Cora's Heart: A Cypress Hollow Yarn

by Rachael Herron

“Cade agrees. So. Tell me about this Mac person.”

  “He’s my cousin.”

  “Oh.” Abigail’s mouth was a perfect O, a moue of distress. “I guess I got that one wrong…”

  “Okay, cousin-in-law. Or something. No blood relation. He’s Logan’s cousin, Louisa Wildwood’s son.”

  “Sucks to be him.”

  “Right? It’s hard enough to be even peripherally related to her.”

  Abigail tilted her head to the side. “So tell me what you’re trying not to tell me.”

  Cora sighed. “It’s really nothing. It’s in fact less than nothing.” She picked up a bag of prepared Cormo she’d gotten from a sheep rancher a few miles past the MacArthur ranch. “See this? You know how this bag is mostly empty? There’s more air in here than fiber, right? That’s the story. All air. No substance.” Cora felt pleased with her analogy.

  Abigail, though, didn’t seem to think much of it. She held up her spindle and gave a tug on the fine yarn she was spinning. “Strength. See that? Just a few fibers, twisted enough times, are strong enough not to break.”

  “Beaten at my own game.”

  “I’m not giving up until you tell me why the atmosphere in here was so… charged when I got here. I could hear the crackle in the air.”

  Cora twisted her head around before she spoke, making sure no one was within audible range. Abigail looked even more interested, if such a thing were possible. “Fine. I’ll tell you.” She glanced over her shoulder again. The coast was clear. “He almost kissed me once.”

  Abigail slumped backward. “That’s it?”

  “He was going to be my cousin!”

  “Cousin-in-law.”

  Cora continued, “He was going to become my cousin-in-law that exact day. The day of our wedding.”

  “Well, that’s a little more interesting.” Abigail smiled and spun her spindle against her thigh.

  Covering her eyes with her hands, Cora said, “It was awful. I still haven’t forgiven myself for it.”

  “I must be missing something,” said Abigail. “You’re trying to forgive yourself for a non-kiss? That’s kind of like forgiving myself for not having extramarital sex with Channing Tatum, right?”

  “It was more than that. He came into the house where I was getting ready. I had the dress on and everything. Logan’s mother, Valentine, had been doing my hair, and Eliza was steam-blocking my shawl, but I’d finally chased them out of the room for the last time.” Cora took a breath, feeling suddenly nervous again, as if the wedding had been mere hours ago, instead of years. “There was a knock at the door and I thought it was them, coming back for something they forgot. I opened it…” Cora trailed off.

  When she’d opened that door, Mac had been standing there, fiddling with his bow tie, which hung loose and crooked.

  If she’d never opened the door, if what had happened next had never occurred, would her life have been at all different? If he hadn’t asked what he had?

  “Can you help me?” he’d asked Cora.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Take a chance. Risk your heart. Knit in the dark. Dance on the beach by moonlight with no music but your heartbeat. – E.C.

  “I can’t do this damn thing, and Logan’s too busy preening to help me. Can you help…” He’d looked up, his gaze moving slowly up her dress, to her breasts, to her neck, to her mouth where his look lingered, and finally to her eyes. She sucked in her breath and hoped he wasn’t judging the size of her waistline, which, after all, was partially why the wedding was happening so quickly. At five months, she still barely showed.

  Cora struggled to find something light to say, but the air was heavy with a feeling that hadn’t been there before she’d opened the door. “Yeah,” she said. “Sure. Come here.”

  She raised her hands to the tie, the silk warm in her fingers where Mac had been holding it. “It’s not difficult,” she said, conscious of how close her face was to his. God, why was she so hot? Sweat broke at her hairline. “It’s just fiddly. It’s the knitter in me. Everything like this is easy.”

  But it wasn’t. For the first time ever, she had trouble fixing a bow tie. Her fingers were clumsy, and the silk slipped, refusing to stay where she placed it. “Dammit,” she muttered. At least he couldn’t see her fingers, which were shaking. And if he did, if he called her on it, she could at least blame it on the fact that she was getting married.

