The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society

by Beth Pattillo

  He set his mug on the table between them with a thunk. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Not in the least.” She’d rehearsed this encounter for weeks now. Ruthie was clearly not going to cooperate, at least not without a little push. And a free Frank would be the final push it would take for her sister to do what she’d never had the nerve to do all these years.

  “What are you playing at, Esther?” Frank’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  “I’m most definitely not playing. I’ve put a divorce lawyer on retainer. You need to do the same. I’m going to Memphis to visit Alex and Melissa and the grandchildren for a few days.

  When I get back, you should be gone.”

  “Where in the world am I supposed to go?”

  “I took the liberty of renting you a condo at the marina.” The new development on Sweetgum Lake had brought a small influx of people from Nashville and Chattanooga who couldn’t afford a second home on Center Hill Lake or one of the more popular resort areas.

  “I suppose you’ve furnished it completely.”

  “Down to bed linens, towels, and a fully stocked kitchen.”

  “God, Esther, you’re a piece of work.” His laugh was as bitter as the designer coffee. “You don’t even want to talk about this?”

  “There’s really nothing to say, Frank. You’re going to die without the surgery, and I don’t plan to sit around and wait for that to happen. If you want to self-destruct, you can do so on your own.”

  “And what about you?” A look of realization crossed his face. “Is there someone else?” She could tell from the surprise in his eyes that he’d never really considered that possibility until this very moment. That thought made Esther bristle. No woman cared to be taken for granted like that, especially not a woman who’d spent her life knowing that her husband loved—

  “There’s no one else, Frank. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “When have I ever been anything but ridiculous in your eyes?”

  Esther stilled, her coffee mug halfway to her lips. “Is that what you believe? That I think you’re ridiculous?”

  “I’ve spent the last thirty years being corrected and chastised by you, Esther Jackson. What else am I supposed to think?”

  Hurt clouded her vision. “I was only trying to be a good wife. Help you be successful. We were an excellent team.”

  Frank twisted his coffee mug in his hands. “Yes. I guess we were.”

  She hated the sorrow in his tone. “A team’s a good thing, Frank.”

  “But it’s not quite the same thing as a marriage, is it?” He paused. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should move to the marina.”

  Esther felt her control of the situation slipping away. He wasn’t supposed to leave because he actually wanted out of their marriage. He was supposed to move because she was punishing him. For being obstinate. For not looking after her.

  For loving her sister.

  “I’ll leave for Memphis in a few hours. Oksana will be in to clean tomorrow.” Their Russian immigrant housekeeper came twice a week—more often if Esther was hosting one of her club meetings or one of Frank’s office parties.

  “Can she help me pack?”

  “Just leave her a note. Tell her what you want to take.” He’d been right about sitting on the patio. It was cold. Desperately so. Or was it just the atmosphere they’d created that chilled her to the marrow of her bones?

  “I never saw this coming,” Frank said.

  Esther only wished she could say the same. Now it was up to Ruthie to finish the job. If Frank didn’t agree to the bypass surgery now, he never would.

  “I’ll call you when I get to Memphis.”

  “Are you going to tell Alex?”

  “Yes. But not the children. There’s plenty of time for that.”

  Which was a lie. Time was their most precious commodity, thanks to her obstinate husband.

  She stood up, cup in hand, and he did the same. “Do you want me to carry your suitcases to the car?” he asked.

  Esther looked at his chest, not at his face. “I hardly think so.”

  A storm gathered on his face. “Esther …,” he growled as a warning.

  “Do you want to shower first or shall I?” she asked.

  “Go ahead.” He followed her back into the house. “You’ll do what you want anyway. You always have.”

  She couldn’t even summon up any anger at his words. She had learned from that first mistake. And her choices had, in the decades since, created a very nice life for all of them. For her. For Frank. For Alex.

  Only two things had never responded to her indomitable will—Frank’s heart and the child whose ashes mingled with the soil in the corner of the garden.

  Camille’s mother was the one who suggested they start playing the glad game. She’d never read Pollyanna, though they’d watched the movie together when Camille brought home the videocassette from the library. Camille reluctantly agreed to play late one night when she’d been reading the book to her mother and her mother had interrupted to make the request. The glad game was proving rather difficult for Camille to play.

  How could she say that she was glad Alex hadn’t called in the weeks that had passed since her trip to Memphis? How could she say she was glad to worry that he might have moved back home with his wife and children? And, most importantly, how was she supposed to find anything in her mother’s situation to be glad about? Such naive notions might work fine in children’s literature. And maybe that strange teenager could be glad about her tattoos or her horrible makeup or something else. But optimism had no place in Camille’s life. Neither did silver linings. The facts were the facts. One day her mother would die. And until then she was chained to Sweetgum as securely as any of the prisoners in the county jail.

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying running the dress shop,” her mother said as Camille plumped her pillows one last time before leaving for the day. For now her mother could manage on her own as long as Camille popped home on her lunch hour to fix her some soup and a sandwich. She hated the thought of her mother being alone all day, but Nancy St. Clair assured Camille that between her romance novels and the television, she was more than entertained. The day would come, though, when her mother would need constant care, and Camille still had no idea how they would pay for it. As a sole proprietor, her mother had never had much health insurance. Now they couldn’t afford anything more than major medical, and no company would carry her without charging an exorbitant amount.

