Knit, Purl, Die

by Anne Canadeo

  “Poor Jamie,” Suzanne added. “They didn’t have very long together, did they?”

  “Not long at all. Jamie is going to need us. He’ll be lost without Gloria,” Maggie said between sobs.

  Lucy felt the same. “He did depend on her. She told me last night that he kept asking her to meet him in Boston, to go to that party. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to give him some space. I thought that was very wise of her,” Lucy reflected. “But if she had gone, maybe she’d still be alive.”

  “Jamie said the same thing at the house tonight,” Suzanne recalled. “But we can’t deal in what-ifs. Life doesn’t work that way. I mean, who knows? She could have had a car accident driving into the city and we’d be sitting here saying how could that happen.” Suzanne sniffed and reached across the table for the tissue box. “The irony of it is that Jamie claims he didn’t want his space … he just wanted her…. Wasn’t that so amazingly sweet to say?”

  Dana took off her reading glasses and wiped her teary eyes with a tissue. She was also crying again, but very quietly, Lucy realized.

  “They were very close. Anyone could see that. Gloria mothered him,” Dana said bluntly. “I think she realized it could get on his nerves, sooner or later. Some people might say it wasn’t a truly healthy relationship. The age difference and his dependency on her … and she obviously needed someone to nurture and even control. But it worked and they seemed very happy together. Happier than most couples I know.” Dana shook her head in dismay. “He’ll need a lot of time to get his bearings. To go through all the stages of grieving. He’s just moved up here, too. We’re practically the only friends he has in town.”

  “Except for some tennis buddies, or guys at the gym,” Maggie agreed. “I think Gloria would rest easier, knowing that we’re here for him. It’s the only thing we can do for her now.”

  Nobody said a word. Nobody had to. They all knew that Maggie was right.

  Poor Gloria was beyond their help now, Lucy thought. But they could still be there for Jamie.

  “I know we all feel very sad right now about Gloria. And shocked,” Dana added, glancing around at the group. “But I think it’s important to remember that she lived a full life. It seemed to me that she achieved a lot of what she’d set out to do in her life and was satisfied with her choices.”

  “I think that’s true.” Maggie looked up from her knitting and nodded. “She covered a lot of ground in her short lifetime. More than most people who live decades longer. I don’t think she had many regrets. Or many items left on her long range ‘To Do’ list. Not like most of us.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.” Suzanne sighed and forced a small smile. “There are so many things I’d still like to do. But I just tell myself, ‘Someday. When the kids are older.’ Or ‘When we have more money.’ You know how it is.”

  “What would you like to do, Suzanne? If you had enough money and enough time?” Dana leaned forward, looking very interested in her answer.

  “If I won the lottery or something?” Suzanne said, her tone suddenly brighter. “Gee … let’s see … I’d like to go on a huge trip. I’d like to visit Africa and go on a safari, before all the wild animals disappear. I’d like to go to China and see the Great Wall. I think that would be amazing.”

  “I’d like to go India and Tibet,” Dana confessed. “I’d like to climb the Himalayas and stay in a monastery … and take a vow of silence,” she added.

  She rolled her eyes a bit and Lucy had to smile. She knew Dana loved her job but the poor woman probably did get tired of listening to people talk about their problems day in and day out. Who could blame her?

  “I’d like to go India and Tibet. But I’m not sure about that monastery stop. Do they let you knit in a Tibetan monastery?” Maggie asked with a small smile. “You might check that out before you sign on.”

  “I’ll make a note of it,” Dana replied. “Knitting can be a very Zen-like practice, though. Don’t you think?”

  “Oh, for sure,” Maggie agreed. “I’m just not sure if it’s recognized as such. Officially, I mean.”

  Dana turned to Lucy. “What’s on your long term, ‘To Do’ list, Lucy? You’ve been very quiet.”

  Lucy had not jumped into the conversation, but had definitely been mulling over the question.