  Married.

  In thirty minutes.

  Cora dared a glance up. Mac’s eyes were closed, and his lips were moving the slightest bit, as if he were saying words he didn’t want her to hear.

  “What?” she said.

  “Married,” he said, so low she almost missed it. His breath was warm on her cheek, and the word jolted her, even though it was the one word that kept reverberating in her mind. Married. Soon she’d be married to Logan.

  Logan who’d begged her to help him too, the week before they graduated. They’d been dating for two months then. We don’t want to be virgins forever, right? We love each other like friends. Can’t we just do it together and get it over with? You know you can trust me. You can lean on me. You know I adore you. And you’re sexy as hell. Come on, Cora. Be a pal. She’d laughed at him – even then, as young as he was, he was becoming the bronc ridin’ rodeo star he wanted to be, and he had to shake girls off with a stick. She’d told him that, and he’d said, That’s the problem. No one but you knows I’m a virgin. Help a guy out.

  Then she’d thought about Mac, who’d been dating Trixie the same length of time, since the Spring Fling Dance two months before. She’d heard the gossip in the hall, that Trixie had bagged Mac Wildwood. Cora kissed Logan with all the passion she could muster.

  Logan had trusted her to help him. It had felt so good to be the one leaned upon. And she knew he was dependable. Reliable. Solid. So, because it wasn’t really a hardship, losing her virginity to the gorgeous boy she knew was her friend, and because in sex, just like in most of life, Logan was innocently clueless, she had done it to help him. It didn’t hurt that she was curious about what it would be like.

  It had been fine, that one time with Logan. A fun romp with a friend on a blanket in the back of his truck parked at the beach, the stars so close she could almost touch them.

  But she’d gotten knocked up. It had just taken that once. Three months later, when she’d told him, Logan had paled. Then he’d insisted on marrying her, and because Cora wanted to keep the baby no matter how it had happened, and because yes, she did love Logan in her way, she’d agreed. She would help Logan in his career by taking care of his house and his baby, and she could trust him to take care of her. They could rely on each other.

  It was a win-win. It was smart. It was right. They would make each other happy. Most likely.

  Why, then, did she never shake like this when she was close to Logan? But maybe it was because she loved Logan that she was calm and steady in his presence. Wasn’t that what love gave you? Self-possession?

  It was the absolute opposite of how she felt in front of Mac.

  “Married,” Cora echoed. “Yes. I’m getting married.” Her fingers still fiddled with the tie and she kept her eyes on the silk. Just keep looking at the tie, she told herself. “Dammit. Oh, shit, I mean dammit about the tie, not the… not the getting married… Shit.”

  Cora looked up one more time. She couldn’t help it.

  His eyes were on her lips, and the look on his face… She’d never seen a man look how he looked at that moment. Everything Mac had ever wanted or desired was right there, clear in his eyes. She’d seen him in every light, in every mood. Cora had thought she knew him.

  In that moment, she realized she’d never known one single thing that mattered.

  His gaze moved from her lips to her eyes, and she saw it there again.

  Cora’s heart said something, deep inside her, that she couldn’t hear. She wouldn’t hear it. It was impossible. She was pregnant in her wedding dress, for chrissakes.

  Mac’s h
ead tilted down. With one breath, one tiny motion, she would be in his arms, her mouth on his. Her lips moved, formed to meet his. And Cora knew true desire for the first time in her life. She’d never felt this, this heat of longing, the feeling that if she didn’t kiss Mac that world would crumble around her, leaving only dust at her feet.

  “Don’t do it.” Again, his voice was almost inaudible.

  “What?”

  Louder, he said, “Marry me.”

  A gasp was her only answer.

  “Trust me. Lean on me.” Mac said. “Marry me instead.”

  For one second her vision went blindingly white. And for that unreal moment, Cora wanted to do it. To chuck everything she thought she’d figured out right out the window and run away with this man who made her feel like someone she didn’t recognize. Like someone who would take a risk. A gamble so big that everything might be lost.

