The Knitting Circle

by Ann Hood

  “‘What should we call her?’ I asked him as we raced toward Shannon.

  “‘We shouldn’t call her anything at all,’ he said. He kept his eyes on the road ahead. ‘It will make it harder when we lose her.’

  “‘I’m not going to lose her,’ I said.

  “After we got to the hospital, and they took her from me, a doctor came in and asked us, ‘Any heart disease in your families?’

  “‘Course not,’ Aidan said.

  “‘My mother,’ I said. ‘She had four babies like this. One lived a month or two. But the others—’

  “Turned out the only people who would consider surgery on such a small baby were in Boston, at Children’s Hospital.

  “‘Then we’ll take her there,’ I said.

  Aidan looked at me without shame and said, ‘She’s not one to save, Ellen. Even if she makes it to Boston and lives through this surgery, she’ll die anyway.’

  “‘Is that true?’ I asked the doctor.

  “‘I’ve never heard of a case where the child lived past ten.’

  “I thought about ten years. A decade. Already I saw Aidan disappearing from my life, growing smaller and smaller right before my eyes.

  “‘I’m taking my baby to Boston,’ I said. ‘I’m saving her life.’ Of course, I didn’t know it then, but I was saving my own life too. Because if I had let her stay there, and die, I would have stayed, and died too.

  “Aidan let us go. He watched me with Bridget in my arms get on that Aer Lingus plane to Boston and he stayed behind.

  “Bridget had that operation, and another one when she was three, and another one when she was seven. And now we’re waiting for a new heart for her. Without it, she can’t live. At night, when I hear sirens, I pray for a match. God forgive me, but I do.”

  “And Aidan?” Mary managed to ask.

  “He calls from time to time. ‘It’s my dad,’ Bridget says, ‘calling to see if I’ve kicked the bucket yet.’ I used to send him pictures, and little drawings she’d made, but over time I’ve come to see he doesn’t deserve them. I live here because I can’t go home to Appalachia. Too far from a hospital. And even the closest one, in Asheville, couldn’t help her. We tried to live in Boston, but the city was too big and I felt nervous there. So we came here. I teach music and I wait for my daughter’s new heart.”

  Mary’s hands had stopped knitting, and Ellen covered them with her own as if she too knew Mary’s pain.

  “Look,” Ellen said, “you’ve turned the heel.”

  Mary did look, and there was a perfectly shaped heel.

  The door opened noisily, and Jeb appeared backwards, pulling Bridget sitting in her wheelchair inside. The girl was pale, and her oxygen pumped loudly.

  Ellen jumped to her feet. “Was it a good day?”

  “A good day,” Bridget managed to gasp.

  “I’ll put her to bed,” Jeb said. “She’s tired.”

  When the room was empty again, and just Ellen and Mary were together, Mary said, “God help me, my own daughter died, Ellen. I couldn’t save her and she died. My prayers weren’t any good.”

  “A mother’s prayers are always good, Mary,” Ellen said. Then, under her breath she whispered, “God bless that child.”

  8

  THE KNITTING CIRCLE

  “IT’S A WASTE of time, in my opinion,” Harriet said. She shook her head, disgusted. “Knitting socks,” she muttered.

  It was a small group at the knitting circle tonight, below zero temperatures keeping everyone except Ellen, Harriet, and Mary at home.

  “I’m staying under every blanket I own,” Lulu had told Mary earlier. “You might not see me again until the spring thaw.”

  “Hot chocolate, warm bread and honey, and all those back issues of Gourmet magazine I haven’t had time to read,” Scarlet had said.

  When Mary showed up she learned that Beth too had stayed at home—under the weather, Harriet had explained. Alice had turned the heat on high, and the radiator hissed and sprayed and gurgled as it worked overtime. Ellen arrived with a big thermos of hot milky tea to share.

  “Why, I have some shortbread too,” Alice had said, and brought out neat wedges of buttery shortbread on a white china plate rimmed with pink roses.

  Mary glanced down at the almost-finished sock in her hand. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think it’s kind of amazing.”

