by Ann Hood
“‘Mama?’ Stella said. ‘You okay?’
“‘I’m just very very happy,’ I told her.
“She sighed. ‘I am very very happy too,’ she said.
“I looked in the rearview mirror at her and she was grinning back at me.
“That day stays with me. You know how the Hmong make elaborate hats for their babies with flowers on the tops? So that when Death flies by and looks down at the earth, he mistakes the children for flowers and leaves them alone. That day I wonder if I tempted fate. Called attention to Stella and me and our happiness, you know?
“Because the very next day when I picked her up she said she had a tummy ache. I asked her all the usual questions. If she had eaten enough that day? Or too little? If she’d run too hard or too fast? But she shook her head, ‘My tummy just hurts,’ she said.
“When we got home, I gave her some Tylenol and put her on the sofa with her favorite blanket and let her watch television while I started dinner. I wasn’t even a little worried. Her forehead was warm, and the worst thing I imagined was a touch of some bug or another. A deadline I had for the newspaper weighed much more heavily on my mind. Even though I went to check her a few times, I was really trying to shape an article I had to write. I needed a better lead. I needed a way to contain the story.
“I heard her call for me, and I went out to the living room and she looked really pale. I sat beside her on the couch. Her fever was so high that she burned through the blanket into me. Even then I wasn’t worried. Kids get high fevers like that.
“‘Stay with me, Mama,’ she said. Her eyes fluttered a little, then she seemed to sink into sleep. I did sit with her, stroking her forehead, smoothing her hair. When I took her temperature, it was one hundred and five. When I asked her questions, she didn’t answer clearly. In fact, I couldn’t quite rouse her. She forced her eyes open briefly, she mumbled replies, but something was definitely not right.
“It was almost seven o’clock. Too late to take her to the doctor. I could have called his service and waited for him to call me back. But for some reason I wrapped her in the blanket and took her in the car and drove straight to the emergency room. Fear was kicking in. I called Dylan, and he sounded calm. Was I overreacting?
“‘Stella?’ I asked her.
“She mumbled again.
“‘Answer Mommy,’ I said.
“‘Mama.’
“God knows what it took for her to say that, but I thought it was a good sign. I was overreacting, I decided.
“Then I was there, in the parking lot of the ER, bundling her up and running inside. Everything happened so fast. The way they looked at her and rushed us to a room. The way the doctor frowned as he examined her, shooting questions at me. I kept reciting the uneventful events of the afternoon. The tummy ache. The sleepiness. The rising fever.
“At some point, Dylan arrived. He was worried, I could tell. He kept calling people. His college roommate who was a doctor somewhere. Stella’s teacher to find out if any other kid was sick. Then he’d come in and ask the doctor questions.
“The air in that room was full of tension. The doctor began to bark orders in a language I didn’t speak. Nurses hurried in and out. Someone pushed me away from Stella and when I tried to reach her the doctor said roughly, ‘Maybe you could step outside for a bit.’
“Dylan was gripping my arm and pulling me away. My own voice sounded foreign, distant. ‘Something is very wrong,’ Dylan said hoarsely.
I paced. I peered in the Plexiglas window of the room and watched the terrible scene unfold before me. At some point they had removed her clothes and they lay in a hot pink pile on the floor. A nurse stepped on them, then kicked them aside with the toe of her white shoe, and I pounded on the glass for her to pick them up. Stella had carefully chosen that top, those capri pants, from a catalogue, making neat circles in gel pen around all the clothes she wanted for spring.
“A round woman with a placid face and wire-rimmed glasses led us to a small room.
“She was a social worker and she had come to tell us how seriously ill Stella was. They had done a spinal tap, she said, and although the results were not yet in, the cloudiness of the spinal fluid indicated meningitis.
“I tried to make sense of the word. I remembered a local football team who had shared a water bottle all coming down with it. But they had survived and gone on to win the state championship.
