The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society (18 page)

“I knew it was you. I was just playing it cool.”

“Oh,” Eugenie said, afraid to make any comment when what she really wanted to say was, “Oh my.”

He paused, as if he wanted to say something but then changed his mind. “It took me awhile to find you,” he said. “Really? You make it sound as if I’ve been in the Witness Protection Program.”

“I wondered about you for years. But by the time … Well, once your mother passed away, no one knew where you’d gone. You didn’t keep in touch with anyone from Columbia.”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “The past is the past, Paul. We can’t change it. We can only move forward.”

“And you’ve done that. Admirably.”

“Thank you.” Only she wasn’t sure he meant it as a compliment. Not completely anyway.

“So if you don’t want to talk about the past, let’s talk about the future.” His eyes bored into hers. “The future?”

Stop it
, she admonished herself. She wasn’t allowed to feel that tiny blossom of hope that sprang up in her chest. And she was a fool if she read anything into his words that he didn’t say outright.

Paul looked down at the coffee cup in his hands. “For a long time after Helen died, I didn’t think I had a future.” He paused. “I went through the motions. I preached. I made hospital calls, led meetings, tended to my flock. But my life was empty. I was empty.” This time, when he lifted his eyes to hers, she caught her breath at the pain there. This was the second time she’d seen that look in his eyes, and it was just as unsettling as the first. “I did a lot of thinking about my life. About what I’d done. What I’d left undone. What I should have done.” He reached over and very gently took Eugenie’s hand in his. She let him, unresisting, too stunned to do anything but look at her fingers wrapped in his as if they were no longer part of her body at all but belonged to someone else. “I thought a lot about you, Eugenie.”

Tears pooled in her eyes, tears she could ill afford to entertain or show. “Paul—” She tugged at her hand, but he kept his hold on it. “Please …”

“Not until I’ve said my piece. I lost you once. Now I have a second chance. Not many people get a second chance in this life.”

The knock on the door jolted Eugenie as if she’d been struck by lightning. She jumped, pulling her hand free.

Hannah
. She patted the pocket of her skirt, searching for a tissue. Paul was frowning.

“Don’t answer it,” he said, but she practically leaped to her feet in her haste to escape the unwanted conversation.

“I have to. It’s Hannah.”

“Who’s Hannah?”

She ignored his question and instead used the tissue to dab at her eyes as she stepped to the door. Hand on the knob, she took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and opened the door. “Good morning, dear,” she said with false brightness.

The girl’s eyebrows arched in surprise at her enthusiastic greeting. “Morning,” she grunted, then shivered in her thin cardigan. “It’s cold out here,” she said, clearly annoyed at having to state the obvious.

“Come in. Come in.” Eugenie motioned for the girl to move through the doorway.

Hannah took two steps inside and then came to a screeching halt. “What’s he doing here?” She looked over her shoulder at Eugenie with anger and hurt mingled in her eyes. “You staging some kind of spiritual intervention?”

Eugenie had to swallow the bark of laughter that rose in her throat. She would be the last person in the world to stage a spiritual anything, but she could hardly say that to Hannah at the moment.

“Not at all. The preacher was just paying a pastoral visit.”

“I didn’t think you went to church,” Hannah said, clearly dubious.

“I don’t. That’s why he came to call.” The lie fell easily off her lips, but it clearly relieved the teenager.

“I guess we got that in common then.”

Apparently all it took to raise her in the girl’s estimation was a mutual antipathy for organized religion.

“Rev. Carson was just leaving.”

Paul wore the look of a man who knew he’d been out-maneuvered but clearly wasn’t ready to give up entirely. “I’ll come back another time when it’s more convenient,” he said.

“You do that, preacher.” She reached for his coat, which she’d hung over one of the straight-back chairs at the dining table.

“I will,” he said, his voice firm, but Eugenie was too relieved at his departure to care. After an exchange of good-byes, he left and she shut the door firmly behind him.

