The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society

by Beth Pattillo

  “It’s childlike,” Merry said, trying hard to sound upbeat, but the strain showed around her eyes. “Kids are so innocent that they still have hope. Mine do. At least”—she chuckled—“when they’re not being rotten.”

  “Childlike? Don’t you mean childish?” Esther looked tenser than ever, but only Ruthie was in a position to know the cause of her sister’s strained expression. “I’m sure this is wonderful fiction for girls, but it hardly provides a way to conduct your life as an adult.”

  Hannah watched them as if it were a tennis match, their words volleyed back and forth like the ball. Ruthie wondered what the teenager made of all of them. Camille’s eyes were red—clearly she’d been crying before coming to the meeting—and Eugenie wasn’t on her usual even keel. The librarian’s eyes kept darting to the door of the classroom, as if expecting a ghost to appear.

  “I mean childlike,” Merry insisted. “Maybe we could all use a little dose of looking at our lives through a child’s eyes.”

  Esther snorted, a surefire indication of how overwrought she was beneath that polished veneer. “Isn’t there a Scripture about that? ‘When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me’?”

  Eugenie stiffened. Despite the fact that they met at a church, she never liked it when one of them brought the Bible into the conversation. Eugenie believed in human reason and human reason alone.

  “What do you think, Hannah?” Eugenie asked the girl, diverting the conversation from anything biblical. Ruthie watched the teenager closely, trying to guess her response to the disagreement.

  “Perhaps we should try the glad game right now and see if it works,” Merry said before Hannah could answer Eugenie’s question. “Why don’t we go around the table and each say one thing we’re glad about?”

  Ruthie stifled a groan. Trust Merry to trot out the sunshine and roses. Couldn’t she feel the tension in the room? Clearly the younger woman had some sort of death wish. Figuratively speaking.

  “For example,” Merry continued, “I’m glad that Christmas is just around the corner. We’ve already put up the tree, and the house smells like evergreen.” She paused and looked at Esther. “I bet there’s something you’re glad about. Won’t you see your grandchildren during the holidays?”

  Esther’s hands stopped moving. She clutched her knitting needles in a death grip.

  “Yes. I’ll see my grandchildren.” Esther piled her knitting on the table in front of her in an uncharacteristically messy clump. “What do you want me to say? I’m glad they’ll deign to visit for twenty-four hours, chanting the whole time about how they wish they were at home instead of at my house. I’m glad I’ll spend hours cooking a wonderful dinner that no one will want to eat because they’re either allergic, too busy watching a ball game, or on the Atkins Diet.” Her hands clutched the edge of the table even as her voice rose higher. Ruthie wondered if she should intervene, but something held her back. “Should I say that I’m glad my husband finally agreed to bypass surgery, but only because I asked him for a divorce?” Esther demanded.

  An audible gasp rose from the other members of the group, as much from the shocking news as from the sight of Esther losing control.

  “What else shall I be glad about, Merry?” Esther’s chin quivered. For the first time in years, Ruthie watched as her sister crumpled before her eyes. Esther had always been such an overwhelming force that the sight was as fascinating to Ruthie as it was frightening.

  “I don’t think—,” Eugenie began, but somehow Esther’s tirade had released a surge of emotion in the room. Ruthie watched, powerless and amazed, as one by one the women laid their knitting on the table and took up the chorus.

  “I’m glad the holidays only come once a year,” Camille said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I spend all day long on my feet in that dress shop. No one wants to wear the same thing anyone else is wearing, but I can’t carry only one of each outfit. It’s a nightmare.”

  Ruthie felt herself begin to get in the spirit of this new version of the glad game. “I’ll be glad when all the bulletins for the special services are done,” she said, “and I don’t have to spritz the greenery in the sanctuary with water every day. And I don’t have to nag Napoleon to vacuum up all the needles.”

  “Okay, okay,” Merry said with a laugh. “If you want to play it that way, I’ll be glad when all the presents are wrapped and the kids quit bugging me for things we can’t afford and I don’t have to hide the credit card statement from Jeff when it comes in.”

