The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love

by Beth Pattillo

  Since Merry was perpetually late, Eugenie couldn’t argue with her. “It’s good to see you. And this handsome boy.” Eugenie smiled, although she couldn’t help wishing Merry had left the baby at home. He was sure to be a significant distraction, even if he didn’t cry. Eugenie had enough trouble as it was keeping the women focused on the discussion.

  Merry took a chair on the opposite side of the table from Eugenie and proceeded to settle in. Eugenie wondered if she should offer to help Merry juggle the diaper bag, knitting tote, and other assorted paraphernalia, but just as she was about to do so, two more figures appeared in the doorway.

  Camille and Maria must have come up the stairs together. They were talking politely, but both showed the strain of grief. The lines around Camille’s mouth were pronounced for a twenty-four-year-old, and Maria had dark shadows beneath her eyes.

  “Good evening, ladies.” Eugenie waved toward the other chairs. “Come in and make yourselves comfortable.”

  Maria looked hesitant, but Camille led the way, and they sat between Eugenie and Merry. A moment later, Hannah raced in, backpack flying. She dropped into the chair on the other side of Eugenie. “Sorry. I lost track of the time.”

  Eugenie bit her lip. She’d never imagined becoming a foster mother at sixty-five, but Hannah had come into her life last year as unexpectedly as Paul had reappeared. Eugenie had forced Hannah into the Knit Lit Society as penance for some minor vandalism of a library book, but the girl had stayed of her own accord. And when Hannah’s mother took off and left the girl to fend for herself, Eugenie had taken her in.

  “That’s fine,” Eugenie said. “We’re still waiting for Esther.” Hannah’s presence in her life had challenged Eugenie to learn to be more flexible. Some days she was more successful than others.

  Eugenie introduced Maria to Merry and Hannah, although that was mostly a formality. Anyone who’d spent more than a few days in Sweetgum had been in Munden’s Five-and-Dime. In fact, Maria possibly knew more people in Sweetgum than Eugenie herself, because while not everyone read for pleasure or needed to use the Internet at the public library, every resident of Sweetgum stopped in Munden’s Five-and-Dime for chewing gum, copy paper, and greeting cards.

  “Well, we should get started,” Eugenie said when she’d waited as long as she could for the still-absent Esther. Hiding her worry behind her usual formal manner, she opened a manila folder on the table in front of her and drew out some papers. “I wanted to keep this year’s reading list a surprise. Here it is.”

  She tried to ignore the color that rose in her cheeks. The others passed the papers around the table while Eugenie watched their faces. Camille looked troubled, Maria looked surprised, Merry looked amused, and Hannah looked perplexed.

  “As you can see, I’ve taken a different approach this year.” Eugenie took the extra sheets from Hannah as they completed their journey around the table. “Our theme for the year is ‘Great Love Stories in Literature.’” She couldn’t quite meet the other women’s eyes. “Instead of specific knitting projects, I thought we would focus on a different type of stitch to accompany each selection.” She paused, cleared her throat, and continued. “You may pick your own project for each book, but you need to use the assigned stitch. I thought this would be a creative challenge.”

  Hannah snorted, which Eugenie had learned over the last few months was her way of downplaying the unexpected, so Eugenie didn’t take offense. Camille’s expression remained flat, but at least Maria looked intrigued.

  Merry still looked amused. “It looks great, Eugenie. Pride and Prejudice, Gone with the Wind. These are some of my favorites.”

  Why hadn’t she just pinned her heart on her sleeve and been done with it, Eugenie thought as she fought the urge to wave a hand to cool her flaming cheeks.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Merry. We won’t get into Romeo and Juliet, the first selection, until next month, so I thought we might focus our discussion tonight on something a bit different. Since we’re going to talk about love this year, I thought I’d ask each of you to share your definition of love. What it means to you personally”

  Eugenie heard the click-click of high heels in the hallway.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  She twisted in her chair to see Esther hurrying into the room.

  Merry glanced at her watch. “We were going to start worrying about you in a few minutes,” she said, and the others nodded in agreement.

