Knit in Comfort

by Isabel Sharpe

  Megan started laughing, unable to believe what she’d just said. Her mouth had opened, the words had come out. She wasn’t even sure it was true. Yet.

  Genevieve stared at Elizabeth and Megan as if they were aliens. “What is going on?”

  “She’s set herself free.” Elizabeth laughed jubilantly. “If you were smart, you’d do the same. Dump the cheating bast—”

  “Elizabeth.” Megan held her hand up, a stop signal. Genevieve wasn’t ready. Who knew if she ever would be? Sometimes people stayed dead their whole lives.

  “This is so…I’m not ready for this change.” A tear rolled down Genevieve’s pink cheek. “What will he do? Move back in here? What if he needs someone else again?”

  “I wish I knew what to tell you.” Megan looked into her exhausted, dull eyes and knew she had to help this woman. Somehow. “Forgive me. It was selfish of me to come.”

  “Does Stanley know you’re here?”

  “No, but I’ll see him tonight and tell him I met you, if that’s okay.”

  “Yes.” Her voice came out a husky whisper. “I don’t want to lie to him.”

  Elizabeth snorted. “Why not? He lies to you.”

  “No.” Genevieve shook her head; another tear rolled down her face. “He was honest with me from the beginning.”

  “He told you he was married?”

  “Yes.” She wiped her tears. “He told me. And that he had an arrangement with his wife—with you, which meant I could be part of his family honestly.”

  Megan inhaled sharply. A buzzing started in her ears. She no longer felt faint, but flushed with extra blood in her head, in her cheeks, behind her eyes. This much she could do for Genevieve now, though she wouldn’t be grateful. Not yet. “Five years into our marriage, when I was pregnant with our first child, I was going through some papers and found one referencing your house, which he’d filed there by mistake. He never told me. There was no arrangement.”

  Genevieve turned pale, put her hand to her chest. “Why did you tell me that? Why did you come here?”

  Megan pulled a scrap of paper from her purse and a stubby pencil, and wrote down her cell number on it. “Take this. When you get over the shock, if you need to talk, please call me.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Megan wasn’t sure what “this” she was referring to, liberating her with the truth or destroying her pleasant illusions? Probably both.

  “Because you deserve to know who you married.” She gave the paper an insistent shake toward Genevieve, who’d made no move to take it. “Because I know what it’s like to feel so completely isolated in this bizarre situation. Because I can be an honest friend to you.”

  Genevieve took the paper as if she were moving underwater.

  Megan thanked her for the lemonade and cookies, said good-bye and followed Elizabeth down the flower-bordered path, looking back once to find the door already closed.

  In the car, Elizabeth started the engine, then turned, beaming. “You rock.”

  “Thank you for coming with me. I couldn’t have done that without you.” She rummaged in her purse with shaking hands. The fallout was just hitting, but if she waited until the shock was over, this call would be so much harder. For once, she was cleanly angry, with no guilt or regret, not at Genevieve, not at Elizabeth, not even at herself, for a change, for being so weak as to put up with Stanley’s betrayal.

  “Elizabeth.” She pulled her cell phone out of her purse. “I’m going to call my husband. It’s going to be ugly.”

  “Oh goody. Do you want me to wait before we start driving?”

  “No, you’re fine. I just have to do this right away before I lose my nerve.” She didn’t think she would. Her declaration of independence might have been impulsive, but it felt now as if the truth of wanting to leave Stanley had been hiding behind a locked barricade and once she’d said the simple phrase, I’m leaving him, the lock clicked magically open and the feelings poured out.

  His number connected. She was shaking so much she was starting to get dizzy again and had to remind herself—again—to breathe.

  “Hey, Megan. You on your way?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What happened?” His voice was gentle with concern. “Are you all right?”

  “I stopped by to see Genevieve this morning in Roxboro.”

  A choked sound made with vocal cords cut silent by shock.

  Megan braced herself for the lies, the justifications, even for his anger. Then decided she wasn’t going to wait around for any of it. “Just one question, Stanley. What part of you can this very sweet and pleasant clone of me fill that I can’t?”

