A Thread So Thin

by Marie Bostwick

  His whole heart shone on his face, beaming a light that melted me. He was kind, sweet, and sincere. I was so lucky to have him in my life. I knew that. And this should have been one of the happiest moments of my life. I knew that too. So why wasn’t it?

  What was wrong with me? There couldn’t have been a more perfect evening, or a more beautiful and heartfelt proposal on earth. And I’d never met a man who could hold a candle to Garrett. Not one of my girlfriends would have thought for two seconds before accepting. Why was I?

  “Garrett, I love you.”

  His smile, which had widened with those first four words, faded as I went on. He knew. It only takes one syllable to say yes. Yes has no reservations. Yes doesn’t need to explain itself. But I did.

  “And I know you love me. That wasn’t a surprise to me. I’ve known it for a long time. I bet there’s not a man on the face of the earth who is more honest and open about his feelings than you. I’m not as good about that as you are, but I’m trying to be. That’s why I can’t just say yes to you. At least…not right now.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” he argued. “If you really—”

  I held up my hand. “Stop! Just listen to me for a minute, okay?” He stopped, the petulant look returning to his face. I took another deep breath, trying to beat back my frustration before trying again.

  “Garrett, I love you. So much. But marriage is—well, it’s forever! At least, it’s supposed to be forever. And if it’s not, then I don’t want to do it. I do love you. But…what if love isn’t enough?”

  “Liza, it will be!” he promised.

  “How can you know that? How can you know that for sure? You love me now and you say you always will. I feel the same. But isn’t that what everybody says when they get married? I suppose they must mean it. But if that’s true, why is it that so many marriages don’t last?”

  Garrett frowned. “So you don’t believe in marriage? You don’t believe that love can last?”

  “Why would I?” I asked, throwing up my hands. “I haven’t seen many examples where it does. Have you? Your parents’ marriage didn’t last. And my father never even bothered to marry my mother. He lived with her for years and then, the minute she got pregnant with me, the second things got complicated, he took off.”

  “But that’s exactly it!” he said urgently, grabbing my hands again and squeezing them. “Your father was never committed to your mother. Not the way I am to you. That’s why he never married her and that’s why he left. I’ll never do that to you, Liza. Nothing will ever, ever change my feelings for you. Not ever. Believe me.”

  “I want to. I really do,” I said. “I just don’t know if I can.”

  He let my hands drop from his. My palms felt suddenly empty and useless.

  “So this is a no,” he said.

  “I didn’t say that. I never said that. What I said…What I meant…” I stuttered, frustrated with myself and with Garrett. He was always so understanding, so why couldn’t he understand this? And me? Why was I such a complicated mess?

  I didn’t want to say no, but I didn’t know how to say yes.

  “Garrett, I need some time. I’ve got to sort this out in my mind. I know I love you. And I know that if I ever wanted to get married, it would be to you. But I also know that marriage scares me. No, wait,” I said, holding my hands out to interrupt myself.

  “That’s not true. Marriage doesn’t scare me, but divorce does. It terrifies me. The thought that in six months or six years you could wake up and decide that you don’t love me anymore is more frightening than never having been loved in the first place. Do you know what I mean?” His expression told me he didn’t.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” I said. “You had a lot of time to make up your mind, first to decide you wanted to propose and then to figure out exactly how you wanted to do it. There was nothing spur-of-the-moment about this. You said so yourself.”

  His eyes were flat. I didn’t know if he was angry, or hurt, or listening intently. I moved closer, reached out with one finger, and traced a tentative path from the elbow of his jacket down to his hand, letting it rest at the end of his fingertip.

  “You’ve had weeks to plan this, but it’s all new to me. Don’t I deserve some time to absorb this?”

  His eyes rolled up toward the ceiling, resting there a moment while he thought about this.

  “You’re right,” he said finally. “It’s a big decision. You should take some time. I want you to be sure.”

