Knit in Comfort (8 page)

Got the string around my finger/What a world, what a life—I'm in love
.

“I don't have the right number of stitches in this part, what did I do?” Elizabeth handed over her beginner's attempt to Vera like a child holding out a broken toy, please-fix-it, to Mama.

“In Shetland, girls learned by doing the plain return rows on their mother's lace-knit patterns. You're diving into the hard part right away. Mistakes are normal at the beginning.”

Maybe Megan could check on Deena and Jeffrey. But they were no longer the ages for drawing on walls and sticking fingers in sockets, so if they were quiet they were happy. She needed to get over her silly jealousy, her anger at Vera for taking over as if the lace was in her heritage, anger at herself because it was her fault she hadn't offered to teach Elizabeth, anger at grave robber Elizabeth for digging up and pillaging Megan's past.

I can make the rain go/Any time I move my finger/Lucky me, can't you see—I'm in love
.

“Argh! I think I've made about twenty mistakes already.” Elizabeth put the tiny swatch down and laughed, face red.

“Maybe next time you can try when you haven't been”—Vera cleared her throat meaningfully—“to David's.”

“Is it that obvious? You know, I couldn't even finish
one
drink.” She hunched and let go her shoulders. “He pours a lethal one.”

“Yes, well.” Vera snorted. “Practice makes perfect.”

“His drinking or my knitting?”

“Both.”

Elizabeth laughed and looked dubiously at her not-yet-lace.

“I don't know if I have the patience for this.”

“Just you wait.” Vera regarded her new pupil with the seriousness of a missionary. “The work will take you over before you know it. You'll start to feel the patterns rather than read them. You'll start to connect to all the women who have knit this lace before, and all those who will knit it after you.”

“Wow, really?” Elizabeth's eyes went wide. Vera couldn't have hooked her more completely if she'd started her on heroin.

Life's a wonderful thing/As long as I hold the string/I'd be a silly so-and-so/If I should ever let go.

Vera nodded solemnly. “Yes, indeed. Right, Megan?”

Megan watched the delicate white thread wind around Elizabeth's finger, remembering the sensuous softness of the Shetland wool, the powerful feeling that she wasn't so alone when she was knitting with her mother, a feeling that carried over even after Mom died. “That's what my mother always said, yes.”

Elizabeth bent over her effort. Megan went back to her blanket square. Knit, knit, knit two together, yarn-over, knit, knit, yarn-over, knit two together, knit, knit, knit.

St. Louis. That was where they'd been living when Mom invented Megan's favorite story and her favorite character. She remembered because there had been a girl in her class, Jill, tall, dark and beautiful, who'd chosen for her project at the start of the school year to make life unbearable for once again “new girl” Megan. Mom had come up with Gillian soon after.

“So, Megan, tell me more about—argh, I've dropped a stitch here.”

“Pick it up and keep going,” Vera said.

“I can't even
find
it.” She started giggling again.

Ella Fitzgerald began a new song, which Megan recognized as “Witchcraft” because of her mother's passion for Sinatra. David started singing loudly, drunkenly, not his usual fine
voice but just under the pitch and behind the beat. She wanted to be there, laughing with him, sharing pain and dissecting the world the way they used to. And to prevent any mistake he was going to make—or had already made—with Ella. Ella would eat him alive.

But it wasn't Megan's place to go over there or to interfere. Not as a neighbor, not even as a friend. And certainly not as Stanley's wife. Her place was to sit here on her damn porch with her intrusive boarder and mother-in-law, overhearing the fun.

Those fingers in my hair/That sly come-hither stare/That strips my conscience bare/It's witch—

“
Elizabeth.
” Megan spoke too forcefully; Elizabeth and Vera's heads jerked up in surprise.

“Yes?”

Megan didn't know what to say; she'd had to break the music's hold. “Why don't you…tell us about your Polish relatives?”

Elizabeth blinked. “Tell you what about them?”

“What brought them over to this country and…so on.”

Vera lifted her brows and went back to her knitting.

“Oh. Sure. Okay.” Elizabeth peered at her chart. “My great-grandfather came over from Kaszuby, northern Poland, on the Baltic. He and my grandmother settled on Jones Island in Lake Michigan with a bunch of other Kaszub immigrants.”

