How to Knit a Heart Back Home

by Rachael Herron

  But she kept moving, just like Eliza would have.

  And as she came around the back of the light, where the solid wall joined the glass, she found Irene.

  She was huddled under the only overhang available, a small wooden eave, her knees pulled up against her under her nightgown. One bare foot stuck out, the other still slippered. She was soaked, and even though she was partially sheltered, the rain was flying sideways now, pummeling her. Her eyes fluttered and her hands shook.

  “Owen, she’s here, she’s here, she’s here.”

  He’d hang up now, she knew, and call and confirm with the medics that Irene had been found.

  In the meantime, though, Lucy was in charge.

  “Irene, oh, Irene.”

  But Lucy didn’t look down, didn’t check her footing, and as she rushed forward, her left foot went through a hole in the deck. The section she’d been standing on folded, crumpling like it was paper, swinging downward, smashing off. Lucy wasn’t aware of conscious thought—she reacted, exploded into motion. She kicked forward with her right foot. With both hands, she grabbed the next section of deck, dropping the flashlight, which tumbled, end over end, until it finally hit the rocks with a tiny, faraway clatter.

  There, in the darkness, alone, Lucy swung by her arms from the iron deck.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Knit through everything.

  —E. C.

  Strangest of all was the silence—the rain ceased for a moment, and the wind died down. She heard nothing but the beating of her heart, a rapid, steady rhythm.

  Then as if he were standing next to her, a breath away, Lucy heard Owen say, “You can do it, Lucy.”

  Lucy counted the beats of her heart as she felt the blood pump up to her fingers, clutching the metal rail. One, two, three. Then she did the first, the only, and the most important pull-up of her life. It wasn’t like in the movies where the protagonist pulls herself over an edge with cat-like grace—it was ugly and painful—she clawed and scratched her way up, swinging her right leg up so that just her heel caught the edge of the deck and then she finally managed to get her torso up and onto the deck.

  Still on her belly, Lucy slid forward, breathing hard. Sound came back, and the storm’s raging filled her ears—the roaring wind, the pounding rain, the creaking of the metal.

  Irene watched it all with uncomprehending eyes.

  And she was most important. Not the fact that Lucy had almost died by falling from a height that left her breathless with horror. That, right now, didn’t matter at all. Irene was okay. She had to stay okay.

  Grandma Ruby’s bookstore sweater was wet and torn even worse than it ever had been, but it was warm from Lucy’s body heat. She took it off and put it over Irene’s shoulders, tucking her arms into it, one by one.

  “Wool keeps its warmth, you know,” Lucy told Irene, her voice shaking as much as her hands. “Even when it’s wet. It stays warm. It’s f-f-fire retardant, as well, did you know that, Irene? Now, let me see, your arms are okay, how are your legs?”

  The bottom of Irene’s bare foot was, unsurprisingly, cut in several places, but the blood came in a slow trickle. Lucy decided against trying to treat it herself. It didn’t seem to be bothering her, and she didn’t want to upset or scare her. They couldn’t move from this spot, now that Lucy had taken out the one exit route.

  Lucy didn’t see any other obvious injuries. Irene was cold, obviously, and hypothermia, she knew from their last visit to the emergency room with Irene, was serious in older patients. Lucy pulled out her cell phone and then wrapped her arms around Irene.

  “I’m just gonna hug you warm while I call your son, okay?” Lucy hoped like hell it was okay. If Irene freaked out right now, that would be the end. For both of them, probably, because she wouldn’t let Irene move away from her without a fight. And it was a long way down. Too far down to think about. Her breath juddered in her chest.

  But Irene tucked her chin down and leaned into the circle of her arms, as if she wanted to be close, to be held.

  Lucy’s phone rang in her hand, Owen’s number on the display.

