Knit Two Together
Connie Lane
Her mother remained a mystery in life…and in deathLibby Cartwright hadn't planned on inheriting a yarn shop from her estranged mother. But that was before she found her favorite childhood stuffed animal amidst the dust and moldering yarn. And before she encountered a motley crew of locals determined to resurrect the store. So what else had Mom been hiding?Running Metropolitan Knits means Libby still has lots to learn. About knitting. Motherhood (who ever said raising a daughter was easy!). And even romance. For quiet Hal O'Connell, an unlikely–and unattached–new customer, turns out to be a kindred spirit. As the Grand Reopening approaches, Libby learns to knit two together–in knitting and in life….
“It’s way too gross to have to watch my own mother hanging all over some guy.”
With that comment, Meghan left the room in a huff.
Libby closed her eyes and drew in a breath designed to calm her. It didn’t work. Neither did her fervent prayer that when she opened her eyes again, Hal would have somehow magically disappeared.
He was still there.
“If what I did might be construed in any way, shape or form as hanging all over you, I hope you’ll forgive me. I didn’t mean—”
He laughed.
“You think that was funny?”
Shaking his head, Hal stood. “I think you’re way too serious.”
“What am I being too serious about?”
“Look,” he said, “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, but I’m a single guy. And my hand might be hurt, and I might be going stir-crazy from being cooped up at home, but I’m far from dead. So the whole thing about you hanging all over me…” A smile tickled the corners of his mouth.
“Your daughter was overreacting,” he said. “She was imagining things. You were not out of line. You were not hanging all over me. But—” with a wink, he walked out the door “—it’s a pretty interesting thought.”
Connie Lane
remembers when she got her first library card and the first book she took out of the Cleveland Public Library: Horton Hatches the Egg. That was the official start of her love of reading; writing stories naturally followed. She majored in English at Cleveland State University, studied literature at Queen’s College, Oxford University, England, and turned her love of words and her overactive imagination into a career in journalism and corporate communications. After the births of her two children, she began writing fiction and has published nearly thirty books. In addition to category romance, she’s written single-title and historical romance as well as mysteries, and has taught writing to aspiring novelists. She has been nominated for a RITA
Award by Romance Writers of America. She lives in northeast Ohio with her family and Oscar, a rescued Jack Russell, and Ernie, an adorable Airedale puppy.
Knit Two Together
Connie Lane
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
From the Author
Dear Reader,
If you’ve ever walked into a knitting shop and been blown away by the colors, the textures and the possibilities of what you could do with all that yarn, then we’ve got a lot in common!
You see, like millions of others, I’m addicted to knitting. (And to crochet and weaving, too.) I daydream about the possibilities of what might happen when needles, yarn and a bit of imagination come together. That’s what I was thinking about when I first came up with the idea for Knit Two Together.
Like all novels, this one started as nothing more than that rough idea. All of it came together there in Metropolitan Knits, a fictional version of what I think of as the ideal yarn shop. Libby learns to take her experiences there and knit them into the fabric of her family’s life, seamlessly blending past and present and carrying on traditions that, like knitting, give continuity and form to our world.
Happy knitting!
Connie Lane
P.S.—I love to hear from my readers. You can contact me at connielane@earthlink.net.
How many people can one book be dedicated to?
This one is for Diane, Emilie, Jasmine and Karen
with thanks and appreciation.
It’s also for Cheryl I, Susan, Cheryl II and Patty,
the great staff at Soft ’n Sassy—the world’s best
yarn shop—in Broadview Heights, Ohio.
And for Georgia, Eleanor, Carol, Ruth, Pat, Karin, Gail
and all the other talented knitters I’ve met through the
years. Thank you for many hours of companionship,
advice and inspiration.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 1
“Of course I want to sell the yarn shop. It’s just that—”
Libby Cartwright would have liked to continue her phone conversation, but at that moment she noticed a man standing outside her office door. He was holding a clipboard that contained an official-looking form, and something told her she was going to need two free hands, so she mumbled an excuse to the real-estate agent on the other end of the line. She propped the phone between her ear and her shoulder and motioned for the man to come in. She accepted the clipboard and pen he handed her, and when she scrawled her name and the title Office Manager on the line above where it read Responsible party, her hands didn’t even tremble. At least not too much.
While the man tore off one sheet of the form she’d just signed, dropped it on her desk and backed out of her office, she returned to her conversation.
“I told you, Mr. Harper, getting rid of the knitting shop has been priority number one ever since I found out about the inheritance.” The noise of a scrape and bump from out in the hallway attracted her attention, and Libby glanced out her door to where two men struggled to haul away the just-delivered printer/fax/copier she had ordered three months earlier. With everything else that was happening at Cartwright, Remington and Hawes, no one in the office had even had a chance to read the how-to manual, much less learn to operate the behemoth.
The equipment was unused. Practically untouched. And far easier to return because of it.
“I hear what you’re saying, Mrs. Cartwright.” The sound of Will Harper’s voice drew Libby’s attention away from the commotion in the hallway. “But what you’re saying and what you’re doing sound like two different things to me.”
“What I’m saying is that I want to sell the yarn shop. What I’m doing…”
Libby drummed her fingers against the windowsill. What she was doing was hesitating, plain and simple.
She twitched her shoulders to get rid of the thought, scolding herself as she did. By now she should have known better—there were some things she couldn’t so easily shake.
“I have no intention of ever reopening the shop,” she told Will and reminded herself. “I don’t want to run it. For one thing, the shop is in Cleveland and I live in Pittsburgh.”
“Which is exactly why you should be up on your desk doing the happy dance right about now.” She heard the click of his cigarette lighter and his quick intake of breath. “Tip-Top is all over the West and they claim they’re going to own the drugstore market in Ohio, too, in just a few years. Lucky for you, they want to start in Cleveland and they’re not looking for some pristine parcel out in the burbs. They want an established neighborhood and they’re willing to raze a city block to build one of their stores. Your mother’s property isn’t the only one they’re looking at, remember. We need to jump on this as quickly as we can. The offer they’re making…well, honestly, as I told you before, I don’t think you’ll ever do any better.”
“They’re lowballing me.”
Were they? Libby wasn’t sure. In the two years since she’d taken over the job of office manager for the law firm, she’d discovered that she was a whiz at scheduling, a crackerjack manager of people and something of a genius when it came to finding the best prices on supplies and equipment. But real estate was a whole new ball game. Still, talking money seemed like the appropriate thing to do at this stage. As for balking at the price, wasn’t that what real-estate deals were all about? Besides, it was a plausible excuse for her hesitation. And a better comeback than the truth.
