Knit the Season

by Kate Jacobs

  “And are you there, Mommy?” yawned Ginger, clearly exhausted from the hard work of taking attendance with colored pencils and drawing pictures.

  “Yes, and Lucie Brennan says it is to bed with you, young lady,” said Lucie. She never anticipated nearing fifty and being a parent to a seven-year-old as well as caring for an elderly mother fighting dementia. But that’s what every day meant for Lucie, a video and film director who made everything from documentaries to music videos to commercials. An avid knitter, she poked into the yarn shop one long-ago day to pick up a skein of beige merino (during her fisherman-sweater phase) and ended up sitting down at a table much like the one they all sat at now, to work on her stitches. And she, like all of the women, just kept coming back. Friday after Friday.

  What she discovered here, in this small shop one floor above Broadway and Seventy-seventh, was the true and absolute friendship she needed to make sense of who she was. Her life had lacked a certain something, but she hadn’t understood what was missing until she found it: community. Smart, strong women who backed her up when she needed support and called her out when required.

  Lucie tucked in her daughter over the phone as the members of the Friday Night Knitting Club—Anita, Catherine, Dakota, Lucie, Peri, Darwin, and KC—assembled around the table and began, as they so often did, to talk all at once. Everybody listened, but nobody heard a word. No matter. They’d start over again, one at a time, in a few minutes. But for now, it was enough just to relish this safe haven.

  chapter two

  A hush fell over the dining table as, one by one, forks stopped scraping and mouths stopped chewing. Half-empty platters of turkey and cranberry and sausage dressing rested after being eagerly passed back and forth by the entire twenty-four members of the Foster family, grandparents and aunts and cousins all crammed into the rectangular living area of James’s two-bedroom apartment. The large TV remained on the wall, but much of the furniture had been removed or repur posed, such as the blue armchairs and a small wooden bench, now being used as dinner chairs at the table. James had approached the project with an architect’s eye, using graph paper and measurements the Sunday before to map out a way to fit his entire family in his home.

  Spacious by New York City standards, the place was barely large enough for such a party. His technique was borrowed from his parents’ approach to the holidays back when they squeezed in all the cousins and grandparents they could. He had loved those big gatherings when he was young, the sense of power he felt at belonging to such a magnificent, boisterous, connected family. He wanted to create something like that in his own home for Dakota. And so he considered and rearranged, abutting several folding tables on either end of his glass-and-steel table, using wooden shims and thin books to create a level area, then covering the entire contraption with a tremendously long yellow linen tablecloth that he’d special-ordered over the Internet. His daughter, Dakota, had been knitting for weeks to create a felted table runner in harvest colors, and they’d borrowed dishes and platters and wineglasses from Catherine and Anita. (No point in buying all the extras when they’d never be used once the guests had all gone home, he thought.)

  James rarely entertained in his home, preferring to keep it as quiet and private as possible, a habit from when Dakota had initially moved in with him after Georgia died. He’d hardly become a monk but had managed his private life around his family life, bringing none of his female friends into his daughter’s life. He had decided early on that it wasn’t beneficial for Dakota to see him with anyone other than her mother. James hadn’t thought far enough into the future, however, to have built a plan for what he ought to do when he did meet someone he truly cared about. It was almost, he thought, as though he was slinking around, nervous that Dakota might find out he had real feelings for another woman. Frankly, it left him a bit confused as well. And besides, it didn’t feel proper to broach discussion of a new relationship now that the holidays were here. Best for things to remain as usual.

  Tonight, however, his apartment had been anything but its usual quiet. And he’d enjoyed himself immensely.

  James sighed, though if he was honest with himself, he really felt like burping. Maybe make some more room down there. Dakota’s Thanksgiving meal had been delicious. Too much, of course. But that was part of the tradition as well.

  “Food coma,” Dakota announced with satisfaction, observing her father leaning back in his chair and her grandfather’s head beginning to bob as sleep tugged at his eyelids, though he still sat at the table. “I can’t think of a better compliment.”

  She’d cooked the dinner by herself, managing on only a few hours of sleep after doing all the prep for Peri’s big night with her boyfriend’s parents. She’d taped detailed reheating instructions inside the cupboard and the fridge at Peri’s place, replete with warnings not to use tinfoil in the microwave and to check the oven for yarn before turning it on. She had even left two fresh pumpkin pies on the coffee table in the living room, and then, exhausted, she flagged a cab to carry her back to her dad’s house. During the week, Dakota had a dorm room at school, but she still crashed in the city on the weekends, coming in for club meetings and to work several hours at the shop. It was a grueling pace but worth it to get her own café running. She knew her upcoming internship would really kick-start her career. Of course, she’d just whipped out a meal for her hungry relatives.

  Arriving too early on the Thursday morning was Catherine, who set the table with James and disturbed the cook, who was trying to sneak a nap on the sofa after peeling all the potatoes and starting to roast the turkey.

