Camille felt the tears pressing against the backs of her eyelids, but she refused to let them fall. He had a right to be angry. She was a coward.
Dante turned the key, shutting off the engine. Then he turned toward her.
“Do you know what I thought freshman year, the first time I saw you?” he asked.
That was the last thing she expected to hear. She’d thought he would yell at her with the same deafening roar he used on his football players, but Dante was as cool and calm as if they were discussing the weather.
“Freshman year?”
“My family had just moved here from Nashville. As far as I knew, my life was over, stuck out here in the middle of nowhere. But there was football. And there was you. When I saw you, I knew why God had brought me to Sweetgum.”
Camille stared at him, dumbfounded. “But—”
“That’s not something you say to a fourteen-year-old girl. I kept it to myself. But I knew.”
“Dante—”
“I still know.”
“Don’t bring God into this. That’s not fair.”
“Then tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll shut up.”
“That’s even less fair.”
“You think life is supposed to be fair? After all you’ve been through, you still haven’t let go of that?”
“I have to leave, Dante. I’ll suffocate if I stay here. As it is, I’ve been on life support for the last six years.”
His hands clenched around the steering wheel. “We’d be worth it, Cammie. We’d be worth your staying here.”
“It’s too high a price.” She wished she could wrap her own hands around something, anything to hang on to. “If I don’t go now, Dante, I never will. And I’ll always regret it. Always.”
She knew that with bone-deep certainty. And as the silence lengthened between them, anger, fierce and low, kindled in her midsection. Why couldn’t she get just one break? One time when things went her way?
Dante took his hands from the steering wheel and retrieved something from the front pocket of his pants. A box. Small, black, and velvet.
“Don’t.”
Her command didn’t stop him. He opened the box.
The ring was breathtaking, a square-cut diamond in an old-fashioned platinum setting. “It was my grandmother’s,” he said. “She left it to me.”
Camille couldn’t stop the tears. “Put it away.” Instead, he took it out of the box and reached for her hand. She jerked away. “Dante, put it away.”
“Just let me see it on your finger. Just once, Cammie. You can at least do that much.”
With her right hand, she wiped away tears while he took her left and slid the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly. The weight of it terrified her.
“That’s where it belongs,” he said. He reached over and cupped her chin, turning her face toward his. She didn’t want to look in his eyes, but she made herself. The love she saw there frightened her even more than the feel of the ring on her finger.
“No. It doesn’t belong there.” She started to take the ring off, but he stopped her. She looked at him in confusion. “What?”
“It’s yours,” he said.
“Dante, I can’t marry you. This belongs to the woman you’ll spend the rest of your life with. Not me.”
“No, Cammie. That ring’s meant for you.”
“I can’t keep it.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“Of course I have a choice.”
“Camille, you can leave Sweetgum. You can go anywhere in the world, see everything there is to see. But no matter where you go, I’ll still be here, loving you. And that will still be your ring.”
She didn’t know what to say. He reached for the key and turned the ignition. Before she could gather her thoughts, he had the car in motion, gliding down the road.
“I’ll drop you off at your house. I don’t think driving you to the lake right now is a good idea.”
“I’m not keeping the ring, Dante.”
“Yes,” he said without looking at her. “You are.” He turned, and their eyes met for a brief second. “You owe me that much, Cammie.”
She cried in earnest then, her heart breaking, torn in two by her love for Dante and her fear of being trapped in Sweetgum.
When they reached her house and pulled into her driveway, she didn’t wait for him to get out of the car and come around to open her door. She clambered out as fast as she could, and then stood there, twisting the ring on her finger.
“Please take it back,” she said.
He shook his head. “If you won’t stay, then at least take part of me with you.” He paused, his voice choked with emotion. “I love you, Camille. Maybe someday you’ll understand what that means.”
He leaned across the seat and grabbed the door handle to pull it closed. Before she could say anything, he had the car in reverse and was pulling out of the driveway.
She watched him drive away, feeling like the worst sort of traitor, knowing there was nothing else she could do. She couldn’t help how she felt about Sweetgum any more than she could help whom she loved. She hated Sweetgum as much as she loved Dante, but there was no room for compromise. It had to be one or the other. She had dreamed of escaping Sweetgum far longer than she’d loved Dante.
In the end, she’d really had no choice at all.
At the March meeting of the Sweetgum Knit Lit Society, Eugenie looked at the assembled group and wondered, not for the first time, if she’d made a critical error in judgment with the reading list. Although they still had two months and two books left in the year, she felt somehow that they were coming to an end. She wasn’t sure “Great Love Stories in Literature” had been much of a success.
