The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love

by Beth Pattillo

  Maria nodded. “Yes. I’d agree.”

  “Do you want to change that?” His eyes filled with a kind of earnest enthusiasm she’d never seen before.

  It took her a moment to find her voice. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

  Fortunately, it was a slow day at Munden’s Five-and-Dime, so when James Delevan took Maria Munden into his arms and kissed her quite thoroughly, no customers stood in the aisles to be outraged by the shocking display.

  Hannah hadn’t ditched class at all as a freshman, although it had been a regular habit in middle school. That morning, though, she just couldn’t bring herself to face it.

  Posters for the freshman spring dance had gone up the Friday before, bright pink and purple reminders of how alone she was. Josh no longer even tried to speak to her in the hallway. She told herself that was what she wanted, that it was the only way to get over him. She just didn’t know why it still hurt as much as it had that day by the creek, when he’d told her he was taking Courtney to the winter formal. She had no doubt he’d already asked Courtney to go with him to the spring one too.

  Instead of crossing the street east toward the high school, Hannah headed north, ducking behind cars and trees so that Rev. Carson and Eugenie wouldn’t see her. A block over, she reached the edge of the trees that bordered Sweetgum Creek. A few steps down the steep bank and she stood at the edge of the water and out of sight from the street above.

  Ten minutes of walking and she reached the wide sand where the creek narrowed. Without the coming spring rains, the water merely trickled beneath the bare branches that arched above it. Dry winter grass on the bank above rustled in the swirling breeze.

  Hannah zipped her coat up to her chin and thrust her hands in her pockets. When she’d decided to play hooky she hadn’t considered the weather. A long, cold day stretched before her. When she lived in the trailer with her mom, she’d just stayed at home and watched television when she ditched school. She couldn’t do that at the parsonage. Too many neighbors, and Rev. Carson had a habit of stopping by the house to get some lunch or fetch a book he’d meant to take to the church with him.

  Hannah sank down onto the sand. A moment too late she realized it was damp beneath the top layer. The cold seeped through her jeans in an instant. She tugged the tail of her coat lower and tried to sit on it.

  This place held a lot of memories, but the last terrible one overwhelmed the good ones. Josh, the one person she’d thought she could trust, breaking her heart. It just proved she should never let anyone get close, because it was only a matter of time until they betrayed her.

  With a sigh, Hannah reached into her backpack and pulled out her latest knitting project. She could work on it until her fingers got too stiff from the cold. Then she could read some. She’d just gotten to the part where Lydia Bennett runs off with the scoundrel Wickham, ruining Elizabeth’s chances with Darcy.

  Hannah could identify with Elizabeth Bennett on that score. She knew what it was like to have her own chance for happiness squashed like a bug beneath the shoe of other people’s bad behavior. That last thought caused a sob to rise in her throat. She let it escape, wiping at the splash of tears on her cheeks with the back of one hand. She was so tired. Not trusting anyone was exhausting. Always keeping her guard up, never a moment to relax.

  She picked up her needles and opened the book she was using for the knitting project. The diagrams for the moss stitch baffled her, but she was determined. She concentrated so hard on the movement of her needles that she didn’t hear Josh until he plopped down next to her in the wet sand.

  “Hey”

  Her head snapped up, and she dropped her knitting. “What the—”

  “It’s just me.”

  Hannah scowled. “You really can’t take a hint, can you?”

  “No. Not really.” He grinned.

  If he had apologized again, continued to grovel, she could have kept up her defenses. But that lopsided smile pierced her where she was weakest, right in the vicinity of her heart.

  “Won’t you get suspended from the team or something for cutting class?”

  Josh leaned back in the sand on his elbows, his long legs stretched in front of him. “What are they going to do to me? I’m moving in a few weeks.”

  “Good point.” She had to be cool, not let him see how much he got to her. She picked up her knitting and dusted the sand off of it.

  “What are you making?”

  “A sweater.” At least, it would be a sweater someday. No way could she finish it by the Knit Lit Society meeting next week.

  “My mom made me a sweater like that once. It has those bumps in it,” he said, examining the soft green wool.

  “It’s called a moss stitch.”

  “Didn’t know that.”

  “There are a lot of things you don’t know, apparently.” The sarcasm slipped out against her better judgment.

  “You know, I’d think that living with a preacher you would have learned to be a little more forgiving.”

  “I’m forgiving. I’m just not stupid.”

  “Touché.” He looked up at the branches above them and didn’t say anything else.

  “What would you have done if you were in my shoes?” Hannah asked when Josh remained silent. “I don’t know anyone who gets all warm and fuzzy about being humiliated.”

  Josh rolled to his side, propping himself up on one elbow. “I’ve already told you I’m sorry. I was stupid and wrong and idiotic and everything else you can think of. I messed up, Hannah. Now I’m asking for forgiveness.” He softly touched the back of her hand with the tips of his fingers. “I’m asking if we can start over.”