  “I’d like to travel to some far-off places,” she agreed. “But most of my top items are closer to home.” She paused. “I’d like to have a child someday,” she confided. “That one is still on my list. I think you’ve all checked it off by now.”

  Her friends each cast her an understanding, even sympathetic look.

  “Don’t worry, Lucy. Your turn will come,” Suzanne promised.

  “I agree. You have plenty of time. You don’t need to worry about it,” Dana advised.

  “If you don’t meet Mr. Right, you can always be a single mom. We’ll help you,” Maggie offered. Everyone else at the table nodded in agreement, looking pleased by the notion. Before Lucy could respond, she added, “Check off ‘Have baby.’ … What else is on the list?”

  Lucy paused. “Don’t laugh … but I’ve always wanted to play the saxophone. You know, real blues and jazz stuff?”

  Nobody laughed but she could see Suzanne struggling. “That would be cool. What else?”

  “I’d like to play the piano. And speak another language. I mean, really well. Like Spanish or even Chinese.”

  “Me, too,” Maggie agreed. “But I’d love to learn by living in Spain or Italy for a while. Even for just a summer. That’s on my list, too,” Maggie agreed.

  “I think we should plan a trip. A summer of knitting in Tuscany?” Dana suggested. “Wouldn’t that be fabulous?”

  “It would be paradise,” Maggie seconded the motion. “We could go to Tibet afterward. Sort of an Eat, Pray, Knit tour.”

  “I’m there,” Lucy said, joining the fantasy. “As long as our villa has Internet access.”

  “That sounds lovely, Dana. And if all of you ever go on this field trip, you have to promise to just hit me over the head, and drag me along. And leave a note for Brian and the kids saying I’ve been abducted by aliens or something.”

  “Will they believe that?” Maggie looked amused, but doubtful.

  “I hear it all the time.” Dana shrugged a slim shoulder. “Do you mean to say … it isn’t possible?”

  Her tone was very serious, but she soon broke into a mischievous smile. A smile that quickly spread around the table. Lucy felt suddenly peaceful inside, connected to her circle of friends. A few minutes ago, they’d been crying. Now they were laughing again. But that was all right. She was sure their friend Gloria wouldn’t have minded. She might have even been standing by in spirit, silently approving.

  Gloria’s passing had been a harsh blow, pulling them all under. But their bonds of friendship and affection for each other were like a little rubber raft that had buoyed them up again, carrying them across this rough water.

  It must carry them all for the next few days, Lucy realized. The worst was not over. At least they had each other.

  Chapter Five

  Gloria’s memorial service was planned for Friday, almost a full week after she’d died. The police inquest into her death and the release of her body had taken longer than anyone had expected, definitely longer than Lucy had thought it would.

  Finally, there were no surprises. The coroner determined Gloria had died of natural causes, an accidental drowning. A high level of alcohol and drugs found in her blood had most likely resulted in impaired coordination and depth perception, confusion and even blurred vision. Once she accidently fell into the water, her intoxication may have resulted in an inability to swim or lift herself out of the pool, the report theorized.

  Detective Walsh had given Jamie this information over the phone. The police and coroner’s reports would be available to him at some point in the future, but it was hard to say when. The police gave priority to crime situations and routine paperwork in an accidental death, like Glo
ria’s, was often pushed to the back burner, Walsh had explained.

  In the days after Gloria’s death, Lucy and her friends had been helping Jamie plan a memorial service and, with the release of Gloria’s body, they sprang into action.

  Thursday was normally their knitting group night. But it didn’t feel right to meet on the eve of Gloria’s memorial and they wanted to help Jamie any way they could, even by keeping him company the night before such a trying event.

  When they actually got to the house, there wasn’t all that much to do, Lucy realized. They converged in the kitchen, storing the various dishes they’d made in the giant, restaurant-quality fridge.

  Why did it seem to so often work out that the women who had the least interest in cooking had the best-equipped kitchens? Lucy wondered. There seemed to be some strange imbalance in the universe that tilted in that direction.