  Camille gave the pillow one last thump and placed it behind her mother’s head. She couldn’t think about that right now any more than she could play that silly glad game.

  “Can I get you anything else?”

  “No, dear. I’m fine.” Her mother’s pale skin was almost translucent. Fine blue lines ran across her temples. Her patchy hair could no longer be back-combed over the empty spots.

  “All right then. I’ll be back at lunch.” She leaned over and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Behave yourself.”

  Her mother smiled. “I guess that means I’ll have to call Robert Redford and tell him he’s uninvited.”

  Camille forced herself to return her mother’s smile. “I guess he can come for lunch. As long as he doesn’t object to Campbell’s tomato soup.”

  She blew her mother a kiss and scooped up her mock Kate Spade purse as she headed out the door. Another day at the dress shop. One more day with her mother. One more day apart from Alex.

  How in the world could she be glad about anything?

  December is the wrong month to read Pollyanna, Eugenie thought as she surveyed her guest bedroom. Plastic tubs and wicker baskets filled the space, each one containing a variety of yarn separated by color or type. Anything that might become moth-eaten—wool, silk, cotton—was stored in a tub and tightly sealed. Acrylics and other less vulnerable fibers could be left in the baskets.

  When she’d drawn up the reading list, she thought the story would be a suitable one for the Christmas season. What
better time to assign each member the task of knitting something for someone less fortunate? Pollyanna had learned to play the glad game when the donation barrels arrived for her missionary parents. The Christmas the little girl had wanted a doll, the barrel contained nothing for a child but a small pair of crutches. Her father had taught her the game then, telling her that she should rejoice that she didn’t actually need the crutches.

  The first time Eugenie read the story as a child, she’d been disgusted with the father. But as she matured, she’d come to see the wisdom he’d been trying to teach Pollyanna. Many things in life were a matter of point of view. Eugenie had applied that lesson diligently for the last forty years—until the day Paul had walked into the Pairs and Spares Sunday school classroom.

  The other part of the knitting assignment for the month was to use one’s personal stash of leftover, unused yarn for the project. No shopping allowed. And since Hannah had no stash, Eugenie had invited the girl to come to her house and look through hers. Hannah had looked less than thrilled, but she’d agreed. After Merry’s unsuccessful trip to Nashville, Eugenie wasn’t feeling optimistic about her own chances with the teenager. But she wasn’t ready to give up, either. She’d seen far worse cases turned around in her day.

  A hat. That’s what Hannah should do. A hat for Jimmy Bean, local urchin and Pollyanna’s sidekick. She had plenty of yarn that would be suitable for that, and the rescue mission in Nashville was always in need of hats during the winter months. A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. Hannah was early. But when she opened the front door, it was not Hannah who stood on the small porch.

  “Good morning, Eugenie.” Paul wore the same dark trench coat against the cold, but this time she could see a green cable knit sweater peeking out from between the lapels. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  If she’d had a screen door, she might have at least locked that against the intruder. “I’m beginning to feel a bit stalked,” she said instead, before motioning him to come inside. She couldn’t leave him standing out in the wintry air, much as he might deserve it. “What are you doing here, Paul?”

  “I need your help.”

  Should she ask him to sit down? No, that would only encourage him. But he looked cold. In need of a cup of coffee, no doubt, which she’d just finished brewing so she’d have something to sip while she waited for Hannah to arrive.

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  He looked as surprised at her offer as she was at extending it. “Sure. That would be fine.”

  She motioned toward the wingback chairs in front of the window. “You can sit down. Take off your coat. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  What was she thinking? But at least pulling the cups down from the cabinet and pouring the coffee gave her a moment to collect herself. Automatically she fixed his coffee the way he’d liked it when they were young. What if his preference had changed? With a shrug she picked up the mugs and returned to the living room.

  “You have a nice home, Eugenie.” Paul’s gaze encompassed the small living room and the dining area off to the side. “Very comfortable. Very you.”

  Again that hated blush rose to her cheeks. “Thank you.” She sat down in the chair next to him and resisted the impulse to blow on her coffee to cool it. She set the mug on the table between them. “You needed my help with something?”

  The way her pulse was pounding, she might as well be sixteen, not sixty-five. Where was her legendary self-control when she truly needed it?

  He paused to sip his coffee. And then he looked at her, really looked at her, and if she thought her heart was thumping before, well, she’d been mistaken. Because that was nothing compared to the drumming that commenced in her chest as he looked into her eyes.

  “Why do you think I took the job at the church here, Eugenie?”

  No. No. He couldn’t do this now. She wasn’t prepared, and Hannah would arrive on her doorstep at any moment.

  “Paul, I don’t see any need to—”

  “Because of you, Eugenie. I took the job because of you.”

  “I find that difficult to believe.” There. That was more like it. She sounded cool, in command. “You didn’t even recognize me when you first saw me.” And then she flushed because she remembered that perhaps the reason he hadn’t recognized her was because she’d changed so much, and not for the better.

