How to Knit a Heart Back Home Read online

  From behind her, Lucy heard Molly’s voice say, “You have too much paper in there.”

  “Hey! I didn’t know you were coming tonight!”

  Molly leaned down and gave Lucy’s shoulder a brief squeeze, and then said, “Your mother hasn’t fed me in a while. And if I didn’t get a break, I was going to go stark raving crazy. Between the translation, with the phone ringing off the hook—you have no idea what it’s like to translate for a teenager screaming that her brother just overdosed while you have the worst PMS of your life—and at the same time you’re online, watching the comps for the house you’re selling change before your very eyes. And meanwhile, Theo is in my bed, telling me he loves me.”

  Striking a match, Lucy held it to the newspaper. Her father said a fire was well laid if it caught at just one point. No moving the match around, no lighting more than one place. Just one match, one spot, and if the fire started, he’d been successful.

  “That just sounds like a normal day for you.”

  “The love part? No love. I don’t do love. You know that. I do need and I do now, but not love.”

  Nothing. Just a little flickering of the paper. It lit, briefly, and caught the edge of another sheet, and then died.

  “Dammit,” Lucy muttered. So much for her dad’s method. Lucy lit the paper in three places, then struck one more match, and lit two more areas.

  With a surprisingly loud whoomp the fire caught. It blazed so fast and so hard that Lucy scuttled backward in fright.

  “I told you there was too much paper!” said Molly.

  “It looked right to me!”

  The fire wasn’t settling down. The small kindling and the larger pieces of driftwood were flaring into flame. Smoke poured out of the fire and started to fill the living room. Flames leaped higher in the grate.

  Molly said, “You opened the flue, right?”

  The flue?

  Shit.

  “I can’t remember which side the handle’s on.” Lucy ran to the doorway and yelled up the stairs, “Dad? Dad! We need you! Now!”

  The smoke thickened.

  “Can’t you put it out?” Molly said through coughs.

  “Dad!”

  Lucy’s father raced into the room. “Is the house on fire? Call the fire department!”

  “I am the fire department, Dad. It’s just the wood in the fireplace. But I can’t remember where the flue handle is. . . .”

  “You forgot to open the flue?” He sounded incredulous.

  “I guess so.”

  “Good God.”

  Grabbing a plaid wool jacket from the coatrack, he zipped it up and pulled one sleeve down over his hand. Then he plunged through the white smoke, and sticking his arm into the fireplace, he leaned into and over the flames.

  “Be careful!”

  He yanked something hard, and then drew his arm back, leaping away from the fireplace.

  “Dad? Are you okay?” Lucy coughed.

  Toots came in the room. “Bart! Are you on fire?”

  Bart slapped at the jacket, which smoked in several areas, and he checked the arm that had opened the flue. He held up the blackened sleeve triumphantly.

  “It’s dirty in there, but I got the job done.”

  Toots patted his arms. “Thank God for wool.”

  “Naturally fire retardant,” Bart said, smiling at her. “You always say that. So I grabbed it.”

  “You remembered!” said Toots, and kissed him. Then she turned to face Lucy. “What did you do?”

  It was more like what she hadn’t done. “I forgot the flue.”

  “How many times have I told you to check it?”

  “Really, Mom, too many times to count. That’s why I normally don’t light the fires around here. I’m sorry.”

  Lucy drank from her wineglass while Toots waved her hands around and pushed open two windows. “All’s well that ends well. Bart, go get the fan from our bedroom. We’ll blow this smoke out, and that nice smell will linger for days. We’ll pretend we’re at a beach bonfire.”

  Molly patted Lucy on the shoulder and said, “There. And you call yourself a firefighter.”

  “Stop it.” But for one moment, Lucy imagined what it would have looked like had they not been so lucky, had Bart not been able to open the flue, had the fire escaped the safety of the fireplace. What if the house had gone up in flames? What if Lucy had lost the very meaning of home? And it would have been her fault. The thought made her stomach heave.

  She did sometimes call herself a firefighter. Four times a month, when she carried the department pager, she did. And for the love of fiber, she must be the worst firefighter in the world. Lucy bit the inside of her cheek.

