Knit in Comfort

by Isabel Sharpe

  “I designed it. But it was traditional for Shetland women to knit their own designs. So I guess it’s both.”

  Clair lowered the lace, folded it carefully. “May I take a picture of this and call my daughter? I’m pretty sure this is the style she’s been searching for.”

  Megan nodded, looking as if she couldn’t decide whether to celebrate or cry. Elizabeth wanted to throw her arms around her, tell her everything was going to be fine, wonderful and happy-ever-after now. Megan had taken the leap, the arms of the universe were rising up to catch her. How many times had Babcia told Elizabeth that was how the world worked, and how often had Elizabeth sneered at her? When she got settled, she was going to call her mother and invite her to visit. Or maybe she’d go back to Milwaukee. It was time for a reconciliation with her past.

  “Come on up.” Clair led the way into the house, which was cool and smelled of coffee and pine, then into the kitchen whose white counters and cabinets emphasized the fresh airy space, and whose retro appliances fit the old and the new perfectly. Elizabeth turned, absorbing the light and comfort of the room, the glimpse of green hills out the window.

  This was what she wanted. A farmhouse in the country. She could see herself living here, quietly, simply, surrounded by beauty, growing her own food, raising an animal or two, living close to the land like her Milwaukee ancestors on Jones Island, part of a real community.

  The certainty was quiet, simple, nothing like the adrenaline rush of her business ideas, nothing like the impulsive thrill of taking on a new challenge. It was as if she’d been peeling back layers over the last few weeks and was finally able to gain access to her true core.

  If Dominique wanted part of this new life, she’d take him, make whatever compromises necessary so they’d both be happy. If not, she’d find a way to do it herself. Use her inheritance for a down payment. She was meant to be here. Babcia had known all along.

  “Have a seat.” Clair gestured to the natural wood table, opened her cell phone and took a picture. “I’ll just be a second.”

  “No problem.” Elizabeth smiled politely until she left the room, then opened her mouth in a silent scream of excitement.

  “I can’t believe this is happening today, already, just now,” Megan whispered. Her eyes were shining, cheeks pink; she looked ready to take on the world.

  “It’s a sign that you did the right thing.” Elizabeth squeezed her hand on the table. “This is enough to make me believe in fate all over again.”

  Megan nodded gravely. “Maybe Clair will have my fishnets and black leather.”

  They were still giddy when Clair returned, holding the cell triumphantly aloft. “She loves it. If it’s okay I’ll give her your number and the two of you can talk details.”

  “Absolutely.” Megan scrawled her number on the pad Clair proffered, while Elizabeth started mentally designing business cards. She wouldn’t just be handing out Dominique’s anymore.

  Clair poured them coffee, offered raisin oatmeal scones she’d baked that morning and homemade strawberry jam. Elizabeth ate in ecstasy. Someday the jam would be hers, the scones made with her own hands.

  While they sat, she questioned Clair about hazelnut trees and oaks, inoculated roots and fungus, dogs vs. pigs, summer vs. winter, whole and pieces, oils and canned, fresh and jarred, getting more and more excited.

  If Dominique decided he could do business here, they could buy a place, plant truffles of their own, retire here when he was tired of the race. They could split living in North Carolina and New York. Maybe Dominique could open a second restaurant in North Carolina, specializing in local truffles, open only during the short season, December to March, leaving his New York restaurant in charge of others while he was gone.

  She could be instrumental in helping Dominique settle his career the way he wanted, at the same time living her life the way she wanted. And this close by, she could still help Megan and keep in touch with the Purls until she planted her own roots, maybe by starting her own knitting group. Or book group. Or art group. Something.

  Finally, Clair hinted she had other things to do and Megan hinted they’d better be back on the road, and Elizabeth reluctantly agreed. She bought a bottle of truffle oil and vacuum-packed whole truffles, then promised she’d be in touch in December when the local harvest began. Dominique could use this to his advantage, Buy American; We Support Our Truffles. A marketer’s dream.