  Even Eugenie joined in, much to Ruthie’s surprise. “I’ll be glad when the library closes for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. A little peace and quiet wouldn’t come amiss right now. Maybe I’ll go out of town for a few days.” She looked surprised at her own words, but her jaw was set along determined lines.

  “Perhaps I’ll forget cooking Christmas dinner at all,” Esther said. “Perhaps I’ll choose instead to be glad that the country club serves a buffet and we can all go there. And my family can complain to the chef instead of me about carbs and soy and all the culinary evils being inflicted on them.”

  Ruthie didn’t think Pollyanna would approve of the twist they’d put on her beloved game, but the energy in the room seemed to have picked them all up and given them a good shaking. All kinds of truth were spilling out.

  “What else should we be glad about?” Camille said, chin thrust out like a defiant child. “I might like this game after all.”

  Merry dropped the next bombshell. “Should I be glad that I’m pregnant and that my husband doesn’t want another child?”

  Her words were greeted with stunned silence and then a whoosh of air as everyone released the breath they’d been holding. Ruthie looked around the circle, and the expression she saw on each face matched the combination of disbelief and relief she felt in her heart.

  “Should I be glad the city council is forcing me to retire?”

  Eugenie shook her head in disgust. “Forty years and for what?”

  “Should I be glad that this might be my mother’s last New Year’s? That she won’t have to be in pain forever?” Camille’s voice broke on the last word.

  “Oh, honey.” Ruthie leaned over and laid a hand on her arm, but the young woman shrank back.

  “That’s the problem with Pollyanna, isn’t it?” Camille snapped. “Sure, in fiction everything turns out okay in the end. But real life’s not like that.” She dug in her purse, produced a tissue, and blew her nose. The rest of them sat in uncomfortable silence.

  “I’m glad school’s in session through the end of this week.” Hannah’s soft voice surprised Ruthie, as it did the other members of the Knit Lit Society. “That way I can get at least two meals a day.” She looked around the table, glaring at each of them fiercely in turn. “I’m glad my mom’s boyfriend didn’t stay over last night because it’s too cold now to sleep in the woods, and I’m tired of him looking like he’s about to grope me. And I’m glad I only have to come to this stupid meeting two more times before the librarian gets off my back because you people are pathetic.” She paused. “Except for her.” Hannah jerked her head in Camille’s direction. “She’s got a right to feel sorry for herself. But the rest of you?” Her kohl-rimmed eyes pinned the ladies to their chairs, and Ruthie felt the truth of the girl’s words. “There’s nothing wrong with the rest of you that you can’t change.”

  The ancient radiator in the corner clanked and hissed, the only sound in the classroom. Esther had crossed her arms over her chest, and Camille was dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. Eugenie and Merry exchanged guilty looks, and Ruthie sat stunned.

  “Do you really have to sleep outside?” Ruthie finally managed to say to Hannah and immediately realized it was probably the wrong thing to ask. The girl scooped up her knitting from the tabletop and shoved it in her backpack. She jumped out of her chair and made for the door before any of the others could stop her.

  “Hannah, wait!” Ruthie was only a few steps behind her when the
girl hit the stairwell, but Hannah was far faster—and younger—than Ruthie. By the time Ruthie made it to the outside door of the church, the only thing she could see beyond the small circle of illumination cast by the church’s exterior lighting was Hannah’s retreating back.

  “Wait! It’s too cold for you to walk home.” She dashed after the girl, but she hadn’t gone twenty yards when she realized she would never catch her. She stood on the sidewalk, panting, and was still trying to get her breathing under control when Camille appeared at her side.

  “She’s gone?”

  “I couldn’t stop her.”

  Camille had her car keys in hand and her purse slung over one shoulder. Her coat was buttoned up tight against the cold. “I’ll find her and make sure she gets home safe.”

  “Thank you.” Ruthie had always had a low tolerance for Camille. She thought the girl’s mother had indulged her far too much over the years. But tonight she was grateful for her presence and her willingness to help.

