The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love (6 page)

Why hadn’t she just pinned her heart on her sleeve and been done with it, Eugenie thought as she fought the urge to wave a hand to cool her flaming cheeks.

“I’m glad to hear that, Merry. We won’t get into
Romeo and Juliet
, the first selection, until next month, so I thought we might focus our discussion tonight on something a bit different. Since we’re going to talk about love this year, I thought I’d ask
each of you to share your definition of love. What it means to you personally”

Eugenie heard the
click-click
of high heels in the hallway.

“Sorry I’m late.”

She twisted in her chair to see Esther hurrying into the room.

Merry glanced at her watch. “We were going to start worrying about you in a few minutes,” she said, and the others nodded in agreement.

Esther’s perfect hair was mussed, and she had smudges on her blouse. She perched on the last remaining chair on the other side of Hannah. Like Camille, she had deep lines carved around her mouth. “I’m afraid I got a little sidetracked this afternoon. But it’s all taken care of now.” She ran a hand over her hair, which did little to calm its disorder, and pasted a determined smile on her face. “What have I missed?”

“We’re glad you made it.” Eugenie slid a copy of the reading list across the table to her. “We were just getting started.”

She thought Esther might offer further explanation for her tardiness, but the other woman simply picked up the list and skimmed its contents. Her lips thinned and then pursed as she scanned the titles on the paper.

“I was inviting everyone to think about your definition of love and share it with the group, if you feel comfortable.” Eugenie drew a deep breath. “Who would like to start?”

For a long moment silence reigned, and with each passing second, Eugenie’s apprehension grew. She’d wanted to challenge the other women this year, invite them to share their thoughts
and feelings at a deeper level. Perhaps, though, she should have played it safe and not tested the newfound closeness of the group. Especially not with a new member in the mix.

Just as she was about to despair of anyone speaking up, Camille cleared her throat. “Love is what you do for other people.” She folded one corner of the reading list and then smoothed it out again.

Eugenie noticed that the girl’s nails, usually manicured into impeccable french tips, had been bitten to the quick. Eugenie waited for a moment to see if she would add anything else to her statement. Camille’s gaze met hers then, and Eugenie could see the deep well of pain in her eyes.

“Yes,” Eugenie agreed. “Service to others is an important part of love. We’re all called to think about the needs of our neighbors.”

“Not much of that thinking going on in Sweetgum,” Hannah interjected. She popped her gum, a habit that drove Eugenie to distraction.

Eugenie tamped down the hurt that sprang up at the teenager’s words. Since Hannah had come into her life, Eugenie had developed the habit of reminding herself several times a day that patience was the key to transformation. While Hannah had made a lot of progress, she still struggled to trust the adults in her life. More than thirteen years of parental neglect—and sometimes outright abuse—couldn’t be undone overnight.

“Besides,” Hannah continued between smacks of her gum, “when people are nice to you, it’s usually because they want something.”

The teenagers words were met with silence as the other women looked at each other, unsure how to respond. Hannah flushed when she realized the implication of what she’d said. “I didn’t mean you, Mrs. Carson. I mean, Eugenie.”

“I know that, Hannah.” Eugenie thought it best to steer the discussion in someone else’s direction. “Merry, how would you define love?”

Merry made a wry face. “Overwhelming.” Her answer was as prompt as it was emphatic. The others laughed, as Merry had intended, but Eugenie could sense a thread of truth behind the humorous reply. With four children and a husband who had a solo law practice, Merry more than had her hands full. Eugenie had observed in the past that Merry’s busy schedule left little time for self-care. Now, with the new baby, that wouldn’t get any better.

“Anyone else?” Eugenie looked around the table. “Esther?”

“It isn’t that complicated.” Esther’s attention was on the tangle of yarn on the table in front of her as she attempted to smooth out the knotted wool. “I agree with Camille. Love is sacrifice. You do for others because it’s the proper thing to do. The Christian thing to do,” she added for emphasis. “I’m sure we’ll enjoy the books, Eugenie, but I’m not much of a believer in romantic love.”

Eugenie hardly knew what to say. Those were the last words she would have expected to hear from a woman who’d been recently widowed.

“What should I do for my first project?” Merry intervened, and for once Eugenie was grateful to her for taking the conversation off in a new direction. She swallowed against the disappointment that gathered in her throat. When she’d made out the list, she’d been so sure the theme would be popular with the group. After all, who didn’t like to read a good love story? She’d been so caught up in her own romantic happiness, she realized, that she hadn’t given enough thought to how the reading list would be received by the others.

“Romeo and Juliet
might be a challenge to come up with something. Can you knit a doublet?” Merry asked Eugenie with a smile. “That would be authentic to Shakespeare.”

“You can make whatever you like. As long as you use garter stitch,” Eugenie replied. “That’s the assigned stitch for the book.” She’d wanted to start simple since Hannah was still a beginner, and garter stitch was the easiest—the basic knit stitch back and forth with no variation. Hannah should be up to the challenge, at least when it came to the knitting. Eugenie looked around the group once more and wondered if any of them were up to the challenge of pondering the meaning and the mystery of love.