  “Thank you for letting us drop by.” Elizabeth gave Clair a hug, probably surprising the life out of her. “I’ll have Dominique call you when he’s back in the country.”

  “We’re hoping for a good harvest this next season so we can get him a good deal. More and more people are growing truffles locally. I imagine the price will eventually come down.”

  “Wonderful. Thank you!” Elizabeth bounced back to the car, waited impatiently for Megan to follow, then pulled away from the house, bumped to the five-mile stretch of road before they reached the highway again, and pulled to a stop on the shoulder. “I can’t wait to call Dominique, do you mind?”

  “Not at all. I’ll take a walk.”

  “In this heat? I don’t mind if you stay.”

  “Whew. Thanks.” Megan fanned herself. “I’m not made for this climate. And thank you for pimping my lace.”

  “I told you it would sell. Clair’s daughter will get married in your veil, everyone will want to know where she got it, and you’re on your way. You can get choosy and start charging thousands, especially for big-city customers.” Elizabeth opened her cell. “I’ll hurry to make this call, and we can get you back to your kids.”

  Megan’s face fell, and Elizabeth wished she hadn’t said anything. Lolly, Deena and Jeffrey would have to find out about their father’s other family, about Megan leaving him. Rough times ahead.

  Elizabeth dialed, feeling somewhat less fizzy. Dominique picked up on the second ring. “Bonjour, ma chérie.”

  “You won’t believe this. Guess where I am.”

  “Where have you gotten to now, Elizabeth?” He sounded annoyed. “What about our koi?”

  She rolled her eyes. “The doorman is feeding them. Since when are you so concerned about fish?”

  “Since when are you all over the country?”

  “I’m not all over the country, I’m still in North Carolina.” She shook her head woefully at Megan. When Dominique was like this she wanted to slug him. “And you still haven’t guessed where I—”

  “Elizabeth, it’s late here, I am very tired.”

  “Okay.” The bubbles in her fizzy mood were popping in bunches. “I’m right near a truffle farm.”

  “Oh, yes?” Distracted, he wasn’t listening.

  “Black Perigord truffles, the real deal.”

  “Elizabeth. The real Perigord is in France. It is not in North Carolina. I know there are people trying to grow them there, but they can’t—”

  “Listen to me. Just listen. Because I have something important to say.”

  “Okay.”

  She was so surprised at his backing down she nearly forgot how to continue. “They are growing them here. I met one of the farmers and bought one to try. Maybe these truffles are better than the summer ones in England, or better for your menu at least. The whole patriotic angle would work really well. I bet most people don’t know truffles are grown in this country. They’d eat them up. Literally and figuratively.”

  He forced a chuckle. “So what, you are going to run my business now?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Sorry, ma petite. I am grumpy today. I’m sure your truffles are very nice. Buy me one and we can eat it together. When are you coming back to New York?”

  She stared at the green hills surrounding her. The air in the car was becoming stifling. “When are you back?”

  “Next week, Monday. The first of August.”

  “Okay.” She twisted her lip. There was so much still to learn and do here. Megan would need her. “We have to talk.”

/>   “About what? You’ll be back by then, yes?”

  She turned the ignition key, pushed the A/C fan up to high. Cool air started flowing again, but didn’t stop her perspiring. “I’ll come back for a while. I have a friend here who needs me.”

  Megan looked up from the knitting she’d been doing to pretend she wasn’t listening, and smiled warmly.

  “Elizabeth.” Dominique sighed heavily. “We have a life together in New York. You have a business you’re supposed to start. The fabrics, remember?”

  “I’m…not so sure about that now.” She winced, expecting the exasperated noise French people did better than anyone else on the planet. “You were right. I’m not much of a designer. And you’re right, I’ve been trying to force myself into businesses I had no aptitude for. And I haven’t built a life of my own, I just lived yours, you were right about that too. But I’ve figured it out now, for real. I love it here. This is where I belong. This is where I want to—”

  “How long are you going to do this running away?” His voice was so loud Elizabeth took the phone from her ear. Megan could probably hear him. “All your life you haven’t been able to settle!”

