The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club

by Lori Wilde

  She convinced Hondo they should elope; surely they wouldn’t send him to Vietnam if he had a new wife and a baby on the way. He told her he wasn’t a coward. That he didn’t run away from his responsibilities.

  “What about me and the baby? Aren’t we your responsibilities too?”

  Finally, he’d agreed to an elopement. He took all the money he’d been saving for college out of his bank account and bought plane tickets to Vegas and made plans to leave in the middle of the night. Patsy was climbing down the trellis when her father caught them. He’d come out on the porch with his shotgun in his hand. Threatened to shoot Hondo for defiling his daughter. The ensuing row had been frightful and angst-ridden.

  In the end, they’d lost. Hondo went off to boot camp and then on to Vietnam. Her parents had pushed for her to go down to Mexico and see “a special kind of doctor.” Patsy was aghast that they would suggest such an abortion, and she refused their south-of-the-border solution. She was having Hondo’s baby whether they liked it or not. It was only years later that she found out from Jimmy Cross that her family doctor had violated patient confidentiality by telling her parents she was pregnant. The very next day, her father had paid a visit to a crony of his on the draft board, with Hondo’s name on a piece of paper in his pocket.

  When she was six months along, news came that Hondo was MIA, presumed dead since the rest of his battalion had been wiped out. She’d mourned him with the tortured grief of a brokenhearted teen. The only thing that kept her sane was the thought that at least she had a part of Hondo growing inside her. Then Jimmy Cross had come courting. His family had some money, although not as much as the Calloways, and he was pre-law at Texas Christian University. When he asked her to marry him, Patsy said yes. She needed someone to help her care for the baby, and she was desperate to get out of her parents’ house. Jimmy was a good man, if somewhat bland, and he didn’t seem to mind that she was having a dead man’s baby. They married on her eighteenth birthday.

  On New Year’s Eve 1970, Patsy went into labor. Twenty-seven hours later, a stillborn son was delivered with severe complications. In order to save her life, the doctor had been forced to perform a hysterectomy.

  Three years after that, Hondo was discovered in a POW camp, starving, fever-ridden, and strung out on heroin.

  Patsy swallowed, looked over at the trellis still twined with ivy, and her heart ached for the girl she’d been, for Hondo, for their sweet lost child.

  The crunching sound of tires on gravel brought her fully back to the present. The ambulance had pulled into her driveway. Her heart fluttered, equally apprehensive and hopeful.

  The ambulance door slammed closed and Hondo walked around to the side lawn just as he used to do all those many years ago. He sank his hands on his hips, pushed his sunglasses up on his head, tilted his chin up at her. “Afternoon, Patsy.”

  “Hondo,” she said. They’d barely spoken a dozen words to each other in as many years. They stood there staring at each other. The litter of their past was an ocean between them.

  “There’s something I think you should know,” he said.

  She walked to the balcony railing, told her stupid heart to stop pounding so rapidly. “What’s that?”

  “Jesse’s come back to town. He’s staying with me and I’ve loaned him the money to buy the Twilight Theatre.”

  Clinton and Kathryn Trainer owned the largest house in town. Every time Flynn visited, she felt like she was being granted an audience with the King and Queen of Twilight. The mansion, built in 1910 by Beau’s great-great-grandfather, sat high on a hill above the lake. From this lofty perch, five generations of his family had sat on their back porch looking down on the town.

  Going to the mansion always set Flynn on edge—she was terrified of making some unforgivable faux pas, like using the wrong fork with the wrong course, or grabbing her dinner companion’s water glass by mistake—but this evening was especially nerve-wracking. Beau escorted her up the wide flagstone walkway, possessively tucking her arm through his. They arrived thirty minutes ahead of the appointed party start time of eight P.M. in order to break the news of their engagement to his parents before officially announcing it at the party.

  Flynn wore the same emerald green, sleeveless taffeta dress she’d worn last year and hoped Kathryn wouldn’t remember. She hadn’t had the time or the money to buy something new.

  A housekeeper greeted them at the door. “Take a chair in the sitting room,” she invited. “I’ll let Mrs. Trainer know you’re here.”

