The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love - By Beth Pattillo Page 0,53

tightly.

“I do apologize for my phone call that night. I didn’t mean to disparage your ability to take care of Ranger. It’s clear you’re fond of him.”

Esther nodded. “I overreacted. Don’t give it another thought.”

They stood there for a moment. Brody opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. Finally, Esther resumed her task, clipping the leash onto Ranger’s collar, and Brody dropped his hand.

“If you need anything else, please don’t hesitate to call.”

“Thank you, Dr. McCullough.” Calling him by his title, the formality of it, helped her cope with the strange moment. Esther was not someone who reached out to others or who did well with others reaching out to her. But at that moment, she wanted to stay in the exam room. She wanted to sink into the chair behind her, take refuge from the mess of her life, and let Brody McCullough be in charge. But she couldn’t.

“We’ll see Ranger for his checkup in a few months,” Brody said. “Pam will call you to schedule it.”

“Thank you.” She nodded. “I appreciate it.”

She scooped Ranger up from the exam table and set him on the floor. Ranger was delighted to leave. He raced ahead, straining against the leash and pulling Esther down the hallway and out the door. In her high-heeled Donald J. Pliner pumps, she labored to keep up with him. He stopped when he came to her Jaguar and waited beside the passenger door, tail wagging, for her to let him in.

Esther was supposed to put him in his crate when he rode in the car, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. He enjoyed hanging his head out the window so much. With a sigh and a furtive look over her shoulder, she opened the passenger door and Ranger bounded in.

“Tomorrow,” she warned the dog in dark tones. “Tomorrow we turn over a new leaf.”

Ranger looked blithely unconcerned as he settled in for the ride home. And Esther wondered if she had the wherewithal to manage all the leaves in her life that needed rotation.

The November meeting of the Sweetgum Knit Lit Society fell on the Friday before Thanksgiving. Eugenie half worried, half hoped that several members would phone her in advance to say they couldn’t make it. If that happened, she could cancel the meeting altogether and they’d never have to discuss the Song of Solomon.

Sadly though, no one did any such thing, and so twenty minutes before the appointed hour, she was wiping off the table in the Pairs and Spares Sunday school class.

The tabletop was sticky with spilled coffee and doughnut sugar, which meant that Napoleon, the church custodian, must be on vacation. She vaguely remembered Paul mentioning it to her. She often listened with only half an ear when Paul talked about church business. She was so overwhelmed with all her own new church activities that she just didn’t have the energy.

Eugenie was depositing the wad of paper towels into the brimming trash can near the door when she heard her husband calling her.

“Eugenie? You here?”

She stepped into the hallway, and the smile that spread across her face when she saw him was as inevitable as it was pure. “I’m here.”

He gave her a quick kiss and squeezed her shoulders. “I wasn’t sure I’d have a minute to come up between meetings.”

Although most of Sweetgum was at the homecoming football game, Paul and a handful of the church leadership had scheduled a stewardship meeting. The annual pledge campaign, where they asked people to turn in an estimate of their giving for the next year, was not going as well as he’d hoped. The thought caused her stomach to twist. She had never mentioned her conversations with Hazel to Paul, and he seemed to take her sudden immersion in church life at face value.

“Have you had any great insights into the mysteries of church giving?” she asked with sympathy. When it came to managing the library, at least she had compulsory tax money—instead of voluntary philanthropy—to count on.

“I don’t think that mystery will ever be unraveled,” Paul replied, teasing, but then his expression sobered. “I think it’s far more likely we’ll be faced with some budget cuts for next year.”

From what Eugenie could tell, the yearly budget of Sweet-gum Christian Church had as much fat as an anorexic. “I’m sure people have just forgotten to turn in their pledge cards.” Guilt, undeserved as it was, pinked her cheeks.

“I hope you’re right.” He exhaled. “Anything else you