  “I know. I know. But I’m ready now, Dominique.” She wanted to scream at the irony. Girl who cried wolf asking him to believe her one more time. “I know what I want. This time I really do.”

  “North Carolina.” His voice dropped, broke.

  “And you, Dominique. I want you. I just don’t want to live your life. I want our life. And part of ‘ours’ has to belong to me before I can buy into it. I can’t live in New York anymore, not all year long. I need what I’ve found here.”

  Silence while she prayed he wouldn’t give up, hang up. Then the sound of a long patient exhale. “Okay. So now what?”

  “I’ll come back to New York and we can talk it out, find a compromise.”

  “And marriage? Is that still on the table?”

  “I think…that can work, yes.” She made it through the sentence with only one nervous squeak.

  “Elizabeth.” He pronounced it the French way, eh-leez-a-bette, and the surprised warmth in his voice steadied a large portion of her nerves. “I am actually speechless.”

  She smiled, not scared, not wanting to back out, still ready to move forward. This was going to work. “Your part of the compromise is not spending all day trying to take over the food universe. You need time to help me raise our kids.”

  “My God, whatever you’re smoking down there, keep at it.” He laughed his big infectious Dominique laugh, which could cause an entire crowd to go silent looking for the source. “Okay, ma chérie. We’ll talk. I want you to be happy. Come home soon. Je t’aime beaucoup.”

  “I will. And, um.” Elizabeth glanced at Megan, who’d started humming politely. “…same here.”

  She hung up, face hot, fizzy again with joy and, oddly, relief.

  “You okay, Elizabeth?”

  “Yes.” She exhaled hard. “I think I’m really fine.”

  “You’ll marry him?”

  She turned, grinning, and pointed to Megan’s lace. “Will you make me a wedding shawl? Cater the ceremony? Landscape my yard?”

  Megan laughed, tears starting, and Elizabeth realized how strange it was for Megan to be ending a marriage and Elizabeth planning to begin one, all on the same day. Yin and yang.

  She put the car in gear, moved out onto the road. “Let’s go home.”

  The second the words were out of her mouth, happy tears started. Not her home. No matter how long she stayed, how much she grew to love Megan and the kids—and tolerate Vera—the house in Comfort would never be her home. The condo in New York was Dominique’s. The apartment in Boston had been Alan’s. The duplex in Milwaukee her mother’s.

  But the life she would build here with Dominique, the degree she earned, the career she started, the friends she made, all those would belong to her. And all those put together would be the comfort Babcia wanted her to find.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next day the clouds have blown past, but the village of Eshaness is somber and still. Crofters wake to shame, to grim acknowledgment of what they’ve forced on Gillian, driven by sadness and anger and whiskey. Fiona goes through the long hours of sunshine numb with grief. At night she cannot sleep, finally gives up, wraps a thick woolen shawl around her and stokes the fire, takes up her knitting, trying to focus on anything but the nightmare images crowding her mind. After an hour, three hours, three minutes, she doesn’t know, doesn’t care, the door to the house opens so quietly Fiona can only tell someone is there by the sudden freshening of the air.

  Alarmed, she turns, half expecting Calum, even knowing from having said her final wrenching good-byes earlier, that his body is laid to rest at home.

  It is Gillian, still dressed in white trimmed with lace, a dress fit for a bride. She carries a small sheepskin bag, smiles at Fiona’s shocked face, and comes closer to the fire, eyes haunted and dark. It’s then Fiona notices she’s shivering and damp. Can ghosts be cold?

  Fiona starts to speak, but Gillian shakes her head, puts a finger to her lips and points to the enclosed beds where Fiona’s family sleeps. She sits near the fire, opens the bag and passes over wool such as Fiona has never handled, soft like rabbit fur, exquisitely even in color, nearly white, a remarkable, impossibly delicate thread, thousands upon thousands of yards from a single ounce. In spite of her pain and misgivings, in spite of questions about how Gillian can have survived her leap off the cliff, or whether she did indeed survive, Fiona feels a thrill of pleasure.

