I don’t want to ruin it. You’ll love it, I promise.”
And so, even if love affairs with a priest didn’t really sound like a huge selling point for Cleo, she was reading the book, which actually seemed a little bit trashy to be on Weezy’s bookshelf but did hold her attention, which wasn’t easy these days.
“You know what we should do?” Weezy asked her. “We should go get some yarn and start knitting blankets for the baby.”
“I don’t know how to knit,” Cleo told her.
“You don’t know how to knit?” Weezy sounded appalled, as though Cleo had just told her she didn’t know how to tie her shoes. Really, what did Weezy think, that girls still took Home Ec classes? In what world was it that strange not to know how to knit? Cleo thought all of this, but just shook her head in response to Weezy’s question.
“Well, then, I can teach you. It will be wonderful.”
Cleo was so bored that she agreed. She even hoped it really would be wonderful. Here she was, getting excited over yarn and books with philandering priests. She didn’t even recognize herself.
She and Weezy went to the yarn store, to stock up on needles for Cleo and get some easy patterns and fun yarn. The place was called At Knit’s End and was tucked in an old house off of a busy road. A few of the women greeted Weezy when she walked in.
“Hello,” Weezy said. “Ladies, we have a first-timer! This is my daughter-in-law, Cleo.” The women didn’t seem all that excited, and Cleo stood frozen, shocked to hear herself be called Weezy’s daughter-in-law. She wasn’t yet, but she didn’t correct her. She guessed that’s what she would be soon.
“Since we don’t know what the baby will be,” Weezy was saying, “we’ll have to get some neutral colors. Yellows, greens, and I guess even light blue would work. We’ll get you some yarn to practice on. And let’s see …” She thumbed through a stack of books. “Here. This looks like an easy pattern. Just knitting with increasing and a yarn over. Or you could do this one, it’s a basket weave. Just knitting and purling. What do you think?”
Cleo hadn’t understood one word that Weezy had just said, but she pointed to the simpler pattern, and Weezy nodded. She chose a light yellow yarn, which was super-soft and pretty. Weezy had found a complicated pattern, with sheep dancing across it, and she was picking up ball after ball of yarn and throwing it into the basket.
When the ladies rang them up, Cleo was surprised by the total. How did yarn cost this much? Cleo tried to offer to pay, but Weezy patted her hand away. “This was my idea and it’s my treat. It will be fun for me to get knitting again, and now I have a good excuse.”
The cashier, who was a large sour-looking woman, put their purchases into a bag and handed it to them without smiling.
“ ’Bye, ladies,” Weezy called. Some of them grunted in response. When they got out to the parking lot, Weezy lowered her voice. “Knitters are not friendly. I don’t know what it is, you’d think they would be, but I’ve learned over the years that most of them act like they have a needle up their behind.” Cleo laughed and then Weezy laughed a little bit too.
It turned out that Cleo loved knitting. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She loved the feeling of concentrating, the magic of turning the yarn over the needles and coming out with a perfect little stitch. When Weezy taught her to do a yarn over for the first time, she gasped. “Oh, look at that!” and Weezy looked pleased. It was magical, sort of.
She could knit for hours, sit with the TV on or music in the background and let her fingers go. She didn’t enjoy the actual process; it sort of made her fingers ache, and sometimes it was so boring that she felt like her skin was going to split. But she liked the goal, and she loved checking off the boxes as she was done with each row, marking her stitches with the little stitch counters. She was determined.
At night, she’d sit up in bed and knit. Max thought she was becoming obsessed. “Maybe I’m nesting,” she told him.
“Maybe that’s it,” he said. He pulled her down for a kiss and then put his face on her stomach and kissed that. “Good night, baby.”
She and