  “I knew it was you. I was just playing it cool.”

  “Oh,” Eugenie said, afraid to make any comment when what she really wanted to say was, “Oh my.”

  He paused, as if he wanted to say something but then changed his mind. “It took me awhile to find you,” he said. “Really? You make it sound as if I’ve been in the Witness Protection Program.”

  “I wondered about you for years. But by the time … Well, once your mother passed away, no one knew where you’d gone. You didn’t keep in touch with anyone from Columbia.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “The past is the past, Paul. We can’t change it. We can only move forward.”

  “And you’ve done that. Admirably.”

  “Thank you.” Only she wasn’t sure he meant it as a compliment. Not completely anyway.

  “So if you don’t want to talk about the past, let’s talk about the future.” His eyes bored into hers. “The future?”

  Stop it, she admonished herself. She wasn’t allowed to feel that tiny blossom of hope that sprang up in her chest. And she was a fool if she read anything into his words that he didn’t say outright.

  Paul looked down at the coffee cup in his hands. “For a long time after Helen died, I didn’t think I had a future.” He paused. “I went through the motions. I preached. I made hospital calls, led meetings, tended to my flock. But my life was empty. I was empty.” This time, when he lifted his eyes to hers, she caught her breath at the pain there. This was the second time she’d seen that look in his eyes, and it was just as unsettling as the first. “I did a lot of thinking about my life. About what I’d done. What I’d left undone. What I should have done.” He reached over and very gently took Eugenie’s hand in his. She let him, unresisting, too stunned to do anything but look at her fingers wrapped in his as if they were no longer part of her body at all but belonged to someone else. “I thought a lot about you, Eugenie.”

  Tears pooled in her eyes, tears she could ill afford to entertain or show. “Paul—” She tugged at her hand, but he kept his hold on it. “Please …”

  “Not until I’ve said my piece. I lost you once. Now I have a second chance. Not many people get a second chance in this life.”

  The knock on the door jolted Eugenie as if she’d been struck by lightning. She jumped, pulling her hand free.

  Hannah. She patted the pocket of her skirt, searching for a tissue. Paul was frowning.

  “Don’t answer it,” he said, but she practically leaped to her feet in her haste to escape the unwanted conversation.

  “I have to. It’s Hannah.”

  “Who’s Hannah?”

  She ignored his question and instead used the tissue to dab at her eyes as she stepped to the door. Hand on the knob, she took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and opened the door. “Good morning, dear,” she said with false brightness.

  The girl’s eyebrows arched in surprise at her enthusiastic greeting. “Morning,” she grunted, then shivered in her thin cardigan. “It’s cold out here,” she said, clearly annoyed at having to state the obvious.

  “Come in. Come in.” Eugenie motioned for the girl to move through the doorway.

  Hannah took two steps inside and then came to a screeching halt. “What’s he doing here?” She looked over her shoulder at Eugenie with anger and hurt mingled in her eyes. “You staging some kind of spiritual intervention?”

  Eugenie had to swallow the bark of laughter that rose in her throat. She would be the last person in the world to stage a spiritual anything, but she could hardly say that to Hannah at the moment.r />
  “Not at all. The preacher was just paying a pastoral visit.”

  “I didn’t think you went to church,” Hannah said, clearly dubious.

  “I don’t. That’s why he came to call.” The lie fell easily off her lips, but it clearly relieved the teenager.

  “I guess we got that in common then.”

  Apparently all it took to raise her in the girl’s estimation was a mutual antipathy for organized religion.

  “Rev. Carson was just leaving.”

  Paul wore the look of a man who knew he’d been out-maneuvered but clearly wasn’t ready to give up entirely. “I’ll come back another time when it’s more convenient,” he said.

  “You do that, preacher.” She reached for his coat, which she’d hung over one of the straight-back chairs at the dining table.

  “I will,” he said, his voice firm, but Eugenie was too relieved at his departure to care. After an exchange of good-byes, he left and she shut the door firmly behind him.

  “Now,” she said to Hannah, rubbing her hands together to warm them, “let’s have a look at that yarn.” The teenager looked less than enthusiastic, but she followed Eugenie into the spare bedroom. “I was thinking a hat would be a good project.” Eugenie gestured toward the bins and baskets of yarn. “Shall we?”

  Again, Hannah grunted, but Eugenie was relieved to see her move toward an open bin and begin to poke through its contents, leaving Eugenie to contemplate what else Paul Carson might have said if Hannah hadn’t knocked on the door.

  The December meeting of the Sweetgum Knit Lit Society evidenced less Christmas spirit than Ebenezer Scrooge. At least that was Ruthie’s assessment as she looked around the table at the glum faces of the women there. So much for Pollyanna and her glad game.

  “Is Pollyanna’s approach unrealistic?” Eugenie asked, looking at each of them.

  No one appeared eager to respond to her question, but Ruthie thought their silence was an answer in itself. She had been pondering that very question for several weeks, and she had yet to come up with a satisfactory answer. Because the thing she’d always believed would make her glad above everything else had happened. Esther had told Frank she wanted a divorce. And still Ruthie couldn’t bring herself to play Pollyanna’s game.