Knit in Comfort (4 page)

“Yes, ma'am.” Vera was practically floating out of her chair with pride.

“With what needles? Size zero?” Elizabeth laughed as if she thought she was making a hilarious joke, and held the lace up to the window for the light to come through its delicate design, transferring shadows of the trellis diamond center and wave edging onto her face.

“I used double zeros.”

“
Double
zero needles?” She turned, mouth dropping comically wide.

“One-point-seven-five millimeters thick.”

“Holy shi—” She stopped when she saw Vera's scowl. “Sorry, New York mouth.”

“Do you knit, Elizabeth?” Megan spoke to give Vera time to recover, though she'd heard her mother-in-law swearing up a storm when she thought no one could hear.

“Yup. My grandmother taught me. She and my great-grandmother both worked for the National Knitting Company in Milwaukee when they were young, making gloves, mittens, sweaters…My mom knits too. How did you learn to do this?”

“Megan's great-grandmother grew up in the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland.”

“Really! Wow! Where the ponies come from?” Elizabeth laid the delicate circle over her arm and stroked it admiringly.

“So you taught Vera, Megan?”

“Yes.” Megan spoke shortly, putting a loaded plate in front of Vera, praying no more questions would be hurled at her. Her relationship with lace was none of Elizabeth's business.

“It's
so
beautiful.” Elizabeth held the doily back up to the light, then draped it onto her hair and preened, laughing.

Megan wanted to grab the lace and put it back under the vase where it belonged. “Have some breakfast, Elizabeth?”

“I don't eat breakfast.” She saw Megan holding the plate and gasped. “Oh no! You shouldn't have gone to that trouble.”

“It was no trouble. Someone else will eat it.”

“Why don't you sit down here, Elizabeth, so we can chat.” Vera patted the table beside her, Megan's place. “I still haven't heard how you came to Comfort. Megan was vague on answers.”

Megan poured herself more coffee and put her plate at Jeffrey's spot.

“Well, it was funny.” Elizabeth plunked herself down as if she'd lived with them all her life. “No, not funny. It's actually sort of weird.”

“Weird how?” Vera asked.

“Kind of…message-from-beyond-the-grave weird.”

“Mercy.” Vera was all ears. “I've often thought I had psychic powers myself. Tell me.”

“Two days ago my grandmother told me to go find ‘comfort.'”

“The one who knits?”

“She's no longer alive.”

“Well
my
goodness.”

“It was in a dream. I had no idea what she meant at first, but then I remembered the day before in a coffee shop, I'd had
Comfort
tea.”

Megan brought Stanley's mug to the table, then sat down to her breakfast. She didn't want to hear the rest of the story almost as much as Vera did. “Did you want your coffee, Elizabeth?”

“Oh, yes, thank you.” Elizabeth took another tentative sip.

“So
then
I remembered that after the coffee shop, I'd been at this antique store on Tenth Street that specializes in Biedermeier
furniture, and the guy kept talking about the convenience and
comfort
of the furniture compared to the Empire style. I swear, he kept repeating this word. So I was actually standing there thinking of naming my first fabric line Comfort!”

“You're a designer?” Vera glanced at Megan, who didn't react.

“I'm
attempting
to be a designer. I brought my sketchbook and paints with me. I thought I could try the mountains and woods around here for inspiration. So far I haven't come up with any patterns I really love.”

“You will.” Vera attacked a biscuit, a crumb adhering to one of the
ords in her upper lip, dug by years of smoking, though she quit when Rocky was diagnosed with cancer.

“Anyway,
then
, on the radio in the cab coming home from the museum, I heard them say something about
Comfort
, North Carolina! I wasn't listening to the story, but the name jumped out because the word was so in my brain.”

“Oh, yes. They'd have been talking about—” Vera caught Megan's look. “Something local.”

“What?” Elizabeth looked eagerly between them, puppy hoping for a treat.

“We had a minor celebrity event. The news wires picked it up.” Megan spread jam on her last bite of biscuit, not sure why she was bothering to protect David except that the ugliness had touched them all. “Go on, Elizabeth.”

“Oh, so, well,
then
the next day, after
all
those signs pointing to Comfort, there came my dream about my
babcia
—my grandmother. I still didn't put it together until I had a fight with my boyfriend, and I was so upset and thinking if I didn't get out of the city, I'd totally lose it. It was like…” She beckoned with her hand, coaxing out the analogy. “Like being in a
jar filled with stones that some giant was shaking, you know?”

“Well sure. I feel that way at least once a week. No offense to your children, Megan, they're fine children.”

“Yes, they are.” Megan finished her breakfast and took her plate back to the sink. Without the full measure of her quiet alone time the day already felt long.

“I knew I had to leave New York. I just didn't know where to go.”

“You don't have family?” Vera asked.

“None I'm close to.”

“So you came here.”

“Yes.” Elizabeth laughed uncomfortably. “Pretty wacked-out reason, huh?”

“No. Your grandmother meant you to come here. She's a wise woman.” Vera held up a wise-woman finger. “This town does give comfort. And peace. Otherwise I couldn't have survived the death of my husband. Forty-six years we were married. Without him I'm like a sailboat with half an oar.”

“Sailboats have sails, not oars.” Megan's youngest, Jeffrey, from the hall outside the kitchen where he'd probably been eavesdropping for some time. He loved curling up small and silent—under a desk, on a closet floor—so no one knew he was there.

“I know boats that have both, young man.”

“Jeffrey, come in and say hello to Elizabeth and have some breakfast.”

“Yes, Mom. Okay, Mom. Hi Elizabeth.” He dragged himself in, skinny legs emerging like knobbly sticks from his short pajamas. Megan ruffled his hair, bent to kiss his sleep-smelling skin, feeling love so deep she wanted to pull him back inside her body.