The knit shop is the only thing I have—the only thing I’ve ever had—from my mother. Once I sell, it means I’m severing this one last tie and quitting. For good. Forever.
“Mrs. Cartwright? Don’t you agree?”
Libby snapped out of her thoughts. “I’m sorry. This connection isn’t all that good,” she said, because it was better than admitting she hadn’t been listening. “You were saying—”
“That I’ll bet the money from this deal would come in handy right about now. For you and for your husband.”
As if Will could see her, Libby looked at the receiver in wonder. “How do you know about Rick?”
“Hey, I know the economy stinks. I’ll bet it’s hit you folks hard.”
Hard was putting it mildly.
Libby dropped into the chair behind her desk, and though she didn’t know how, she sensed that Will was reading her mind.
“A big influx of cash might help out, right?” he asked. “Am I onto something here?”
He was. Libby could take the cash from the sale of Barb’s Knits and dump it right into the firm’s account. It wasn’t a magic bullet, but it would help staunch the sea of red ink.
Sending back the mother of all printer/fax/copiers was just the tip of the iceberg. There were staff cuts yet to be made and that meant employees—friends—would spend the summer, the worst job-hunting time of the year, pounding the pavement.
“So…” Will eased back into the subject. “You climbing up on that desk of yours? Is that why you’re so quiet? Should I put on the music so you can start dancing?”
Libby managed a weak smile. “Not yet. Maybe if I just—” She caught herself before the words slipped out.
Maybe if I just went to Cleveland and looked at the shop.
So many times in the past months she’d suggested it. And every time Rick had reminded her the trip was a complete waste of time and inconvenient as well. After all, she had the firm to worry about, as well as their daughter Meghan’s schedule. Going to Cleveland to see a shop that didn’t mean anything to her and that had been left her by a woman she hadn’t seen in years…Why take the chance of reopening wounds that had taken so long to heal?
Face it, Lib. Inside her head, Rick’s familiar words were a mantra. That rift is too wide ever to cross.
She told herself not to forget it, reminded herself that the past was gone and nothing could change it and got down to business.
“Maybe if Tip-Top ups their offer,” she told Will.
He chuckled. “Even a miracle worker like me couldn’t pull off that one. They’ve seen the property, you haven’t. Maybe you’d feel better about the whole thing if you came to Cleveland and—”
“No.” Libby answered quickly and refused to reconsider. “But I could use more money. I thought the property would be worth more. It’s the retail space on the first floor and the apartment upstairs, right? That’s like getting two properties.”
“Tip-Top doesn’t give a damn about square footage. They’re going to knock the place down! Believe me, this offer is a gift. And, remember, if we play hard to get, they’ve got their eye on a second spot across town. What do you say? It would be one less thing on your plate. A weight off your shoulders. An albatross from around your neck. A—”
“Okay, all right!” Libby had to laugh. There was nothing as over-the-top as a Realtor anxious to seal a deal. “I know it’s the right thing to do. And it would really help us out.”
It wasn’t an outright surrender, but it was pretty close. “You’ll talk to your husband?” Will asked.
“I’ll talk to my husband,” she promised. “But you know the final decision is mine.”
“And I know you’ll make the right one. How about if I tell Tip-Top we’ll have an answer for them this afternoon?”
“That seems awfully quick. How about tomorrow? Or—”
“They’ll go somewhere else.”
“Yes. Of course.” Libby’s breath was tight in her throat. “This afternoon,” she said. “I’ll talk to you then.”
“And we’ll put this deal to bed. You’ll be glad when it’s over, Mrs. Cartwright.”
She had no doubt of it. It was getting there that was, unexplainably, the painful part.
Libby hung up. She’d told Will she’d run the Tip-Top offer by Rick, but she really didn’t have to. She knew what he would say.
She’d talk to Rick anyway. It was how partnerships worked—how their marriage had always worked and one of the reasons that, after sixteen years, theirs was as strong as ever.
She was set to leave her office when she grabbed the file folder that contained her thoughts on staff cuts. As long as she was going to have Rick’s undivided attention, she might as well get as much business accomplished as possible.
The door to Rick’s office wasn’t closed, but Libby rapped it with her knuckles anyway. She’d already stepped inside when she saw that he was on the phone, so while he finished she toed the threshold.
She didn’t mind waiting. It gave her the perfect excuse to step back and look at her husband.
At forty, Rick still made her heart skip a beat, and watching him, a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. As always, he was impeccably dressed in a charcoal suit that was a perfect complement for his slim runner’s body. His dark hair was touched with gray, and she suspected that over the next years he’d turn into a carbon copy of his handsome, silver-haired father. Rick’s eyes were blue, and as he talked, the little dimple in his left cheek made a showing. She remembered that when they’d met in law school, that dimple was the first thing she’d noticed about him. That and the fact that she’d instantly fallen head over heels in love with him.
All these years later, nothing had changed. Oh, they’d had their rough patches—didn’t all couples?—but they’d come through stronger and happier. Life was good even if it wasn’t perfect.
Even if Rick insisted she sell Barb’s Knits without once taking a look at it and maybe getting some insight into the mystery that was her mother’s life.
The thought hit Libby out of the blue, and with a shake of her shoulders she got rid of it.
Logic, she reminded herself, was more important than emotion. Besides, any emotion she might have felt for Barb had evaporated years before.
Rick motioned to Libby that he’d be right with her.
“You’re sure?” he said into the phone. “Yeah. Of course. You know that’s true. I just didn’t think—” He spun his chair toward the window. “I’ll take care of it,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’ll just need to move on this faster and hey, that’s not such a bad thing, is it?”
As soon as he hung up, Libby stepped into the office. “Problems?”
Rick turned his chair around. “Nothing I can’t handle.” He looked her over, and for the second time in as many minutes, Libby felt her heart skip a beat. She swore she could feel a little lick of fire every time Rick looked at her.
This time, though, his gaze stopped at the file folder she carried.
“You want to talk business.”
Libby dropped into the guest chair across from where Rick sat. “Is that so unusual?”
“No, it’s just that…” He cleared his throat. “I’ve got some things to talk to you about, too.”
“Oh, no, buster. Me first. You’re not stealing my thunder.” For reasons she’d already examined and dismissed as unfounded, she wasn’t as excited about selling the knit shop as she knew Rick would be. But she didn’t mind pretending. After all the stress caused by the business slump the law firm was experiencing, he deserved a little pampering. “Good news. I got an offer on the property in Cleveland.”
“Take it.”
“Just like that? You don’t want to know how much they offered?”