  “Knitting is amazing,” Harriet said. “Basically you’re making knots to create fabric. That’s amazing. But to then spend hours making something that is not even going to be seen is plain ridiculous.”

  “My socks are seen,” Ellen said, stretching her legs out in front of her to show off her crazy-patterned socks.

  “Frivolous,” Harriet said with great finality. She turned her attention back to the sweater she was knitting.

  “I can make a dozen pair of socks in the time it takes you to make one of those complicated sweaters,” Ellen said.

  Harriet didn’t look up. “That’s what I like about knitting. Its complexities. I like to figure out how to make a pattern appear properly. I don’t want to buy yarn that figures it out for me.” She glanced over her half-glasses at Ellen. “Have you ever even tried to make a sweater?”

  “Of course I have,” Ellen said. Even though her cheeks were flushed a bright red, she didn’t back down. “I made two Aran sweaters.”

  “I give up,” Mary said. “What’s an Aran sweater?”

  Alice smiled. She was making a throw blanket in shades of purple, and it draped elegantly over her lap as she knit. “They say the Aran Island women each designed her family’s unique pattern so that if her husband or son drowned in a storm, his body could be identified when it washed up on shore.”

  “Rubbish!” Harriet said.

  “You don’t believe that one?” Alice said, adding a deep plum yarn to the blanket.

  “They’re traditional Celtic designs,” Harriet said.

  “Cable stitch,” Ellen said to Mary. “You know, they’re called fisherman’s sweaters. Cream-colored.”

  “Difficult to execute,” Harriet said. “How much help did Alice have to give you on those?”

  “Not me,” Alice said. “I’ve known this girl five years and I’ve only seen her knit socks.”

  Ellen blushed. “Not true. I’ve done hats and even mittens.”

  “So how did you manage the Aran sweaters?” Harriet asked.

  “I was there. On Inisheer, and I took a workshop,” Ellen said, focusing on turning the heel of a sock.

  “Did you live in Ireland?” Alice said, laying her needles in her lap. “I never knew.”

  “Oh,” Ellen said nervously. “A lifetime ago.”

  Mary recognized that. The question you don’t want to answer. The territory where you don’t want to tread. How many children do you have? That was one of her own.

  Quickly, Mary changed the subject.

  “Maybe I’m ready to knit a sweater,” she said. “This cold weather makes me want to try.”

  Alice picked up a skein of lilac yarn and began knitting it into her blanket. “It’s all just knit or purl. Two simple stitches.”

  “MAYBE I’LL KNIT you a sweater for your birthday,” Mary told Dylan.

  They had just made love, and she was resting her head on his stomach looking up the long length of his body at him.

  “Have you gotten that good?” he said. “I mean sweaters have sleeves and collars and necks.”

  “Hey!” she said. “I’ve turned a heel.”

  “Congratulations,” Dylan said. “To celebrate, I’m taking you to a party. Bob’s wife is throwing him a fortieth birthday party and all the lawyers are going. With their wives,” he added.

  She opened her mouth to protest, but before she could speak, a gentle snore came from Dylan. Sighing, Mary disentangled herself from his arms and went out into the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of wine, and made a list of all the things she was afraid might happen:

  PEOPLE WON’T KNOW AND THEY�
�LL ASK ME HOW STELLA IS. PEOPLE WILL KNOW AND THEY’LL ASK HOW I’M DOING.

  THIS COUPLE WILL HAVE CHILDREN, LOTS OF THEM, AND ALL OF THEM FIVE-YEAR-OLD GIRLS WITH MEGAWATT SMILES.

  I WILL START TO CRY FOR NO GOOD REASON.

  I WILL START TO CRY FOR A GOOD REASON.

  I WILL NOT HAVE FUN.

  I WILL HAVE FUN.

  Mary imagined this last part coming true. Then carefully crossed it off the list.

  DYLAN COULDN’T REMEMBER if the party was dressy or casual. He couldn’t remember if it was dinner or just cocktails. He couldn’t remember if it started at six or seven.

  “You don’t want to go either,” Mary said.

  “It’s Bob!” Dylan said too enthusiastically. “It’s going to be a terrific party.”