  More silence. She started laughing, sick, painful laughter that hurt her throat. “Oh, I lied, I have another question. And boy, it feels good to be the one lying this time.”

  “Megan…”

  “Who’s the woman in your wallet? Brunette, sexy lips, big eyes, lots of makeup…”

  In the corner of her eye, she saw Elizabeth’s wide-open mouth of horror.

  “Hey, now wait.” His disappointed schoolteacher voice.

  “Why were you going through my wallet?”

  She laughed harder. How was it that she could see him so clearly all of a sudden? “Are you married to her, too?”

  “No.”

  “What, she turned you down?” She waited for his answer, watching Route 49 go by on its way to I85, which would change to I40, then mountains, Comfort, and in the not-distant future, a new life somewhere else that would belong to her.

  “She’s a woman I—”

  “You know, what? I changed my mind. I don’t want to know. I really don’t, because it doesn’t matter. I thought it was a picture of Genevieve. All these years, I thought at least some part of me understood and accepted that I wasn’t enough for you, that you needed this other glamourous Ella-type as well, and I put up with it. But the woman in your wallet isn’t Genevieve.” Her laughter turned brittle. She prayed to God she wouldn’t cry. “Genevieve is just another Fiona.”

  “Megan…sweetheart. Look, just come up here and we’ll talk this all out. Everything’s ready, I have a reservation for the two of us for dinner at this really nice steakhouse. I haven’t taken you out in way too long. We’ll talk about it, I’ll explain the whole situation, which I swear is totally innocent.” He chuckled unconvincingly. “In fact, you’ll probably laugh when you find out—”

  “I’m not coming, Stanley.” Time seemed to stop while she thought of more words she didn’t have the courage to say, then took a deep breath to say them anyway. “And…I want a divorce.”

  Beside her Elizabeth let out a silent shriek and pumped her fist in the air. That, and the sound of her own voice still in her ears, were the only proof that she’d actually spoken.

  “Megan…honey.” His voice dropped. “You’re just angry now, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “No, no. Drive up here. We’ll talk about it.”

  “Elizabeth’s taking me home now.”

  “Elizabeth.” His voice rose bitterly. “She put you up to this? God I knew it had to be something like that. You’d never turn your back on me by yourself.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re not like Elizabeth, Megan. You don’t put yourself before everyone else, your needs before everyone else’s.”

  “Nope. That’s your job.” She was so angry she could barely speak, as if all the anger from all the years putting up with his self-indulgence was hitting her now. This was her explosion, her very own When Women Rule. Only she wrote hers honestly, and she wouldn’t regret leaving Stanley.

  “What will you do? How will you live? You need me.” He drew the words out, at his most earnestly seductive. “You need me to love you, Megan, and to take care of you, my sweetheart, and to be there for you.”

  “Half the time.” Some part of her said it wasn’t fair to him, that she should have been stronger at the beginning, let him kn
ow then the situation wasn’t acceptable, insisted he leave Genevieve or she’d leave him. But it was too late for hindsight; she was only going to look forward now. “As for me needing you, I finally figured out it’s the other way around, Stanley. It took me fifteen years to realize it. You can’t make it without me, or you wouldn’t have another Megan set up here in Roxboro.”

  “That’s not true and you know it.” His standard defense when he was running out of arguing room. “How can you manage on your own?”

  “I won’t be on my own, Stanley. I have my father and his new wife, and a lot of really good friends.” She hung up quietly, turned the phone off, knowing he’d call again. Ahead of her there would be more. Plenty more. At times unbearably more. But this was enough for today.

  “Wow. Wow!” Elizabeth banged on the steering wheel and let out a war whoop that was much too loud for the car. “You are awesome, you are incredible.”

  Tears came. Megan laughed uncertainly through them, not seeing well, still trembling, still breathing too fast. “I hope so. Because all I feel right now is really manic, really relieved…and really, really scared.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Elizabeth drove down Route 49 humming, feeling alive and excited and happy to be where she was, better than she had in years. No, that wasn’t right. She’d been happy plenty of times, but this happiness felt more powerful, more stable and real.