“The social worker cast her glance toward the floor. ‘There are two kinds,’ she told us. ‘This is bacterial.’
“‘Oh, God,’ Dylan said.
“Later he told me about someone he went to law school with, a young man who felt fluish during Torts, lay down for a nap, and was found dead by his roommate that same night.
“‘They’re doing everything they can,’ the social worker said. She stood to go. ‘Do you want me to send in the chaplin?’
“‘No!’ I said. What the hell was going on here? I thought.
“Eventually, I went and sat by the closed door of the ICU, where they had moved her. Then I made my way inside and sat on the floor in front of her room. Until a nurse came and lifted me by my elbows and brought me inside. She gently pushed me onto a scratchy chair in one corner of the room.
“‘Stay there and don’t get in the way,’ she said.
“I stayed there for the next twelve hours, leaping to my feet every time a machine beeped or a nurse’s voice took on an edge of panic. If there was a crack in the crowd that worked on my daughter, I found my way in and whispered for her to get better.
“Even now I don’t want to talk about the tubes, the machines, the equipment in her and around her. Even now I don’t want to talk about how she looked on that gurney. Or the way I heard a nurse call out that they were losing her. The sound of footsteps as doctors ran in. The feel of arms pushing me out of the room. The intercom calling for this doctor or that. The things that keep me up at night. The smells and sounds. The terror. The terror in my heart.
“I can only say what you all know. A mother should not watch her child die. A mother should not see the way life ebbs out of us, or what is left behind. A mother should not stand at her child’s grave, or press her child’s pajamas to her nose in the desperate hope that her scent is still there.”
Mary struggled to say more. She had not spoken of Stella’s death this way before. It was too much to say. Even now the words came out like bullets, sharp and painful. Perhaps by telling this story, she could finally heal.
“No mother should lose her child,” Mary said.
And when she said it, her own mother jumped to her feet, dropping yarn and needles to the floor as she rushed to Mary.
“If I could only have kept this pain from you,” Mamie said.
For the first time in a very long time, Mary let her mother take her in her arms. She let her mother cradle her. At last, the two women held each other and cried.
ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, Mary woke to the smell of coffee and bacon. She pulled on her robe and went downstairs, where her mother stood at the stove, cooking.
“Are you a person who believes that it’s never too late to start over?” her mother said without looking at Mary.
Mary tried to imagine the mother she’d never known, the one who played with the little girl Susan, who laughed and found joy in her child. She could not yet see that woman. But Mary believed that someday, she might be able to.
“I am that kind of person,” Mary said.
Her mother looked at her now, and Mary saw tears in her eyes.
“Thank you,” Mamie said.
“Merry Christmas, Mom,” Mary said. Then she added softly,
“I’m glad you’re here.”
Mamie cleared her throat. “Let’s not get all maudlin now,” she said. “I’m making toads-in-the-hole. You always liked those.”
Mary smiled. “My favorite,” she said.
“I know,” Mamie said, turning back to the stove.
20
THE KNITTING CIRCLE
> ON CHRISTMAS NIGHT, after Mary played a long game of Scrabble with her mother and Francisco, then sent them on their way; after Holly and Jasper came by with a cake frosted green and sprinkled with coconut—“Like snow! Get it?” Holly had gushed—and opened all the presents Mary had bought for the baby; after Holly had said, “Hey, wait a minute. Nothing for me?” and Mary had told her that her gift was free babysitting, once a week for the rest of the year; after Scarlet and Lulu came by with champagne and poinsettias; after Mary went from room to room in her house turning off the lights; after a good Christmas was coming to an end, there was a knock on the front door.
Mary opened it and Dylan stood there, holding the divorce papers Mary had given him a few days earlier.
“A strange Christmas present,” she said. “But thanks.”
She reached out her hand for them, and he gave her the papers.
Behind Dylan, snow started to fall, quickly dusting the street and the rooftops. The sight of him standing there made tears sting Mary’s eyes. She turned to go back into the house, hoping he hadn’t noticed.
