“Sweet!”
“Okay, Mom, thanks, Mom. I’m pretzel ma-a-an!”
Megan took the vacuum cleaner downstairs, put it away in the closet in the family room, where Lolly gabbed her good news into the phone, then went into the kitchen, passing Jeffrey cupping a handful of pretzels. For dinner, bean-and-cheese burritos with salad from their garden and too-ripe peaches stewed and served over ice cream for dessert.
She leaned on the edge of the sink and sighed. Making the meal seemed overwhelming. Not because of fatigue, she’d been overwhelmed by fatigue before, by indecision, by bad moods—the kids’ or hers, by the volume of tasks at hand. This was different. She felt lost, alone in her house in a way she hadn’t since she found out about Stanley’s other wife.
She’d wanted to leave him then. Or, more to the point, had wanted the symbolism of leaving him, the you-can’t-do-this-to-me finality of leaving him. But she’d had nowhere to go, nothing but her husband and coming baby. No degree, no job experience, no skills outside of knitting. Nothing that would make any kind of decent life for her and her child.
So she stayed. Pushed way down inside her every feeling of resentment and anger that she couldn’t let out in her favorite spot in the woods. Was it true, what David said, that those denied feelings couldn’t be reabsorbed, but bided their time until they could emerge? Was this their time? She had no desire to encounter them again.
Through the window her beloved garden bloomed and flourished, home and restaurant to bees, butterflies and ladybugs. If only she could sit in it, undisturbed, knitting Sally’s lace with a cup of tea. For about three weeks.
Fierce concentration was required at the beginning of a new pattern, one stitch at a time. But as the rows mounted she’d relax as always into groups of stitches at a time, rows at a time, whole patterns. Then near-total freedom, thoughts blowing like helium balloons still safely anchored by the tethering yarn. The peaceful, hypnotic rhythm of the clicking needles, the soft-sharp pull of wool over skin, the satisfaction of producing beauty with her own hands…
Yet looking now she could see the tomatoes needed water, okra needed harvesting again, green beans needed picking. She should be out there gathering lettuce, choosing tomatoes for dinner; or setting peaches to simmer with sugar, a squeeze of lemon and a hint of nutmeg, perfuming the kitchen with the aroma of fruit and spice. Work had been her solace for fifteen years, it could be so again. This discontent was like a swarm of carpenter ants eating at her from the center outward, starting with David’s divorce and intensifying with Elizabeth’s arrival. David with his culture and passion, Elizabeth with her freedom and youth, all the things that had passed Megan by.
She took peaches from the refrigerator, peeled the soft fuzzy skin, cut out the brown spots, sliced the remaining fragrant fruit into a pan. Sugar, lemon, nutmeg, and allspice added at the last second. She set the pan on the stove over medium heat, took out the ingredients for her version of burritos, a can of black beans, flour tortillas, garlic, cumin, corn, cheddar cheese, salsa. From her garden she’d need a tomato and ingredients for salad.
On the way out she stopped in the laundry room to pick up her gathering basket: hoop-handled wide curved wicker that fit comfortably over her arm like an old friend. Northern climates might suit her thick blood better, but she did love the long Carolina growing season.
Outside she picked lettuce, a cucumber, pungent fresh basil and soothing mint. Two tomatoes gently twisted off the stem; she never tired of the spicy scent of the plant. The tomatoes were smooth and warm from the sun; she held one up and inhaled, feeling peace returning.
“Megan.”
David’s tone made her turn abruptly. His haggard look drew her to the fence between their properties. Peace would apparently continue in short supply.
“Reaping nature’s bounty?”
She nodded, searching his face. He hadn’t been sleeping. But she also didn’t think he’d been drinking. “What is it?”
“Victoria.” He barely got the word out.
Megan clutched the tomato to her chest. “Is she all right?”
“Vicky could survive a nuclear holocaust. Her, Twinkies and roaches.” He laughed harshly; the sound was chilling. “She wants to see me. Apparently being apart didn’t work out for her.”