And I've got no defense for it/The heat is too intense for it/What good would common sense—

“
Really
? What did they do there?” She was losing it. No way to drown out the music or her imagination about what was going on next door. No way to block out the emotions the lace brought on again. So? So she sat, polite, restrained, knitting her part of a blanket that was going to be artless and clumsy.

“Most of the Kazubs were fishermen, so being on the lake in Milwaukee meant they could keep right on fishing. Then in the 1920s the government kicked everyone off the island to build a sewage treatment plant.”

“Where did they all go?” Her voice sounded shrill and forced. She felt like Augustus Gloop from the
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
movie she and her kids watched last month, stuck halfway up the vacuum pipe, pressure building all around, something having to give eventually.

“South Milwaukee, where I grew up with my widowed grandmother and my mom. My dad left when I was five.”

And although I know it's strictly taboo/When you arouse the need in me/My heart says yes indeed in me/Proceed with—

“Oh, I'm sorry. That must have been hard.” Megan put on a sympathetic face, feeling as if she were going to throw up or laugh or scream or all three. Knit, knit, knit two together, yarn-over, knit, knit, yarn-over, knit two together, knit, knit, knit.

“Thanks. I was young…” Elizabeth looked at Megan curiously before she bent over the chart again. “If we're talking relatives, Megan, I really want to hear about yours on Shetland.”

“Oh. Well.” Megan smiled at her knitting this time because she didn't want to smile at Elizabeth. “My great-grandmother grew up there. She moved, though, to the Scottish mainland, when she was eighteen. But she brought her lace-knitting skill with her.”

That wouldn't be enough. She knew it wouldn't be enough. Why had she brought up ancestor stories? Dig, dig, dig. Like a dog searching for its bone, holes all over the yard, never giving up.

“Wow. This is so fascinating. Tell me more, I want to know everything. What was her life like when she was—”

“Hi y'all.” Sally, approaching.

“Hey there.” Megan put her knitting aside, nearly ecstatic over the interruption. “Join us.”

“Thanks.” She climbed the first step to the porch; up close it was obvious, even through cosmetic attempts to conceal it, that she'd been crying. “I'm looking for Ella.”

“Ella won't be any good to you right now.” Vera peered at her with maternal concern. No one could know Sally without wanting to take care of her. “You stay here with us. Megan'll get you something cool to drink.”

“Lemonade? Diet ginger?”

“No, nothing. Thanks.”

Elizabeth frowned at her. “Are you okay?”

Megan sat again, picked up her blue square. Honestly. Not even giving the poor woman time to get settled, to chat about nothing and ease into her troubles
if
she wanted to talk about them. “Sally, we were just talking about—”

“You look like you've been crying. What's the matter?”

“Sally honey, have a seat.” Vera patted the chair next to her. “You sure you don't want any ginger? It's diet. My doctor says—”

“Vera, let Sally tell us.”

Vera was so shocked by Elizabeth's calm interruption she subsided, muttering.

“Oh. Well. My dress came today.” Sally dug a tissue from her pocket. “Beatrice ordered the one I didn't want. The one she liked. I know I'm being a spoiled brat, but it's so…
plain.
I loved that other one.”

“Oh, Sally, honey.” Megan's stomach sank in dismay. Sally had been through so much. She deserved a perfect wedding.

“I'm so sorry.”

“Send it back.” Elizabeth shrugged. “Tell her you want the one
you
picked out.”

“I can't do that. She's paying for it.” Sally dissolved again.

“It'd be so ungrateful.”

“Pfft.” Elizabeth scoffed. “It's
your
wedding.”

“Elizabeth.” Megan managed to keep her voice gentle. “I don't think she wants to start out married life antagonizing her mother-in-law. You sure about the drink, Sally? I've got cookies too, oatmeal raisin.”

“You need to draw the line now,” Elizabeth announced. “Or you'll be catering to this woman the rest of your marriage. If you don't believe me, Dear Abby says so only every other week.”

Megan frowned a warning, which Elizabeth didn't see. “Sally, what does Foster say?”

“He says I'll be beautiful to him no matter what.” She sniffled, wiped her eyes, erasing the camouflaging concealer. “He doesn't want to take sides.”