  “She seems to be okay, but she’s cold and wet and we have to get her off of here. Fast.” Lucy could finally—finally—hear sirens getting closer. “We can’t carry her down the way we came. Trust me on this one. She’s got to come down on a ladder from right where we are, at the back of the top deck. They’re going to have to carry her down somehow—”

  “They’re almost here. We’ll send up a Stokes basket. Are you okay?” Owen’s voice was sharp, alarm in every word.

  “I’m fine. We’re fine.” Then Lucy pressed her lips together, hard, suddenly unable to breathe.

  “Just hold tight. It’s still going to be at least ten minutes before we get set up down here with the ladder and the basket. You gonna be okay?”

  “Yep.”

  But as soon as Lucy hung up, Irene started to fidget in her arms. First she pulled away from Lucy, then she started to cry. Then Irene made a motion like she was going to try to stand up.

  “Oh, no, honey, you can’t. We can’t move, not even an inch, okay? It’s not safe.”

  They weren’t the right words. Irene got more agitated.

  “Owen,” Irene said. “Owen, up here.”

  Lucy said, “He’s okay, Irene. He’s fine.”

  “Owen,” said Irene, more firmly, and looked around as if she realized where they were. “The lighthouse. Owen. Up here.”

  “Owen’s fine.” Lucy pulled down on Irene’s arm. She didn’t want to hurt her, but she had to keep her right here. This was the only safe place in the whole damn lighthouse, and she wasn’t even totally sure about that. If Irene leaned on the railing in front of them, Lucy didn’t trust it not to give way as the deck had, just feet to the left of them.

  It was strangely light now—the rain eased, and the lights of town bounced off the low cloud layer. Irene looked into her eyes and Lucy could see the wariness there. “I put him away. And then he died.”

  Did she mean Owen’s father? Could she possibly be remembering that night Owen’s father had chased him up here in high school?

  “Owen,” said Irene. “Go.” She stood halfway up, her legs wobbling, her torso swaying.

  “Irene,” said Lucy, injecting all the urgency she could into her voice. “I brought my knitting up here. I was wondering if you could show me how you hold the yarn.”

  Irene shook her head, but she slid back down beside Lucy. “What?”

  Lucy’s freezing, wet hands had a hard time pulling the wool out of her bag, and she could feel several stitches slipping off the Addi Turbos, but it didn’t matter. “Look. I hold my working yarn like this, with my left hand. But you hold it with your right, I think. Can you show me?”

  She put the needles into Irene’s hands. Irene looked at it as if she’d never seen knitting before.

  “I know, it’s wet out here, isn’t it? Your hands are probably pretty cold. Maybe if you go really slowly, though, you could show me. I’d sure appreciate the help.”

  In the low light, Lucy knew Irene probably couldn’t see the knitting well. Lucy could hardly see the stitches herself. But Irene’s hand started moving, slowly at first, wet stitch by painful-looking wet stitch. And then her fingers caught the rhythm and garter stitch dropped from Irene’s needles, and she relaxed against Lucy’s shoulder.

  The fire truck below began extending its ladder toward them.

  Lucy had been in the middle of increasing a swathe of stockinette, heading for the armscye, and she knew that most of this would have to be ripped out later, but as the firefighters ran around and shouted from below, she found herself wishing that she could keep a stitch or two of Irene’s in the work.

  Somehow, she decided, she would. In the replica of Grandma Ruby’s bookstore sweater, the pattern that Eliza had written, the pattern Lucy would rewrite by adding her own sleeve design, there would be a stitch done by Irene as she perched on the edge of the lighthouse.


  A sweater made by all of them.

  Lucy put her arms around Irene and let her knit. She closed her eyes and could see, as plainly as if he were in front of her, Owen, below, waiting for her.

  She couldn’t wait to get on the ground.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Wool has as much memory as love does.

  —E. C.

  The hospital kicked them out after a few hours. Irene was going to be kept overnight for observation, but the warming fluids and heat packs had brought up her core temperature, and they thought she was going to be okay.

  Again.