Megan put the tomato into her basket, stared down at it, absently appreciating the bright red against the fresh green of the herbs, the dark length of the cucumber and the lighter shade of the lettuce. If she thought about anything else she might develop cracks and shatter, like a cartoon character who’s just absorbed a blow. Anvil maybe. Cinder block. Piano.
“What are you going to do?” She couldn’t look at him. Basil trembled dark green against the rich auburn wicker. Shaking like a leaf. Haha.
“Megan, I don’t know.” He was pleading now. With her? With himself? With fate? “She was my wife for nearly twenty years.”
“Yes I know.” And you came to me so many of those years when you were here because she couldn’t give you what you needed.
Dear God. She gripped the basket handle. She’d done it again. Completed a man who loved and needed another woman. Maybe Megan hadn’t married half a husband. Maybe she was only half a woman.
“I have to talk to her, to put this all behind us, to put it to rest. Work through the bitterness, so I can move forward.”
“Ah.” Why was he telling her this? She wanted to take her beautifully arranged basket of produce and hurl it at his head. She wanted to run to the top of a mountain, drop to all fours, lift her head and and howl at the moon, throat wide open, soul wide open to whatever God or the stars or the planets could pour into her, something pure and clean and vast. “And if you see her and want more than that?”
“I can’t imagine that happening.”
“But it might.”
He cleared his throat, off balance, uncertain, very un-David. “I guess it might.”
“She’s determined when she wants something. You’ve always said so.”
A car drove down the street; they watched it bridge the interval between their houses.
“Just tell me. Megan. If there’s any hope here for me…for us.” His voice was low, nearly a whisper, his eyes grazed hers but couldn’t land safely.
Then it was easier to speak and to know what she wanted to say. “This has nothing to do with me. This is between you and Victoria. You need to follow your heart.”
“After what she did to me I’m not sure I have one left.”
“You do.” She was tired suddenly of his drama, tired of loving yet another man torn between two women, tired of loving anyone. “And with Victoria you have history, which at one time included a serious vow to be together until death. You shared so much of your life with this woman that even after what she did, after such a betrayal, she’s still a deep part of you. All that makes her unexpectedly difficult to throw away, doesn’t it?”
He did meet her eyes then, his more intense even than usual in his pale, exhausted face. “Megan…”
“Even though you know you should walk away from her without looking back. Even though you need to make that statement, to hurt her the way you’ve been hurt, to show her and yourself and the world that you’re not an object she can use as she pleases, even though you know and feel all of that…you can’t quite do it.”
His expression didn’t change. She could have hit him over the head now with her basket, with that anvil or the piano, and he’d still stand there, stunned into total immobility by the mirror she held up to him with her own life reflected in it.
She lifted her head and smiled into his eyes with an unsatisfying sense of triumph. “Well, David.”
He didn’t move. Waited, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched.
“Welcome to my world. Enjoy your stay.” She turned and went back into her summer-flavored house to make sure the peaches hadn’t overcooked. The Purls would be coming; they’d agreed to meet at Megan’s now, since she had the materials they needed. A pan o
f brownies would only take half an hour; she could do those and still get dinner ready on time.
“So then my friend Josh says to me, ‘Yes, Joy was over the other evening helping me can my beets.’ Ha! I’m telling you, she was doing a lot more than that. I wanted to say, ‘Oh, can your beets? Is that what they’re calling it now?’” Dorene burst into gales of laughter. Sally, Vera, Elizabeth and Ella smiled politely. Megan laughed right along with her, because why the heck not? She felt drunk tonight, not having had a single drop of alcohol, aware she was manic, that her power and energy weren’t grounded in real happiness or real excitement.
“Anyway, I’ve gone on long enough. Sally, tell us all about your wedding.”
“There’s nothing to tell, really.” She pulled another length of yarn from the cream-colored ball at her side. “My Uncle Chad is giving me away. We’re having a chocolate fountain along with the wedding cake for dessert. And real French champagne. I think Beatrice is ordering it by the truckload.”
