Stages of Grace - By Carey Heywood Page 0,69

was here the last time, making me blush.

The meeting is over before long, and I say goodbye to all of my grandmother's friends. I make grilled cheese sandwiches when we get back to the house. After lunch, Kate lays down while I work on my scarf. I stop when I get close to the end of the skein, not sure what to do and wondering if Kate has any more yellow yarn because the scarf still isn’t long enough. I log onto my laptop and begin a job search for medical receptionists. It's great that Ryan will hire me in the mean time, but that doesn’t seem like something I'll be able to do forever.

There are plenty of doctor's offices, but few are hiring. I email my resume and the referral letter to a couple of places and then log off. Walking over to the window, I see the sun has made its appearance and decide to go for a swim. I had little use for my one suit in Cleveland. Now that I live in Florida, I may need to invest in a few more. I'm still in the pool when Ryan comes over. He takes off his shirt and joins me. I tease him about all the ladies from the knitting group. He loves it. Kate comes out not long after and starts knitting.

Kate has a lasagna in the oven for dinner that night. While she knits, I ask her if she has any more yellow yarn, and if she does, how to connect it to the yarn I'm already working with. I get out of the water to go inside and get my scarf. I sit next to Kate as she walks me through it. Leaving a bit of excess, she just makes the next loop with the new yarn and continues to the end of the row.

"But what do we do now with the pieces hanging out?"

"If you weave them through going back a little, you will never see them." Kate pulls one of the strings back and forth through the row that has just been completed until I cannot see it anymore. "Now, when you are using smaller needles, you probably need to do that with a crochet hook and not your fingers."

When she passes the needles back to me I grin, eager to knit some more.

"Kate, you’ve created a monster."

I look up like WHAT? Kate just laughs and pats me on the shoulder. I'm still damp, so I move to sit in a plastic armchair instead of the loveseat. I finish a few more rows and then go back inside to cook some broccoli to go with our meal after changing out of my suit. After we finish eating, Ryan asks what I have planned for my last few days of freedom.

"I need to buy some new bathing suits."

"I'll help," Ryan replies eagerly.

I make a face at him and then continue. "I was figuring I would probably need to wear one at work, right?"

"You'll probably start mainly working in the office, and then we'll go from there so you don’t have to get anything right away if you don’t need it otherwise."

"I won't be in the water right away?"

Ryan sees that I look upset by this. "Do you want to be? I just figured I'd ease you into it, but if you want to, well, what I'm trying to say is, it's up to you."

"But you're the boss. It’s up to you."

"Right. Well, I don’t feel like your boss, Grace." He sounds putout.

I gulp "What do you feel like?"

"Uh, your friend. So if you want to be in the water I'll put you in the water."

"I want to be in the water." I smile, shyly.

He doesn't hesitate. "Done"

I grin and go back to knitting. Since I've learned what I’m doing when I accidentally add stitches, I pay extra attention to the loops and only count every tenth row or so. This improves my ability to follow the conversation and enables me to actually participate in it. I still move slowly in comparison to Kate and I have to watch what I'm doing whereas she rarely looks down. But I feel an intense feeling of satisfaction when I ask Kate how to end the scarf.

"It's called binding off, dear. Now take your needle and go through two stitches instead of one and then make your loop like normal. Alright, now push the new loop back onto the needle with all of the other stitches. Okay,