  Esther’s perfect hair was mussed, and she had smudges on her blouse. She perched on the last remaining chair on the other side of Hannah. Like Camille, she had deep lines carved around her mouth. “I’m afraid I got a little sidetracked this afternoon. But it’s all taken care of now.” She ran a hand over her hair, which did little to calm its disorder, and pasted a determined smile on her face. “What have I missed?”

  “We’re glad you made it.” Eugenie slid a copy of the reading list across the table to her. “We were just getting started.”

  She thought Esther might offer further explanation for her tardiness, but the other woman simply picked up the list and skimmed its contents. Her lips thinned and then pursed as she scanned the titles on the paper.

  “I was inviting everyone to think about your definition of love and share it with the group, if you feel comfortable.” Eugenie drew a deep breath. “Who would like to start?”

  For a long moment silence reigned, and with each passing second, Eugenie’s apprehension grew. She’d wanted to challenge the other women this year, invite them to share their thoughts and feelings at a deeper level. Perhaps, though, she should have played it safe and not tested the newfound closeness of the group. Especially not with a new member in the mix.

  Just as she was about to despair of anyone speaking up, Camille cleared her throat. “Love is what you do for other people.” She folded one corner of the reading list and then smoothed it out again.

  Eugenie noticed that the girl’s nails, usually manicured into impeccable french tips, had been bitten to the quick. Eugenie waited for a moment to see if she would add anything else to her statement. Camille’s gaze met hers then, and Eugenie could see the deep well of pain in her eyes.

  “Yes,” Eugenie agreed. “Service to others is an important part of love. We’re all called to think about the needs of our neighbors.”

  “Not much of that thinking going on in Sweetgum,” Hannah interjected. She popped her gum, a habit that drove Eugenie to distraction.

  Eugenie tamped down the hurt that sprang up at the teenager’s words. Since Hannah had come into her life, Eugenie had developed the habit of reminding herself several times a day that patience was the key to transformation. While Hannah had made a lot of progress, she still struggled to trust the adults in her life. More than thirteen years of parental neglect—and sometimes outright abuse—couldn’t be undone overnight.

  “Besides,” Hannah continued between smacks of her gum, “when people are nice to you, it’s usually because they want something.”

  The teenagers words were met with silence as the other women looked at each other, unsure how to respond. Hannah flushed when she realized the implication of what she’d said. “I didn’t mean you, Mrs. Carson. I mean, Eugenie.”

  “I know that, Hannah.” Eugenie thought it best to steer the discussion in someone else’s direction. “Merry, how would you define love?”

  Merry made a wry face. “Overwhelming.” Her answer was as prompt as it was emphatic. The others laughed, as Merry had intended, but Eugenie could sense a thread of truth behind the humorous reply. With four children and a husband who had a solo law practice, Merry more than had her hands full. Eugenie had observed in the past that Merry’s busy schedule left little time for self-care. Now, with the new baby, that wouldn’t get any better.

  “Anyone else?” Eugenie looked around the table. “Esther?”

  “It isn’t that complicated.” Esther’s attention was on the tangle of yarn on the table in front of her as she attempted to smooth out t
he knotted wool. “I agree with Camille. Love is sacrifice. You do for others because it’s the proper thing to do. The Christian thing to do,” she added for emphasis. “I’m sure we’ll enjoy the books, Eugenie, but I’m not much of a believer in romantic love.”

  Eugenie hardly knew what to say. Those were the last words she would have expected to hear from a woman who’d been recently widowed.

  “What should I do for my first project?” Merry intervened, and for once Eugenie was grateful to her for taking the conversation off in a new direction. She swallowed against the disappointment that gathered in her throat. When she’d made out the list, she’d been so sure the theme would be popular with the group. After all, who didn’t like to read a good love story? She’d been so caught up in her own romantic happiness, she realized, that she hadn’t given enough thought to how the reading list would be received by the others.