  Megan was going to leave Stanley, get herself out of that hell-of-a rut and live. Finally, Elizabeth had done something here other than make things worse for people.

  Maybe that was the difference in this happiness. She’d brought it to someone else and it reflected back on her. She looked over at Megan, who was knitting at approximately the speed of light, beautiful in her skirt and blouse, hair French braided, color high.

  “How are you doing, Megan?”

  “I feel like I’ve launched myself out of a plane with no parachute.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Leaving Stanley with no job, no degree, no experience—”

  “Are you kidding me? You’re gifted many times over, you have tons of options. You could landscape people’s garden and yards, you could cater parties, open a bakery, you could make lace, for God’s sake. I would kill to have your talent.”

  “Come on.”

  “I’m serious. I’ll get friends to bid for your next lace work. David can hire you to do something with his ugly yard. You can cater Sally’s wedding.”

  Megan laughed, but did slow her crazed fingers somewhat. “You’re going to take charge of my career now?”

  “Sure, I’ll be your manager. No, your pimp! Just like grannie told me to. I charge a very reasonable commission.”

  “You don’t let reality get in your way much, do you, Elizabeth?”

  “Absolutely not!” Elizabeth pounded the steering wheel, feeling as if she were on the verge of figuring out everything in the universe. “Reality is vastly overrated. Look at my babcia’s dream. It might or might not have meant anything, but because I believed it did I came here and changed my life and yours. And your mother’s story had huge power over your interpretation of the situation with Stanley’s other wife.”

  “Her story doesn’t apply anymore.” Megan sounded almost wistful. “Genevieve turned out to be another Fiona.”

  Elizabeth drove on, mind buzzing. Everything felt right, which meant they must be looking at something the wrong way. She glanced again at Megan, knitting beautiful lace, her green eyes troubled.

  There it was.

  “You’re the Gillian character.” She cackled triumphantly. “You brought lace to miserable Fiona back there.”

  “She’s not—”

  “The real Gillian is guiding you, like Babcia is guiding me. She led you to your Fiona in her time of need. Even Dorene said she felt Gillian through the lace, remember? And you’re ten times more intuitive than she is.”

  “Elizabeth—”

  “Best of all, now that you’re at a crossroads, the spirit of Gillian can be the one to—”

  “Elizabeth!” Megan smacked her on the shoulder.

  “Ow.” She cracked up. “Okay, okay, sorry, I’m just so excited.”

  “Really? I couldn’t tell.” Megan rolled her eyes. “That’s a nice idea, but for one minor point. Your grandmother was a real person, and Gillian wasn’t.”

  “Oh.” Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “Okay, but…”

  “Give it up.” Megan put her busy hands down, leaned back and blew out a breath. “It’s a beautiful concept, but life doesn’t fall into place quite that neatly.”

  “I wish it—” A billboard caught her eye and she gasped and swerved onto the shoulder. “Oh my God. Look!”

  “What?” Megan clutched the dashboard. “What is it?”

  “Truffles!” Elizabeth came to a stop that threw her and Megan forward, then back again. “Perigord truffles. Those are the French ones, the best quality. Can that be right?”

  “Geez, Elizabeth, you nearly gave me a heart attack over fungus?” Megan glanced at the sign, calming hand to her chest. “Yes, I’ve read about them. I guess our climate is right.”

  “Grown right here, on that farm? I can’t believe it. Wait until Dominique finds out.”

  “Wouldn’t a chef know already?” Megan spoke gently. “I mean if I do…”

  “You’re right. He must.” She wrinkled her nose at the colorful sign. This was important. This fit in somewhere. She knew it. She felt it. “Do you mind if we stop?”

  “Go for it.”

  Elizabeth read the billboard again: take the next right, go five miles, then follow signs. She got back on the road, blood pumping crazily. Truffles. Dominique’s heart’s desire here in his own backyard all the time. This was too incredible to be a coincidence. Babcia led Elizabeth to Comfort for Megan and led her here for herself.