He shrugged. “I don’t much care.”
“I thought you did. I thought—”
“You’re always putting words in my mouth.” Rick got up and crossed the room to close his office door. He stood with his back to her. “You know I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m just thinking about you, Lib. You need to have that Palmer woman out of your life.”
“That Palmer woman…” Libby gave the words the same inflection Rick had. As if they tasted bad. “She was my mother.”
“And a lousy one at that.”
“There’s no denying it. But that doesn’t mean—”
“What? That you should go on some kind of Indiana Jones quest?” Rick spun around. “You’re thinking about going to Cleveland again, aren’t you? Let’s face it, you’re not going to find something there that explains why Barb treated you the way she did. Or why, after all these years, she left you her business. What are you looking for, a letter? ‘Dear Libby, here are all the reasons I abandoned you, now you can live happily ever after’?”
“Of course not!” Though she denied it, Libby had to admit—at least to herself—that the thought had occurred to her. It was preposterous, sure. That didn’t make it any less appealing. And Rick should have known that.
She pulled in a breath to steady her racing heart. “I didn’t come in here to argue,” she said. “We’ve talked about it all before.”
“Ad nauseam.”
“Really?” Tears stung Libby’s eyes. She sniffed and stood. “And here I thought we were discussing an important part of my life because you cared about me.”
In an instant Rick’s anger dissolved. He stepped toward her but stopped short of folding her into a hug. “Of course I care,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been so preoccupied. You know that, Lib. You know I’ve got other things on my mind. That’s why when you said you had an offer, I figured we’d put an end to this whole thing.”
If he wasn’t going to make the first move, Libby would. She reached for Rick’s hand and folded her fingers over his. “It’s just that now that it’s come down to crunch time—”
“Nobody’s better in a crisis than you are.” He flashed a smile that disappeared quickly. “You know this is the right thing to do, Lib. It’s time to put that part of your life to rest.”
“I know. I have, but—”
“We could really use the money.”
“Yeah.” Libby pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. “You’re right.”
Rick untangled himself from her grasp and retreated to the other side of his desk. “One more thing off our to-do list.”
“But there are other things we need to discuss.” She waved the file folder. “I’ve been going over the list of people we could let go.”
“You know we have to do it.”
“I know. But I’ve been thinking…we could keep three clerical people. If we cut somebody with a higher salary.”
Rick dropped into his chair. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Libby was relieved. She flipped open the folder, took out the paperwork on Belinda Acton, the firm’s newest attorney, and handed it to Rick. “She’s been here only a few months,” she said. “There aren’t any strong ties and she’s not responsible for many billable hours. Besides, she’ll find something else fast.”
Rick’s gaze snapped to her. “It’s out of the question.”
“But that’s crazy, Rick. Belinda will be sitting pretty in a matter of weeks.”
“She stays.”
“Then who?”
He pulled in a breath, but his gaze never wavered from hers. “You.”
Libby opened her mouth to respond, but the words refused to form on her lips.
“Come on, Lib, it’s the most plausible plan and you know it. You’re going to quit anyway.”
She heard what Rick was saying, but it was as if he was speaking another language. Her knees turned to jelly, and Libby dropped into the closest chair. “I have no plans to quit. I never did. I took this job when you needed extra help. I’ve been good for the firm.”
“And you’ve got the place running like clockwork. I’m grateful. But, come on, let’s be honest. You also know that you’ve got something of a pattern. You know, a reputation?”
He smiled at her the way she’d seen him smile at Meghan when their daughter didn’t understand her math homework. As if the truth was staring her right in the face and if she looked a little harder she was bound to see it.
“You quit law school,” he said.
“Ancient history.” It was, and so ridiculous Libby nearly laughed. Until she realized that Rick wasn’t kidding. “I quit law school because of you,” she said, reminding him though she shouldn’t have had to. “We both couldn’t afford to stay in school. And let’s face it, we all say it isn’t real, but that glass ceiling does exist. We knew your income would outpace mine eventually. Besides, I wouldn’t have had to quit if your father had paid for your schooling. If you two hadn’t been going at each other like cats and dogs—”
“We wouldn’t have been going at each other like cats and dogs if I hadn’t been dating you. I gave up—”
“What?” Libby rose and looked around the office with its to-die-for view and expensive furnishing. “Looks like you and Daddy kissed and made up.”
“Yeah, but not until I had a degree. One I paid for myself.”
“You mean one I paid for. I gave up my dream of being an attorney. For you.”
“You quit.”
As if he’d slapped her, Libby stepped back, but before she could argue, Rick continued. “You quit your book discussion group.”
“Oh, come on, that’s not even in the same ballpark. Besides, that was because I took the job here!”
“You quit your yoga class.”
“When Meghan needed more appointments at the orthodontist.”
“You quit everything, Lib. Eventually you’d walk out on the firm, too.”
A tear slipped down Libby’s cheek. She remembered the phone call he’d been on when she’d walked into his office. “Something’s going on. You’re not acting like yourself. If it’s my idea that we lay off Belinda—”
“Belinda is…” Rick’s voice broke. He cleared his throat. “As a matter of fact, that was Belinda on the phone. Belinda and I…well, I know you’ll be happy for me. Someday, when you have time to think about it. We’ve been meaning to tell you, but the time’s never been right. And now…” His gaze flickered away. “Belinda and I were planning on getting married anyway, but now…well, we’re going to need to accelerate our plans. That’s why she called, you see. To tell me she’s having my baby.”
CHAPTER 2
“All right, you saw it. Can we get out of here now, Mommy? Please!”
At the sound of the pleading voice, Libby jerked to awareness. She looked away from the ramshackle building that had held her attention since she’d gotten out of the car and glanced to her left, where Meghan had a firm hold on the sleeve of her black cotton cardigan.
At fourteen, Meghan was way past calling her “Mommy.” Except when she wanted something. The something she wanted now was all too apparent, and as Libby had been doing for the past couple months, she wavered about making a decision as to what to do about it. She had never been the indecisive type before—at least not before Rick caused her world to crumble and her self-esteem to plunge—and the very act of hesitating only made her feel less self-assured. She knew Meghan would pick right up on the weakness and Libby braced herself. No doubt her daughter would be all over her in a second.
“Mommy, come on.” Meghan tugged her toward the silver Subaru. “If we leave now, maybe nobody will know we were ever here.”
As arguments went, it wasn’t the most convincing.