  “Thanks, Carmen.” Beau smiled and guided Flynn to the sitting room crammed with expensive antiques and elaborate paintings of dead Trainer relatives.

  The grandfather clock ticked loudly in the silent room as Beau helped himself to bourbon and branch water from the wet bar in the corner. He wasn’t much of a drinker under normal circumstances, but he’d often hit the hard stuff whenever he visited his folks. Even as leery as Flynn was of alcohol, she couldn’t blame him. Clinton and Kathryn were a bit hard to swallow without some kind of mellowing agent.

  “You want a club soda?” he asked. It was what she usually drank when being entertained at Chez Trainer. “Or maybe, just for tonight…” He held up the bottle of bourbon.

  “Tempting…but I’m good.” Flynn eased down on the hard-backed settee, pressed her knees together, and tucked the fingers of both hands underneath her thighs.

  “Darling, you’re early,” Kathryn Trainer said, sweeping into the room in an expensive designer frock perfectly tailored to fit a figure just a shade above anorexic, and made a beeline for her son. She bussed both his cheeks. “Make me one of those, will you?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Kathryn turned to her. “Nice to see you again, Flynn.”

  “Mrs. Trainer.” Flynn nodded.

  “Why, don’t you look nice in green. That dress is just as pretty on you this year as it was last.”

  Zing! Kathryn had noticed.

  You’re marrying into this family, play nice. Flynn bit down on the inside of her cheek.

  “How is your father?” Kathryn took the tumbler Beau handed her and sat down in the Queen Anne chair across from where Flynn sat. Beau eased down beside her.

  “Fine, great.”

  “Beau told me your brothers are at basketball camp for the summer.”

  “They are,” she said proudly. “They have a good chance of winning college scholarships based on their basketball skills.”

  “And that quaint little restaurant with that adorably kitschy name…”

  “Froggy’s.” As if the place hadn’t been in business for twenty years.

  “How are things there?”

  “Things are just as kitschy as ever. If things get any kitschier we’ll have to break out the gig to keep it from leaping off the lily pad.”

  Kathryn looked at Beau, clearly confused by Flynn’s joke. Beau took Flynn’s left hand and squeezed it, reminding her that not everyone was a sarcasm aficionado.

  “Did you know Tony Romo ate at Froggy’s when he and his girlfriend spent a weekend in Twilight?” Beau asked.

  “Tony Romo?”

  “Quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys,” Flynn supplied.

  “Oh, tell that to Clinton, it’ll impress him.”

  “Where is Dad?” Beau asked. “There’s something Flynn and I would like to tell you both.”

  “Augustina is bringing him down.”

  “Who’s Augustina?” Flynn asked.

  “His nurse.”

  “I thought her name was Amelia.”

  Kathryn frowned, or at least she would have if she hadn’t been so shot up with Botox. “Is it?” She shrugged, took a sip of her drink. “I could have sworn she said Augustina.”

  “She’s been working for you since Dad had his stroke last year and you still don’t know her name?” Beau asked.

  “I can’t learn the name of everyone in our employ, Beauregard.”

  Flynn forced herself not to roll her eyes. Later, she wou
ld giggle with Carrie over this, but right now she was feeling a wee bit like someone who’d been buried alive.

  “Look, here he is.” Kathryn got to her feet as the nurse wheeled Clinton Trainer into the sitting room. The former sheriff wore a white Western shirt with a bolo tie, gray suit pants, and a matching gray Stetson. He looked not unlike J.R. from the old television show Dallas. He was of that same wealthy, Big Daddy ilk.

  Before his stroke, Clinton was known for his booming voice, exuberant glad-handing, and larger-than-life persona. But the stroke had compromised his speaking abilities, reducing him to grunts and monosyllables. Beau said it was the first time in his life he was able to get a word in edgewise. But the old man’s mind was still sharp. It was impossible to miss the frustration and anger burning in the depths of his whiskey-colored eyes.

  “Hi, Amelia,” Flynn said to the nurse.

  “You remembered my name.” Amelia looked both puzzled and pleased.

  “Yes, yes.” Kathryn waved her away. “You may go now.”