  “Right,” Mary said, pulling on black panty hose. She wondered if little black dresses had somehow fallen out of fashion. If she’d be overdressed or underdressed. She tried to make herself care about how she looked. But when she looked at herself in the mirror, even with foundation smoothing her skin and bronzer giving her a glow, she still saw the saddest woman in the world.

  DYLAN SLOWLY DROVE up and down Paterson Street, staring into each house, searching for a party.

  “Are you sure it’s tonight?” Mary asked, hoping he would suddenly remember it had been last night and they could go home.

  She sighed and looked out the window in the opposite direction, toward the park. The street was lined with big old houses on one side and a playground on the other. She was glad it was dark so the swings and slides and jungle gyms seemed like vague shadowy figures. After school on warm days, she and Stella would come here and meet other mothers with their children. Mary would sit over there with the other women while their kids ran, playing and happy.

  Stella used to take off her shoes and socks and run through the grass barefoot. There was always one mother who had to supervise the kids, telling someone to be gentle, someone to wait her turn, offering to push another one on a swing. That was the mother who always remembered to bring snacks, pulling goldfish crackers or pretzels from her Mary Poppins bag, enough for everyone. Mary remembered how that woman had looked at her in distaste. “Barefoot?” she’d said. “Don’t you know there are germs everywhere?” Even recalling her words made Mary’s stomach tighten. Germs like ringworm or colds. Germs like meningitis.

  Later, as they drove away, Stella would gaze at the houses across the street from the park and say, “Wouldn’t it be great to live right there?” Her feet would be sandy and her face would be dirty and she’d smell of little-girl sweat and goldfish crackers. Now Mary worried: Had she inhaled enough of her daughter’s scent to last her the rest of her life?

  “Aha!” Dylan said. “There’s Alex and Vicky going into that yellow house! Right night. Right time. Right party.”

  He parked beside the playground, and Mary glanced in as she got out of the car. Thankfully, it was too dark to see anything. She took a deep breath and followed Dylan across the street and up the porch steps. A plaque on the house said it had been built in 1919, a Queen Anne with a beautiful sloping roof.

  Dylan knocked and the door opened, sending happy party sounds into the cold night air.

  “Dylan! Mary! I’m so glad you came!”

  Dylan put his hand on the small of Mary’s back and nudged her forward so that she was looking right at that mother, the one who brought snacks and swung Stella on the swing and warned her of germs lurking everywhere.

  “Hon, you remember Bob’s wife, Laurie,” he said.

  Laurie gave Mary that look that said, You poor poor thing.

  There. One of the worst things on her list had happened.

  Mary forced a smile, hoping there was no Hot Tahiti on her teeth.

  “What a beautiful house,” she said, stepping inside. Her voice grew shrill in her efforts to make everything just fine. “It must be great to live right across the street from the park.”

  EVERY TIME A waiter passed with a fresh tray of chardonnay, Mary took a new glass. She was pleasantly drunk, drunk enough to make real conversation about the cold weather, the new lunch-only Indian restaurant, the restoration of someone’s historic house. She flitted from small cluster to small cluster and added a sentence or two to each discussion.

  Was this what parties had always been like? A slight buzz from wine? Banal conversation? Too many scallops wrapped in bacon? She thought of all the hours she’d wasted away from Stella doing this, while Stella played Twister with a teenage babysitter.

  “Yes, I ate there last week and the saag paneer was the best I’ve ever had.”

  She scanned the room for Dylan, and when she finally found him, she joined his cluster—Alex and Vicky and a woman Mary didn’t know, peering out behind glasses and wearing a lipstick that clashed with her skin tone.

  “Alex and Vicky are doing all the work themselves on the house they bought,” he said.

  “Wow,” Mary said, swiping another glass of chardonnay.

  “What year did you say it was built?” Dylan was saying.

  “Seventeen ninety-two,” Vicky said. Smugly, Mary thought. She’d never liked Vicky. She was too tall and sharp and wore clothes that took up space—sweeping shawls and dresses with too much fabric and jewelry that jangled loudly.

  “We cheated,” Mary said, “and bought one already renovated.”