“Good heavens.” Vera pursed her lips disapprovingly. “We only had fruit punch at my wedding. Very sedate.”
Megan let out a snort. Open bar from what she’d heard. Everyone had been ripped.
Vera looked at her over her half-glasses. Megan smiled sedately, kept knitting. She was starting at the bottom of the front panel for Sally’s dress, Vera at the top. Spiderwebs, spider and diamond pattern center with a ring lace border and lace holes edging. They’d meet halfway.
“When I get married I want everything the way we want it, not my parents, and not his,” Dorene announced. “No offense, Sally, but the most fun weddings in my book are the casual ones, just picnics. Remember Cara and Frank’s at Lake Lure? That was one fun time, volleyball, a cookout, swimming…”
“Marriage isn’t about the wedding, Dorene.” Megan thrust her needle through, veins humming with adrenaline. “That’s just the beginning. After that comes the enti-i-ire re-e-est of your life.”
She giggled. The women turned to stare at her.
“So take advantage of being single while you can.” Megan flung out her arm. “Travel. See the world. Do everything you’ve always wanted to do. Live in Paris, go on safari in Kenya. Ride an elephant in India. See the pyramids in Cairo.”
“Oh.” Dorene darted glances at Ella and Sally. “Well, but I’ve…never wanted to do any of those things.”
Vera had stopped knitting, sat staring at Megan over her red glasses.
Megan didn’t care. “You don’t have to do those things exactly. I’m just saying whatever else, don’t get stuck sitting on your porch night after night with no damn hope of it ever changing.”
“Megan.”
“I think what Megan means…” The group swung to look at Elizabeth like spectators at a tennis match. “Is that you shouldn’t live for marriage. You should only want it if you meet the right person. The travel ideas and the porch were symbolic, yes?”
“Yes.” Megan nodded, grateful for the unexpected rescue attempt. “What have you always wanted to do, Dorene?”
“Well that’s the thing.” She shrugged, needles moving painfully slowly. “I’ve always wanted to marry and live in Comfort. Though I’d probably want to honeymoon in Orlando.”
“Borelando.” Ella mimed gagging. “Paradise on earth.”
“Maybe it is to her.” Megan spoke directly to Ella instead of addressing the floor, which she usually did when she disagreed with someone.
Ella was the one who dropped her eyes, which was very odd. Ella could stare down a mannequin.
“The problem with you girls today is that you want too much. In my day, you married and dealt with it. Nowadays you have to be happy every second or you think you deserve something better. Entitled, that’s what they call it. Entitled. At least you have roofs over your heads and food on your tables.”
“But your marriage was wonderful, Vera.” Elizabeth passed her next stitch marker and peered at the chart; her old shell pattern was emerging, ragged and amateur, but still beautiful. “You picked the right man.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.” Vera frowned over her delicate spiderweb. “But I still think young people are spoiled brats when it comes to facing challenges.”
“Sally lost her husband, then her mother and father, so she’s a spoiled brat for wanting happiness with Foster?”
“That’s not what I meant, Megan.” Vera whipped off her red glasses. “Is something bothering you today?”
“She’s fine.” Elizabeth glanced warily at Megan over her knitting, obviously not as sure as she sounded.
“Women today have the option of leaving a bad situation, and that’s a blessing, not a weakness, Vera.” Ella spoke with passion and sincerity. “It’s not the easy way out to divorce, trust me. It’s hell. Stand in my shoes for the last seventeen years and see how cowardly you think leaving is.”
“Tell us, Ella.” Elizabeth was watching Ella closely. Megan didn’t wince this time at her insistent intrusion. She had a gift with people, or at least more of one than Megan had. Look what she’d done with the Purls. Megan knew these women better since Elizabeth came than she had for the last twenty years.
“Tell you? Why should I?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “Because we all want to know. And because lace isn’t the only thing that’s better shared with women. And because we have all spilled and it’s your turn.”