Libby glanced around at the city neighborhood where the buildings stood so close together they might as well have been sided with Velcro. The main street had small businesses interspersed between houses, bars and art galleries. In the few minutes she and Meghan had been standing there staring at the building with the faded sign over the front door that declared it Barb’s Knits, they had yet to see one other person come or go at either the bakery on the right or the beauty shop on the left. And, of course, no one was shopping at Barb’s Knits these days; the store had been closed for nearly a year.
Always conciliatory, Libby offered her daughter a smile even though she knew it would be met with a sneer. “Honestly, honey, I don’t think you have to worry about being seen at the wrong time or in the wrong place. It’s early and things are pretty quiet around here. There’s not much chance of anybody seeing us. Look over there.” She pointed toward a scrappy German shepherd who was eyeballing them from the park across the street. “Looks like he’s the welcoming committee, and my guess is he’s not going to tell anybody.”
“It’s creepy.” Meghan shivered inside the pink hoodie Libby had bought her at the Gap for her last birthday. “The whole place looks like something out of a Stephen King movie. Look at it!” Her top lip curled, Meghan glanced around the perimeter of the park. For Libby, the old neighborhood had a certain appeal. It was anchored by an imposing church, dotted with park benches, bus stops and coffee houses. Except for Barb’s Knits—a little seedier than its neighbors and, surprisingly, a little embarrassing because of it—the surrounding shops had the solid feel that bright, new suburban stores never could. Pride of ownership was reflected in everything from the brightly colored and graphically appealing signs to the window boxes planted with summer annuals. Thinking about the generations of people who had put their blood, sweat and tears into the neighborhood and the new generation that worked just as hard to maintain it, Libby felt a sense of belonging. She was part of that new generation now. She had to live up to the promise of the neighborhood and those who had rescued it from melting into urban decay.
It was a scary thought. And exhilarating, too. None of which meant she didn’t sympathize with Meghan.
Like most kids her age, Meghan had been raised to think of the mall as the only place to shop; the bright and the new were all that mattered. Looking back on it now, Libby realized she should have introduced her daughter to the world beyond the confines of their upper-middle-class suburb long before her life—and her marriage—had been pulled out from under her. Whose fault was it that Meghan had seen little of downtown Pittsburgh other than the Science Center, PNC Park, where the Pirates played, and the view from her father’s office? This was new territory for Meghan. Not just a new city but a new way of life. A new home. A new beginning.
Just as it was for Libby herself.
With a deep breath for courage, Libby reminded herself that the transition was bound to be frightening. Just as so much of Meghan’s life had been these past months since Rick had announced he was filing for divorce.
When Meghan started pleading again, Libby didn’t argue. But she wasn’t about to give in, either.
“Mommy!” Meghan’s voice was anguished. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Let’s go home.”
“We said we were going to make a go of it, remember?” Libby said, and before her daughter could bring up every argument she’d raised in the six weeks since Libby had decided to come to Cleveland, she held up one hand for silence. “We talked about this, Meghan. We decided it would be a new start. An adventure.”
“You decided.” Meghan crossed her arms over her chest. It was clearly a case of the proverbial line in the sand, and Libby wasn’t in the mood.
“It’s the best thing,” she reminded her daughter. “For both of us.”
“For you, maybe. Not for me. I should be home right now. I should be sitting by the pool at Jennifer’s. Or Rollerblading with Emma. Or going to dance class with—”
“There are pools and Rollerblading and dance classes in Cleveland,” Libby told her as she’d told her a hundred times before. “You’re a great kid. You’re popular. You’re a good friend. You don’t have trouble mixing in and you’d be starting high school back in Cranberry, anyway. Instead of meeting new people there, you’ll meet new people here when you start at Central Catholic. You know you will, Meggie. Pretty soon you’ll make lots of new friends in Cleveland.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my old friends.”
Libby let out a slow breath. “You’re absolutely right. They’re great kids and you can e-mail them every day and see them on vacations and on the weekends and holidays when you visit your dad. But here, here is where we’re going to start over.”
“Daddy’s starting over and he didn’t have to leave Pittsburgh to do it.”
It was a low blow, and just as Meghan had calculated, it slammed into Libby like a fist. She stopped herself from sniping back. Oh, it was tempting, but it wasn’t fair to blame Meghan for the pain that gnawed her insides.
“What Daddy’s doing is…” Libby almost let her emotions get the best of her. Immature, selfish and just plain boneheaded were not words she should use to describe Rick. At least not in front of her daughter. Meghan had heard enough of that talk. It was time to turn over a new leaf.
“Daddy’s starting over is different,” she told Meghan instead and she congratulated herself. If Libby pretended she wasn’t talking about the last three months and how her life fell apart and her daughter’s world crumbled, she could almost make herself sound logical and objective about the whole thing. “He’s got a new wife and he and Belinda are going to have a new baby. We’ve got each other and—”
“And this trashy place.” Meghan turned her back on Barb’s Knits. “Did you ever even consider that it might be a dump before you moved us all the way here?”
Of course Libby had. She would have been crazy not to.
But she never imagined it would be this bad.
The thought settled inside her, and even though she knew it wasn’t fair, she automatically compared Barb’s Knits to the rest of the neighborhood.
The rest of the neighborhood won. Hands down.
Once upon a time—and that must have been a very long time before—the building had been not commercial but residential. It had a stone path that led from the sidewalk where they stood, and on either side of the path, flower beds where dandelions poked out of the soil, reaching for the summer sunshine.
Four steps led to a porch where the paint was chipped and a front door that was so caked with dirt it was hard to tell what color it might once have been. The front window was too dirty to see inside, as were the windows in the apartment above the first-floor retail space.
Home, sweet home.
Libby shook her head, clearing it of the fog of doubt that had settled over her with every mile she put between herself and her old life. She knew better than to be surprised by anything she might find inside or outside the shop. To pretend otherwise would be to admit she was both foolish and naive.
But that didn’t mean she thought she hadn’t made the right decision by coming to Cleveland.
Libby put on her game face. She wasn’t fooling herself and heck, she probably wasn’t fooling Meghan either. But maybe if she pretended hard enough, one of these days she’d convince herself it was actually possible to feel alive again.
“It can’t hurt to go inside and look around, can it?” Libby asked and—thank goodness—at that moment a man in the park across the street waved to them, and Meghan didn’t have a chance to answer. From the look in her eyes to the lower lip thrust out just enough for the world to know she was a martyr and a long-suffering one at that, Libby had no doubt what her daughter would have said.
With a quick look both ways, the man hurried across the street. In one hand he held a red leather leash with an overweight poodle on the end of it. With his other hand he gave Libby the thumbs-up.
