too late to call, aware she'd been procrastinating all along.

But if she didn't call tonight, the thought of having to tomorrow would disturb her reading and her sleep, and she'd wake up dreading it.

She dialed. The phone made a loud jingly ring once, twice, then a pleasant woman answered and connected Megan to the room of her potential boarder.

Another ring, then another woman. “Yes? Hello?”

“This is Megan Morgan. You answered my ad at the Chit Chat Café about our garage apartment?” She wasn't going to call it a guesthouse.

“Yes, yes. Thanks for returning my call. I'm Elizabeth Detlaff.” The voice was clear, young, confident, with a minor flavor of New York.

“I hope I'm not calling too late.” Self-consciously, Megan tuned in to her own words and heard traces of her adopted Southern accent, which sprouted when she got nervous.

“No, not at all, I'm a night owl. I just finished my run and was about to do some yoga and meditate.”

Megan had no idea what to say to that, but her stomach started feeling a bit sick. “Well, welcome to Comfort, Miss…Mrs.?”

“
Ms
. Call me Elizabeth, though. Can I come by tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, sure.” She'd forgotten how Northeasterners attacked conversation as if it were a nuisance weed best gotten rid of quickly. “How about ten o'clock?”

“Perfect. Thirty-seven Wiggins Street? What does the house look like?”

“A white colonial with burgundy shutters.” Which badly needed painting.

“Got it. I'm
so
looking forward to this. The last few days have been crazy, I still can't believe I'm here!” Elizabeth's enthusiasm was startling. “And
then
to find you have a one-bedroom to rent by the week…I can't get over it.”

Megan had a stupid urge to giggle nervously, like she did when she was a girl. People always wanted to know what was so funny, which she hated, because there was nothing funny about being shy. “Well…good, then.”

“See you tomorrow, ten o'clock.”

“Yes. I'll be here.” Megan hung up, feeling sicker, and went into the living room to wake Vera for bed. The rental announcement had been out for weeks in the
Comfort Gazette
and up at the Chit Chat Café. The family wasn't yet desperate, but having decided to rent, Megan couldn't bring herself to turn down money. If not this woman, then who?

“Vera.” She shook Vera's soft shoulder.

Look how she'd made peace with her mother-in-law mov
ing in, gradually getting over her horror at the thought of Vera underfoot every day. Given that Stanley was gone so much, having another adult body around wasn't so bad.

You adjusted. You got used to things. Overlooked what you could and bore what you couldn't. Most stopped hurting eventually.

E
lizabeth still couldn't believe she was doing this. Though sitting in the back of the taxi on her way to meet Megan, peering eagerly right and left, she was slowly being charmed out of her panic. Over the last two days everything had fallen into place in ways that still seemed eerie. Her late grandmother would have been thrilled. Emma Burschke believed strongly that God sent guiding signs to His people, and she'd carefully taught her dutiful daughter and rebellious granddaughter to watch for them. Okay. Whatever.

But…two mornings ago Elizabeth had woken abruptly from a dream in which her
babcia
had lectured her, somber as always in the black anachronism of a dress she insisted on wearing until her death, gray hair pulled back severely, impressive brows an awning for her still-vibrant blue eyes.
Elizabeth. You must go find comfort
.

The dream had been so vivid, her grandmother's voice so ur
gent, Elizabeth had lain there, alone in the Manhattan condo she shared with her chef boyfriend, Dominique, heart pounding while her brain produced a disturbing slide show of other “signs” from the previous days. At the coffee shop. The museum. The story on the radio about someone retreating to a small town in North Carolina that Elizabeth barely heard until the town's name jumped out at her.

Comfort.

Everything could have stopped there, been left with an uneasy shrug, if Dominique hadn't chosen that moment, while the dream was still fresh, to call her from England, where he was spending a month as a guest chef and pursuing summer truffles for a new fall menu. She'd e-mailed him impulsively the night before, asking if he'd consider using one of her fledgling fabric designs for his restaurant linens, since she hadn't managed to sell them anywhere else. Seemed a no-brainer to her. Original cloths and napkins for him, exposure for her.

His response was typically to the point. No. They were too
her
and not enough
him
. Not to mention she had no design or business experience, just a natural drawing talent that she'd never pursued seriously.
And
he had no time to hold her hand through yet another entrepreneurial idea she wouldn't stick with. If she wanted something to do, she shouldn't have quit her secretary job, blah blah blah.

The fight went south from there until anger released the ultimatum he'd been hinting at for months but not laid down, a less blunt version of “Marry me…or else.”

She'd had to stifle panic.
Or else what?
He'd kick her out? Stop supporting her? She loved him, but marriage…Maybe she'd find out on this trip what was holding her back, maybe that was why she'd needed to leave New York so desperately.