  “Romeo and Juliet might be a challenge to come up with something. Can you knit a doublet?” Merry asked Eugenie with a smile. “That would be authentic to Shakespeare.”

  “You can make whatever you like. As long as you use garter stitch,” Eugenie replied. “That’s the assigned stitch for the book.” She’d wanted to start simple since Hannah was still a beginner, and garter stitch was the easiest—the basic knit stitch back and forth with no variation. Hannah should be up to the challenge, at least when it came to the knitting. Eugenie looked around the group once more and wondered if any of them were up to the challenge of pondering the meaning and the mystery of love.

  Time would tell, she thought, not without a fair amount of apprehension.

  Maria pulled her mothers ancient Cadillac to the shoulder of the road and rolled to a stop beneath a stand of sweetgum trees. Night had fallen, but there was still the faint reminder of a sunset in the western sky. The two-lane road came to an abrupt stop a mile farther on. Fitting, probably, that her family’s ancestral home sat on a dead end at the edge of Sweetgum Lake.

  She opened the car door and stepped out into the night air. As always, she could breathe in the scent of the land and instantly feel calmer. Spending her days cooped up in the five-and-dime had never been her dream, but her father had chosen her for the job before she’d even finished high school.

  Maria sighed. Painful. That’s what she would have said if Eugenie had gotten around to putting her on the spot about her definition of love. It was painful. Whether the person you loved was alive or dead didn’t make a difference. Presence and absence were different sides of the same coin.

  Maria walked beneath the stand of trees at the edge of the road and then followed the rise until she stood at the top of the hill. Here, the trees fell away, and she could see a good distance in all directions despite the falling darkness. To the east, back the way she’d come, were the church steeple and the water tower. To the south, rolling hills dotted with the occasional house and barn. To the west, she could make out the dark curve of Sweet-gum Lake. Faint lights pinpointed the windows of her family’s home near the shoreline.

  More than thirty years. She’d lived in the white two-story clapboard house all her life. Now it was sorely in need of a coat of paint, but in her childhood it had been pristine. In those days the five-and-dime had provided for the family—if not abundantly, then at least adequately But those days, like her father, were gone. Her memories might as well be buried in the Sweet-gum Cemetery alongside him.

  Change was in the air, not only because of her fathers death, but also because of the life-changing decision she had made in Jeff McGavin’s law office.

  Maria could handle change. Or at least she hoped she could. Daphne, her older sister, was far too gentle to take charge of the family and her mother too much of an overwrought hypochondriac. Stephanie, the youngest, couldn’t even be counted on to show up at the store on time. With her father gone, the responsibility fell on Maria. All it required was the sacrifice of almost everything she loved.

  She took a deep breath, drinking in the scents of the night. Eugenie’s “Great Love Stories in Literature” might lure her into thinking that Prince Charming would arrive shortly and whisk her away, make all her worries disappear, but Maria knew that was impossible. She was too old, too bland, too late. Love and romance had passed her by. Responsibility was all she had left. She’d never shirked it before, and she wasn’t about to now.

  With a sigh, she turned away from the top of the hill and started back toward the car, wondering how and when she would tell her mother and sisters that their home was not their home anymore.

  Early Monday morning, Hannah slammed her locker shut and twisted the combination lock with a turn of her wrist. She squared her shoulders, preparing herself to face the hallways of Sweetgum High School. Only a few weeks into her freshman year, she had already learned that moving from class to class was like running a gauntlet of upperclassmen.

  “Hannah! Wait up.” Kristen came up behind her and grabbed her shoulder, almost jerking her to the floor. “Guess who just moved back to Sweetgum?”

  Hannah shrugged. “No idea.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, not wanting to be late for class but also not wanting to annoy Kristen. Her friendship with the other girl, if that’s what you could call it, was on shaky ground as it was.

  “Josh Hargrove is back,” Kristen said with a teasing smile. “Weren’t you guys like totally an item in fifth grade?” She smirked. “Maybe he’s come back to sweep you off your feet.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes and refused to show the little spark of joy that flickered in her heart. “Whatever.”