  It was exactly what she’d sworn she’d never do. She wasn’t a gambler like that. Logan was reliable, right? Sure. Good old Logan.

  Cora tightened the knot on Mac’s tie as much as she could. It wasn’t going anywhere. But she was. Cora took the crucial step backward, and it did exactly what she hoped it would – it broke the spell.

  “Jesus,” said Mac.

  “You’re right. It wasn’t easy. There’s something about that fabric.” Cora’s voice was thin and shaky, even to her own ears.

  “I should go,” he said. “I’m sorry…”

  “Don’t,” said Cora. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. It’s my wedding!” She smiled as brightly as she could. “I’ll see you down there.”

  “Yes.” His hands opened at his sides as if he were giving her an invisible gift. “Congratulations, Cora.”

  He’d left, and she’d closed the door. Then she’d burst into tears, which she’d blamed on emotion and excitement when Valentine and Eliza had come tumbling back in with flowers to twist into her hair.

  Now, in the farmers market stall, it all came rushing back to her. Abigail’s eyes were bright with curiosity. “You opened the door and he was standing there and what happened?”

  “I tied his damn tie. And there were a few seconds where maybe we almost kissed. We could have. That is, we could have if we were both total assholes, which, thank god, neither of us were, and so we didn’t, and I’d pretty much forgotten about it totally until he came back.” A lie. “I bet he doesn’t remember it either. Stupid weird wedding day jitters. That’s all it was.”

  “Huh. If you say so.”

  Cora nodded and thumped the top of the counter. “I do.”

  “Are you going to be okay, Cora?”

  “Fine. I’m going to be just fine. Now. Tell me what shade of Polwarth I should spin next.”

  “Come up to the ranch soon. I miss you. I feel like we haven’t just hung out in so long. I only see you when I’m bringing you patterns, or you’re giving me the sweaters to photograph. It can’t be all business all the time, can it?”

  Cora frowned. “Might be like that for a while.”

  “I won’t accept that,” said Abigail. “Come next week just to knit. I’ll wear out the kids before you get there so maybe they’ll nap.”

  That was the difference between them – Abigail knitted for relaxation, but Cora knitted for money. The more she knitted, the faster she went, the more she could make. It must be nice just to sit and knit, with nothing more pressing on the agenda than chatting.

  “Okay.”

  Abigail eyebrows remained raised. Well, Cora wouldn’t believe her if their places were exchanged, either.

  She smiled as cheerfully as she could as two women came in, poked at the yarn, and left taking their cash with them, saying they had too much stash already. The bottom of the bank account was going to be visible if this kept up.

  It was time for the treasure hunt, much as she hated to admit it to herself. Later, she told herself. Tonight. When she’d had a chance to recover the breath she’d first lost fifteen years before.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Startitis is a symptom of an impeding crisis of confidence in what you already hold on the needles. That said, it’s delicious to cast on with abandon. – E.C.

  At home that night, Cora sat at the kitchen table and clutched her least favorite teacup – it certainly wasn’t the right time for a favorite, not in this mood – while she thought. She shut the laptop and pushed it away from her. She’d called the pickle shop in Gilroy and had gotten a fast busy tone, like the phone wasn’t connected. Their website was down. If they’d gone out of business… No, completely impossible. She’d try again tomorrow. They owed her, and she needed that money yesterday.

  Now, Cora finished reading the list she hadn’t gone all the way through the day before. What if I run out of money?

  Under the ridiculous Run away to Bali suggestion were more brainstorming results.

  Spin and sell wool. Check. She was already doing that.

  Raise vegetables and sell them. That, too, she was all over, both canned and fresh, thanks to the farmers market.

  Go to Louisa and ask for a loan. Written next to that, in smaller print, was a note that said, when pigs fly. That was still out of the question. Louisa may be the only one in the family with money, but Cora couldn’t and wouldn’t ever ask.

