How to Knit a Love Song

by Rachael Herron

  She looked again out the window.

  Abigail could barely believe that she wouldn’t see her ex-boyfriend Samuel’s black SUV idling on a nearby corner under a streetlight, that she wouldn’t see his face turned in the direction of her window. She was used to the fear, and had even become good at marshalling it, corralling the trepidation.

  But there was nothing out there but the slow dust trailing down the main road where an old beat-up truck had just been. A squirrel raced out from under an oak tree and then did a U-turn and raced back the way it had come.

  It wasn’t even lunchtime on her first real day, and she wanted, what? Not out, surely, but she didn’t want this, this familiar feeling of being cooped up. She was done being kept inside.

  She walked resolutely to the door and outside, across the yard back to the cottage. She unlocked the door, hoping that she wouldn’t be interrupted this time. She wasn’t done with this cottage yet.

  A new beginning.

  She would start the clean-out today. The faster it was done, the faster she was out of Cade’s house, and away from that strange tension.

  The box on top of the first pile. That’s where she would start. She pulled up a piece of the yellowed newspaper. Was there anything else in there?

  Her hand hit a piece of wood. And then another one.

  Abigail pulled one out.

  It couldn’t be. It looked like…

  It was.

  Abigail held up the flyer for a spinning wheel. A gorgeous, dark, wooden flyer that looked antique, or was a very good replica.

  She went in the box farther. More flyers.

  She carried the box out onto the porch into the sun and brought out the next box.

  Bobbins. Scads of them. Made of matching wood.

  Abigail smiled.

  She opened boxes on the porch until she had found all the various pieces that she needed.

  Then she ran to her truck and pulled out her small toolbox. Cade would mock it mercilessly, she was sure, for being small and useless, but she knew it held what she needed.

  Less than thirty minutes later, she had a fully assembled spinning wheel in front of her.

  It was like a strange, good dream.

  And it was beautiful. The wheel itself was hand carved and decorated with carved flowers and vines. The treadle had the same design, and Abigail could hardly imagine putting a foot on such an intricate thing.

  All the pieces were there.

  And she had a feeling.

  Abigail went back in the house and went farther into the front room, over near the stairs. She lifted boxes and shook them, until she found the right heft, the weight she was looking for.

  She carried this box out onto the porch and opened it, not surprised to see the newspaper on top. Underneath, wrapped in muslin and smelling of cedar, was a carded batt of wool, a deep heathered green, beautifully prepared, ready for spinning.

  “I knew it. You crafty thing, Eliza. You’re guaranteeing I don’t go anywhere, huh?” Abigail laughed out loud.

  She pulled off a hank of the wool, attached a leader to the flyer, and sat on the dusty red chair on the porch. She started spinning. Oh, this was joy. This was right. This was what Eliza had taught her: this was what Eliza had found in Abigail’s fingers—this ability to draw the fiber out into just the right kind of yarn.

  She stopped and went back into the house. It only took a few minutes of peering into the boxes to realize there were probably a hundred wheels, and hundreds of pounds of wool.

  “It’s my store, my classroom, my tools,” she whispered. Tears came to her eyes. “My dream. Oh, Eliza.”

  Chapter Eight

  If you don’t like how your knitting is going, change it. Never be a slave to a pattern, especially one of mine. Make the pattern conform to your will, or burn it cheerfully in the grate and write a new one, a better one.

  —E.C.

  What was she doing to him? He was behind in a ton of office work, and he had some females that hadn’t been acting right. He had to get down to their paddock this morning and try to figure out if they were sick or not. He didn’t want to call the vet. He was doing okay financially, but that was because he cut corners, didn’t waste anything.

  The opposite of how Eliza had been, Eliza who wouldn’t kill an animal even if it was making the others sick. That is, when she’d noticed they were sick at all.

  The office. He hadn’t seen Tom this morning, but he was probably in by now, too. Cade’s band of sheep was a good size and required both of them, working hard, all the time.

  The smell of coffee greeted him when he opened the door at the back of the barn.

  “Tom?”

  “Hey, boss. Have a coffee. On the house.”

  “Generous of you. Your coffee’s crap.”

  “You’ll drink it anyway.”

  “True.”

  Tom grabbed Cade’s cup from the top of a filing cabinet and filled it. “Fix what ails you.”

  “My coffee would. Yours burns my tongue.”

  “Don’t drink it then.”

  “You seen the ewes in the third paddock?” Cade asked.

  “They look better today. I’ve been keeping an eye on them. I really think that it was just a cold. They all seem fine, except for that older girl we looked at yesterday. I brought her in.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Yup.”

  Cade didn’t know what he’d do without Tom. Of course, he’d never tell him that, not outright. If he did, if he had ever expressed how grateful he was to Tom, Tom would have laughed his ass off. They didn’t talk like that. Didn’t work that way.

  But they didn’t have to.

  “So the girl’s in.”

  “She is.”

  “What did Eliza actually leave her?”

  “The cottage.”

  “You got the land it’s on?”

  “She got that too.”

  Tom whistled. “Hot damn. You got screwed.”

  “Yep. It’s punishment, I think. For that fight we had.”