  Once the nurse had left the room, Beau took Flynn’s hand. “Mother, Father…” He nodded. “Flynn and I have something to tell you.”

  Kathryn smoothed down her skirt, set her drink on the coffee table. “Yes.”

  He held out Flynn’s hand so his parents could see the ring. “We’re officially engaged.”

  “Finally!” The uptight matriarch dissolved into a smile just like most any other mother would. “Did you hear that, Clinton? Oh, this is good news.”

  Flynn softened toward her. Kathryn wasn’t an awful person. Just different from the way Flynn’s own warm, welcoming, accepting mother had been. She’d often wondered if part of what Beau liked most about her was her family. Lynn had treated him as if he was one of her kids. Floyd joked with him. Noah and Joel played basketball with him. Even Carrie liked him, and she was a hard nut to crack.

  “Should I give you a hug?” Kathryn stood. “Would it be all right if I hugged you?”

  “Sure,” Flynn said and met her halfway.

  The hug was stiff and uncertain, but by golly it was a hug, and it was the first time ever that Kathryn had made such a gesture toward her. Her body felt so thin in Flynn’s arms, she didn’t really know to hug her back. Hugging Kathryn was a bit like hugging a sack full of rosebush clippings, bony and sharp. She ended up just sort of patting her jutting shoulder blades.

  Sheesh, you could slice bread with those things.

  “Son.” Kathryn turned to Beau. “You’ve made me so happy.”

  “As Flynn made me when she finally said yes.” Beau beamed at her.

  Okay, stop with the “finally,” people, we get it. I’ve been dragging my feet.

  “So when’s the wedding?”

  Beau glanced at Flynn. “We’re waiting until Flynn has the Yarn Barn going before we set a date.”

  “Oh?” One of her perfectly arched eyebrows rose up on her forehead as far as the Botox would let it, and her voice took a frosty north turn. “What’s that?”

  “The Yarn Barn was her mother’s dying wish,” Beau said. “More than anything in the world, Flynn wants to honor her mother’s memory with this endeavor. She fears…we fear…” he corrected. “If we get married before she gets the business started her dream will get lost in the shuffle of wedding plans, setting up housekeeping, and then having a family.”

  “So this wedding might not come off for two or three years?”

  “That’s a possibility, yes.” Beau exchanged a look with his mother.

  “Could you fellas give us a few minutes alone?” Kathryn asked. “Maybe you could take your father onto the patio for a cigar. I’d like to speak to my new daughter-in-law-to-be in private.”

  Oops, what was this? Flynn darted a please-don’t-leave-me-alone-with-your-mother look at him, but Beau was bending down undoing the locks on his father’s wheelchair and didn’t catch her eye.

  “Sit,” Kathryn invited as she returned to her chair. Beau wheeled Clinton out the French doors to the patio beyond the sitting room.

  Flynn perched on the edge of the settee. Ulp. What was this little private chat all about?

  “Now then.” Kathryn smiled when the French doors shut after the men.

  “Now then,” Flynn echoed, not knowing what else to say. Just don’t make some smart-ass quip. Now is not the time.

  “Beau has waited over a decade for you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He could have any woman he wanted.”

  “He’s quite the catch.”

  “Yes he is.” There was that north wind again, chilling as it rolled over Kathryn’s scrawny shoulder blades and blasted Arctic ice Flynn’s way.

  “However, my son never wanted any other woman but you…” Kathryn paused. “Well…there was that awful Jodi Christopher.”

  “Jodi Christopher?” Who was that?

  “Beau never mentioned her to you?”

  “No.”

  Kathryn slid a glance toward the patio, and Flynn had the strongest sense she was being manipulated. “Jodi was Beau’s first love.”

  “Huh?” She was Beau’s first love.

  Kathryn’s smile was smug. “You thought you were the only one, didn’t you.”

  Well, yeah. “When’d he meet her? How come I didn’t know about this? I mean Twilight is a small town.”

  “Beau is three years older than you, darling, and it was the summer before he turned seventeen.”

  That was the same summer her mother had been diagnosed with ALS. Flynn had known Beau then, of course, but she was too young for dating and her life had tumbled in on her at her mother’s diagnosis. That summer was a blur of doctors’ visits and balancing the twins on her hips as she cooked dinner and cleaned the house and generally took over all her mother’s duties. No wonder she didn’t remember that Beau had dated this Jodi person.

