Back on Blossom Street

“Knit.” Apparently the wedding was a subject best avoided. I picked up the needles and a skein of yarn. “There are various ways to cast on stitches,” I explained as I inserted my index finger into each end of the rolled yarn. I’ve developed my own method of finding the end and pulling it through the skein. To be honest, I’m not always successful. Fortunately, this time I looked like a genius. I pulled out the end, then had Susannah and Colette do the same.

Finding the end of the yarn was a good ice-breaker and I was sorry I hadn’t started with that. Alix clearly wasn’t in a talkative mood, and Colette didn’t seem interested in sharing a single piece of information about herself. I assumed she’d be willing to tell Alix that she was a recent widow. Or maybe she thought Alix had already heard. Then again, Colette might prefer to keep her grief about Derek’s death private.

I continued by showing Colette and Susannah how to cast on stitches by knitting them onto the needle. It’s not my favorite way of casting on; however, I find it one of the less complicated methods. It’s also an effective prelude to learning the basic knitting stitch.

Alix had completed the first inch of the pattern before Colette had finished casting on and counting her stitches.

Colette frowned as she looked across the table. “You know how to knit,” she complained. “Why are you taking the class?”

Alix glanced up and made brief eye contact with me. “Jordan—my fiancé—suggested it might help calm my nerves.”

“I’m not getting this,” Susannah groaned and set the needles and yarn aside. “I thought this was supposed to be relaxing.”

“Not necessarily at the beginning,” I said.

“No kidding,” Susannah muttered.

Alix burst out laughing. “You should’ve seen me when I was learning. Jacqueline turned three shades of purple when I dropped my first stitch.”

“As I recall,” I said, grinning at the memory, “it wasn’t because you dropped a stitch but because of how you reacted—with a whole vocabulary of swearwords.”

Alix’s lips quivered with amusement. “I’ve toned down my language, so don’t worry, ladies.”

“You aren’t going to say anything I haven’t heard from my kids,” Susannah told her.

“Don’t be too sure.”

Smiling, I raised my hand. “Are you two going to get into a swearing match?” I asked.

“Not me,” Susannah said as she finished her first real stitch. The tension was so tight, it amazed me that she could actually transfer the yarn from one needle to the other. She heaved a sigh and turned to me for approval, as though she’d achieved something heroic.

“Good,” I said as I leaned over to examine her work.

“I need some help,” Colette moaned, the yarn a tangled mess on the table.

I couldn’t tell exactly what she’d managed to do, but there was nothing I hadn’t seen in the last three years. I soon corrected her mistake and again showed her the basic stitch, standing behind her to make sure she understood. If I did the knitting for her, that would accomplish nothing. She had to do this on her own.

“I agree with Susannah,” she said after a few minutes. “This has got to be the most nerve-racking activity I’ve ever tried. When does the relaxing part begin?”

“It just happens,” Alix told them both. “All at once you’ll be knitting and you won’t even need to count the stitches. The first thing I made was a baby blanket, and after every single row I had to stop and make sure I hadn’t accidentally increased or dropped a stitch. By comparison, the prayer shawl you’re doing is easy.”

I had to admit Alix was right. The baby blanket had been an ambitious project. I’d chosen it because it required about ten classes. If I’d started with anything smaller, like a cotton washcloth, I would’ve needed only one, possibly two, sessions. The blanket justified the number of classes I’d scheduled.

“Who are you knitting your prayer shawl for?” I asked Susannah.

“My mother,” she answered without hesitation. “She’s doing really well, better than I expected after we … after I moved her into an assisted-living complex in Colville.”

“My own mother’s in assisted living, as well,” I said. “But it must be a worry living so far from her.” Margaret and I shared the responsibility of checking up on Mom and spending time with her.

We hadn’t told Mom what had happened to Julia. It would only have distressed her. I was afraid she might’ve guessed something was wrong because Margaret hadn’t been by in several days. Mom, however, hadn’t seemed to notice.

“It’s not so bad,” Susannah said, responding to my comment. “We talk every day, Mom and I.” She paused, biting down on her tongue as she carefully wrapped the yarn around the needle. “I have a good friend who stops by periodically and lets me know how Mom’s doing.”

“What would we do without friends,” I said, and saw how Alix instantly looked up. She seemed calmer now.

“What about you, Alix? Have you decided who you’ll give the prayer shawl to?”

She nodded. “At first I thought I’d keep it for myself. I’m going to need plenty of prayers to get through this wedding, that’s for sure.” She grinned, shaking her head, and continued knitting. “But I’m going to give it to Jordan’s grandmother. I think she’ll really like the fact that I knit it for her.”

“I’m sure she will,” I said. “What about you, Colette?”

She didn’t raise her head. “I might just keep it. Does that sound selfish?”

“Not at all,” I assured her. I realized that the act of knitting had already worked its magic on all of us. Alix had come in stressed and ill-tempered, on edge about the wedding. Colette, too, had been nervous and unhappy, for reasons I didn’t know. I was certainly upset, because of what had happened to my niece and to Margaret. Susannah had her own struggles, launching a new business. We were relaxed now, talking together, laughing, knitting.

Knitting had linked us all.

CHAPTER

7

Alix Townsend

Finished for the day, Alix poured herself a cup of coffee, then sat down at the staff table in the bakery’s back room and put her feet up on the chair across from her. The French Café did a thriving business and she liked to think she’d played a role in that success. Her muffins, coffee cakes, cookies, sweet rolls and cakes, baked fresh every morning, had attracted a following of regular customers.

Molly, one of the baristas, stuck her head into the kitchen. “Jordan’s here,” she announced in a tone that said Alix was lucky to have met a man like him. But Alix already knew that.

“Jordan? Here? Now?” she asked. They weren’t supposed to meet for another hour.

“He looks like Jordan, talks like Jordan, walks like Jordan. My guess is, it is Jordan.”

“Cute,” Alix said, saluting Molly’s wit with her coffee mug.

“Want me to send him back here?”

Alix nodded, even though she was a mess. If he’d waited an hour as they’d originally planned, she’d have showered and changed clothes. Seeing that he hadn’t, he’d have to take her as she was, which at the moment was tired.

Jordan appeared, and she lowered her feet and motioned toward the vacant chair. He pulled it up to the table with one hand, holding a disposable container of coffee in the other. Leaning back in the chair, he smiled.

“Did I get the time wrong?” she asked, although she was sure she hadn’t.

“No. I’m early.”

“Any particular reason?”

He didn’t meet her eyes. “Have you had a chance to look through the books yet?” he mumbled.

“Which books?” But she knew exactly what he meant. His mother had hand-delivered huge binders filled with sample wedding invitations; she was supposed to study them and make her selection. She’d tried to choose but every invitation she liked had been vetoed by Jacqueline or Susan. It had frustrated her so much she hadn’t bothered to look again.