  “Oh,” Vicky said. Patronizing, Mary thought. But Dylan was looking at Vicky in a way that made Mary uncomfortable. As if all that clothing and hard work were admirable.

  She wanted a new cluster. But when she looked around, there were fewer clusters. The party, blessedly, was breaking up.

  Now Vicky was talking about Tuscany, as if no one else in the world had ever been there. Dylan kept asking questions, and the mousy woman told a pointless story about living in Florence for a year when she was in college. Finally Dylan remembered that Mary was still standing there and he said, “Shall we?”

  Then she was thanking Laurie and Bob and the kind waiter who had kept her supplied with chardonnay all night. She wished she’d brought some money. She would give it all to him. Her stomach lurched slightly from eating too much bacon, but then she was out on the porch, gulping cold air, still saying thank you right until the door closed behind them.

  She wanted to say something mean to her husband about flirting with that snob Vicky. Had he always flirted like this at parties and she’d had too much fun to notice? Another couple from the party, a couple Mary didn’t recognize, were laughing and reliving something someone had said. They kept repeating the same phrase over and over and then laughing, really hard. They were parked right behind Mary and Dylan, and while Mary waited for Dylan to unlock her door, she watched that other happy couple get into a canary yellow Mini Cooper.

  “Great car!” Dylan said.

  The woman, all honey blond hair and a big smile, leaned out the car window as it began to pull away.

  “I know!” she said. “We’re lucky! No kids!”

  Then the car zoomed past them and disappeared around the elbow of the road. Mary watched them go, those lucky childless people.

  MARY COULD NOT think of how to write these small two-hundred-and-fifty-word pieces Eddie wanted her to write. She’d eaten lunch at the Indian restaurant, twice. She’d sat in on classes at the French-American School and watched inner-city teenagers asking for directions to “la Gare du Nord” and ordering “bifteck avec petits pois et pommes de terre.” She’d tried to make sense of these things.

  It was far too cold to walk around the city, even with all the layers she was wearing. All she could do was sit and stare at the blank computer screen with the file name Indian Lunch, mocking her.

  “Got a minute?” Eddie said from her doorway. He was holding a pile of books.

  Quickly, she exited the file. “Well,” she said, feigning busyness, “one minute.”

  Eddie had on that argyle sweater again and it was starting to smell of wet wool. He pulled up a chair and sat ba
ckwards on it, draping himself over the orange vinyl back; it was a school cafeteria castoff.

  “So,” he said, drumming his fingers on the chair, always a bad sign. “Jessica wants reviews.”

  “Reviews of what?” Mary said, misunderstanding. Then,

  “What? You mean she wants to write reviews?”

  Eddie shrugged, which meant yes.

  “I’m the reviewer,” Mary said. “Hers aren’t even any good. I’ve read them. She called David Mamet a feminist. Come on, Eddie.”

  “The thing is, Jessica—”

  “She covers City Hall. Hard news. Politics. It suits her charming personality.” Mary narrowed her eyes. “Jessica really wants it?”

  Eddie shrugged, which meant yes.

  Mary sighed. “Can I ditch the French-American School piece then? Do just books and restaurants?”

  Eddie handed her the pile of books. “This is a month’s worth.”

  “Good,” she said.

  Eddie slapped the back of the chair and got up to leave.

  Mary watched his back as he walked away. The only problem was, she actually had to read these things now.

  BEFORE SHE LEFT work to pick up Scarlet and Lulu to go to knitting on Wednesday, Mary tore off the top page of her new-word-a-day calendar and saw that March was winding down. Too soon it would be April and then it would be one year since Stella died. Someone had sent her a note right afterward and all it had said was, April truly is the cruelest month then.

  Sighing, Mary turned off all the lights and locked up, something she did almost every night, not because she was working so hard, but because it was so hard to get any work done. She locked the door that led out and walked to her car, the sensible station wagon. A mother’s car. Maybe she would sell it and get her own canary yellow Mini Cooper, and ride around, laughing into the wind. “I can have this teeny tiny minicar because I have no kids,” she’d tell women who drove station wagons and minivans and SUVs for hauling children. All those fucking lucky women.