“Now,” she said to Hannah, rubbing her hands together to warm them, “let’s have a look at that yarn.” The teenager looked less than enthusiastic, but she followed Eugenie into the spare bedroom. “I was thinking a hat would be a good project.” Eugenie gestured toward the bins and baskets of yarn. “Shall we?”

Again, Hannah grunted, but Eugenie was relieved to see her move toward an open bin and begin to poke through its contents, leaving Eugenie to contemplate what else Paul Carson might have said if Hannah hadn’t knocked on the door.

The December meeting of the Sweetgum Knit Lit Society evidenced less Christmas spirit than Ebenezer Scrooge. At least that was Ruthie’s assessment as she looked around the table at the glum faces of the women there. So much for Pollyanna and her glad game.

“Is Pollyanna’s approach unrealistic?” Eugenie asked, looking at each of them.

No one appeared eager to respond to her question, but Ruthie thought their silence was an answer in itself. She had been pondering that very question for several weeks, and she had yet to come up with a satisfactory answer. Because the thing she’d always believed would make her glad above everything else had happened. Esther had told Frank she wanted a divorce. And still Ruthie couldn’t bring herself to play Pollyanna’s game.

“It’s childlike,” Merry said, trying hard to sound upbeat, but the strain showed around her eyes. “Kids are so innocent that they still have hope. Mine do. At least”—she chuckled—“when they’re not being rotten.”

“Childlike? Don’t you mean childish?” Esther looked tenser than ever, but only Ruthie was in a position to know the cause of her sister’s strained expression. “I’m sure this is wonderful fiction for girls, but it hardly provides a way to conduct your life as an adult.”

Hannah watched them as if it were a tennis match, their words volleyed back and forth like the ball. Ruthie wondered what the teenager made of all of them. Camille’s eyes were red—clearly she’d been crying before coming to the meeting—and Eugenie wasn’t on her usual even keel. The librarian’s eyes kept darting to the door of the classroom, as if expecting a ghost to appear.

“I mean childlike,” Merry insisted. “Maybe we could all use a little dose of looking at our lives through a child’s eyes.”

Esther snorted, a surefire indication of how overwrought she was beneath that polished veneer. “Isn’t there a Scripture about that? ‘When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me’?”

Eugenie stiffened. Despite the fact that they met at a church, she never liked it when one of them brought the Bible into the conversation. Eugenie believed in human reason and human reason alone.

“What do you think, Hannah?” Eugenie asked the girl, diverting the conversation from anything biblical. Ruthie watched the teenager closely, trying to guess her response to the disagreement.

“Perhaps we should try the glad game right now and see if it works,” Merry said before Hannah could answer Eugenie’s question. “Why don’t we go around the table and each say one thing we’re glad about?”

Ruthie stifled a groan. Trust Merry to trot out the sunshine and roses. Couldn’t she feel the tension in the room? Clearly the younger woman had some sort of death wish. Figuratively speaking.

“For example,” Merry continued, “I’m glad that Christmas is just around the corner. We’ve already put up the tree, and the house smells like evergreen.” She paused and looked at Esther. “I bet there’s something you’re glad about. Won’t you see your grandchildren during the holidays?”

Esther’s hands stopped moving. She clutched her knitting needles in a death grip.

“Yes. I’ll see my grandchildren.” Esther piled her knitting on the table in front of her in an uncharacteristically messy clump. “What do you want me to say? I’m glad they’ll deign to visit for twenty-four hours, chanting the whole time about how they wish they were at home instead of at my house. I’m glad I’ll spend hours cooking a wonderful dinner that no one will want to eat because they’re either allergic, too busy
watching a ball game, or on the Atkins Diet.” Her hands clutched the edge of the table even as her voice rose higher. Ruthie wondered if she should intervene, but something held her back. “Should I say that I’m glad my husband finally agreed to bypass surgery, but only because I asked him for a divorce?” Esther demanded.

An audible gasp rose from the other members of the group, as much from the shocking news as from the sight of Esther losing control.