Comfort. From her first glimpse of the rolling Blue Ridge Mountains out the plane window to today's drive over the picturesque winding roads and her eyeful of the quaint brick buildings that comprised the tiny downtown—still decorated for the Fourth of July celebration—she had a strange impression that she was coming home. Given that she'd never set foot in the area before, it made no sense, unless her grandmother's woo-woo theories had something to them after all. Regardless, she felt as tied to this lovely spot as she'd come to feel foreign and adrift in Manhattan.

Maybe Dominique felt this way each time he got off the plane in France, back on home soil where his DNA belonged. She'd never really thought about his status as an immigrant since he thrived so heartily in New York, and since to her he spoke mostly about food and wine…and Dominique. The good and bad of strong personality traits—confidence was the sexy yang, the trait that had drawn her to him, self-absorption its flipside yin.

Having seen Comfort, she wanted to stay the whole month he was away, who knew beyond that? After she'd secured the last seat on the last flight to Asheville, leaving half an hour after her impulsive arrival at LaGuardia, and after she'd walked into the Chit Chat Café and seen the ad for a room to let by the week, she'd been tempted to offer up a freaked-out but grateful prayer to
Babcia
, and felt renewed guilt that she hadn't visited her grandmother before her death, or her mom in the decade-plus since she'd fled Milwaukee. Stilted phone calls, birthday and Christmas cards—Mom didn't understand her life and its sudden changes; Elizabeth couldn't fathom Mom's stoic and static existence, decade after decade.

“How much farther?” She leaned forward, grasping the back
of the seat in front of her, tickled at the lack of bulletproof glass between her and the driver.

The pudgy blond cabbie gestured forward. “A few blocks is all.”

“I'll walk the rest.”

She paid and hoisted her overnight bag onto her shoulder. The day promised to be hot, though not humid-unbearable like New York—the mountains took care of that. Oaks and maples and other trees she couldn't identify lined streets and punctuated neat yards, providing shade and cool. Birds called, cicadas sang, a group of yelling kids charged around a plastic wading pool. How different from noisy, crowded, overstimulating New York, where only yesterday she'd felt she'd suffocate, mind full of her grandmother's urgent words,
you must go find comfort,
and Dominique's,
marry me now or admit you never will.

Comfort.

She turned left on Wiggins Street, excitement rising. There would be nice people here—decent, honest and hardworking people who knew how to relax without spending thousands of dollars on therapy and prescriptions and spa visits.

There it was. She could see the house halfway down the street, white with burgundy shutters, exactly as Megan had described, flying an American flag. She quickened her steps, ready to start taking on this town, this neighborhood, this new life, try them on for size and see how they fit.

One house before Megan's, a sudden movement—the front door hurled open. A man stepped out, eyes circled and bleary with sleep, dark hair pointing in all directions, considerable stubble on his jaw, cheeks unhealthily pale, steaming mug in one hand. He was barefoot, shirtless, wearing boxers whose fly gaped to reveal darkness when he bent to scoop up a familiar
copy of the
New York Times
, which seemed oddly out of place anywhere but in her city.

The man straightened and saw her, showed no embarrassment to be caught just out of bed at 10
A.M
. on a Tuesday in his underwear. He tucked the paper under the arm with the mug and shielded his eyes with the other hand, squinting as if the warm sunlight pouring over the town was torture. “Who the hell are you?”

“Elizabeth Detlaff.” She smiled graciously. “Who the hell are you?”

A flicker of amusement. “David Langley.”

He looked as if he expected—no, dreaded—some reaction. The name sounded familiar, but she couldn't remember where she'd heard it. “Nice to meet you, David.”

He slurped his coffee loudly. “Uh-huh.”

Her city soul suggested she blow him a raspberry, which made her even more determined to be polite. “I'm meeting your neighbor Megan about renting her apartment next door.”

“Yeah?” His stomach gurgled loudly; it was that quiet in this neighborhood. “Where'd you come from?”

“Manhattan.”

“You know someone here? Have family nearby? Wedding? Funeral?”

“I came on my own.”

“Because…”

“To experience the town.”

He snorted. “That'll take a good bite out of half an hour. What, you're some kind of missionary?”

“No.”

“Mary Kay?”

“Uh…no.” She called his disdain and raised him.

“Don't tell me, let me guess.” He rubbed his belly, snapped the waistband of his boxers with his thumb. “Ditched the boyfriend or he kicked you out.”

“Nothing like that.” She rushed her answer, sounding defensive and therefore guilty.

“No, of course, nothing like that.” He took another slurp of coffee, staring at her over the rim. She waited him out. “Well,
welcome
to Comfort, Ms. Detlaff. If there's anything we colorful locals can do to make your stay more enjoyable, please let us know.”

“Thank you.” She ignored his sarcasm. If she wanted to indulge cranky cynics, she would have stayed in New York. “I'm sure I'll see you again if we're going to be neighbors.”

“Oh absolutely. We'll do potlucks and Tupperware parties.”