“I’m guessing you’re the new owner, right? You must be. There hasn’t been another person who’s taken a look at Barb’s old place in as long as I can remember. Unless…” He narrowed his eyes and gave Libby the once-over. “Now that I’ve opened my mouth, you’re not going to tell me you’re from the drugstore chain, are you?”
“You sound as if that’s not a good thing,” Libby said.
The man’s expression grew sour. “I guess it’s progress, but…”
“But you’re not thrilled with the idea of the big-box drugstore taking up most of this block.”
“Me and everyone else around here. Well, almost everyone else. Peg over at the beauty shop—” he looked that way “—she says she’s not going to budge, but I don’t trust her. Barb’s Knits sits smack-dab in the center of the block, and the whole entire block is what those Tip-Top folks are after. Everything hinges on the sale of this property, and I’m betting that if Barb’s Knits goes, Peg will pull up stakes and go, too. Then there will be nobody stopping those Tip-Top folks. Peg!” He snorted. “She always was one to think of herself first and everyone else dead last. So fess up! You one of them? Or one of us?”
Libby grinned. “One of you. I think. If you’re talking about me being the new owner of the property, I am.” She introduced herself and shook the man’s hand. “And, just so you know, I’m planning on opening the store again. I told the drugstore folks I wasn’t interested.”
“Hear that, Clyde?” The man bent to rub the dog’s head. “That ought to get Peg’s knickers in a twist. Told you this nice lady looked like one of the good guys.” He stood and smiled at Libby before he hurried along with the dog. “Thanks for not selling to those drugstore creeps.”
Watching him go, Libby gave Meghan a playful elbow in the ribs. “See that? We’re already superheroes and we just got here. They’ll probably change the name of the park in our honor.”
“Whatever.” Meghan rolled her eyes. Clearly there were things a fourteen-year-old understood that an adult never would.
Reminding herself to cut Meghan some slack, Libby put an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. It wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Over the past months Meghan had grown at least an inch.
Libby herself wasn’t as petite as she was compact and though she struggled to maintain her figure as she was nearing forty, she sometimes looked longingly at Meghan, who was tall and willowy even as she was just entering her teenage years. Libby wondered what it would be like not to have to hem every pair of pants she ever bought.
Meghan’s hair was nearly black, her eyes were as blue as sapphires and her complexion was porcelain perfection. They were traits she’d inherited from her father’s side of the family and she had yet to learn—thank goodness!—to use them to her best advantage. When she did, Libby knew Meghan would break hearts and—at least until hers was broken in return and she knew how much it hurt—she’d enjoy every minute of it.
Libby, on the other hand, had unremarkable brown hair that tended to curl unless she kept it short and tamed with any number of hair-care products. She liked tailored, classic clothes, traditional styling and lots of color. As long as the colors in question were black, navy-blue, gray or white.
Meghan’s growth spurt was just another sign that life was changing. Time was passing, and it was a reminder that Libby couldn’t wait for a fairy tale someday to make a new life for herself and her daughter. Today was what they had. It was all that mattered.
“What do you say?” She stepped toward Barb’s Knits, taking Meghan along with her. “Should we have a look inside?”
“Do we have to?”
“Unless you want to live out here on the sidewalk.”
Beneath her hand, Libby felt her daughter’s shoulders rise and fall. “We could go home.”
“This is home now.”
“We could—”
“Race you to the door.” It was a game they hadn’t played in years, and Libby couldn’t say why she thought of it. She slid her arm from around Meghan’s shoulders and hurried up the front steps, fast enough to make it look as if she was willing to compete, but slow enough to allow Meghan to win. It wasn’t until she was at the door that she looked back to see Meghan standing exactly where she’d left her.
“You’re so embarrassing,” Meghan said, and she stomped up to the porch.
“Yeah,” Libby said under her breath. “And it worked, didn’t it?”
With one hand, she fished in her purse for the key that her mother’s attorney had sent. She pulled it out and held it up for Meghan to see.
“You ready?” she asked her daughter.
Am I?
The words taunted Libby. She fingered the key, imagining what she might find on the other side of the door. Was she ready for this glimpse into her mother’s life? Libby couldn’t lie to herself; she hoped that something on the other side of the door would reveal Barb’s character, explain her motives, prove a mother’s love she’d never known.
And if she didn’t find it?
“Mom!”
Meghan’s voice snapped Libby back to reality.
“You gonna go inside or you just gonna stand here and stare?”
Libby tossed the key into the air and caught it. “Gonna go inside,” she said and she unlocked the front door. She paused on the threshold, drew in a breath for courage. And immediately gagged.
“I think something’s dead in there,” she said at the same time Meghan squealed.
Libby wasn’t going to let that stop her. She hadn’t come hundreds of miles to be chased away by a smell.
There was a wooden chair on the front porch, and Libby propped it against the door to keep it open and allow some air inside.
As ready as she’d ever be, she stepped into Barb’s Knits.
“The place is a dump.” Meghan was right behind her and as always, she had a way of distilling a situation to its essence.
Barb’s Knits was, indeed, a dump.
The room they stepped into must have once been the living room of the first-floor apartment. In addition to a dust-covered counter and cash register on the left, there was a wall of shelves and books directly ahead of them, and across from it, tables where tape measures, scissors and other supplies were piled. Beyond a doorway was another room and from what Libby could see, another past that. She peered through the gloom. There was lots of yarn everywhere, lots of dust and—Libby shivered—even some mouse droppings.
And something else.
In spite of Meghan’s half-heard warnings about ghosts, axe murderers and creepy crawlers, Libby started into the next room without hesitation, her attention caught by a display table.
The table had two tiers. The bottom one was stacked with wool, but Libby hardly noticed. Her eyes were on the teddy bear on the top tier. A cocoa-colored bear with one missing eye.
“Mom, you okay?”
“Of course.” Libby answered automatically, even though she wasn’t sure she was. Though she had no clear memory of the bear, there was something vaguely familiar about it. He was dressed in a fisherman knit sweater—handmade by the looks of it—and the fur on his right arm was nearly gone as if years of hugs had worn it away. Instinctively Libby touched the bear with one finger, then stepped back. She swore he was watching her with that one good eye of his.
“Mom!” Meghan’s voice called from the front room. “You’re awfully quiet in there. Did you get kidnapped?”
“I’m just looking around,” she told Meghan. “That’s all.”
“Yeah, right. And I just fell off a turnip truck.”
It was what Libby always said when Meghan tried to pull a fast one on her. Libby smiled grimly.