Time would tell, she thought, not without a fair amount of apprehension.

Maria pulled her mothers ancient Cadillac to the shoulder of the road and rolled to a stop beneath a stand of sweetgum trees.
Night had fallen, but there was still the faint reminder of a sunset in the western sky. The two-lane road came to an abrupt stop a mile farther on. Fitting, probably, that her family’s ancestral home sat on a dead end at the edge of Sweetgum Lake.

She opened the car door and stepped out into the night air. As always, she could breathe in the scent of the land and instantly feel calmer. Spending her days cooped up in the five-and-dime had never been her dream, but her father had chosen her for the job before she’d even finished high school.

Maria sighed.
Painful.
That’s what she would have said if Eugenie had gotten around to putting her on the spot about her definition of love. It was painful. Whether the person you loved was alive or dead didn’t make a difference. Presence and absence were different sides of the same coin.

Maria walked beneath the stand of trees at the edge of the road and then followed the rise until she stood at the top of the hill. Here, the trees fell away, and she could see a good distance in all directions despite the falling darkness. To the east, back the way she’d come, were the church steeple and the water tower. To the south, rolling hills dotted with the occasional house and barn. To the west, she could make out the dark curve of Sweet-gum Lake. Faint lights pinpointed the windows of her family’s home near the shoreline.

More than thirty years. She’d lived in the white two-story clapboard house all her life. Now it was sorely in need of a coat of paint, but in her childhood it had been pristine. In those days
the five-and-dime had provided for the family—if not abundantly, then at least adequately But those days, like her father, were gone. Her memories might as well be buried in the Sweet-gum Cemetery alongside him.

Change was in the air, not only because of her fathers death, but also because of the life-changing decision she had made in Jeff McGavin’s law office.

Maria could handle change. Or at least she hoped she could. Daphne, her older sister, was far too gentle to take charge of the family and her mother too much of an overwrought hypochondriac. Stephanie, the youngest, couldn’t even be counted on to show up at the store on time. With her father gone, the responsibility fell on Maria. All it required was the sacrifice of almost everything she loved.

She took a deep breath, drinking in the scents of the night. Eugenie’s “Great Love Stories in Literature” might lure her into thinking that Prince Charming would arrive shortly and whisk her away, make all her worries disappear, but Maria knew that was impossible. She was too old, too bland, too late. Love and romance had passed her by. Responsibility was all she had left. She’d never shirked it before, and she wasn’t about to now.

With a sigh, she turned away from the top of the hill and started back toward the car, wondering how and when she would tell her mother and sisters that their home was not their home anymore.

Early Monday morning, Hannah slammed her locker shut and twisted the combination lock with a turn of her wrist. She squared her shoulders, preparing herself to face the hallways of Sweetgum High School. Only a few weeks into her freshman year, she had already learned that moving from class to class was like running a gauntlet of upperclassmen.

“Hannah! Wait up.” Kristen came up behind her and grabbed her shoulder, almost jerking her to the floor. “Guess who just moved back to Sweetgum?”

Hannah shrugged. “No idea.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, not wanting to be late for class but also not wanting to annoy Kristen. Her friendship with the other girl, if that’s what you could call it, was on shaky ground as it was.

“Josh Hargrove is back,” Kristen said with a teasing smile. “Weren’t you guys like totally an item in fifth grade?” She smirked. “Maybe he’s come back to sweep you off your feet.”

Hannah rolled her eyes and refused to show the little spark of joy that flickered in her heart. “Whatever.”

“Sure. Play it cool.” Kristen laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in the sound. Kristen was still mad at her for refusing to hang out at the cemetery after school with the slacker crowd. Hannah wished Kristen would just let it rest, but the girl didn’t like to take no for an answer. “I bet you guys hook up by tomorrow.” She laughed, but the sound had an edge that made Hannah nervous. Kristen had something up her sleeve. Something she wasn’t telling her.

“Dang. The bell’s about to ring.” Kristen glanced at the time on her cell phone. “Later.” She darted off, leaving Hannah in peace.

Josh Hargrove. Hannah swallowed hard, determined not to let her feelings show on her face. He probably wouldn’t even remember her. And she could only pray he’d forgotten her mother, although Tracy Simmons showing up drunk for Field Day had been pretty memorable. As had the end-of-school picnic. Her mom had brought soft drinks for the kids and plenty of beer for herself

Josh had always been a brainiac. He was probably a math genius or something. No way he would remember her. But if he didn’t, it also meant he’d forgotten the good stuff—catching crawdads in Sweetgum Creek and buying Popsicles at the IGA. They’d hung out together every day that last summer, and then his mother had married her rich boss and abandoned the trailer
next door to Hannah’s. Josh and his mom moved to Birmingham. His trailer park days were over.