“How was your day?” he asked, stopping her.
She looked back at him, the orange of his fleece vest bright against the darkness and the white snow.
“Good,” she said. Then she added, “You know.”
He nodded.
They stood apart like that in the hushed night for some time before Dylan spoke.
“By the way,” he said, “they’re not signed.”
Mary took a step out the door.
“Why not?”
“Seeing you holding Jasper like that made me understand why I had to leave for a while.”
“Awhile?” Mary said. She moved to step even closer to him, but stopped herself. Distance was better, she thought.
“And it made me understand why I need to come home.”
“No,” she said.
The weight of all that had come between them—Denise and her week with Connor, the frustrations, the grief; and the good things too—falling in love and having Stella, those brief years when the three of them made a family—the weight of all of it made Mary want to fall to her knees right here in the snow. She could not open her arms to possibility again. If she took Dylan back, these things would always be between them, and hurt and disappointment would hover around them, perhaps forever.
“I can’t,” she said, her voice small.
“Remember the day we met? At Starbucks?” he said.
“Let’s not do this,” Mary said, shivering in her thin white blouse.
“I fell in love with you that day,” he continued. His hair was white with snow. “Remember when we moved in here?”
Mary swallowed hard. She had sat in their empty house and cried from happiness.
“That was a lifetime ago,” she said. “It was.”
“Mary?” Dylan said, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Remember our beautiful little girl?”
“Go away,” Mary said.
“We could adopt a baby, like Scarlet,” he said. “Or we could try again. Or we could just grow old together, the two of us.”
“Endless possibilities,” Mary said.
“Yes!” Dylan said, taking a few steps toward her.
“The thing about possibility,” Mary said, wrapping her arms around her shivering body, “is it can go either way. I don’t know if I can risk it going bad.”
“We have to take risks,” he said. “If we don’t, what’s the point?”
“It’s really cold out here,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m going inside,” she said, but she stayed right there. She looked at Dylan’s face, marveling at how open it was. That ridiculous orange vest, the only bright spot out here.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” she said.
“Could you try?” he asked.
Mary looked at this man, her husband, the streetlight shining down on him, the snow falling fast around him.
He was coming toward her now, arms open. She could see the tears on his face. She could see him smiling.
“Can I come inside?” he was saying.
“Yes,” Mary said.
THE FIRST WEDNESDAY night in October, Mary drove to Big Alice’s for the knitting circle. Mary’s mind was full of plans for the blanket she was going to knit for Dylan for Christmas, a crazy combination of yarns and patterns, rows of zigzags, rows of purls, rows like waves. She needed thirty-five different yarns to knit it, all of them nestled in tight skeins.
Here and there, leaves had changed and Mary caught a glimpse of red and orange. The air smelled of autumn. At unexpected times Mary discovered that she still could experience joy. The first juicy peach of summer. Her husband’s good-night kiss. The particular slant of sunshine out her window. The smell of rain in the air. Waves hitting the beach. The feel of new yarn in her fingers.
And yes, in the memory of her daughter. Stella’s face upturned to meet Mary’s lips. Stella asleep in her fuzzy red pajamas, her arms bent at the elbow, resting behind her head. Stella splashing in the tub, half hidden in bubbles, her hair wet and pushed off her face, her eyes sparkling. Her little-girl smell, a jumble of clean laundry, sweat, grape Chap Stick. Stella’s smooth round tummy beneath Mary’s mouth as she gave her a loud smack. The giggles that followed. Stella’s voice, which sometimes in the quiet of evening or stillness of early morning Mary could almost hear. Mama.
When she arrived at Big Alice’s, Mary stepped out into the October night. She stood a moment, breathing in the cool autumn air. She stopped to look up at the dark sky filled with distant stars that glittered down on her.
When she opened the door, the knitting circle was in full motion. She stood there, her arms overflowing with yarn. Pausing, Mary let her eyes settle over each person.