  Jamie really didn’t need all of their home-cooked and home-baked contributions, Lucy knew. A caterer he’d hired had the refreshments covered. But it did make them feel better to add something to the buffet. Or to his freezer, for all the days afterward.

  They all gathered around the big farm-style kitchen table, and Suzanne made some herbal tea. Jamie took out the notes he’d made during his conversation with the police. He clearly needed to talk. That was the main thing they could do to help tonight, to just listen, Lucy thought.

  “So the police determined that it was definitely an accident? Is that what Walsh said?” Suzanne asked.

  “More or less.” He looked down at the table, his handsome features transformed by grief and loss. He looked … older, Lucy realized. Years older, all of a sudden. He and Gloria wouldn’t have seemed so obviously mismatched in age. How ironic, she thought.

  Dana had brought her knitting and already taken it out. She looked up at Jamie over her reading glasses. “Were you surprised about the alcohol and painkillers?” she asked quietly. “That’s a dangerous combination. You would have thought Gloria knew better.”

  “She did know better,” he said with an edge of anger. “I told her all the time not to fool around with that stuff.” He took a steading breath, closing his eyes for a moment. Lucy noticed his hands clasped together on the top of the table, his knuckles turning white.

  “So she did that before? Drank and took pills?” Maggie asked quietly.

  He nodded, his eyes still closed. “She had these down moods. Sort of a cycle, you could say. It was like, once we were alone and she was offstage, away from everyone, she’d just crash. She was like a helium balloon or something, bouncing around, making everyone so happy. And then all the air rushes out at once and she’d just … collapse.”

  All of her friends looked surprised by this confession. Except Dana, perhaps, who stitched steadily away, Lucy noticed. She didn’t show her reactions that easily and probably had some psychological category for this flip side of Gloria’s vivacious personality.

  “I’m surprised to hear you say that, Jamie,” Maggie admitted. “I knew her a long time. I’d never seen that side of her personality.”

  Jamie shrugged. “She was good at hiding it. She hid it from me pretty well until we were married. Her only flaw,” he added. He laughed sadly. “I almost didn’t mind, I have to tell you. It made her human. A little less of a goddess.”

  He did treat her like a goddess, didn’t he? Lucy thought. It was still surprising to hear him admit it.

  “I knew she liked to drink a little,” Maggie admitted. “I never thought it was to excess, though. I mean, so to the point where she’d hurt herself?”

  “Not in company. But she would drink alone. In one of her moods. And, of course, that made it even worse,” he explained. “That was the reason I kept calling her Friday, asking her to meet me in Boston.” His eyes had filled with tears and his voice began to crack. “She’d get into these moods when she was alone. I was worried about her.”

  “You were right to be worried, it seems,” Dana said sadly. “What about the pills? Did she have a problem with prescription painkillers? A lot of people start off taking them for some real injury or after an operation, then they get hooked. Is that what happened?”

  Jamie shook his head. “No … it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t that bad. But she did like to take them once in a while when she was in a down mood. I didn’t even know she had any in the house. They did find a prescription for pain medication from the dentist in the medicine chest. The same drug that was in her blood. She’d had a root canal a few weeks ago. I guess she just hung on to the stuff.”

  “I guess so,” Maggie said.

  “The police said she may have gotten dizzy or even blacked out for a minute,” Jamie explained. “Then she fell in the pool and probably panicked.”

  He swallowed hard and looked down at the table again. The image of poor Gloria, floundering around in the pool, was disturbing to all of them.

  It was a lot to think about, a lot to process, Lucy realized. This autopsy had revealed a whole side of Gloria that they’d never seen, not even Maggie. And it wasn’t just conjecture on the part of the police. Jamie’s words confirmed it.

  They had all agreed right away that the house was the only setting up to Gloria’s standards and taste. Whatever ambivalence Gloria felt about the place, once she’d married Jamie, he knew it had been her self-designed set and stage. He knew it was the right place to say good-bye to her.