  “About how you date too much?”

  “It wasn’t the dating she minded.”

  “What did she call it again? Catting around?” Tom grinned.

  “I don’t cat around. That was crap.”

  “If you say so. So that girl over at the house, what’s her name?”

  “Abigail Durant.”

  “Sounds fancy.”

  “City girl.”

  “I saw the truck. Silly little thing.”

  Cade nodded. “That’s what I said! She didn’t like it much.”

  Tom sat in the brown fabric armchair that had seen perhaps a little too much use and kicked up his feet on the desk.

  “She’s pretty, though,” said Tom. “If I can trust what I saw at a distance this morning.”

  “Not my type.”

  “Since when is pretty not your type?”

  “Since pretty moved into my house,” said Cade.

  “I can see the problem.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She didn’t move into my house,” Tom said with a lecherous grin.

  “You stay out of it. Do not flirt with her. You’re too old. I’ll have to shoot you to put you out of your misery.”

  “I’m only four years older than you. Jealous? You know she’d want me.”

  “You’d have to shower more than twice a year, probably.”

  “With the water shortage and global warming? Not a chance. She’d have to take me as I am.”

  “Forget it. No, she’s going to stay in the house with me until the cottage is fixed up and livable.”

  “You better get to work on the cottage then, boy.”

  “Not my job, it’s hers,” said Cade.

  “You have any idea what’s in all those boxes yet?”

  “Old newspapers.”

  “I smell a bonfire in our future.”

  The thought of it cheered Cade a little. “A big bonfire,” he agreed. “With food.”

  �
��And whiskey.” Tom leaned back in the chair and nodded. Then he said, “What I don’t get is why it’s happening like this. Eliza worshipped you. This doesn’t sound like her. Are we sure that gal isn’t playing you? Are we sure she really knew Eliza?”

  “I wondered that, originally, but I remember Aunt Eliza talking about an Abigail that was helping take care of her, who knitted with her. I guess I assumed that Abigail was about ninety and toothless. I never figured she’d have a young friend like that, even though if anyone would, it would be Eliza.”

  “She was something.”

  Cade nodded. “She always had that knitting in her hands, always with the spinning wheel somewhere nearby.”

  “Or that thing, what did she call it? The dropping thing?”

  “Her drop spindle.” Cade raised his pant leg to display blue-green socks sticking up over his boot top. “These are the warmest, softest socks I ever had. I saw her spinning the yarn for it on that spindle while she read a knitting magazine and cooked chili all at the same time.” Cade picked up a pencil and put it down again. “We never got into that whole yarn thing. That’s why she left, I think. To get closer to the knitters.”

  “But we raised her sheep.”

  “I know, and she got first pick of the fleece before we sold the rest.”

  Tom said, “She was crazy about the fleece.”

  “Even though it sold for just about nothing.” Cade paused. “But she took me in when I wanted to make a real go of it. She let me figure out my ass from my elbow.” He cleared his throat. “She believed in me.”

  “So did I,” said Tom. “Don’t I get a medal for it, too?”

  “You get a kick in the ass.”

  “You gonna buy the property back from her?”

  Cade tapped the bottom of the rusty filing cabinet with his boot. “I was in here until midnight last night, going over and over it. With what the land is worth now, I couldn’t ever afford to make an offer. Not that she’d accept it anyway.”

  He sucked back the rest of the bitter coffee and took his hat off the rack. “Aren’t we going up to work on the north fence today?”

  “If you say so, boss.”

  “I hate it when you call me that.”

  “That’s why I do it,” said Tom.

  Chapter Nine

  When the sleeve measures the right length, put it aside and cast on immediately for the second. Don’t move from that spot; don’t even get another glass of wine before you do. Trust me on this one.

  —E.C.

  An hour later—three other wheels set up on the porch, fiber all around her—Abigail heard her cell phone ring. She reached in her pocket.

  “Hello?”

  “Are you here?”

  “I am.”

  “Finally. I can’t believe you moved fifteen miles away from me. Meet me for lunch.” Her best friend and ex-boss, Janet, never wasted time.

  “I don’t know, I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

  “No, you’re not. Nothing that can’t wait a bit longer. Twenty minutes, drive into town, left on Main, Bramblewood Cafe will be on the right.”

  Thirty minutes later, still picking bits of fluff out of her hair, Abigail walked into the restaurant.

  “Darling! You’re here! I can’t believe it. Sit here, I’ve already ordered for both of us.”

  Janet always ordered for both of them. Abigail had long since stopped minding, since Janet always ordered her something good, often something she wouldn’t have ordered otherwise.

  “No, Abigail, I really mean it. I can’t believe you actually moved here, to my neck of the woods. God knows I’m only an hour and a half away from San Francisco, but still. No one ever comes to see me, let alone moves to be near me.”

  “Did it all for you.”

  “You lie. But you’re sweet. And it’s going to be so easy to boss you around now.”

  Abigail laughed. “I don’t think you’ve ever really had any problem doing that, have you? Besides, now that I don’t work for you, you can’t.”

