Weezy took to knitting every night after dinner. They had different programs that they liked to watch, and Weezy could always help her if she knotted a stitch or did something wrong. She sometimes hoped that Claire or Martha would join them, but they seemed to have their own thing going on. Will always went up to his office to work, and Max was so tired with his new schedule that he went to bed early.
Weezy’s blanket was really complicated. Sometimes she would explain it to Cleo, the stitches she was doing, and Cleo would watch, fascinated. It took Weezy more than an hour to do a row, and almost every row required something different. When she was done, she would knit the sheep over the blanket. “It’s not as hard as it seems,” she said. But Cleo could tell she was pleased at the attention.
Cleo finished her first blanket, and as Weezy taught her how to do the final stitch and tie it off, they both cheered. Cleo felt exhilarated. She couldn’t believe that she’d made this thing. “I love it,” she said over and over. She put it next to her and rubbed it on her face.
“We’ll wash it in Dreft and it will be all clean and ready for the baby. It’s really beautiful. You are a natural.”
They got Cleo more yarn and she started on the basket-weave blanket. This one she did in a light blue that was almost aqua. It was really more of a girl color, but you could use it for both. Plus, Cleo felt like she was having a girl, but she hadn’t told anyone in case she was wrong. She didn’t want to sound like an idiot.
“A baby can never have too many blankets,” Weezy said. “And you can always give them as gifts. It’s such a wonderful thing to receive.”
Sometimes Weezy had a glass of wine while she knitted, although one night, after she’d had a few, she ended up messing up the blanket so much that she had to take out two entire rows. “This is why you don’t drink and knit,” she told Cleo. They laughed, and Cleo wished that she could knit and drink, but it wasn’t an option.
It was funny, those nights, how peaceful it was to sit together, the TV chattering in the background showing some silly sitcom or fashion reality show. She and Weezy could talk about the people on the TV, who their favorites were, or they could talk about their knitting. But most of the time they were silent, both pairs of hands working away, fingers moving in rhythm, and Cleo felt a certain sense of happiness, to be making something for the baby, to be sitting quietly with Weezy and creating something for this little person.
Ruby liked to sit on the couch next to Cleo while she knitted, sometimes resting her body on the completed part of the blanket, like she was testing it out. At first Cleo hadn’t really liked Ruby all that much. The dog had goopy eyes and some strange-feeling lumps on her back. But after seeing how much Max adored her, and after being at the house long enough to get used to her, and the sort of foul smell that she carried with her, Cleo grew fond of her.
Ruby seemed to know that Cleo was pregnant, and she would come sit next to her and rest her head on Cleo’s stomach, as if she were talking to the baby or protecting her somehow. “Are you talking to the baby?” Cleo would sometimes whisper, and Ruby would press her snout into her stomach, as if to say yes.
Max was always worried about Ruby. “She’s walking weird,” he’d say. “She’s limping, on her right side.”
“She’s just getting older,” Weezy would tell him. But she didn’t sound so sure herself.
Ruby moved slowly around the house, and sometimes when they got ready to take her out, by the time she walked to the back door, she seemed to have forgotten where she was going.
SOME DAYS, IF CLEO DIDN’T think too much about anything, she was okay. But she was never much good at putting things out of her mind, and so most days she spent worrying. She thought about getting married to Max, and how silly it probably was. Then she thought about how, if they didn’t get married, Weezy would probably sneak down to the basement one night with a judge and marry them in their sleep. She did