Meghan stepped through the wide arched doorway that separated what had once been the living room from the dining room, caught sight of the bear and hurried over to scoop it into her arms. “Hey, he’s actually kind of cute. And, look, he’s wearing a little sweater! It doesn’t look nasty and dirty like some of this other stuff around here, does it?”
“Put him down, Meghan.”
Her daughter looked at Libby as if she’d lost her mind and in a way she supposed she had. That was the only thing that would explain how a toy—one she’d sworn she’d never seen before—could make her feel as if suddenly the walls were closing in on her. Her stomach churned.
“Don’t worry. It doesn’t look like he has fleas or anything.” Meghan held the bear in front of her nose and studied him closely. “With a little cleaning and—”
“I told you, Meghan, put the bear down.”
Libby’s voice was sharp and prickly, and hearing it, she felt guilty for snapping and even guiltier for not caring.
“Come on. We’re leaving.” Libby swept past her daughter and toward the front door.
“But, Mom!” Meghan dropped the bear and shuffled behind. “We just got here. And it’s not like I want to stay or anything but, gee, it’s only a bear and it’s nothing to get all nuts about.”
No sooner was Meghan out on the porch than Libby closed the front door and locked it. It wasn’t until she pocketed the key and turned to walk down the stairs that she realized there were tears in Meghan’s eyes.
Libby’s heart broke. She reached for her daughter’s hand. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to snap at you. Maybe you were right and I was wrong. Maybe it was a mistake to come here after all.” She took a deep breath. “I thought…”
“I know.” Meghan gave her hand a squeeze. “I mean, I think I get it. Sort of. You thought you wouldn’t care.”
As insights went Libby wondered why she’d never thought of something so obvious herself. “I just didn’t expect—”
“The bear, yeah. So what’s the story?”
Libby had never lied to Meghan about her past. Oh, she didn’t know the whole truth—that would be too much of a burden for any child her age. But when Meghan asked questions about Libby’s childhood and about why Libby had been raised by the Palmers, her father’s parents, Libby had never hesitated to give Meghan as much of the story as would satisfy her. As much as she could handle.
Libby wasn’t about to start playing with the truth now.
“I’m not sure about the bear,” Libby told her. “Not exactly, anyway. But there’s something about him that makes me feel as if I’ve seen him before.” A touch that felt like cold fingers skittered over her shoulders and Libby shivered. “I don’t know,” she said. “I know it sounds weird, but I think he used to be mine.”
CHAPTER 3
They spent the night at an Embassy Suites, far from the dust they’d kicked up at the shop and the forgotten teddy bear that had created an avalanche of emotions that had both surprised and confounded Libby. She wasn’t naive; she knew from the start that going to Cleveland might stir memories of her relationship with her mother. It was, after all, one of the reasons Libby had chosen to come in the first place. But after spending years repressing Barb’s memory and all her energy fighting her emotional response to it, she simply hadn’t expected to be knocked for a loop.
But then, she hadn’t expected to run into the tattered teddy bear either.
Libby dealt with it. If there was one thing she’d learned in the months since Rick confessed to his relationship with Belinda, it was that she couldn’t let her personal pain get in the way of what she needed to accomplish. If she was going to make a new start—and a new life—for Meghan and herself, she had to swallow her misgivings and get on with her plans. Number one on the list was to make Barb’s Knits a viable business and the apartment upstairs a home.
With that in mind, she and Meghan stopped at a grocery store on the way in from the hotel the next morning and loaded up on paper towels and cleaning supplies. They bought a cooler, too, a bag of ice and a twelve-pack of soda. Not so good for Meghan’s teeth but plenty good for parental PR, and after all Meghan had been through lately, it was the least Libby could do.
Back at the shop, she unlocked the front door and pushed it open.
“It smells better than it did yesterday.”
It didn’t; Meghan was only trying to make her feel better. After Libby propped the porch chair against the door to air out the store, she hugged her daughter just to let her know how much she appreciated the moral support.
Though it was early, the sky was gray and the clouds were heavy. As soon as she stepped inside, Libby hoisted the plastic bags of cleaning supplies onto the front counter and reached for the switch to flick on the lights.
Not a single one of them worked.
“And am I surprised?” she mumbled.
Meghan was apparently feeling braver than she had the day before. She headed off to explore. “Are you?” she called over her shoulder from a room off the middle showroom where a round wooden table was surrounded by chairs—and everything was coated in dust. “Surprised, that is?”
“Not even a little.” Firmly ignoring the bear who was lying where he’d been dropped, Libby looked at the dust that covered the counters, the dirt that sat on the windowsills and the faded yarn that was everywhere. It was piled on tables and heaped in baskets. It was mounded on an old mahogany buffet and jammed onto the shelves of a bookcase that took up most of one wall in the former dining room. There was even yarn displayed in what used to be the kitchen. Every cupboard door had been removed and each shelf was filled with wool. Some of it still looked usable. Most of it looked old and sad. None of it looked clean. “Grandma Palmer always said Barb wasn’t much of a housekeeper.”
“Doesn’t that seem bizarre?” Meghan had been looking through an old steamer trunk open on the floor and filled with yarn. The top layer of yarn had once been pastel colors and was now a uniform and dull shade of gray, but without sunlight to fade it and no coating of dust, the yarn beneath it had fared better. When Meghan stood, there was pink fuzz on her nose. She brushed it away with one finger. “That would be like me calling you Libby. No way you’d ever let me get away with it. Don’t you feel weird calling your mom Barb?”
It was better to concentrate on the facts than it was to editorialize, so that’s exactly what Libby did. “She wasn’t much of a mom,” she said. “You know all that, honey.”
“Because she left you, and you were raised by your dad’s parents, Grandma and Grandpa P. I get it.” Meghan nodded solemnly. As if she understood. As if, as a child who had spent her life with two parents who—in spite of their own personal differences—adored her, she possibly could. “Your mom… Barb…you told me had problems. Drug problems.”
“It was the sixties and I guess things were different then. At least that’s what people say. Anyway, I think Barb had her reasons. Remember, my dad was killed in a war.”
Meghan nodded. “Vietnam. We talked about it in history class.”
“Barb couldn’t handle his death. She was depressed. Lonely. Probably scared, too.” And before Rick walked out on her, Libby had never quite understood any of that. She’d spent years desperate to come to some understanding about her mother. She’d never thought it might come thanks to her own divorce.
It used to be that Barb and everything associated with her—their life together before she abandoned Libby, and the intriguing possibility of how things might have worked out differently—were the hardest things to think about. Back then, Libby thanked her lucky stars for Rick and the life they’d established together.
Funny, these days she thought about Barb when she wanted to forget about Rick.