“Where’s Hannah?” Merry asked, nodding toward the empty chair next to Eugenie.
“She’s at the freshman dance at the high school.”
At long last, Hannah had broken her silence and told Eugenie the whole story of her troubled relationship with Josh Hargrove. Eugenie hadn’t done much but listen and nod in the appropriate places. Hannah appeared to have worked out the problem for herself.
“I helped her pick out a dress from the shop,” Camille said. She glanced toward Esther. “I forgot to tell you. I don’t usually charge Hannah for clothes since she’s been so good about helping out. I hope you’ll keep that arrangement in the future.”
Eugenie looked from Camille to Esther in surprise.
Esther saw her confusion and smiled. “We were going to tell you all tonight. I’ve bought Maxine’s Dress Shop from Camille.”
Exclamations of surprise sounded around the table.
“I’m leaving to go to school.” Strangely Camille didn’t look as happy as Eugenie would have expected. “I’ll be around for a few more weeks, helping Esther learn the ropes. We don’t have to say any big good-byes yet.”
“I’m speechless,” Merry said with a laugh, because clearly she wasn’t. She, too, looked from Camille to Esther in both delight and surprise. “You two sure can keep a secret.”
“I wasn’t certain I’d be able to do it,” Esther admitted, “but my house finally sold. To that James Delevan from Memphis.”
Maria gasped. “What?”
“We closed on it last week. I’m living in the condo at the lake now.”
“James Delevan?” Maria said. “Are you sure?”
“I think I know who I sold my own house to.” A bit of the old Esther reappeared in her pursed lips and short answer.
“What about Ranger?” Merry asked. “Do you have room for him at the condo?”
“He’ll have to adjust,” Esther said. “But Brody tells me that as long as I walk him twice a day, he’ll be fine.”
“Brody?” Eugenie was confused.
“The new veterinarian who took over for Dr. Everton. We’re…” Esther paused, as if searching for the right word. “We’re friends.”
No one seemed to know what to say to that. The new veterinarian must have something to do
with the new, improved Esther Jackson.
“How’s Hunter, Merry?” Eugenie asked.
“Doing well. We have to take him back to Nashville periodically to the pediatric cardiologist. There may be some long-term effects on his heart, but we won’t know for sure for a while.” She looked around at the group. “Any and all prayers would be appreciated.” Her words were greeted with nods and murmurs of assent.
“Of course we’ll continue to pray for Hunter.” Eugenie decided she’d better steer the conversation back to the purpose of the meeting. “So what about the book? I thought Pride and Prejudice would be a group favorite. What did you all think?”
“It’s certainly the most traditional romance,” Maria said.
Merry nodded. “You know, for the first time I actually sympathized with Mrs. Bennett. After the last couple months…” She paused and took a deep breath. “Well, let’s just say I understand her anxiety about her children’s futures.”
“So love makes mothers anxious?” Eugenie asked, only partly in jest. Now that she was responsible for Hannah, she, too, had a newfound understanding of the scattered Mrs. Bennett.
“Ninety percent of the time,” Merry said with a smile. “The other ten percent it just makes us pushovers.”
“I thought Austen made a good argument that love means compromise,” Eugenie said. “Both Elizabeth and Darcy have to change before they can be together. What did you all think?”
Camille shook her head. “Happy endings are an illusion.” She tapped her copy of the book where it lay on the table. “There’s a reason they call it fiction. Even Jane Austen herself never married.”
“Yes, but she didn’t give up her belief in happy endings either,” Maria said. She looked younger for some reason, Eugenie thought. Then she realized that the streaks of gray in the other woman’s hair were gone. She wore lipstick too. A very pale pink, but definitely there. “Sometimes love is totally unexpected,” Maria added.
“Well, I, for one, have given up trying to understand anything about love,” Esther said, but her words held a note of humor rather than the defeat that hung heavy in her voice last fall. “All I can say is that I’ve learned that endings, painful as they are, can be beginnings in disguise. Someone taught me that these last few months.” She paused. “Maybe that’s what love is. Helping other people see what they need to see.”
Eugenie pondered that for a moment. “So have any of you changed your mind about your original definition of love?”
Maria nodded. “I guess I believe now that love doesn’t always have to be painful. Sometimes it’s nice.”
“I always thought love meant sacrificing everything for other people.” Camille laid her knitting on the table, her hands suddenly idle. “But there’s another kind of love. Self-love. Sometimes”—her voice trembled—“sometimes you have to love yourself before you can love someone else.”