  She refused to flinch at his touch or let him see that it in any way affected her. “Why bother? You’ll be gone soon.” The moment she said it, she realized she’d betrayed herself

  Josh raised one eyebrow. “So you might forgive me? If I can convince you it’s worth it for the next month?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “But that’s what you implied.”

  “Josh—” She sighed, then looked him square in the eye. “How could I believe anything you say?”

  “You’d have to make the choice to trust me again.” He wasn’t smiling now. His eyes pleaded with her.

  “Yeah, well, that’s the problem. I don’t trust you anymore. No, it’s more than that. You took away any reason I had to trust you in the first place. It’s gone, Josh, and trust isn’t something you just whip up out of thin air.”

  “Actually, it is.” He levered himself into a sitting position. “That’s all it is, really. If you think about it, none of us has any reason to trust anyone else.”

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “Of course you’d say something like that. You’re the one who screwed up.”

  “I may be a partial idiot but not a total one. I have been known to learn from my mistakes.”

  “And I’ve been known to be humiliated by them.”

  “All right, then think of it this way. If you go to the spring formal with me, you’ll have the best revenge of all.”

  “What?” The knitting needles in her hands jerked so that several stitches slid off the end of one of them. “Not funny, Josh.” She scrambled to get the stitches back on the needle.

  “I wasn’t trying to be funny. I want you to go to the dance with me.” He reached into his back pocket and wiggled something free. “Here.” He thrust two pieces of pink paper toward her.

  “So you bought tickets. What does that prove?”

  “Look at the names on them.”

  Reluctantly, Hannah did. She saw Josh’s name on one. And hers on the other.

  “Josh—”

  “We don’t have a lot of time, Hannah. Every minute you won’t forgive me is a minute we lose.”

  “But you’re leaving. There’s no point.”

  “Just because you can’t have everything, you don’t want anything?”

  “Josh—”

  He reached over and gent
ly lifted the knitting needles from her grasp. He set them aside, and took her hands in his. “Please, Hannah. I really need you to forgive me.” His eyes sparkled with moisture. No macho football player. Just her friend Josh. “I need something to hang on to when I go back to Alabama.” He shook his head. “I know I don’t deserve it, but none of us deserves to be forgiven. That’s what they always say in church.”

  “I don’t know—”

  He kissed her then, simply leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers as he had that night after the football game. Unexpected, warm, and everything she missed, everything she needed.

  “Please, Hannah,” he murmured against her lips, and she couldn’t hold out against him any longer.

  “If you hurt me again”—she pounded his chest with her fist for emphasis—“I will hunt you down like a dog. Do you hear me?”

  His hand reached up to grab hers. “You won’t have to. I promise.”

  Hannah still didn’t know if she could trust him. She only knew she couldn’t not trust him. To banish him from her heart forever would hurt far more than his betrayal had.

  “I don’t have a dress,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I don’t have a dress for the dance.”

  Josh chuckled. “I bet Camille St. Clair would hook you up. If she doesn’t, we’ll skip the dance and just hang out together.”

  “Okay.”

  He slid an arm around her, and she tucked her head into the crook of his shoulder. “Josh?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do we have to go back to school?”

  He nodded. “If we get suspended, we can’t go to the dance.”

  She lifted her head. “How did you know I was here?”

  Josh squeezed her shoulders. “I didn’t. I just needed someplace to think. It never occurred to me to go anywhere else.”

  At that moment, Hannah knew everything would be okay. At least until spring break.

  Esther stood in her backyard and eyed the small stone angel in the flower bed. Frank had placed it there under her direction when they’d first moved into the house. Shed had no idea how heavy it was—she couldn’t lift it herself. The movers had already left, so there was no help from that quarter. She glanced around the yard and considered her options. The buyer would be pulling up any minute. She had to take the statue with her now.

  Beside her, Ranger barked for her attention.

  “Not now,” she said to the dog. “It’s a shame I don’t have a harness for you. You could help me get this to the car.”

  “Maybe I could give you a hand.” Brody’s voice came from over her shoulder. She swiveled toward him and almost lost her balance. “Steady, there,” he said, catching her arm to keep her upright.

  “I didn’t hear you,” she said, pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. She was dusty and dirty from the last-minute packing and cleaning—not to mention the effort of digging up two of her prize rosebushes to take with her to the condo on Sweetgum Lake.

  “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” He grinned. “You have dirt on your nose.”

  Esther swiped at her nose. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see if you needed help.” He shrugged. “It’s my day off.”

  “This statue’s too heavy for me. I should have asked the moving men to help.”

  Brody moved closer and leaned over the stone angel. In one quick motion, he bent at the knees, grabbed the angel, and hoisted it in his arms. “Where do you want it?”

  “The car.” She nodded toward the garage.

  “Last time was easier,” he grunted and took a few stumbling steps toward the garage. “At least with Ranger we had a blanket to carry him in.”

  Esther suppressed a laugh. “True. But this thing won’t bite us.”

  “C’mon, woman,” Brody growled as he walked. “Open that door for me.”

  Esther did as instructed, opening first the garage door and then the passenger door of her Jaguar. Brody managed to wrestle the angel to the floorboard.