“Things worked out best for me,” she told Meghan, talking about her childhood, not about her divorce. As far as Libby was concerned, that story didn’t have an ending. At least not yet. “Instead of being raised by a woman who probably didn’t have the skills or the patience to be much of a mother, I got to live with Grandma and Grandpa P. And Grandma and Grandpa P…well, I think the only person they love more than me in the whole wide world is you.”
Meghan took that much for granted, but that didn’t keep her from smiling. Before the Palmers had retired to Arizona, she’d spent a great deal of time with them, and even though thousands of miles now separated them, there was no doubt she was still the light of their lives. “But doesn’t that make you wonder…?” Meghan’s dark brows dipped into a vee, the way they always did when she was considering something beyond her years or her understanding.
“What?”
Meghan shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something. Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought it up.”
“It’s just that…I dunno…” She twirled one curl of her shoulder-length hair. “I just wondered, you know, why if Barb never even saw you, if she never talked to you since you were little, why she left you her business.”
Libby might never have lied to her daughter, but that didn’t mean she had always told the whole truth and nothing but. There were some details Meghan wasn’t old enough to hear yet. Some details Libby didn’t like to bring out into the light of day and examine, and rather than do it now, she stuck to the matter at hand. “I don’t know why she left me her business,” Libby admitted. “Maybe she felt guilty.”
“About leaving you with Grandma P, you mean.”
Libby nodded. “About that. About never calling or writing or—” She coughed away a sudden tightness in her throat. “I’ve told you all that, too,” she said, feeling safer skirting the subject than she did being smack-dab in the quagmire. “I don’t have any answers. Nobody does. I’m grateful she did leave the business to me, though. It’s given us a place to start over. And I’m sorry that Barb’s life was so out of control.”
“Except if it was…” She shivered and hugged her arms around herself. “How did she ever keep the business going?” she asked. In spite of Libby’s warning that, no matter what the calendar said, it was too damp and cool for summer clothes, Meghan had chosen to wear a pair of khaki shorts and a bright yellow tank.
Another look around the shop at the cobwebs and the dirt, and Libby found herself wondering the same thing. “I’m hoping we find some ledger books or something so we can find out how the business was really doing. Something tells me it wasn’t doing well. Barb sure didn’t keep this place in shape.” As if to prove the theory, Libby saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. A mouse. Rather than freak Meghan out, she ignored the critter and promised herself a trip to a hardware store and a lifetime supply of traps. “This place is a mess.”
“Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Meghan looked up toward the water-stained ceiling, and Libby knew exactly what she was thinking.
The day before, they had ventured no farther than the dining room, where the tattered teddy bear had been waiting for them. Today it was time to check out the apartment upstairs. She wondered what she’d find in the place Barb had called home. As to how she’d handle the glimpse into her mother’s private world, Libby knew there was only one way to find out.
“Feeling brave?” she asked, and before Meghan could answer—and before Libby herself could listen to the voice inside her own head that asked if after all this time she was ready—she headed through the kitchen and to the stairway near the back door.
She took the steps two at a time, partly to make Meghan think this was all part of the adventure she’d promised but mostly because she knew if she dawdled, she’d lose her nerve.
She paused at the top of the steps, bracing herself. After Meghan arrived, though, there was only so long she could stall. A quick breath for courage, and Libby pushed open the door.
They found themselves in the kitchen, a small, tidy room painted sunny yellow with red accents. There was a maple table surrounded by four chairs against the windows to Libby’s left, and a ceiling fan overhead. There was more dust, sure, but it wasn’t what she saw that caught Libby’s attention. It was what was missing from the room that piqued her curiosity.
Anxious to see if her initial suspicion was true, she did a quick survey and made a trip through the kitchen and into the small spare dining room. From there, she peeked into the living room, the bedroom and the bath.
The apartment was orderly. The furniture wasn’t flashy, but it was sturdy and well cared for. The colors were pleasant, brighter and clearer than what she’d expected, though she had to admit she honestly didn’t know what she’d expected.
“It looks like no one ever lived here,” Libby mumbled, testing the theory on herself. Just to be sure she wasn’t imagining it, she looked around again. There were no pictures on the walls or on the end tables flanking the living room couch. There were no books on the shelves in the one corner of the bedroom that had apparently been used as an office. There was nothing in the way of mementos or knickknacks. No plants or candles or magazines left lying around.
Barb had died suddenly and certainly unexpectedly in an auto accident, and when she’d imagined this moment—as she had so many times—Libby had envisioned stepping into the apartment and directly into what had been her mother’s life. There would be books, and the books would give Libby a clue as to whether Barb enjoyed romances or mysteries, thrillers or history. There would be magazines, and she’d find out if her mother was the Newsweek type or a woman who read People. There would be little clues in the kinds of photos Libby had expected to find dotting the apartment: vacations, friends, pets. Maybe a picture of Libby as a child?
The very thought clutched at her heart, and she turned her back on Meghan and cleared her throat. “Somebody’s been here,” she said, though she suspected Meghan hadn’t thought of that. Nor did she think her daughter cared. “No way could anyone live without anything personal at all. Somebody must have come in after Barb died and cleaned the place up. I wonder what they took?”
“You’re not going to start that again, are you?” Meghan tried to keep her question light, but Libby couldn’t help but notice the undertone of worry.
She turned and pinned her daughter with a look. “Start what?”
“You know…” Meghan shrugged, body language designed to let her mother know how little she cared. It didn’t work. As soon as Meghan failed to meet her eyes, Libby knew something was bothering her. If she needed more proof, it came in the singsong bitterness of Meghan’s voice. “You get the Subaru, I get the Lexus. I get the piano, you take the silver. You and Daddy…” Meghan kicked the toe of her sandals against the blue-and-white-tile floor. “Dividing up everything like it was the money and those little houses in a Monopoly game. Is that how you got stuck with me?”
As if she’d been punched, Libby sucked in a breath. “Where did that come from?”
Meghan turned away.
“Look…” She reached for her daughter’s hand, and though Meghan tried to be aloof and adult she was, after all, just a little girl. When Libby tugged her, she melted into her mother’s arms. One arm around her shoulders, Libby rubbed Meghan’s back the way she used to all those years before when she’d perched on the edge of Meghan’s bed and read her a bedtime story. “Divorce isn’t easy for anyone,” she said. “It wasn’t easy for me, and…” She swallowed her pride; easing Meghan’s fears was more important. “It wasn’t easy for Daddy either. There are lots of decisions that have to be made when a marriage is over and, yes, some of those decisions involve material things. The cars and the piano and the silver…those were all things that belonged to both me and Daddy. That’s why we had to decide who got what. Legally there was no other way. But you…” She held Meghan at arm’s length and with one finger chucked her under the chin.