“Well.” Ella’s hands were unsteady as she wrapped the delicate thread, but her voice was clear. “Okay. If you want to know. Don was a workaholic, a serious addictive personality. At first I thought he just wanted to get ahead, make money so we could relax. But it didn’t work that way. The more he had the more he wanted, the more time he spent away and the lonelier our marriage got. Is that enough?”
“Nope,” Elizabeth said cheerfully. “I want to know how that made you fe-e-el.”
Ella laughed a shaky laugh. “Okay, Dr. Elizabeth, it made me feel like shit.”
“Go with that.”
She rolled her eyes. “If he’d had an affair I would have been able to understand. But eternally reaching toward some nebulous idea of success, dedicating your life to the process of achievement, alienating everything and everyone else. I didn’t understand that.”
“I don’t blame you,” Megan said. “When your spouse’s behavior is beyond your ability to understand, there’s no way to put that back together.
Another dagger glance from Vera.
“Exactly.” Ella met Megan’s eyes with sympathy. “So I walked away from a man I still love, who I couldn’t help, to save myself from going nuts. If that makes me an entitled, spoiled brat, so be it.”
Vera bunched her lips, and for a few seconds Megan thought she was furious, then she realized her mother-in-law was fighting tears. Immediately she felt a rush of tenderness she didn’t know how to offer.
“Rocky—” Vera shook her head and kept knitting. “I’m sure you’ll get your life back together, Ella. You’re young. You’re beautiful. Happiness is out there.”
“Thank you.” She lifted her eyebrow. “Any chance you can tell it to hurry the hell up?”
“Hey, I’ll throw you my bouquet, Ella.” Sally’s gentle voice eased the tension.
“She’s been married, what about me?” Dorene huffed her disapproval. “I can’t even get a date!”
“At least you still have your youth, Dorene, at least you’re healthy.” Vera tsk-tsked. “No one is happy with what she has today. No one.”
“Not even you?” Megan couldn’t help poking. She didn’t know why, because on some level she understood Vera’s point. Stanley didn’t beat or neglect Megan. She had David’s friendship, and the Purls, a decent house, enough food. Her children were healthy and happy.
But lately Megan wanted to aim higher. Did that make her an entitled, spoiled brat? When could someone justify breaking out of a bad situation? How bad was too bad? What was that moment that made Ella finally draw the line?
Megan could spend her whole life nobly feeling gra
teful for what she had. But that also guaranteed that what she had was all she’d ever get.
Sometimes she thought they’d have to bury this porch with her.
From down the street Stanley’s van approached, its characteristic chirping getting louder.
“Stanley’s home.” Vera spoke to Megan, who refused to look appropriately delighted.
“Oh, hey, great, I haven’t seen him in a while.” Dorene stretched and yawned loudly, wobbly stitches hanging from her needle. “Stanley is one of my favorite people in Comfort. Megan, you sure know how to pick a man.”
“I do, don’t I.” Megan laughed her new manic laugh, noticing that neither Elizabeth or Ella joined in, that Ella’s gaze was missing its usual edge.
The garage door closed; the back door opened; Stanley’s steps sounded coming through the house.
“I was talking to Grace Atkeson the other day and even she was saying what a hunk he is. You better watch out, Megan, someone will try to take him away from you.” Dorene guffawed, showing her large teeth. Megan laughed too—hahaha! Dorene was so funny.
“Hello there, ladies.” Stanley grinned at Megan. “What’s the joke?”
“Dorene was just saying I’d better be careful or I’ll have to share you with some other woman.” She gave him an ultra-loving smile she knew would pack a punch.
“No chance of that.” He looked away immediately. “Hello there, Dorene, Ella. Sally, you’re looking gorgeous. How’s the wedding coming?”
She grinned. “Terrific. Thanks to Megan and the Purls.”
“Good, good to hear. Elizabeth, how was your day?” He reached to touch the top of her head. She leaned away, keeping her eyes on her lace and he had to draw his hand back.
Very odd. Elizabeth was usually eager-puppy around Stanley.
“Mom? Keeping busy?”
“Of course, son.” Vera raised her head from her knitting to beam at him. “How was your game?”
Knit in Comfort Page 18