  “So do I. Thanks,” I said, relieved. “I’ve got to ask you something. Did Abigail know you were going to propose tonight?”

  “She asked me where we were going to dinner and I told her—after making her promise not to tell you and spoil the surprise, which obviously did a lot of good—but I never told her I was going to ask you to marry me.”

  I nodded. “Maybe it would be better if, just for now, we kept this to ourselves. You know how it is in New Bern. There’s no such thing as a secret. I don’t think either of us wants to deal with the pressure we’d be subjected to if people knew we were thinking about getting engaged.”

  “I guess.” He shrugged. “But there’s just one thing.” He reached his hand into his pocket, pulled out the blue jewelry box, and opened it.

  I’d been so shocked to see Garrett sinking to one knee when we were on the dance floor that I really hadn’t had a chance to look at the ring. It was exquisite, a brilliant square-cut diamond in a simple, wide platinum setting, very modern and sleek and exactly what I’d have picked if I’d chosen it myself. Garrett knew me so well.

  “What should we do with this? I know you don’t want to wear it, but…do you think you might just want to hold on to it? For a little while. Just until you make up your mind?”

  He held out the ring and looked at me with spaniel eyes. I knew it didn’t make sense for me to take the ring until I could give him a definitive yes, but he looked so miserable. I just didn’t have the heart to turn him down a second time.

  “If you want me to,” I said.

  “I do.” He took the ring out of the jewelry box and laid it in my open palm. It felt awkward, holding it without actually putting it on.

  “Wait a minute. I’ve got an idea.”

  I handed the ring back to Garrett, dug into my evening bag, and pulled out a thin silver chain. “I had this left over from one of my jewelry projects,” I explained before threading the chain through the ring and putting it around my neck. The chain was long, so the ring dangled just beneath my silver choker, almost like I’d added a diamond pendant to the silver piece. Later, I’d be able to wear it under my clothes. No one would know it was there and, for now at least, that’s the way I wanted it.

  “There!” I said after I fastened the clasp. “What do you think?”

  “It’s fine. Makes it look a little like we’re two eighth graders going steady, but if you like it…” He shrugged noncommittally, but I could tell he felt a little better seeing the ring hanging around my neck.

  “It’s a gorgeous ring. Thank you.” I reached out to squeeze his hand, wanting him to feel how much I meant what I said.

  Taking in a deep breath and then letting it out slowly, he pulled his hand back and looked at his watch. “One minute to midnight. This isn’t exactly how I pictured us beginning the new year.”

  “No? How did you picture it?”

  “With you and me on the dance floor. Cheek to cheek. Lip to lip.” He pushed his hair up off his forehead.

  “Well,” I said, slipping my arm under his and curving my body toward him, “there’s still time for that. I know we made kind of a spectacle of ourselves before, but what do we care? We’ll never see these people again. So what do you say? Do you want to dance?”

  “Hmm,” Garrett mused. “I don’t know. Can I have some time to think about it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, in that case, lead the way.”

  I did, holding his hand as we returned to the floor, wrapping my
arms around his neck and lifting my lips to meet his as the band-leader counted down the seconds to midnight, and the balloons fell, and the crowd cheered, and I wondered what other surprises the new year would hold.

  3

  Evelyn Dixon

  Depending on your point of view, January and February are either the best two months of the year in New England or the worst. Probably more people would opt for the latter than the former but, personally, I love this time of year.

  Yes, it can be bone-chillingly cold, so cold that a lot of people book flights to Florida or the Carolinas and don’t come back until March. And if it’s an especially hard winter, they might not return until April or even May, kind of like the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, who pokes his nose out from his cozy winter burrows on February 2 and, depending on where the shadows fall, either heads back inside to hunker down until the signs appear more favorable or waddles out into the open and declares that spring has arrived.