  Lucy had never seen a person actually, literally, sag with relief, like Owen had done when the doctor told him the news, but he had—his back hit the wall, and his good leg held him up while his bad leg gave out. He’d held onto the back of a chair bolted to the wall and listened to the doctor, and then he’d looked at Lucy with so much emotion in his eyes that it had made her hands shake.

  She’d led him out to the Mustang, and then she’d asked for his keys.

  “You’re driving?”

  She’d nodded.

  “No girl’s ever driven my car before.”

  “First time for everything.”

  The clock on the dash read two in the morning. They drove past the Rite Spot, and Jonas was out front locking up. His eyebrows rose in surprise to see her driving Owen’s car. But he raised his keys and jerked his head. It felt like approval.

  They passed the pole Abigail’s car had hit almost a month ago, where everything started.

  They didn’t speak. Owen put his head back and closed his eyes.

  Lucy turned left on Fourth Street, and right on Walnut, and then pulled up in front of her own house. She shut off the engine, and they both got out.

  Without saying a word, she led him inside.

  At the bottom of the staircase, she waited while he put his hand on her shoulder, and they took each step slowly, one by one, together.

  In the bathroom, Lucy lit three candles and filled the clawfoot tub with hot water, and then turned around. It was only then that she started to shake again. But they still didn’t speak.

  Slowly, they both removed their clothing. Lucy didn’t take her eyes from Owen’s as they moved as if in slow motion, first their shirts, then their still damp and muddy jeans.

  The tub full, she turned off the tap.

  The room was silent.

  And then finally, an eternity after Lucy first wanted to, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Owen. His lips came down to meet hers, and in that perfect instant, she knew she was home.

  He tasted of night and rain and smelled of the ocean. He was everything she wanted, everything she needed. And as he kissed her back, she felt her heart expand until she didn’t know how it could possibly fit inside her chest.

  They got into the tub together, laughing as it splashed over the rim onto the tiled floor. Owen washed her first, moving his hands slowly, tenderly. Then she washed him, running her hands down his legs, his arms, the side of his jaw, pausing all the while to turn her head to kiss him, to breathe him in.

  Then she leaned back in the candlelight, cradled in his arms, the water lapping over their shoulders. It would have been easy, natural, to roll over and move against him, to take him inside, to have him that way.

  But Lucy hoped there would be time for that. She hoped with every part of her soul that there would be all the time in the world.

  Finally, Owen said, “I saw you fall.”

  Lucy stiffened, and her foot pressed against the end of the tub. “You did?”

  “I thought my life was over. Did you hear me shouting at you? You must have. I could hear every creak of the metal, I could practically hear you breathe.”

  She shook her head, her wet hair against his warm chest. “It was so loud up there, but then so quiet when I fell. Then I thought I heard you. . . .”

  “I said, ‘You can do it, Lucy.’ ”

  Lucy closed her eyes. She’d heard that, loud and clear. She’d believed it. He’d been right.

  “You were amazing.”

  Lucy smiled. “I know.” She held her hand up and watched the water run off it. “But I only went up because you believed in me.”

  Owen’s arms tightened around her. “I realized when you were up there that I was wrong, that I’ve been wrong this whole time about you and the fire department.”

  “Figured.” Lucy had heard that in his voice, too.

  “Good.”

  “But you don’t mind?” Lucy stared at the candle perched on the edge of the sink but listened intently for the timbre of his answer. Not that she would stop. But it did matter.

  “I think I’ll always mind not being able to follow where you go, especially if you’re in a dangerous position. But Lucy . . .” Owen shifted so that she slid halfway off him, so that they were facing each other in the tub. Candlelight lit stubble on his jaw and highlighted the shadows under his eyes. He looked exhausted.

  And he looked like the man she loved.

  “Lucy, I don’t know how long you’ll let me nag you and worry about you and let me be the one you come home to, but I want to be that man.” He smiled, and his sea-dark eyes were clear. “I love you. Before you say anything, I have nothing to give you. But I’m going to start that handyman business, like I told you, and I’m buying back my mother’s house, and I’m going to fix it up. I’m going to ask Silas if he wants to be my partner, and maybe, if that goes okay . . . then maybe—”

  Lucy silenced him with a kiss that left them both breathless. “You’ve always been perfect.”