  “I will, too! And you should still write a little pattern up for me when you can. My customers would love it…And you know I’m good at bossing everyone. Ask that terrified waiter over by the door. I only wanted more lemon but I think he thought I was going to eat him.”

  Janet was extremely tall and even more striking. She had jet-black hair with one carefully styled white stripe, and she favored clothing with jet buttons and long tassels. She still wore hats in a 1940s way to match her purse and shoes. While her style was dated, she made it work in a way that the twenty-somethings scouring the vintage stores couldn’t. She was near fifty, but no one knew how near. She was loud and sometimes merciless and, underneath it all, very kind. Abigail adored her in a way she didn’t adore her friends closer to her own age. They were compatriots, whereas Janet was more than that; she had already walked through the fire and now laughed at the heat.

  “When I met you, I thought you were going to eat me.”

  “Darling, I would have. I just wanted to gobble you up. You, knitting so seriously, before anyone else was. At least you knew good cashmere.” Janet trailed a gloved hand in the air as she laughed.

  “That’s because you imported the best.”

  “But I only imported clothing until you asked me for yarn. I thought you were insane, to pay that much for clothing that didn’t even exist! That you had to make yourself!”

  “It was worth it though. You’ve made a fortune, selling my patterns and the yarns to the knitters.”

  “Yes, of course, but I didn’t know that was coming. You were ahead of your time, designing those cute clothes, the sweaters that people actually wanted to wear, sexy little knitted camisoles and sassy hats, things that people wouldn’t hide in the back of their closets. You came along and took the knitting world by storm.”

  “It’s a small world.”

  “Not anymore, it isn’t, and you’re the queen of them all.”

  “Eliza was the queen. I’m only a courtier still.”

  Janet’s face softened. “I’m so sorry. I barely got to see you at the funeral.”

  “It was a busy day.” Abigail traced the pattern on the handle of her knife with the tip of her finger.

  “And now you’re living in Eliza’s old home. How is it? Are you all right?”

  The waiter, looking rather cowed, set elaborate salads in front of them. Janet looked at them, opened her mouth as if to speak, then nodded. The waiter’s look of relief was obvious.

  “Blue cheese. Best dressing here.”

  “Fine.” Abigail took a bite.

  Janet had moved to the central coast after a nasty divorce that occurred in the higher echelons of the fashion industry. Her husband ended up getting the Rodeo Drive storefront she had sold many bolts of cloth and skeins of luxury fiber to buy, and the divorce had been difficult emotionally and financially. Janet moved and started her own online business, something that made her more money now than the store ever had. People whispered that she was a self-made millionaire, but Abigail loved best that the sadness had left Janet’s face.

  “You’ve been here for how long now?”

  Janet sighed. “Five years.”

  “That long! It feels like a minute ago.”

  “I know. And Bill still thinks I won’t make it. You know, he was begging to use my name in a new deal he was trying to set up. Obviously, I said no. He sent a note, saying he couldn’t believe I’d forget him like I apparently have.” She giggled. “I sent a card back asking him to clarify where I knew him from.”

  “I love it. And are you seeing anyone?”

  “Oh, sweetie. I see people all the time. No one special. There’s one man, Richard, but he’s too recently divorced to have sex without crying, and it’s getting tiresome. What about you, though? Whatever happened to that one? Teddy, was it?”

  Abigail laughed. “Teddy. He suited his name; he was a doll. But he was in love with me.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”<
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  Abigail reached into her purse and pulled out her knitting.

  “What do you have? Anything good?” Janet peered greedily.

  “Just a sleeve.” Abigail waved the two circulars in the air. “And no, there wasn’t anything wrong with him being in love, if I’d been in love back. But I wasn’t. I really, really tried, though. He was perfect for me.” Abigail shrugged. “I don’t think I’m the falling-in-love type.”

  Janet reached out to feel the russet yarn. “Yum. Tell me?”

  “My own handspun merino.”

  “And it’s going to be…”

  “You never give up. It’s going to be a man’s sweater.”

  “For a new book? Or is this personal? Or better yet, for me?”

  “Come on. I don’t have a man to knit for. I’ll write the pattern up if I like it.”

  Janet pointed her salad fork at Abigail. “Good. Keep knitting. And don’t give me that crap. Of course you’re the falling-in-love type. Everyone is, when we get right down to it. What about Jim? Now, that was love.”

  “You’re right. That was. I was down for the count on that one. Only came up to find my bank account empty and my computer gone, with the only copy of my manuscript on it.”

  Janet groaned. “God, I’d forgotten. That was horrifying.”

  “It sure was stupid, huh? But you fixed it for me.”

  “I wish you could have seen the look on Jim’s face when he opened the door to find me and Mafia Tony on the doorstep.”

  “Your driver does look like a mob boss.”

  “He loves playing the part when I need him to. Jim positively gibbered as he ran to get the computer. Sobbed as he handed it over.”

  Abigail grimaced and checked to make sure her seed stitch was still lined up correctly. “Never saw so much porn in my life as when I opened it up. I put the book on a disc and then wiped the hard drive. I had to take a shower afterward. So much for love. But at least now I back up my work.”

  “And that other one? Oh, I can’t think of his name.”