“This town will help calm you down, point you in the right direction. Make you feel God is on your side after all,” Vera continued.

“That's exactly what I'm looking for.” Elizabeth turned her delighted smile on Jeffrey. “Hi there. Did you sleep well?”

“Yes. You have weird dreams.”

“Don't you?”

“Sure. Sometimes. Can I ask you a question?”

“O-kay.” She grinned and touched his chin.

“If people were jelly beans, how many would you eat?”

“Jeffrey, that is not a question for guests.”

“Sorry, Mom.” He took his place at the table, next to Elizabeth, clearly not sorry at all. “I just think it's interesting. I'd make the good people into bad flavors so no one would touch them.”

“Our family has been in Comfort for centuries,” Vera went on, oblivious to interruptions. “In fact, my grandmother was best friends with one of the Vanderbilts, who used to summer in North Carolina. The town has everything you could want.”

“Then why do you go to Hendersonville so often?” Jeffrey pushed a small truck around his place mat, using the border for a highway.

“It's a beautiful place for a child to grow up. It's safe…”

“What about the time Dad broke his leg?” Jeffrey ran his truck into the napkin holder and made an exploding sound.

“You said the rocks he was climbing were dangerous.”

“…with good people. Stanley is still friends with childhood buddies, all fine men. One said Stanley had inspired him to give up drinking in high school. That he owed him his life. Remember that, Megan?”

“You told me, yes.” Megan brought Jeffrey's breakfast over. Elizabeth was looking at her curiously. The story of Stanley's
life became more impressive and more mangled every time his mother got hold of it, and Megan had probably been looking skeptical. She rearranged her face into a more wifely expression and was relieved when Elizabeth turned back to Vera.

“You must be so proud of your son.”

“Oh, yes, I am. Of course what mother isn't proud of her child? But Stanley is special. He went to the University of North Carolina, and could have graduated, probably with honors, but he missed Megan and wanted to settle.” She shook her head as if Megan were responsible for bringing Stanley down from a sure shot at the White House. Stanley had actually failed out of UNC all by himself. “He's a fine salesman, but he could have been a CEO if he'd set his sights that high. A Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs or a Jimmy Buffett.”

“Warren Buffet, Vera. Jimmy is a singer.” Megan put the plate she'd fixed for Elizabeth on the table for her son. “Jeffrey, put away the truck and eat.”

“Yes, Mom, I will, Mom.”

“Stanley is a fine singer too. You should hear him in church, Elizabeth.”

Of course he was. A fine singer and brilliant scholar, exemplary friend—but a lousy swimmer because his feet stayed on top of the water and he had to walk it.

“G'morning.” Lolly filed in sleepily, sexy in a worn, black Johnny Cash T-shirt of her father's, hair in a sloppy ponytail. At fifteen, girls could look sexy covered in garbage.

“Hi Lolly. Nice to see you.” Elizabeth smiled at Megan's daughter, who nodded, giving Elizabeth's cute dress a covetous up-and-down.

“Deena up?” Megan opened the cookie tin where she stored her biscuits, and got down two more plates.

“She's reading.” Lolly made it clear she thought this a completely lame way to spend time. “Some dumb science-fiction thing about shapeshifters from another galaxy.”

“Tell her it's breakfast time.”

“Knock knock!” Ella's voice, through the front door screen.

Megan sighed and pulled open the can of coffee to make more. “Door's open, Ella.”

“Deena, get your lard-y butt down to breakfast!”

“Lolly, there are nicer ways to invite your sister.”

“You keep your door
unlocked
?” Miss New Yorker was aghast.

“At night?”

“Who's going to steal anything?” Vera started a chuckle and ended up coughing, thumping herself on the chest. “When Stanley was a boy, he and his friends returned a wallet with over three hundred dollars in it, which Mr. Clements had left in the—”

“Hi everyone.” Ella's tall elegance made the kitchen seem smaller and shabbier. “Sally and I came to say hi to your new boarder.”

“Come in, come in.” Megan put on a big welcoming smile.

“Lolly get your own juice. I'm making more coffee. Ella, Sally, this is Elizabeth Detlaff. Ella and Sally both grew up in Comfort. Sally is engaged to be married next month. Ella just moved back home in April.”

“It's nice to meet you both. Sally, congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Sally beamed. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“Very nice.” Ella's eyes followed Lolly's path up and down Elizabeth. “So what brings someone like you to a place like Comfort?”

“‘Someone like me'? What do you mean?” Elizabeth looked like a scrappy cat ready to pounce. Two beautiful, vivid wom
en—some jostling for position was bound to happen. Just the thought of it made Megan want to shoo them out into the yard like she did to her kids.

Ella shrugged, giving that aloof stare she used to protect herself. “Nothing bad. You just don't look like—”

“Her dead grandmother told her to come.” Vera leaned her enormous bosom forward, speaking in a hushed voice. “In a dream.”

“Sally? Ella? Coffee?” Megan could hear desperation in her attempt to sound cheerful. She was not in the mood to listen to the weird story again. Nor was she anxious to watch Elizabeth attacked by Ella's divorcée bitterness, though Elizabeth could probably hold her own.

“Coffee'd be good, thanks.” Ella drew Deena's chair out from the table and sank gracefully into it. “Your dead grandmother told you to come here?”

“In a dream.”

“Yeah, thanks, Jeffrey, I heard that part.”

Jeffrey sent Ella a look of jelly-smeared disdain. “
What
-ever.”

“Manners, Jeffrey.”

“Yes, Mom, okay, Mom.”

“It's true.” Elizabeth turned her chair to face Ella. “In my dream she told me to go find comfort.”

“And that made you think of this town…how?”