“What else shall I be glad about, Merry?” Esther’s chin quivered. For the first time in years, Ruthie watched as her sister crumpled before her eyes. Esther had always been such an overwhelming force that the sight was as fascinating to Ruthie as it was frightening.

“I don’t think—,” Eugenie began, but somehow Esther’s tirade had released a surge of emotion in the room. Ruthie watched, powerless and amazed, as one by one the women laid their knitting on the table and took up the chorus.

“I’m glad the holidays only come once a year,” Camille said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I spend all day long on my feet in that dress shop. No one wants to wear the same thing anyone else is wearing, but I can’t carry only one of each outfit. It’s a nightmare.”

Ruthie felt herself begin to get in the spirit of this new version of the glad game. “I’ll be glad when all the bulletins for the special services are done,” she said, “and I don’t have to
spritz the greenery in the sanctuary with water every day. And I don’t have to nag Napoleon to vacuum up all the needles.”

“Okay, okay,” Merry said with a laugh. “If you want to play it that way, I’ll be glad when all the presents are wrapped and the kids quit bugging me for things we can’t afford and I don’t have to hide the credit card statement from Jeff when it comes in.”

Even Eugenie joined in, much to Ruthie’s surprise. “I’ll be glad when the library closes for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. A little peace and quiet wouldn’t come amiss right now. Maybe I’ll go out of town for a few days.” She looked surprised at her own words, but her jaw was set along determined lines.

“Perhaps I’ll forget cooking Christmas dinner at all,” Esther said. “Perhaps I’ll choose instead to be glad that the country club serves a buffet and we can all go there. And my family can complain to the chef instead of me about carbs and soy and all the culinary evils being inflicted on them.”

Ruthie didn’t think Pollyanna would approve of the twist they’d put on her beloved game, but the energy in the room seemed to have picked them all up and given them a good shaking. All kinds of truth were spilling out.

“What else should we be glad about?” Camille said, chin thrust out like a defiant child. “I might like this game after all.”

Merry dropped the next bombshell. “Should I be glad
that I’m pregnant and that my husband doesn’t want another child?”

Her words were greeted with stunned silence and then a whoosh of air as everyone released the breath they’d been holding. Ruthie looked around the circle, and the expression she saw on each face matched the combination of disbelief and relief she felt in her heart.

“Should I be glad the city council is forcing me to retire?”

Eugenie shook her head in disgust. “Forty years and for what?”

“Should I be glad that this might be my mother’s last New Year’s? That she won’t have to be in pain forever?” Camille’s voice broke on the last word.

“Oh, honey.” Ruthie leaned over and laid a hand on her arm, but the young woman shrank back.

“That’s the problem with Pollyanna, isn’t it?” Camille snapped. “Sure, in fiction everything turns out okay in the end. But real life’s not like that.” She dug in her purse, produced a tissue, and blew her nose. The rest of them sat in uncomfortable silence.

“I’m glad school’s in session through the end of this week.” Hannah’s soft voice surprised Ruthie, as it did the other members of the Knit Lit Society. “That way I can get at least two meals a day.” She looked around the table, glaring at each of them fiercely in turn. “I’m glad my mom’s boyfriend didn’t stay over last night because it’s too cold now to sleep in
the woods, and I’m tired of him looking like he’s about to grope me. And I’m glad I only have to come to this stupid meeting two more times before the librarian gets off my back because you people are pathetic.” She paused. “Except for her.” Hannah jerked her head in Camille’s direction. “She’s got a right to feel sorry for herself. But the rest of you?” Her kohl-rimmed eyes pinned the ladies to their chairs, and Ruthie felt the truth of the girl’s words. “There’s nothing wrong with the rest of you that you can’t change.”

The ancient radiator in the corner clanked and hissed, the only sound in the classroom. Esther had crossed her arms over her chest, and Camille was dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. Eugenie and Merry exchanged guilty looks, and Ruthie sat stunned.