“Keep the dress.” Vera harrumphed. “You don't want to pit your husband against his mother.”

“She needs her husband on
her
side.”

Megan stood. “I'll get those cookies.”

“And because it's strapless I'll have to find some way to hide the scars on my shoulder from the accident.” She looked toward Elizabeth. “I was in a car wreck when I was a girl. I
told
Beatrice I can't wear strapless.”

“Maybe she thought you meant you didn't look good in that style,” Vera said. “Like how people say, ‘I can't wear orange.'”

“What did the dress you wanted look like?” Elizabeth asked.

“I'll show you both of them.”

Megan went inside while Sally pulled out two folded pictures and passed them to Elizabeth. In the kitchen, she clunked ice into another glass and took another soda out of the fridge, put the cookies she'd intended for the kids onto a plate and loaded her tray again. Poor Sally. As the years passed the wedding faded in importance, but brides deserved the day they wanted. Especially Sally, who was cheated out of her dream ceremony the first time by eloping.

At her own wedding, Megan was so happy not to have to move again, so astonished by the intensity of Stanley's love, that she cared less about the trappings than most. She'd worn her mother's dress, decorated with Grandma Bridget's lace.

Back on the porch the women were studying the pictures.

“Here, Sally, honey.” Megan put the tray down. “Have something to drink and a cookie. They'll make the problem seem less horrible.”

“Megan, you are a doll, thank you.” Sally took a cookie, opened the soda and started pouring.

“Okay.” Elizabeth passed the pictures back to Sally, then put them down on an empty chair when she saw her hands full.

“What can we do to fix the problem?”

“Oh.” Sally laughed uncomfortably. “You're sweet, Elizabeth, but you don't need to worry about my problems.”

“Don't be silly. I'd like to help. There must be something we can do.” She looked to Vera and Megan, clearly expecting an immediate rush of ideas. “We could maybe talk to Beatrice for you, or—”

“
No
.” Megan and Vera objected simultaneously.

“Thank you, Elizabeth, but don't worry.” Sally was blushing now. “I just needed someone to sympathize…and give me cookies. These are so delicious, Megan. Is this the recipe from the—”

“Maybe we can fix up the dress you don't like. Put sleeves on it. You have a seamstress here in town, don't you?”

“Beatrice would be furious,” Vera said. “I remember—”

“So what?” Elizabeth blew a raspberry.

Megan glanced at Sally's stricken face and wanted to drop-kick Elizabeth back to New York. “I don't think that's what Sally—”

“I know!” Elizabeth held up her infant lace, barely three rows. “The proverbial answer staring us in the face! Vera and Megan can knit lace to decorate the dress you didn't like.”

The porch grew silent. Even next door had gone quiet. Elizabeth of course picked up on nothing.

“I can help, a little anyway. The others in your knitting group can learn too. We can use small pieces to decorate the bodice and skirt, and Vera and Megan can make sleeves or a shawl to cover your shoulders.”

“Elizabeth, I don't think this—”

“It'll be our wedding gift to you.” Elizabeth cut Vera off without appearing to notice. “So your mother-in-law can't object, because you had nothing to do with it. Do we have time? When are you getting married?”

Sally was frozen holding a glass of soda in midair. “I don't—In five weeks. August fourteenth. Could…do you think you could?”

Megan and Vera exchanged glances.

“I am sure they could.” Elizabeth grinned, triumphant in her own brilliance.

“That would be so amazing.” Sally's eyes filled with tears.

“It wouldn't be the Cinderella dress, but in a way it'd be better because my best friends would be making it beautiful for me.”

“Well, I certainly…” Vera looked helplessly at Megan.

Megan sat like a brainless lump, horrified at her hesitation. Sally was a friend in need. Megan could help her. It shouldn't be more complicated than that. But it was. Upstairs in her room was the wedding shawl she'd made for the vow renewal ceremony with Stanley, when she was newly pregnant with Lolly, radiant still with the joy of having a permanent home, a wonderful husband she adored, a house of her own. Then that day digging through their files for the answer to a tax question, finding the mortgage statement for his other house. Such a small mistake he'd made, misfiling that statement. The only one. But it had been enough.