  Lucy wondered if Gloria’s house was technically his now. He still spoke about the place as if she owned it. She wondered if his name had been added to the deed, or would that be a further complication for him while settling her estate?

  The past few days he’d done very little to deal with any such issues, though he had mentioned that a lawyer in town, Martin Lewis, was handling the will and had been named executor. Jamie had clearly not been up to the task of dealing with much else. There was certainly time to sort it all out.

  As Lucy helped her friends set up for the gathering, she couldn’t help but think about their get-together only one short week ago. Under such different circumstances. Gloria, the perfect hostess, had been so full of life … the confidences she’d shared with them. Lucy realized that night she’d begun to feel much closer to Gloria. She thought they all had.

  She didn’t expect to speak at the service. She hadn’t known Gloria long enough to rate that honor. But if she did need to speak, she knew what she would say. Gloria had been a true original. The sort of larger-than-life person you meet once in a great while, and remember forever.

  Jamie would certainly never forget her. He seemed stunned, Lucy thought. As if he was sleepwalking. He’d cried himself out the first two or three days and now seemed numb, walking around with a vacant, empty stare.

  Sometimes you needed to say the same thing to him several times before he’d answer. The knitting group talked with him daily. They’d called all the necessary names in Gloria’s phone books, they rented folding chairs, even contacted a minister who was willing to say a few words. Gloria had never been much of a churchgoer, but Jamie thought she’d like something officially spiritual at the end.

  In keeping with her wishes, Jamie had her remains cremated as soon as the police released the body. He had already set the silver urn on the fireplace mantel, with a simple spray of orchids in a shiny black onyx vase beside it. He did have an artist’s eye, Lucy realized.

  “That looks perfect,” Maggie told him as the group worked on the living room. “What about photographs? Do you have any that you want to display?”

  “I gathered some from the study and the bedroom. And some old albums I found in the bookcase. It’s all on the dining room table if anybody wants to sift through. I really don’t have the heart for it right now…. And I’d feel her looking over my shoulder, saying she didn’t like any of them,” he added. “Gloria always hated the way she looked in pictures. I never understood that. She was so beautiful …” He sighed. “I just wish she’d been happier with herself.”

  Lucy glanced at Maggie, b
ut she couldn’t read her reaction. Maggie had been the closest of all them to Gloria. Had she ever glimpsed these insecurities? Lucy had never seen them. Gloria had always projected a total “this is me, love it or leave it” attitude, Lucy thought. But maybe that was just a false front, another facet of the issues Jamie had confided before, her mood swings and drinking?

  It hardly seemed the right time to poke that wound. There would be other opportunities to ask Jamie questions, to try to understand what really happened. Gloria had appeared to be an open book, but now it seemed there was a lot they didn’t know about her.

  “I’ll look through the photos,” Maggie offered. “I can probably guess which ones she would have wanted to display.”

  “Want some help?” Lucy offered.

  She followed Maggie into the dining room, where Jamie had left several framed photographs and a few thick, dusty albums. Maggie sat at the head of the table and Lucy took a seat to her right so they could look at the pictures together.

  “Here’s a good one.” Maggie picked up a photo that appeared to be a recent shot. Gloria was dressed in a formal, off-the-shoulder black gown with an upswept hairdo and glittering diamond jewelry. She looked like a movie star on the red carpet, one who was enjoying the spotlight. It looked like someone else had been in the picture standing close beside her, but had been cut out, Lucy noticed. All that was left was a portion of a tuxedo-covered shoulder and arm, entwined with Gloria’s.

  “She definitely would have approved of this one, don’t you think?” Maggie held the picture at arm’s length to give Lucy a clear view.

  “I can’t see why not,” Lucy agreed. “Looks like she was at some big gala or fund-raiser.”

  “She gave a lot to charities. And to political campaigns,” Maggie added. “If you want to get business done around here, you have to move in those circles.”

  Lucy didn’t know much about “moving and shaking” in Essex County, but she took Maggie’s word for it.