  Dig up the coffee can. It was the last item on the list, two full pages after her first set of brainstorming ideas. She needed to see the words on the page, and there they were. In her own handwriting.

  The coffee can full of cash. She’d hoped she’d never have to use it. But Cora hadn’t planned on losing her shed to fire the same year she’d almost lost two goats, Fred and Ethel, and had to pay gobs of money to Tony Fazule to save them. Then there had been the root ball that had grown right through the bathroom pipe which had cost thousands, bringing her savings balance down to numbers she could count in her head.

  The coffee can had been Logan’s idea – he’d buried it when they’d first gotten married. He’d been fixing the house with his grandfather, ripping up the roof and the flooring. In the kitchen, directly underneath where they’d ended up placing the dining table, he’d buried a coffee can full of money in the dirt under the new floorboards. He’d never told her exactly how much was in the can, but from the way he’d talked, it had been a considerable amount. “In case we ever have to run off to Mexico, baby. This’ll be our starter fund. It’s our panic account.” With a gambler in the family, there was no such thing as a savings account, and both his mother and grandmother had come up with alternate methods to put away money. Logan’s father had never married Valentine, but Skully had been around long enough to let them down over and over again while he was growing up. You couldn’t sock cash away with the intention of not touching it, not if you needed it for that night’s stake, Logan told her. So the coffee can had come into play. Logan’s mother had hidden her cans by the creek. As a child, not finding Valentine in the empty house when he woke in the night sometimes, he’d spy her outside, adding to or taking from the ‘bank’ of the river.

  After he’d fixed the kitchen floor, Logan had said, “Don’t excavate the coffee can. Not unless you really need it, not unless I’m not around.” When he’d said that, they hadn’t even known about the brain tumor.

  They’d only ever talked about the can once while he was sick. She’d been in their bedroom, which had become his sickroom, knitting. Logan said, “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  She’d felt the color leave her face. “What?”

  He’d laughed. “Not for me to get sick. I know that. But a home, this was all you ever wanted.”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  His voice was still husky from the last intubation. “Since the day you moved to Cypress Hollow when you were just a teenager, this was what you needed. Eliza gave it to you for a while. Then I got to. I may not have been the best husband, but I tried, baby. We didn’t plan it well, but it turned out okay, didn’t it?”

  It hadn’t been okay. He’d never been what s
he needed. Not at all. And ending like this – it meant he never would be. She couldn’t bear it.

  He went on. “I worry about you and money. What will you do?”

  “Don’t.” She’d stood, tidying the items on the tray next to him.

  “You never talk about it.”

  “Why would I?” The last thing she wanted to talk about with her husband was what she’d do after he was gone. Somehow, her deep-seated need to plan things evaporated when it came to Logan. Whatever came afterward – she wouldn’t, couldn’t deal with it until she had to.

  “We have to think about it,” he said.

  “I don’t. And neither do you. You never know what’s going to happen.”

  “I’m not getting better. And you need a way to make money.”

  “What about your coffee can?” She’d meant it to be funny, a lighthearted joke, since she’d always teased him about his savings plan, but the look that had crossed his face – a combination of pain and regret – made her want to take the words back. “I can do anything, you know that. People love my jam. I’m spinning more than I ever have, way more than I need to knit. I can sell that. If anything happened, I’d be fine. But you are getting better so this is stupid.”

  Logan shook his head. “You’ll have to do something. Instead of just take care of me. You’ve been taking care of me since we got married, since way before I got sick.”

  Cora felt a sharp flash of anger jolt through her. Of course she had been. It was her job.

  “I’m going to make you some eggs.” She left their bedroom, the room that had become Logan’s sick room, furious that he wasn’t even trying.

  Now, as Cora stared into the blackness outside, ignoring her reflection, she knew she should have talked to him about it. Just one more regret. If she’d ever really tried to tell the truth to Logan, she wouldn’t have known where to start. And then where would she have stopped? It had been better to do as she had: she kept smiling, kept making things, kept kissing him, kept telling him everything was going to be okay, even when it was finally evident to her that it wasn’t.