  “Sure. Play it cool.” Kristen laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in the sound. Kristen was still mad at her for refusing to hang out at the cemetery after school with the slacker crowd. Hannah wished Kristen would just let it rest, but the girl didn’t like to take no for an answer. “I bet you guys hook up by tomorrow.” She laughed, but the sound had an edge that made Hannah nervous. Kristen had something up her sleeve. Something she wasn’t telling her.

  “Dang. The bell’s about to ring.” Kristen glanced at the time on her cell phone. “Later.” She darted off, leaving Hannah in peace.

  Josh Hargrove. Hannah swallowed hard, determined not to let her feelings show on her face. He probably wouldn’t even remember her. And she could only pray he’d forgotten her mother, although Tracy Simmons showing up drunk for Field Day had been pretty memorable. As had the end-of-school picnic. Her mom had brought soft drinks for the kids and plenty of beer for herself

  Josh had always been a brainiac. He was probably a math genius or something. No way he would remember her. But if he didn’t, it also meant he’d forgotten the good stuff—catching crawdads in Sweetgum Creek and buying Popsicles at the IGA. They’d hung out together every day that last summer, and then his mother had married her rich boss and abandoned the trailer next door to Hannah’s. Josh and his mom moved to Birmingham. His trailer park days were over.

  Why was he back? Hannah hugged her binder and math book to shield herself from the seed of hope that took root in her chest. She turned right into the senior hall, careful to avoid the mustang logo in the middle of the tile floor. In the first few weeks of school, more than one freshman had made the mistake of stepping on the school mascot. She shouldn’t even have classes here, but Eugenie had stuck her nose in Hannah’s business and gotten her moved into honors English. While the rest of her classmates would breeze by with ditzy Mrs. Carlisle, she would be working her tail off under the evil eye of Ophelia Budge.

  All the way down senior hall, Hannah tried to keep herself from pinning any hopes on Josh Hargrove’s return. She hadn’t had a real friend since he’d left. Just losers like Kristen.

  The bell rang as Hannah slid through the classroom door. She made a dive for the nearest seat before Mrs. Budge could count her tardy. She liked to sit near the door anyway. She’d learned early in life that it was always good to have a handy escape route.

  “Quiet, please.” Mrs. Budge’s booming voice rang out. H
annah slumped in her seat and let her hair fall forward to cover her face.

  Mrs. Budge picked up a stack of small paperback books from her desk and moved down the aisles, dropping one in front of each student. They landed with a plop. The students groaned when they saw the title, except for Sissy Darlington, the class brain. She let out a long sigh of contentment.

  Hannah refused to show any visible sign of interest. Instead, she studied the head of the guy sitting in front of her and wondered why she hadn’t noticed him in class before. His sandy hair curled in a messy-but-cute way, and his shoulders were seriously wide. She hadn’t been paying attention when she dove for her desk, and now she wished she had. The guy must be new, because even though she could only see the back of his head, she should be able to recognize him. Sweetgum High School didn’t have that many freshmen.

  And then the realization hit her, just at the moment when Mrs. Budge dropped the book on the desk in front of her.

  Romeo and Juliet.

  Josh Hargrove.

  The two facts exploded in her brain simultaneously.

  Apparently God had taken notice of her behavior last year before she’d quit hanging out at the cemetery with Kristen and her slacker friends. Apparently God hadn’t forgotten, because He was punishing her.

  “William Shakespeare.” Mrs. Budge pronounced the name with reverence.

  She droned on about his major contributions to the English language, but Hannah tuned her out as she clutched the book and willed Josh Hargrove to keep facing the front of the room. To his right, Courtney McGavin, in her freshman pompom-girl sweater and short skirt, shot him little flirty smiles, but Josh was oblivious. Good. That was a good sign, Hannah told herself. If he could ignore a bombshell like Courtney, his intelligence must not have evaporated the moment his mother drove him over the state line to Alabama.

  But if he was in freshman honors English, he couldn’t be a complete idiot. Or lacking in memory.