  Gillian nods, pleased by Fiona’s reaction. She reaches into the bag again and pulls out two pairs of tiny silver needles, smooth and strong as steel. For the rest of that night and for many, many more nights after, Gillian appears and teaches Fiona to knit in a way Fiona never dreamed she could. Hours they spend, and though words are rarely spoken, a bond grows. Together they are knitting the most beautiful wedding shawl Fiona could ever imagine.

  For a time after the night of tragedy, villagers claim to catch sight of Gillian back among them. The same rumors of her first weeks return. Some insist she still swims naked every morning by Eshaness’s highest point where the lighthouse will stand, where Calum’s body was found. Boys patrol its cruel drop—for the safety of the town, they say. Wives pull equally defense-minded husbands back home to their duties. Eric Manson reports seeing her late at night at the spot where she fled the mob. He called to her, but she shook her head and dived again from the cliff. All he saw below, though he waited several minutes, was a seal floating peacefully through black waters, eyes and sleek fur glinting in the moonlight.

  Weeks go by and Fiona and Gillian’s lace emerges, swirling with patterns of seas and sky, birds and flowers—Shetland itself captured in the threads. Every night, all night long they knit, Fiona falling into bed just before dawn and waking refreshed mere hours later, as if she has spent the whole night sound asleep. Gillian has powerful magic indeed.

  One stitch at a time, the work nears completion. When the shawl is finally finished, Gillian places it gently around Fiona’s shoulders and embraces her, lays a soft hand against her cheek before she leaves as quietly as she came the first time and every time after. She never returns. Night after night Fiona waits, but the hours out of bed tell on her, she is no longer able to stay awake without suffering during the day. The full grief of the town’s tragedies comes upon her, and she spends miserable months mourning Calum’s death, mourning the loss of Gillian, her mysterious rival and friend.

  Eventually, though winter is still upon them, though cold and winds whip the islands unmercifully, Fiona’s heart knows the birds will soon return, signaling the renewal of springtime, and that spring will bring her a new life. She will leave Eshaness for another city, another island, another country, another world. Wherever she settles, she will meet a fine young man who will love her best of all women. And on her wedding day she will wear the shawl she and Gillian have knitted here in Eshaness during l
ong summer nights. Down the aisle, she will walk to her groom, thinking of a green-eyed, wild-haired, lovely witch named Gillian, who must still be swimming the blue water among the green, treeless islands of Shetland.

  Elizabeth drove into Megan and Stanley’s driveway, put the car in park, turned off the engine and leaned back against the head-rest. Megan sat, unable to move, listening to crickets chirping in the near-darkness. The trip was over. They were home. But getting out of the car meant facing what she’d done and all the pain she’d cause her children and Vera and herself.

  She wished God would send down a flashing sign, Megan, you did the right thing. Throwing away a decent, peaceful life for what? Instability. Uncertainty. A whole assortment of devils she didn’t know.

  Door pushed open, she stepped thankfully into the cool air of Comfort, then back to the trunk to haul out her overnight bag. The kids were at friends’ houses but Vera would wonder why Megan had come back with Elizabeth instead of staying in Reidsville with Stanley. There was no postponing the show.

  “Megan? Who’s there?” On cue, Vera’s voice from the garden, sounding thick-throated and groggy. Had she been asleep so early?

  “Yes, it’s me.” She handed over Elizabeth’s bag and hauled hers into the garden. “Hi, Vera.”

  “I talked to Stanley.” Even in the dim glow reaching her from the back door light it was obvious her eyes were swollen with tears. “He says you left him.”

  “Yes.” She had no idea what else to say, so she stood with her bag, feeling like a schoolgirl facing her headmistress, aware of Elizabeth hovering behind her.

  “He wants me to go to him.”

  “Will you?”

  Vera nodded. “Yes. I’ll go.”

  “That’s good.” Megan was suddenly and desperately tired; the adrenaline she’d summoned for this encounter had given up early. Or maybe she’d run out altogether. “He’ll need you.”

  “He was devastated. I’ve never heard him like that.” Her voice broke. “Is this for real, Megan?”