  They drove the five miles, and yes, there was the sign showing a picture of fields and trees with a big red arrow, Hellmer’s Farm. Finest truffles in the New World.

  Left turn, then bumping down a shorter road through fields of traditional crops, tobacco among them according to Megan—Elizabeth wouldn’t know a tobacco plant if it rolled into a cigarette and smoked itself—another turn, then ahead, a white two-story farm on the side of a hill.

  Close by the house Elizabeth parked and pulled off her seat belt, adrenaline racing. “Want to come with me?”

  “Sure.” Megan pushed open her door to the blast of heat, still carrying the lace. “But I need another ball of wool, would you open the trunk?”

  “Okay.” Elizabeth pulled the release lever and walked around to the back of the car, gazing at the house, hand up to shield her eyes from the hot sun. Beautiful house, shaded by large, leafy oaks. A wonderful steep roof interrupted by dormers, a latticework balcony on the second floor, a matching porch on the first. An old house, probably early nineteenth century.

  She wanted one just like it. She wanted to live in a house like this, on a farm like this. The certainty of it nearly buckled her knees.

  The front door opened; a friendly-looking middle-aged woman in jeans and a pink cotton sweater emerged and came toward them. “Hi there.”

  “I saw your sign.” Elizabeth gestured toward the road, bursting with all the questions she wanted to ask. “I hope it’s all right we came by. I’m Elizabeth Detlaff. This is Megan Morgan.”

  “Hi, Elizabeth. Hi, Megan.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Megan smiled, lace cascading from her needles halfway down her thighs.

  “I’m Clair Hellmers.” She watched Megan fold the lace. “What can I do for you?”

  “My boyfriend is a chef in New York, Dominique DuParc.”

  “DuParc?” The woman tore her eyes from Megan. “Sorry, don’t know that name.”

  “He has a restaurant and show, French Food Fast, on the Food Channel.” She dug in her purse for one of his cards. “He’s developing a restaurant menu around truffles, so I stopped to see what you have. I know yours aren’t in season now, but ma
ybe you have some flash frozen I could let him try?”

  “We like getting to know chefs.” She spoke distractedly, took a step toward Megan, who was about to zip up her case. “Excuse me. Megan, was it?”

  Megan turned from the trunk clutching her new ball of wool. “Yes?”

  “Is that knitted lace?”

  “Oh.” Megan looked startled. “Yes.”

  “Shetland lace.” Elizabeth stepped back to give Clair better access. “Megan has it all over her house. Curtains, doilies, tablecloths, all incredible quality, all handmade. Show her, Megan.”

  Megan gave her a look, then unfolded the panel again. Elizabeth smiled back sweetly. Megan had the talent, Elizabeth had the chutzpah. Together they could be a small business waiting to happen.

  “Our daughter is getting married at Christmas. She saw a lace veil in a shop once, with hearts and roses on it, and is having trouble finding one like it.” Clair waited eagerly for Megan to unfold the panel, pushing back a lock of gray hair the hot breeze had dislodged. “Oh, that is exquisite.”

  “It’s for a friend’s wedding dress.”

  “Karen would be thrilled.” She reached for it. “Do you mind? I just washed my hands.”

  “Go right ahead.” Megan was deliberately ignoring Elizabeth’s big-eyed exaggerated excitement. When they got back into the car, Elizabeth was going to enjoy a nice fat told-ya-so. Pimp her friends? No one could argue her out of the workings of destiny now. Not even David.

  “This is incredible.” Clair examined the work reverently. “I’d love to commission one from you. Do you sell your work?”

  Elizabeth lifted her eyebrows and nodded at Megan behind Clair’s back. This was the first bit of her leaving-Stanley parachute.

  “Yes.” Megan’s voice was small but firm. “I do.”

  “How much?”

  “I—”

  “Eight hundred dollars.” Elizabeth grinned, enjoying Megan’s look of horror. About time she figured out her value.

  “Hmm.” Clair held the piece up. The white lace stood strong and clean against the green background of the rolling hills, wind ruffling it gently, sun throwing dappled patterns through the oak. “Did you design this or is it traditional?”