  Toots yelled up the stairs for Jonas and Silas to come down for dinner and shooed the rest of them to the table.

  Once they were gathered around the table, Toots looked at Lucy and said, “Thank you for not quite burning down the house, my firefighting daughter. Now pass me the pepper and tell me how your new tenant is doing.”

  Lucy sent the pepper to her mother via Molly. “Fine, I guess. I haven’t seen him much, actually. He’s pretty busy with his mother, I think. Out of the house a lot . . .”

  Toots nodded. “Because I met him at the bar and I think we should set him up with Whitney.”

  Lucy felt the heat of the wine hit her veins. Whitney? Whitney? “Yeah, Mom, I think he’s fine, if you don’t mind that kind of mama’s boy. He’s back in town to be near her, you know? Cute enough, I guess, if you like that kind of thing. But remember when I tutored him in high school? Anyone who dated him would have to help him pay the check just to get the change right.”

  Molly gaped through the thin remaining haze.

  Lucy went on, “And who knows where he got that limp? Maybe he tripped walking out of the doughnut shop when he was still on duty.” The sharp words felt unfamiliar, acrid, in her mouth.

  Lucy’s father stopped serving the mashed potatoes. Silas stared at her. Even Jonas’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

  “I thought you were a fan of his, darling,” said Toots lightly.

  Jonas said, “I told you she shouldn’t have let him move in.”

  Lucy said, “I just don’t think he’s right for Whitney.” She curled her toes into balls at the ends of her canvas shoes.

  “He was shot by his best friend,” said Toots. “While on duty. It ended his career. Your tone is unkind and I don’t like it at my table. Would anyone like some fried Indian okra to go with the lamb?”

  Lucy stared at her mother. “How do you know that?”

  “He told me.” Toots smiled at her daughter.

  “He told you?”

  “I asked. I met him at the Rite Spot the other day. Jonas and I had a lovely time with him and his mother. Eliza and I used to knit with his mother, and Irene and I had a nice little catch up. She doesn’t look well, poor old thing.”

  Lucy just shook her head.

  “And I think it’s just the saddest thing, a man who loses his career like that, even a job that involves potential violence and the need to carry a deadly weapon, as his did. Must be like losing his whole identity. I think Whitney, such a bright, sweet thing, would be good for him. Or Molly!” Toots sat up straight, as if seeing Molly for the first time all night. “What about you, sweetheart? Are you seeing anyone right now?”

  Molly gaped for a moment. “Well, no. Yes. Kind of?”

  “Oh, that’s fine. I’ll set my sights on Whitney.”

  “What about Lucy?” asked Molly, with a giggle in her voice. “You won’t set them up?”

  Toots looked startled for a moment. “My Lucy?”

  Lucy said, “Molly!”

  “Why not?” asked Molly. “They already have the advantage of proximity, with the bookstore and the parsonage—you already like him, and Lucy’s single. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Oh, but . . .”

  Lucy’s father frowned. “I don’t think anyone should be setting anyone up with anyone. Let people ma
ke up their own minds.”

  Jonas said, “Dad’s right.”

  Toots winked at Lucy. “Lucy’s looking for a different kind of man, anyway.”

  “I am?” Lucy still felt awful about what she’d said about the doughnut shop. She’d been kidding. How could she have known he’d been shot on duty? Of course her mother would get the lowdown before anyone else.

  Toots nodded. “Lucy needs someone gentle. Someone sweet, like her. Someone who can understand her quiet moods, her peaceful nature. Someone . . .” Toots held up her hands and let them sway. “Someone who is like the ocean on a gentle summer’s day.”

  “Someone like Gary,” said Jonas around a mouthful of potato.

  “Come on, I didn’t know he was gay. And for the record, he says he didn’t, either. He was finding himself,” snapped Lucy. “And I loved him. He was sweet.”

  “As a lamb,” agreed Molly, but her cheeks were pink, a dead giveaway she was about to burst into giggles.