Clearly she was thinking of Dante Brown. Eugenie felt a wave of sympathy for the younger woman. She’d been in a similar situation years before with Paul, when they’d been young sweethearts. She hoped Camille wouldn’t need four decades to find her way back to love as Eugenie had.
“I always thought love was about doing your duty” Esther said, “but now I wonder if love isn’t more about what you give because you want to, not because you have to.”
Merry nodded in agreement. “I think I said love was overwhelming.” She paused, biting her lip, and Eugenie could tell she was struggling to control her emotions. “After the last few months, I’ll never take love for granted again.”
“What about Hannah?” Camille asked Eugenie. “Would you say her definition has changed?”
Eugenie nodded. “Yes. Although I’d say Hannah’s relationship with love is still a work in progress.”
“What about you, Eugenie?” Esther asked. “Have you changed your definition?”
Eugenie thought of the words she’d spoken before the congregation two weeks before. Her testimony had been disguised as a Minute for Mission, a regular part of the service. She’d talked about the tutoring program she ran at the library and how books had been an important part of her journey. She’d talked about how they could help an individual grow spiritually. And without saying it in so many words, she’d asked the congregation to remember that she’d been a faithful citizen of Sweetgum, if not of a particular congregation, for many years.
She hadn’t known if it would work, but the next Sunday the offering had been up ten percent. A coincidence, most likely, but more rewarding had been Paul’s appreciation of her decision. She had accepted that in marrying a preacher, she’d committed herself to a church as well. She wasn’t naive enough to think there wouldn’t be more rough patches in the future, but she and Paul would work it out, one day at a time.
“I’ve always believed that love means doing for others. That hasn’t changed,” Eugenie said. “Although I think I have changed my mind about what I’m willing to do for the people I love.”
The others looked at her in confusion, but Eugenie decided not to offer any clarifications. It was enough that she knew what she meant.
“So let’s see your projects,” she said, ready to turn their attention to a new subject. “I thought the moss stitch had that old-fashioned feel of a Jane Austen novel. What did you think?”
The last thirty minutes of the meeting were spent admiring one another’s work. As Eugenie listened to the women’s chatter and observed their animated, smiling faces, she decided that maybe “Great Love Stories in Literature” hadn’t been a complete failure after all. Its success had come in the unexpected. In Hannah’s willingness to forgive Josh. In Esther’s choice to embrace a new life. In whatever—or whoever—had invigorated Maria. In Camille’s difficult choice to follow her dream. In Merry’s acceptance of her imperfections as a mother. And even in Eugenie’s own willingness to sacrifice a little of her privacy for the sake of her husband.
Perhaps that was all any of them could ask of love, really. That it would help them to grow and change as their lives took them in unexpected directions. And that it would open their hearts and minds for the journey that lay ahead.
Readers Group Guide
What is your favorite love story in literature? in real life? What do you find most compelling about the story?
Does a great love story have a happy ending or a tragic ending? Why?
Over the course of the novel, each character’s definition of love undergoes a change. How do you define love? What specifically led you to this understanding?
Are we ever too young or too old to fall in love? How does falling in love change as we move through the different stages of our lives?
Do you think that Camille makes the best choice for her at the end of the novel? Why or why not? Is it ever the best thing to walk away from love? Why or why not?
Hannah learns to practice forgiveness so that she can continue to have a relationship with Josh. Did she do the right thing in forgiving him? Do you think they will ever reconnect in the future?
Where is God moving in the life of each character?
How is knitting a metaphor for the presence of the divine in our lives?
About the Author
Beth Pattillo loves knitting and romance and enjoyed combining the two in The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love. She is also the author of The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society. She won the RITA Award from the Romance Writers of America for Best Inspirational Romance for her book Heavens to Betsy. Beth lives in Tennessee with her husband and children.
THE SWEETGUM LADIES KNIT FOR LOVE
PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921
All Scripture quotations or paraphrases are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The characters and events in this book are
fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
eISBN: 978-0-307-45794-3
Copyright © 2009 by Beth Pattillo
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of The Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.
WATERBROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pattillo, Beth.
The Sweetgum ladies knit for love: a novel / Beth Pattillo.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Knitters (Persons)—Fiction. 2. Knitting—Fiction. 3. Book clubs (Discussion groups)—Fiction. 4. Female friendship—Fiction. 5. Women—Southern States—Fiction. 6. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3616.A925S95 2009
813′.6—dc22
2008054179
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love Page 26