There was Ellen, her lap filled with lime green yarn already in the shape of a sweater.
“I knit socks because they were small and didn’t take very long,” Ellen had told her last week when they met for a morning walk. “I was afraid to knit something that would take a lot of time because I didn’t think we had a lot of time.”
Scarlet’s head was bent as she finished the small red sweater with the monogrammed white L on the front. In two weeks she would travel to China to bring home her daughter, Lily.
When she got the news a month ago, Mary threw her a baby shower. In the kitchen, refilling their champagne glasses, Scarlet had told her, “I am terrified to love someone again.”
Mary hugged her friend. “It is terrifying,” she said, thinking of those first tenuous months after Dylan had moved back. “But also exhilarating.”
Lulu was scowling over a pointy-toed stocking in hot pink yarn with gold threads running through it.
At Scarlet’s shower, she had announced that she had some news. She was going to move to Venice for a year. “Or more,” she’d added tentatively. She had already sublet her apartment and rented one there. “If I don’t do this, I’m afraid that I will spend the rest of my life alone and in fear.” Mary had hugged her hard. “You’ll meet a handsome Italian man,” she predicted. “God help me,” Lulu said.
“The book said this was easy,” Lulu mumbled, pulling out a row of stitches.
“Slow down,” Alice said.
“It’s just knitting after all,” Harriet said. “It’s not brain surgery.” Harriet had already begun this year’s matching Christmas sweaters for Beth’s children. Navy blue with flecks of white.
On the sofa beside Harriet, Roger and David sat together, both knitting rolled-brim hats. On Thursday evenings, when Mary went to the movies with Roger, they always had dinner afterward with David. He had moved into Roger’s apartment above the Sit and Knit Two after Labor Day, and worked at the store with him.
In the rocking chair, Holly sat with a skein of Rowan chunky yarn and her oversized needles, a long scarf hanging from them already. She only knit with these big needles, fast and furiously, producing a scarf or hat every time she came to the
knitting circle.
Alice was teaching a new woman how to knit. Mary watched the concentration on the stranger’s face beneath a tumble of dark curls.
“In college I knit a sweater for my boyfriend,” the woman said apologetically. “A Lopi? On round needles?”
“I can bet you didn’t marry him,” Harriet said. “That’s an Irish folk saying. Knit a sweater for a boyfriend and he’ll never be your husband. Isn’t that right, Ellen?”
“Something like that,” Ellen said, winking at the woman.
“Now you’ve gone and dropped a few stitches,” Alice said.
“Sorry,” the woman said. “I’m too much of a wreck to learn, I think.”
“Nonsense,” Alice said. “I’ve taught people in all stages of emotional distress. They all learned. Every one of them. You will too, Maggie.”
“I’ll be the first failure then,” Maggie said, watching as Alice carefully picked up the dropped stitches.
“In knitting,” Alice told her, “you can always correct the mistakes. Always.”
Harriet put down her knitting and glared at Mary standing in the doorway.
“What in the world are you doing standing there like that?” Harriet said to her.
Unable to answer, Mary walked into the room and took the empty seat by the window. She had just finished knitting a scarf for Dylan. All she had to do was cast off and then she could begin her blanket.
“That’s Mary,” Alice told the woman. “In no time, she’ll be teaching you to purl.”
“I don’t think so,” Maggie said. “I can’t even get the knitting down.”
“Maggie,” Alice said, “yes you can. Look at that perfect row there.”
Maggie held up her knitting and examined her work. Then she started to cry.
“Sorry,” she said. “I cry over everything these days.”
Mary recognized something in this woman. A sadness, a grief that was yet too fresh to put into words. “I’m going to give you my phone number,” she said, “and when you’ve finished that, call me and I’ll teach you how to purl.”
“I won’t be calling you anytime soon,” Maggie said. She bent her head. “My sister said knitting would help. As if anything could.”