  Chilly winter weather tends to have an equally chilling effect on New Bern commerce. There are fewer people around to buy things, and those who are here tend to stay close to the warmth of hearth and home rather than brave freezing temperatures and the snow-heaped sidewalks of downtown New Bern, credit cards at the ready. Some stores, like the ice cream shop and the pool-and-patio store, close up for the entire winter. Most of the rest shorten their hours and stay closed an extra day or two during the week.

  But that’s exactly why this is my favorite time of year: It’s the only time I can take a little time for myself.

  This winter, I’m not opening the shop until eleven and I’m not opening at all on Sundays or Mondays. Charlie is closing his restaurant, the Grill on the Green, on Sunday nights, Mondays, and Tuesdays, and I couldn’t be happier. Sure, it means less income for both of us, but after the spring tourist rush, followed by the even bigger summer tourist rush, then the fall foliage rush, and the holiday rush, it’s nice to spend a few weeks of the year not rushing. This last year has been especially busy.

  My best friend from Texas, Mary Dell Templeton, now the host of a very popular quilting show on cable television, decided to do a live broadcast from Cobbled Court Quilts during our third Quilt Pink event to fight breast cancer. For weeks leading up to the broadcast, the cable channel ran promotional videos about it and Mary Dell never missed a chance to plug it on the show. As a result, foot traffic in the shop quadrupled and our online sales went through the roof. It was a great event—hundreds of people participated and we made scores of quilts that will be auctioned off for breast cancer research—but it turned out to be more work than any of us could have imagined. I’m happy we did it, but I’m not sorry that things have calmed down a bit since then.

  There’s nothing much happening in New Bern now. Not a single charity auction, concert, or festival is scheduled during January or February—not a community obligation on the calendar. That suits me fine. Not that there’s anything wrong with those kinds of events. During the rest of the year I participate in all kinds of community celebrations and I enjoy them. But I also enjoy this quiet season in Connecticut’s quiet corner. It’s like a long and lovely Sabbath rest, a day when there’s plenty of time to read, to think, to plan and reflect, to finish up all of my UFOs—those Unfinished Objects that are the bane of every quilter’s existence—and spend unhurried, unscheduled time with the people I care about, as long as they are among the hardy souls who choose to hold their ground and tough out the New England winter. Fortunately for me, most of the people I care about are very hardy souls indeed.

  And then there’s the weather.

  I grew up in Wisconsin, so I know all about winter weather. When I was a kid I simply couldn’t wait for winter. As soon as Halloween passed I’d polish up my sled and keep vigil in the front yard until the first snowfall. Sometimes the snow would come even before the end of October. One Halloween, I had to wear snow boots and a parka over my glittery fairy princess costume, which kind of spoiled the effect.

  Lots of people born in cold climates like it as kids, but once they grow up and have to shovel driveways, pay heating oil bills, and jump-start frigid car batteries, the thrill of winter wears off. Those are the people who are first on the planes to Florida, the ones who don’t even stick around for the Christmas and New Year’s parties but get into formation and fly south the day after Thanksgiving. Not me.

  The more it snows, the more I like it. After I married my husband, Rob, and moved to Texas, I didn’t see a snowflake for the next twenty years. I missed it. Maybe that’s why, after we divorced, I instinctively headed north—like a Canada goose making a beeline for the border—found my way to the village of New Bern, Connecticut, and never looked back. This is home now. Spring, summer, fall, and even in the depths of winter, this is where I belong. The way I see it, shoveling driveways is good exercise, and as for the rest of it? Fortunately, my two-bedroom cottage on Marsh Lane is so small that even when the oil prices spike in winter, the bill is still manageable. And living so close to downtown, I can walk to the quilt shop, which makes driveway shoveling less of an issue for me.

  Today, the first Monday in January, I waded through a fresh fall of ankle-high snow, plowing a path between my house and the post office, where I picked up my mail and stopped in the lobby to say hello to Gibb Rainey.