Elizabeth stalked next door, happily unable to hear whatever else he mumbled as he went back into his house. He didn't seem to belong here any more than she belonged in New York, though for a lot of years she thought she did. Too easy to fool yourself into thinking something was true just because you wanted to believe it.

Up the evocatively creaky front-porch steps, across the porch itself—with genuine rocking chair!—to the screen door, so picturesquely in need of painting she nearly got a lump in her throat. If she'd had to spend one more night in the soulless decorator-perfect condo she shared with Dominique, she would have gone over the edge. Hard to remember how thrilling it had been when his restaurant's success and subsequent cable-show stardom not only bought them the place, but gave them license to remodel it to their taste…to Dominique's taste.

She rang the doorbell,
ding-dong
, and waited breathlessly for
a collie to start barking and Timmy to show.
Down, Lassie, it's that real nice lady I was tellin' you 'bout.

Instead, a woman who must be Megan opened the door, pushed out the screen, making only brief eye contact but with a smile. Elizabeth did get a lump in her throat then, along with yet another shivery dose of woo-woo insight: She and this woman were going to be close friends.

Okay,
Babcia.
Enough.

Megan was older than she sounded on the phone, probably ten years older than Elizabeth's thirty, and beautiful—even if Elizabeth hadn't been in the mood to think everything in Comfort was beautiful. She had thick auburn hair pulled back in a short, low ponytail, greenish eyes set wide apart and slightly freckled skin, flawless without makeup. A few extra pounds softened her, partly camouflaged under an apricot scoop-neck tee and a chocolate brown jumper. She looked so casually cool and comfortable, Elizabeth felt self-conscious in her all-the-rage sleeveless tunic and cropped designer jeans, and promised herself she'd go shopping soon and find a new image to match her surroundings. When in Comfort…

“Hi Megan! I'm Elizabeth. It's really nice to meet you.”

Megan nodded at her floor, still smiling. “Nice to meet you, too. I hope you had a good trip.”

“I had a trip from hell.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.” Megan glanced up. “Did you drive or fly?”

“I flew. The flight was fine.” She tapped her head. “The hell was in here.”

“Oh…”

Elizabeth bunched her mouth. She'd probably just scared
the poor woman to death. “I'm fine, really. Just some upheaval. It's all behind me now.”

Megan's brows rose. “Well good. The apartment is in the backyard. You can come through the house or go around, whichever you'd like.”

Like David's, her accent wasn't quite Southern. Elizabeth hadn't been able to tell for sure on the phone, but she'd suspected not. Disappointing, since the lilting local language-tune made her want to lie down and be told stories past her bedtime.

“I'll come through.” Who wouldn't want the chance to see part of someone's life? Megan nodded and moved aside so Elizabeth could step in.

Inside, a real home. Not the dreary European-widow look of Elizabeth's childhood in South Milwaukee, nor the sloppy college-kid apartment she'd shared with then-boyfriend Alan in Boston, nor the bonsai/exotic artwork/koi-pond artifice of her and Dominique's condo. Instead, a dark paneled living room—with genuine recliner!—and a TV that looked to be all of nineteen inches; a cross-stitch sampler in faded pastels, framed and hung on the wall:
Bless this house and all who live within its walls;
a shabby floral rug on scuffed plank floors; a coffee table covered with a lace cloth; more lace curtaining the windows. Exquisite lace, now that she looked harder, intricate and cobwebby soft.

“What gorgeous curtains.”

“Thank you.” Megan kept walking. “We enjoy them.”

Elizabeth followed slowly, glancing around, taking in as much as possible, itching for her sketch pad to record what she saw. Some people kept journals with words; hers comprised pictures—most recently, failed fabric design ideas. To the left,
a dining room with chubby-legged dining table and chairs and a matching sideboard. One of the chairs had been re-glued or repaired, ropes still holding the legs in place.

On the right, a family room, entrance under the stairs, games stacked haphazardly on shelves, worn and stained olive green carpet, an air hockey table and a fleet of metal vehicles jumbled in one corner—yellow backhoes and diggers and dump trucks. Megan did have children; Elizabeth couldn't wait to meet them. Husband too? She'd have to ask. To the left at the back, the kitchen—faded and cracked linoleum floor in a yellowing spotted pattern that had probably always been ugly; cheap table and chairs; dingy countertops.

But everything recently scrubbed and tidy, everything with character and probably a story, everything said family, home, warmth…and comfort.

“Your house is beautiful, Megan.”

Megan glanced over her shoulder in surprise. “Well. Thank you.”

Outside, down concrete steps into a garden—an entirely different story.

“Wow.” Elizabeth turned slowly, savoring each sight, shape, color and scent. “Your yard is amazing.”

Megan laughed abruptly, self-consciously. “Thank you.”

“Did you do this all yourself?”

“Yes.” She swung her sandaled foot to kick at scalloped black edging. “I enjoy it.”