  “That summer Jodi was out of control and her parents sent her to live with her grandmother here in Twilight, hoping it would straighten her out.” Kathryn pursed her lips. “She was wild as a March hare and Beau was drawn to her like a magnet. You know how he is. That boy simply can’t resist a damsel in distress.”

  Meaning she was a damsel in distress? Don’t be snarky, don’t crack wise.

  “Of course Jodi broke his heart. Shattered it right to pieces.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Kathryn shrugged. “She ran off with some low-life and ending up getting killed on the back of his motorcycle.”

  “How awful.”

  “You reap what you sow.”

  Flynn sat there absorbing the information. This news cast Beau in a whole new light, and she didn’t know what to make of it. On the one hand, she sort of liked the notion that he’d had a bit of a past, a smudge on his knightly armor. On the other hand, it bothered her that he’d never mentioned Jodi, not once in the ten years they’d been dating on and off.

  Hypocrite. You never mentioned Jesse to him.

  No, but she had the feeling he always knew. This Jodi thing came completely out of left field.

  “And then Beau started dating you and the light came back into his eyes. I have to admit you weren’t my top choice for him, but he loves you. And unlike Jodi Christopher, you’re hardworking and trustworthy and I know you have a good heart, Flynn. You won’t hurt my boy.” The last sentence was a command. Kathryn’s eyes were flint. “Because if you do, so help me God, I will—”

  The front doorbell rang, breaking off Kathryn’s heartfelt threat.

  “Well, now,” her future mother-in-law said, plastering a smile on her face and going from menacing to jovial faster than a Maserati could shoot from zero to sixty. Immediately Flynn thought of ol’ Two-Face Harvey Dent from the Batman movie her brothers had dragged her to see. “I think my party is the perfect place to officially announce your engagement to all of Twilight.”

  By nine P.M. the outdoor party was in full swing. The five-piece band played “Cotton-Eyed Joe” while the town’s upper crust two-stepped ac
ross the pavilion strung with Japanese lanterns. The smell of barbecue filled the air—pork ribs, chicken halves, beef brisket, the whole nine yards. Two tables, covered in linen tablecloths, overflowed with platters of corn on the cob, yeast rolls, cornbread, potato and macaroni salad, and cowboy beans served buffet-style on bone china.

  Another table held the desserts—banana pudding, chocolate cake, pineapple upside-down cake, apple fritters, peach pie, and cream cheese popovers. To one side, a half-dozen machines labored over various flavors of homemade ice cream.

  A full bar was set up on the pathway leading down to the lake dock. Several people had already drifted toward the water, enjoying the breeze as the sun slipped below the horizon. When the song finished, Kathryn stepped to the microphone at the gazebo where the band was set up. “May I have everyone’s attention please?”

  That was all it took. Heads turned and necks craned.

  Kathryn motioned to Beau, who put his hand around Flynn’s waist and guided her up the gazebo steps. “You all know my son, Beau—”

  Applause broke out.

  “—and his girlfriend, Flynn.”

  The applause ratcheted up a notch; someone whistled. Flynn’s cheeks heated. She felt self-conscious. She wasn’t a limelight kind of woman.

  “They’ve just given me some news that has made me the proudest mother on this side of the Brazos.” Kathryn stepped back from the microphone. “Beau, I’ll let you do the honors.”

  Beau’s hand shifted to Flynn’s shoulder and he drew her against his side. “Friends, neighbors.” He turned to look at her, love shining in his eyes. A lump clotted her throat. “Flynn has consented to be my bride.”

  A chorus of cheers erupted and several people hollered, “Finally!”

  “The waiters are passing out champagne,” Beau said. “We want you all to share a toast with us.”

  He kept talking, telling everyone how happy he was, how special Flynn was to him, giving a little speech she could tell he’d rehearsed in front of the mirror, until all the champagne had been distributed. Someone handed Flynn a champagne flute, and she curled her fingers around the stem.

  “To my bride-to-be.” Beau raised his glass.