  Owen just stared at her.

  “Ever since high school,” she said, “when you missed tutoring half the time because you were in detention. When you called me the wrong names on purpose. When you kissed me in that bedroom at the party. When you left and never came back. You were always the right person for me. I think I’ve loved you since then. I just didn’t know it. You were perfect then, when you weren’t a cop. You’re perfect now, as you are. I love you, Owen Bancroft.”

  Owen’s eyes caught fire and Lucy felt the flames reflected in her own.

  “Tell me what you said in the note you left, the note I never got.”

  He laughed and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her closer. More water splashed over onto the floor.

  “It said that I’d be back for you. That I would come home.”

  Epilogue

  Love through everything.

  —E. C.

  Lucy’s only regret was that Owen’s mother couldn’t make it to the launch party. They’d had a good day yesterday—a really good day. Irene had been strong and alert enough for them to bundle her up in the car and take her to the house. Owen had taken her carefully by the hand, and it had twisted Lucy’s heart to see them both leaning on each other as they moved around their old home.

  Irene had shown little interest in anything beyond the garden, though, and only wanted to sit in the old metal bench at the back of the yard. She’d stared at the roses as tears rolled off her cheeks. She hadn’t said much besides “rugosa” and “Owen,” but they hadn’t needed much more than that. She’d also smiled, two heart-stoppingly huge smiles when she’d seen the way the Lady Banks was blooming again, scrambling over the support Owen had built for it. It was a smile they hadn’t seen for a long time. She was getting worse, of course, but days like this were good and they held on tight to them.

  Out there, on the bench, Irene was the third person to see the finished book. Lucy put the gleaming, dust-jacketed copy of Eliza’s Road Not Taken into Irene’s lap.

  “It’s my book,” Lucy said. “This is your copy.”

  Irene nodded and turned the pages. On the front flap was a large black-and-white photo of Eliza and Joshua, both wearing homespun, handknit Ganseys, leaning against the barn wall. Irene touched the paper and smiled again, then she’d closed both the book and her eyes, turning her face up to the sunset. The three of them sat in the garden, listening t
o the waves crash on the beach, two blocks away.

  Then they’d taken her back to Willow Rock and put the book on her nightstand.

  It had been enough.

  Tonight, though, Lucy was almost sick with excitement that felt too close to dread.

  “What if no one comes?”

  Owen leaned against the bookstore register and laughed. “They’ll come.”

  “No, really. They’re bored to death. Or just tired of hearing me talk about the book for a year and a half. No one cares anymore. Why should they? Why would they come to a book-launch party of a knitting book? A novel, sure. Or when Bill Hildebrand self-published his memoir on sailing to Fiji, yeah. That was a party, but you know what? He roasted a pig in the ground, didn’t he? Yep. We’re not roasting a pig. All we have are cupcakes!” Lucy gave a wail and covered her face with her hands.

  She felt fingers lift her hand and then a kiss was placed on her forehead. “Okay, now open your eyes and look at me,” said Owen.

  Lucy shook her head. “I’m terrified.”

  “You’re not terrified of anything. What about that three-alarm fire last week up in the valley when that firefighter fell off the ladder? You were on the rapid intervention crew? You can’t tell me you’re scared.”

  “That’s different. I’m with everyone else when I’m on a fire. This is just me. Alone.”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  “What if they’ve published this book and they’ve made it look so gorgeous and we’re throwing this party and no one ever buys it? No one, anywhere, ever.”

  “I’m sure that’s what the publisher intended. A loss. You must have been a real fast-talker to pull that one off.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “I know, heart. That’s the point.” Owen laughed again. “They had a plan. It will sell. It’s your book-launch party. This is your day. And Eliza’s. She can’t be here to enjoy it, and by all that’s woolen, if you don’t enjoy it for her, then I’ll know the reason why.”