  “Any idea where she likes to hang out?” Camille asked. “No. None.” Ruthie paused. “I guess I don’t really know her all that well.”

  “I think that’s what we all figured out tonight.” Camille stepped toward her small silver convertible, bought for her on her sixteenth birthday and now beginning to show its age. “Don’t worry. I’ll find her.”

  “Okay.”

  Camille hopped behind the wheel and took off after Hannah. Ruthie could only envy her that youthful energy. She hadn’t moved like that in at least a decade, maybe more. And yet inside she still felt no older than Camille.

  Was she glad or sorry that her youth was gone? The thought nipped at her heels as she reentered the church and climbed the stairs back to the Sunday school classroom. Pollyanna might always be able to see the silver lining, but Ruthie had been wrapped in a cocoon for so long that she wasn’t sure what was lining and what was the outer layer anymore.

  Camille spotted Hannah two blocks from the church. Her headlights caught the girl’s neon lime green jacket, which was much too thin for the wintry weather. She swerved to the curb and came to an abrupt halt. Throwing open the passenger side door, she barked at Hannah. “Get in.” Camille wasn’t feeling particularly pleasant at the moment, but she’d taken the excuse of going after the girl to get away from the meeting.

  “I can walk.”

  Camille was young enough to remember how it felt to be thirteen but old enough to be impatient with it. Besides, it was freezing. “Of course you can,” she snapped. “But why would you want to when I’m willing to drive you home?”

  Hannah stopped. After a long moment, she turned toward the car. “All right.” She said the words as if she were doing Camille a huge favor. Maybe she was. Camille had revealed far more than she meant to back in that meeting. She’d learned long ago, when she wasn’t much older than Hannah, how important it was to keep your private life close to the vest.

  Hannah slid into the car, slumped down in the seat, and scowled.

  “Put on your seat belt,” Camille said as she shifted the car into gear.

  “Yes, Mrs. McGavin.”

  Camille ignored her sarcasm. Merry had clearly gotten under the girl’s skin, and Camille knew from experience that when something got up next to someone like that, it meant a nerve had been struck. Maybe hammered. Or, as it appeared in Hannah’s case, blasted to smithereens.

  “Which way?” Camille would have felt more indignant at the girl’s lack of gratitude, but she was just too tired. Her mother hadn’t slept well the night before, and then Camille had spent the day waiting, yet again, for her cell phone to ring. For weeks now her phone had been silent. Alex had moved back home for the holidays. Just for the children, or so he’d told her, and she’d chosen to believe him. She had called him last Saturday night, and they’d had a whispered conversation. Well, she hadn’t whispered, but he’d been at a party, standing in the walk-in closet of his host’s master bedroom, so he kept his voice low. He and his wife were attending a Christmas party at the senior partner’s home. The place was crawling with people from his firm, he’d said. He’d call her soon when he could really talk. It had been almost a week since that conversation.

  “I’m sorry about your mother.” Hannah blurted out the words, as close as she was going to come to an act of contrition. Camille could feel Hannah’s eyes on her. “What’s she sick with?”

  Camille thought about the question for a good long while. The answer wasn’t as easy as most people might think. In the end, she answered Hannah’s question with a question. “Does it matter?”

  The teenager shrugged and turned back to stare out the front windshield. “Guess not.”

  “I’m sorry about your mother,” Camille said in return. She knew better than to reach over and pat Hannah’s hand or use some other lame gesture to try and comfort her. And despite her own pain, she could still feel for the girl. People thought abuse meant hitting a kid or screaming at her. But neglect could do just as much damage. Camille’s mother had never done anything but indulge her. Still, that had never made up for her father’s departure. He was out there somewhere, and he didn’t care enough to check to see if she and her mother were alive or dead. And pretty soon there would be a permanent answer to that question. Pretty soon it would be too late.