  Catherine was the only non-family member at the Foster-and-one-Walker Thanksgiving, something she hadn’t realized when she gratefully accepted the invitation. Everyone in the club had plans: Marty felt that he and Anita should spend Turkey Day with his niece at the family brownstone, and Lucie and Darwin were out at their duplex in New Jersey, hosting Lucie’s older brothers and their families. One good thing for those two was that Lucie’s mother Rosie may have lost much of her mental functioning, but she maintained a strong ability to remember old recipes. They’d planned a turkey, of course, with a side of Rosie’s lasagna and homemade marinara. Ginger, she’d been told, would drag in a comfy chair so that Rosie could rule the cooks, demanding more salt, less pepper. Inspired as she remembered Lucie talking about food prep in their house, Catherine pulled out a stool in Dakota’s kitchen and sat down to offer commentary. But both she and Dakota knew she didn’t have much insight to offer. Catherine’s food experience was limited to ordering and eating.

  “Did you do tomato in the salad? Love the tomatoes in Italy,” said Catherine, lost for a moment thinking of a memorable picnic with Marco overlooking the fields, how she’d ended up with tomato juice in places unmentionable. “You know what I liked most, though? Eating outside.”

  “Uh, they don’t have outside in New York?” asked Dakota, her mocking tone muffled as she leaned forward to smell the aroma from the simmering cranberry-and-orange sauce. She was quite accustomed to Catherine’s rants about why Italy was more wonderful than anywhere else. Love had softened Catherine’s edges, made her occasionally gush. “C’mon,” chided Dakota. “I’m pretty sure they do. Though I never have time for such luxuries.”

  “You’re just grumpy because you have your nose to the grindstone,” said Catherine, opening the fridge and hunting for something tasty. She lifted a Tupperware to the light fixture to see what was stored inside. “What you need is a vacation.”

  “In Italy, no doubt,” said Dakota, frowning with concentration as she stirred. “What I actually need is a hell of a lot more baking.” She turned away from the stove to offer Catherine a taste, observing her every reaction.

  Catherine made a sour face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, it’s delish,” said Catherine, pinching Dakota’s cheek because she knew it annoyed her. “I was just teasing you. You’re getting so intense.”

  Dakota got a new sp
oon and stirred her sauce. “I have a lot to get done in my life,” she said, leaving unspoken the rest but knowing that Catherine understood. Her mother had died before she turned forty, leaving Dakota with a feeling—no, a fear—that nothing could wait. Everything had to be now, now, now. Her college friends might pop off for skiing holidays, but she’d much rather be learning and working. That was something else her mother had given her: an appreciation of the value of effort. Of dedication. Of knowing that sometimes, sacrifices were necessary and appropriate.

  “Guess what?” she said, trying to act lighter. “I have lucked out: The chef at Rome’s V hotel hooked me up with a spot in the kitchen here in New York over the holidays.”

  “Not for Christmas, though,” said Catherine.

  “Yeah, for Christmas,” scoffed Dakota. “That’s a huge chance, to get in there. I don’t march over with my schedule and see if I can fit them in. It’s the other way around.”

  “What did your dad say?” asked Catherine, getting out a knife to slice into a pie that was cooling on a rack.

  “That’s for dessert!” Dakota shouted, then dropped her voice. “I haven’t told him. Not yet. But we’re doing a big dinner at Thanksgiving today, so no need for another next month. Right?”

  “Right . . .” said Catherine, sounding unconvinced. “That’s why a huge part of the country does two massive suppers practically back-to-back. Dakota, everybody knows the holidays are for family. That’s the whole point.”

  She’d been crossing off the days on her own calendar, in fact, because she knew Marco was bringing his entire family in for Hanukkah, and for Anita’s wedding.

  “Well, somebody has to cook the food,” said Dakota coolly, reaching into the fridge and rearranging a shelf to reveal a pumpkin pie that had already been cut. She pointed out the half of a pie (since her father had already enjoyed some for breakfast) to Catherine and scooped on a huge dollop of vanilla whipped cream. “Otherwise, how would skinnies like you get your year’s supply of calories?”

  Dakota savored the way Catherine closed her eyes in delicious rapture as she gobbled up the slice of spicy pumpkin filling, the way the crust flaked at the touch of her fork. Dakota liked to knit. She liked to travel. But she positively loved watching other people tuck into her food, loved the way they sighed and relaxed after just one bite. This was her gift. Her magic.

  Of course, it would be nicer just to laze around this coming Christmas, to hang out with her dad and her uncle Donny. He’d always made the trips to Pennsylvania memorable, picking them up from the shop for the trip to the farm. Later, after Georgia died, he put together a giant ball of softly packed snow far out in the fields, giving her a baseball bat and offering her some privacy to whack away her frustrations. To scream and cry and choke out all her rage at, well, everything. Uncle Donny, her mom’s younger brother, was just that sort of guy. He noticed stuff without making a fuss. He kept to the background, and yet he had his role to play as well.

  Still. Spending Christmas in Pennsylvania wouldn’t get her any closer to reaching her career goals, Dakota knew. Some folks had the luxury of taking things slowly. Not her. She couldn’t wait. She knew better than to take those kinds of chances. Than to make assumptions.

  “I really do need a nap,” Catherine said now, blotting her lips with a napkin and placing it beside her plate at the Thanksgiving table.