  He groaned and straightened, one hand to his back. “What are you going to do with it when you get to your new place?”

  “I’ll bribe one of the maintenance men or something.”

  “Seems like a strange thing to take with you. Where are you going to put it? You won’t have a yard.”

  “I have a little patio. It will go there.”

  “What’s so special about this statue?”

  Esther paused, unsure if she should or even could answer him. For decades, being Esther Jackson had meant keeping her own counsel, never letting her guard down. This angel represented perhaps her darkest secret, one she’d never shared with anyone but Frank. She looked Brody up and down, as if sizing him up.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.

  “Nobody but Frank knew about this angel.”

  “Didn’t everybody who set foot in your backyard notice it?”

  Esther shook her head. “I don’t mean its existence. I mean its purpose.”

  Brody nodded. “It marks something important.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to tell me what?”

  Esther didn’t know what to do. “I’m not sure where to start.”

  “The beginning’s usually the best place.”

  “That might take awhile.”

  He nodded. “Why don’t I help you finish here? Then I can follow you to the lake and help you unload that thing.”

  Esther refused to cry, but she couldn’t avoid the mixture of gratitude and relief that rose in her throat. “I would appreciate that very much.”

  Brody shrugged. “What are friends for?”

  Esther bit her lip. “I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I had one.” The confession sprang out of her before she could stop it. “I’m a little out of practice.”

  “Yeah,” Brody said agreeably. He put a friendly arm around her shoulders as they turned back toward the house. “But you’re getting better at it. Pretty soon you’ll be a pro.”

  Esther laughed and felt a weight slip from her shoulders even as they were encircled by Brody’s arm. Change was inevitable as the tides, and she’d been forced to make the choice between allowing it to drag her under or fighting her way to the surface and swimming for the shore. For now, at least, her head was above water, and she could see dry land in the distance.

  “I’ve got coffee on,” she said to Brody.

  “I’d love some.”

  Later she would tell him the story about the stone angel. How it had marked the place in the yard where she’d sprinkled the ashes of her first child, the little girl who died only hours after her birth. The little girl no one knew about, because she and Frank had lived in Nashville at the time.

  But that was later, not now. For now, she would simply enjoy the company, and the comfort, of a friend.

  At five o’clock on Saturday, Camille closed the door to the dress shop behind her and then reached up to put the key in the dead-bolt and turned it with a click. She stared for a long moment at the sign that still swayed gently on the other side of the glass.

  Closed.

  Her past, her time in Sweetgum, her memories. All that would change soon. She would take only essentials—dorm rooms were small. She’d need to work, too, when she got to Murfreesboro, but she could easily find something as an assistant manager at a retail chain store. Beyond that, she didn’t have to worry about anyone or anything else, except getting as far away from Sweetgum as she possibly could.

  “Camille.”

  Dante’s voice startled her, and she turned to face him. He stood on the sidewalk not ten feet away, still dressed in his coaching clothes even in the off season—anorak emblazoned with the Sweetgum High School mascot, those knit pants coaches always wore, and running shoes. The brim of a Tennessee Titans baseball cap shaded his eyes.

  “Hey”

  “I saw Natalie Grant at Tallulah’s.” He stared hard at her. “She said Esther Jackson bought
your shop. When did this happen?”

  Of course Natalie had found out. Camille nodded, her throat tight. She thought she’d have more time to prepare for this conversation. “I’m on my way to drop the keys off at her condo at the lake.”

  Dante continued to regard her steadily, and that very calm made her nervous. She felt moisture breaking out across her forehead.

  “I’ll drive you,” he said.

  She started to protest, but before she could get the words out, he took her arm and hustled her toward his car.

  “There’s no need—”

  “We have to talk. Might as well tie up all your loose ends at the same time.”

  She had known he’d be angry, which was why she hadn’t told him about the dress shop. Or about college. His hand on her arm was insistent but not controlling, like Dante himself

  “I’m not sure this is a great idea,” she said.

  He stopped, turning her to face him. “Right now, I’m not sure you would know a great idea if it ran over you.”

  Camille bit her lip and slid into his car when he opened the door for her. She would just have to ride out the storm. She was an expert at that by now. Heaven knew she’d had enough practice over the years. What couldn’t be cured had to be endured. She’d heard someone say that once, and it had become her personal mantra. But she wasn’t sure that advice had ever been intended to cover a situation like this.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  Dante kept his eyes on the road as he drove away from the town square, and so did she. She couldn’t afford to look at him now, not if she wanted to keep her composure.

  She also couldn’t answer him. The silence stretched out between them.

  “You weren’t going to tell me.”

  She shrugged. “You would have found out.”

  “From who? Tallulah, the next time I had lunch at the café? Esther Jackson, when I went in the shop looking for you?”

  “Yes.”

  He took his foot off the accelerator, and Camille’s heartbeat sped up even as the car slowed. When he hit the brake, she clutched her purse in her lap and felt her pulse pounding in her neck. Dante swung the car onto the shoulder of the road and stopped.