  “Turn up there.” Hannah pointed toward a dirt road that connected with the main highway. Camille followed her directions, wincing at the potholes as her convertible shimmied and bumped on the gravel surface. Out here beyond the town lights, the pitch-black night closed in with a vengeance.

  In the distance, Camille saw a solitary light. As she drove closer, she could make out the outline of a dilapidated mobile home. The only car in front of the house was a battered old Ford Escort.

  “Will you be okay?” Camille asked. The sight of that trailer in the cold, dark night scared her. It was so different from her mother’s neat little bungalow, tucked in its row of similar houses on a quiet, tree-lined street.

  Hannah shrugged in response.

  “Is he here? Is that his car?” Camille had been pursued by enough creeps to understand the girl’s fear of her mother’s boyfriend.

  Hannah froze.

  “What is it?” Camille could feel the anxiety radiating from the girl. “Is something wrong?”

  “He’s not here.” But there was no relief in Hannah’s voice.

  “Do you want to come home with me?” The moment Camille asked the question, she wished she could take it back. Only a few people, mostly the nurses from the hospice and the chaplain, came into their home these days. Why had she invited Hannah?

  “Nah. I’ll be okay.”

  “What about yarn for the Heidi project? Do you have what you need?” Eugenie had assigned them to make a felted lunch bag for Peter, the goatherd.

  Again the girl shrugged, her matted hair falling across her face to shield her expression.

  Camille started to reach out to lay a hand on Hannah’s arm, but she stopped herself. “I’ll pick you up one day after school if you want and take you to Munden’s to look for yarn. You’ll probably need help with the felting part of the project. We can do that at my house if you don’t have a washing machine.”

  This time Hannah’s shoulders slumped instead of her spine. The curvature of a teenager’s body could express a huge difference in emotion, depending on where the bend occurred. Camille had used her own spine and shoulders in a similar way not so long ago.

  “Why do you want to help me?” Hannah looked her in the eye again, and Camille had to steel herself not to flinch.

  “Because I can’t help myself right now, so I might as well be of use to somebody,” Camille answered honestly.

  Hannah nodded, solemn as a judge. “Okay. I get out of school at three.”

  “I remember.” Eleven years ago she’d been Hannah’s age. It seemed more like a hundred. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Hannah bolted out of the car, slammed the door shut, and took off for the trailer. Camil
le watched as she paused by the rickety deck that did duty as the front porch. Then she was in motion again, scrambling up the steps and disappearing inside.

  Camille put her car in reverse, turned around, and headed for home, both grateful for and tormented by the prospect of what waited for her there.

  Christmas had, thankfully, come and gone.

  Ruthie walked home from her job at the church more quickly now that it was January. Head down to protect her from the icy sting of the wind and longing for a hot cup of tea, she made a beeline from the church to her own front door. Only today instead of pausing at the mailbox on the street to retrieve the daily deposit of circulars and unwanted solicitations, she stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk. Stopped and stared at the familiar figure once again seated on her porch swing.

  She hurried toward the house, fumbling in her bag for her keys. Since the last time he’d appeared, she’d been locking her front door. “Frank—”

  “Don’t scold me, Ruthie. Just let me inside. I’m close enough to frostbite as it is.”

  She complied with his request, her heart in her throat. Other than at the Knit Lit Society meeting, Esther hadn’t spoken to Ruthie since the day she’d come to the church office. Well, perhaps that wasn’t quite true. Esther had spoken to her at Christmas lunch, when Alex and his family came to town and they’d all gone to the buffet at the country club. Esther had greeted Ruthie the times she’d come to speak with the new pastor and Ruthie had been behind her desk, hard at work. But as to any meaningful conversation between sisters, well … No. Radio silence had ruled. Ruthie knew full well what her sister wanted her to do, but she couldn’t. Not like this.

  “Get in here before you catch your death,” she said to Frank. She unlocked the door and shooed him inside like a naughty child, but her palms were sweating and she almost tripped over the welcome mat. Since she turned her thermostat way back when she left for work each day, the small living room wasn’t much warmer than the outdoors.