  It wasn’t fair. Lucy used to date more often than she did now, and she even fell in love sometimes. She hadn’t always been this scared. But every single time she’d fallen in love, she’d been left. There’d never been a time that she’d been the person causing the breakup. She’d never been the one doing the leaving. Tim had left her for a taller, thinner version of herself who owned a chain bookstore in the city. Gary had left her (lovingly) for a man. Randy had just left. One morning, he was gone, leaving only a note that said, “I’m sorry,” and a dirty pair of jeans next to the washing machine.

  After Lincoln broke up with her, saying he was moving to Alaska to work in the canneries, Lucy had adopted a cat. After six months, Mr. Pickles had moved next door, into Mrs. Zaimo’s house. Lucy suspected a tuna lure, but couldn’t ever prove it, and now just satisfied herself with rubbing Mr. Pickles’s head whenever she saw him sunning himself outside.

  It was just safer to be alone. It hurt so much less.

  “I found a bunch of unpublished patterns.” Her voice came out too loudly.

  Lucy’s father said, “Well, that’s nice, honey. Hey, Jonas, did you ever . . .”

  “They’re Eliza Carpenter’s.”

  Toots all but came out of her chair. “Eliza Carpenter? Our Eliza Carpenter?”

  Lucy picked up her knitted bag that she’d set next to her chair. “Look, patterns that the world has never seen. And some journal entries, too.”

  Toots’s voice was low. “Let me see those.” As she reached out to take a page from Lucy, her hand was shaking.

  Molly said, “Are you kidding?”

  Toots, after a moment, said, “This is her work. This is her handwriting.” She looked up at Lucy, her eyes shining. “How amazing, Lucy. Where did you find them?”

  “Old boxes I bought from Owen, actually. They were his mother’s. And look.” She fished clumsily through the papers and gave one to her mother.

  “Look at the title of it.”

  Toots peered at the page and her eyes filled with tears. “Ruby’s Book Spire Sweater.”

  “It’s a cardigan. It’s my cardigan. The yellow one of hers I wear all the time, the one that’s shredded into tatters. She wrote this one for Grandma, who was always chilly at the store. . . . Look at the scalloped edges. Now I can re-knit it, if I find the other page, the page with the sleeves.” Lucy’s voice was passionate.

  Toots sighed and touched her lips with two fingers. “She wrote it for Mom.” She turned the paper over. “But where’s the rest of the pattern?”

  “I haven’t gone through everything yet. I hope I find it. But no matter what, there are enough patterns for a whole book. I’ll take it to Abigail and she can edit a whole new Eliza Carpenter book.”

  “People would kill for that,” said Molly, her voice cracking with excitement.

  Toots inclined her head. “They would, yes. Sure. But Abigail has two of her own pattern books coming out this year, and what with Lizzie and the new baby coming . . . And now she’s recovering from the accident . . . She’s swamped. And Cade, well, he’s not much for writing. Maybe they’ll let you do it!”

  Lucy laughed and felt the wine swim to her head. “Me? No.”

  Toots said, “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not a writer, Mom.”

  “But it would be editing, not writing. And besides, you’re the writer in the family. It’s what you always wanted to do, isn’t it? And your name, on a book of Eliza Carpenter’s work. You and Eliza. Like a collaboration?” Toots’s voice was so warm, so proud. Lucy hadn’t heard that tone directed at her, not in years, not since she won the lead in the school play when she was nine and played the Thanksgiving turkey.

  Lucy let herself bask in the warmth of her mother’s smile for a moment and then exhaled. There was no way she could do it. She sold books. She didn’t write or even edit them.

  The standoff between herself and Owen, which was probably imagined on her part, she knew that, had gone on long enough. Almost a week since the lightning. And he’d said for her to come by anytime and they’d go to the storage unit . . .

  Tomorrow, then.

  She’d talk to Owen tomorrow and see if he had any more papers, then she’d get him to take the boxes to Abigail, and that would be that. They weren’t theirs. They had to give them back. It broke her heart.

  Toots held up her hand and said, “In light of that wonderful news, I have some of my own. I have an announcement. Daddy already knows, but you should all know that I’ve started a new venture. I’m opening another chapter in my life.”

  Lucy exchanged worried glances with her brothers.

  “Going into business sticking people with tiny needles in my bar?” Jonas guessed.