  Every small town has its share of eccentrics. Gibb is ours. I don’t know how old Gibb is, but he’s at least well into his seventies and possibly a lot older. He’s friendly, likes college sports, and wears his UConn Huskies cap wherever he goes. He’s also a loyal member of New Bern’s Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

  Years ago—no one has ever been able to tell me how many years ago, but many—near Memorial Day, Gibb was given the job of selling those little paper poppies the VFW uses to raise money for disabled vets. Because there are no mailboxes in New Bern and everybody has to go to the post office to pick up their mail, Gibb figured that would be a good place to sell his flowers.

  He loaded a lawn chair into the trunk of his 1968 Chevrolet Corvair, drove downtown to the post office, and set up shop, parking his chair on the sidewalk, right by the post office door. Not only did he set a new VFW post record for money raised during the poppy sale, he had a great time chatting with the people who passed by. So much so that he returned with his lawn chair the next day, and the next, and every day after. You can’t go pick up your mail in New Bern without stopping to talk with Gibb. In warm weather, he puts his chair on the sidewalk. And when it’s cold, like today, he moves into the lobby.

  A few years back, a new postmaster came to town. He said that Gibb couldn’t loiter inside a federal office and made him leave. That lasted about a week.

  Word of the postmaster’s treatment of Gibb got around town. People started calling the office of the First Selectman, New Bern’s version of a mayor, and even their congressmen. Before long, Gibb was back in his usual spot.

  After talking to Gibb about the possibility of more snow the next day, I headed down the street to the Blue Bean Coffee Shop and Bakery, stomping my boots clean before going inside, happy as a kid on a snow day. After our usual early morning coffee date, Charlie and I are headed up to the local ski area to hit the slopes. I’m so excited!

  But Charlie? Not so much.

  “Remind me again,” he growled as I came in the door and pulled off my gloves, “why it is we’re going to go out in the freezing cold, strap two pieces of wood on our feet, and then plummet down a mountain until we reach the bottom, fall, or run into a tree? If we wanted to kill ourselves, wouldn’t it just be easier to take off all our clothes, roll around in the snow, and wait for frostbite to set in?”

  “Good morning, sunshine,” I chirped and leaned over to kiss the top of his head. “Nice to see you too. Did you order my coffee yet?”

  He shook his head. I looked over at Cindy, who was standing by a table, filling the sugar dispenser. “Can I have my usual?”

  “Large skim latte coming right up, Evelyn. You want an English
muffin with that too?”

  “Hmm.” I eyed the goodies behind the bakery counter. “Can I have one of those maple scones instead? And some butter? I can afford a few extra calories today. Charlie and I are going skiing.”

  Cindy grinned and screwed the top back on the sugar dispenser. “So I heard. He’s been sitting here for ten minutes griping about it. I don’t mind, though. When my husband gripes, it sounds like a band saw cutting through a piece of alder, but when Charlie gripes, it sounds elevated, almost musical. There’s just something about that brogue. Everything he says sounds like poetry. It’s that gift of gab, that’s what. All the Irish have it. Charlie, Robbie Burns, and all the rest.”

  Charlie rolled his eyes. “Robert Burns was Scottish.”

  “Really?” Cindy deadpanned. “Well, in that case, I take back what I said before. You do sound like a band saw cutting through alder.”

  “Don’t you have some muffins to burn or something? Where’s Evelyn’s coffee?”

  Cindy winked at me and headed off to the espresso machine.

  “I wasn’t griping,” Charlie declared after she left. “I was just pointing out the inherent dangers of the sport and wondering aloud how I let you talk me into this.”

  I pulled up a chair and sat down next to Charlie. “Stop fussing. It’ll be fun and you know it. Besides, you were the one who said we should learn each other’s hobbies, that it would bring us closer as a couple.”

  “Yes, but that was before I realized how dangerous your hobbies were. What I had in mind was you hanging around the kitchen with me, learning how not to over-poach a salmon, or you snuggling next to me on the sofa while we watch the complete James Bond film collection on DVD, or you taking up my interest in massage—”

  “I didn’t know you knew how to give massages.”