  “And I am more than impressed,” said James’s mother, Lillian. “Wonderful job, Dakota. And to you, James, a wonderful job as well. I am pleasantly surprised.”

  “Thanks. I rearranged the furniture about seven times to get things just right, get enough chairs, put the extra tables up,” he said, nodding. “It was a lot of effort. But I’ve been working out.” He winked.

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Lillian, inclining her head almost imperceptibly toward her granddaughter.

  “I worked on that, too,” said James, delighted by his mother’s approval. Dakota was too preoccupied with thoughts of whipping cream to pay much attention.

  “I guess now we’ll have to do all the dishes,” pointed out James’s father, Joe. His face was lined and his hair grayer, but he continued to take good care of himself and remained active. Both he and Lillian were retired after full careers teaching high schoolers but still used their skills to tutor students during the year. Work, they told their children, kept their minds in shape.

  “I’ll wash if someone will dry.”

  “Let’s just move to more comfortable chairs and fall asleep,” begged Catherine.

  “I put most of the comfy chairs into the storage room in the basement,” explained James. “What you see is what you get. We can fight over the sofa, sit on pillows, watch football standing up, huddle up on the floor . . .”

  “Or go for a walk,” interjected Lillian. “The dishes will wait. They never seem to go anywhere else if you don’t do them.”

  It was clear to Catherine that Lillian ran the family, because the entire troupe of Fosters rose from their chairs to immediately gather coats and scarves.

  “No sleep, then?” she murmured before being handed her own jacket by Dakota, who shook her head.

  “The grandma has spoken,” said Dakota good-naturedly. “You come to a Foster meal, this is how you have to play it. Come on, I’ll lead you by the hand. You can sleep and walk at the same time.”

  Catherine didn’t mind, having missed time with Dakota since their schedules often conflicted. Certainly Dakota was on the run with her hectic school calendar in Hyde Park, and with trying to still make up time in the yarn shop, even working on several knitting projects from her mother’s designs.

  “How’s the pattern stuff?”

  “Ah, it’s slow,” said Dakota, stuffing her hair into a red newsboy cap she’d knitted so many years ago that it was a bit fuzzy in spots. “I thought we should do all the projects, so I split it up with everybody—you know, the good knitters, I mean . . .”

  “I know, I know,” said Catherine, who had never advanced very far in her abilities. She didn’t mind not being a tester.

  “And so it takes as long as it takes,” Dakota explained, then took a deep breath, as if confessing. “I’m swamped. Totally bagged.”

  “You just knocked yourself out to feed an army of cousins.”

  “Yeah, but it’s other stuff,” she said. “The internship. The knitting café. I don’t know.” She knew Catherine’s parents had passed away many years before, and yet somehow Catherine didn’t seem overwhelmed by the holidays. By their absence. Dakota envied her this peace.

  “Oh, right, the dreaded I-don’t-knows,” said Catherine. “Guys, the holidays, too much pressure, not enough sleep.”

  “Pretty much all of that,” Dakota admitted. “It’s a funny time of year. All a big countdown, you know. And to what?”

  “The wedding!”

  “Okay, yeah,” agreed Dakota. “But don’t you feel everything else is just over the top? Or that there’s a huge rush to do something monumental by New Year’s? To achieve some milestone, accomplish something huge? Make this year better than last year. Perfect, even. And we have one month left. Ticktock.”

  “I’m fine.” Catherine shook her head a bit too vigorously. She was fibbing, and Dakota knew it.

  “So, I imagine the visit from the family Toscano isn’t fazing you one bit?”

  “Well,” conceded Catherine, tilting her head to the side. “Maybe half a bit.”

  In the previous year, the forty-four-year-old blonde flew to Italy for a week every other month simply to let life on the vineyard wash over her. Oh, there were weeks when she and her friend Marco Toscano would drive the coast, or spend a day or two in Rome, but most often they made their way to his family vineyard, the aptly named Cara Mia. My beloved.

  On occasion, Marco—her boyfriend, if such a phrase made sense for such an attractive grown man—would make the return trip with her and stay in the city. Sometimes he brought along his mother-in-law to see her sister Anita, as they continued
to get to know each other after decades of estrangement. Marco enjoyed puttering around in Catherine’s antiques-and-wonderful-things store in Cold Spring. They took turns cooking meals on Catherine’s rarely used stove, and he would read her latest chapters.

  “You know what would be interesting?” he once commented. “If these two best friends grow up to be spies for enemy countries.”

  “Well,” said Catherine. “We kinda did.”

  All in all, it had been quite an atypical courtship, with lots of heavy-duty . . . talking. Unlike her usual romances, where things moved quickly to the bedroom and then just as quickly out the door.

  Everything about this relationship was different from her unhappy marriage to wealthy investment banker Adam Phillips and from her multiple failed romances following her very welcome divorce. And yet she’d uncharacteristically spurned Marco’s advances during the summer trip to Italy last year, when she was preoccupied with finally rediscovering her independence and sense of self, Anita was desperately trying to track down her sister, Sarah, to apologize for breaking ties years before, Lucie was directing an Italian pop diva in an avant-garde music video, and Dakota was nannying Ginger and dating Marco’s son, Roberto.