  “Don’t be silly. That’s just for fun, not for profit. No, I’m going into pleasure parties.”

  Oh, no. Lucy felt herself pale. Jonas, apparently, didn’t see Silas frantically drawing his finger across his neck, and asked the fateful question of doom. “What’s a pleasure party?”

  “It’s a sex-toy party, darling.”

  Jonas blanched. Lucy put her head down on the table and rocked it back and forth.

  Bart nodded proudly. “She’s designated me the research and development department.”

  There was a long, awful pause. Jonas and Molly stared at their plates. Silas whispered something inaudible.

  Then Toots said, “Does anyone want to see my new vibrators?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Sometimes a knitter will need rescuing, and we must be ready to come to her aid, just as we would want her to do for us, were we in her handknit socks.

  —E. C.

  Owen wasn’t sure if there was anything worse than dealing with your mother’s accumulated shit, piled into a ten foot by ten foot space, seven feet high, with only the narrowest walkway through it. It felt like something out of Hoarders, only he didn’t have the promise of a job well done at the end of it glimmering like a beacon.

  Standing in the middle of the storage unit, he stood up slowly from where he’d been bending over boxes of old photographs and rubbed his hip. These were the tricky things. What the hell did he do with them? Enough photos to choke a hippo, but he had no idea whose they were—had they been of his father’s family? His mother’s? He could take a few to his mom and hope for some kind of response, but he wasn’t sure if he’d trust anything she said anyway. Photos were only memories as long as they were attached to a memory that could be trusted.

  What he really wanted to do was throw all of it out. But family photos? Wasn’t there some kind of son law prohibiting that? He moved it to the side.

  Just like he’d been doing all day.

  Damn, his body hurt.

  Was this all he had left? In the whole world? This is what he had left to look forward to? Going through a crazy woman’s belongings? She sure had more than he did. . . . Owen bet Lucy’s house didn’t look like this. Someone who owned a bookstore, a person as careful as she was, probably organized the spices alphabetically and her cloth
es by color. Of course, she had bolted out into the storm to watch the lightning, even though he’d seen that it had scared the shit out of her.

  So that meant she was probably sensible, with a dose of the unpredictable. You throw in a good amount of gorgeous, in that understated way she was, as if she didn’t even know it, and Owen knew that came pretty close to kryptonite.

  He opened another box next to the stack of photos, and found thirty cans of alphabet soup. Good. At least this was something he could chuck out. He might regret it when the Apocalypse came, but until then, he’d have five cubic feet more space in here.

  As he tossed it in the storage yard’s Dumpster, Owen thought he caught a glimpse of someone outside the fence, a girl, a block away. She reminded him of Lucy. That curve of the hip, that loose brown hair, that careful way of walking, as if not wanting to disturb anyone . . . Dammit. He had to get his mind off of her. Lucy wasn’t good for him. Obviously. This morning when he’d been shaving, he’d noticed bruised-looking places under his eyes from not sleeping, and he hadn’t had those since the shooting, since the investigation.

  At night, when he closed his eyes, he saw Lucy. And it pissed him off. The way he’d practically chased her out of the parsonage the other night . . . He didn’t deserve to see her again, to think about her. It would just cement in her mind what everyone in town already thought about him, and Owen just didn’t have the time or the heart to watch that happen to her.

  Back inside the storage unit, he kicked a recalcitrant door on an old sideboard to get it to open. It didn’t help, but it made him feel better.

  “This is insane,” said a voice from behind him.

  Owen flinched, stilled his reflexes, didn’t reach for his gun.

  “Yeah,” he said, turning around.

  “Hi,” said Lucy. She held up one hand in greeting and rocked backward on her heels, her toes lifting. “How are you?”

  “Been better.” He hated his rough tone, but he’d been alone for days, and this was a horrible job. And here she was, showing up, fresh as a flower with that open face of hers, and he was astonished to realize he wanted to rush her like a linebacker—in less than the space of a second, he could cross the few steps between them and take her by the upper arms, pulling her against him, crushing her mouth with his, pressing his body against his own, showing her exactly how badly he wanted her.