“There was no deciding about who wanted you and who didn’t. We both did. We both do. That’s why you’re here in Cleveland with me now. And it’s why you’re going to spend as much time as possible with Daddy. We’d both like to have you with us all the time. But unless we can figure out how to clone you, that’s just not going to work. We adore you, silly creature.” When she coaxed a smile out of Meghan, Libby breathed easier. “No matter what else ever happens between me and Daddy, nothing will ever change that. You know that, don’t you?”
Meghan wasn’t about to give in easily. Not when she was the center of attention and being told how wonderful she was. “Did Barb ever tell you stuff like that?”
“No.” Libby shook her head. “She never did. At least not that I remember. Maybe she just didn’t want to make promises she couldn’t keep.”
“Promises like how you’ll always love me and you’d never leave me the way she left you?”
Had the worry haunted Meghan all these years?
The very thought pierced Libby’s heart and she prayed it wasn’t true. She had never questioned the wisdom of sharing her story with Meghan, but she’d never meant to make her question if she was valued and loved.
No, Rick had done that when he walked out on both of them.
Rather than let her anger at Rick spoil the moment, Libby kissed Meghan’s cheek. “I will never leave you like my mother left me,” she told Meghan. “I would never even think of it. I’d never even think about thinking about it. I’d never even think about thinking about—”
“All right!” Meghan laughed, and Libby was glad. A child of divorce had enough to worry about without adding to the list.
“And when I talked about someone being here and taking things…just so you know, I’m not being greedy. I just wondered.” Libby took another look around at the bare apartment and wondered what it had been like when Barb was alive. Did she host dinner parties in the dining room? And if she did, who did she invite? Did she have friends? Or a cheerless, lonely existence? If she’d been alone, was it Libby’s fault?
That was too much to consider and Libby shook the thought away. “I just wondered what kind of things might have been here,” she told Meghan.
“You mean stuff that would tell you what Barb was like.”
Libby sighed in relief. Sometimes her daughter could be remarkably mature. “Exactly.”
“Maybe we’ll find something.”
Another look around and Libby shook her head. “I’m not holding out a lot of hope for that.”
“You never know.” Meghan untangled herself from Libby and strolled into the living room. “You know,” she raised her voice so Libby could hear her in the kitchen. It didn’t take much; the apartment wasn’t much bigger than the great room back in their suburban Cranberry Township home. “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be up here. I mean, it’s not nearly as nice as home, but…” Meghan moved aside the lace curtains on the living room window that looked over the street. “At least it’s not as grungy as downstairs.”
“It will be even nicer once we get it cleaned up and get some of our own stuff in here.”
“Yeah. Except we have to share a bedroom.” She thought her mother couldn’t see her, but Libby didn’t miss the face Meghan made. “How lame is that, having to share a room with your mother?”
“Once we get the business up and going, we might use the apartment for storage and move into a bigger place. Or we can think about adding onto the shop and giving you your own suite downstairs. How would that be?”
Meghan’s blue eyes lit up. “Promise?”
“No.” Meghan’s hopeful expression fell and Libby laughed. “I can’t promise, but I can plan. Right now our plan starts with getting things ready up here so we don’t have to spend my entire divorce settlement on hotel bills.” She looked around again at the apartment, filled with furniture but empty when it came to clues about her mother’s life.
“At least it won’t be as hard to clean up here as it will be down in the shop. I thought there would be more to pack up, things to cart away. I thought—”
Rick’s words pounded through her head.
What are you hoping for? A letter? ‘Dear Libby, here are all the reasons I abandoned you, now you can live happily ever after’?
“Damned straight,” Libby mumbled to herself, then smiled at the look of utter bewilderment on Meghan’s face when she realized her mother was talking to herself. “Don’t worry, kid, I haven’t lost my mind. I was just wishing that Barb had left us something.”
“Some hint about who she really was and why she left you?”
“Now that you mention it…” Libby wrapped her arm around Meghan, and together they headed downstairs for the cleaning supplies. “I’d settle for an explanation as to why she left a yarn shop to a woman who can’t knit!”
The next day, the first thing Libby discovered was that the air-conditioning didn’t work. Too bad. The skies had finally cleared, the temperature was flirting with the mideighties and outside the sidewalks steamed with humidity.
She was hot. She was sweaty. She desperately needed a break from the mountain of cleaning that had kept her busy all morning.
So why, she asked herself, hadn’t she chosen something a little more relaxing?
She flicked a bead of sweat off her forehead and scraped her palms against the legs of her black shorts. By the time she took a deep breath and reached for the blue metal knitting needles she’d found below the front counter that morning, her hands were as damp as ever.
Needles in her right hand, yarn in her left, she stared at the how-to pictures in the book she and Meghan had unearthed in the room beside the dining room, which must have once been Barb’s classroom.
In fact, because that particular room wasn’t nearly as cluttered as the rest of the store, and so, easier to organize, Libby had left Meghan in there to finish the cleaning.
“Sure you don’t want to come over here and try this with me?” she called to her now. Meghan needed a break. And Libby? Well, she knew from the start that a little moral support in the knitting department wouldn’t hurt. “It’s a whole lot of fun.”
“No, thanks.” Meghan’s voice floated back to Libby along with a plume of dust from the general direction of the classroom. “And don’t tell me it’s fun, Mom. No way do you sound like you’re having fun.”
“You got me there,” Libby grumbled, but she wasn’t about to give up. As if it actually might help her make sense of the instructions, she bent closer to the page. “Cast on?” She read the words in large, bold print and peered at the drawings and the instructions. None of it made sense. If she tried to ignore the written instructions and follow the drawings, she got confused. If she did exactly what the instructions said and didn’t pay any attention to the drawings, she was more mixed up than ever.
After thirty minutes of trying, the only thing she’d succeeded in doing was putting a slipknot on one of the needles.
Something told her there was more to it than that.
Refusing to be intimidated by either the incomprehensible instructions, the confusing drawings or the needles that felt so foreign in her hands, Libby followed the pictures in the book, wound the yarn around her fingers and—
“Damn!” She watched the yarn untangle. Right before it settled into looking exactly the way it looked before she began the process.
She wondered if she was the only person in the world who’d ever had trouble learning to knit and decided that she must be. From the book’s worn pages and tattered binding, she guessed it was something Barb or her customers had used a lot. Obviously the incomprehensible instructions and mystifying black-and-white drawings meant something to them, and just as obviously that meant they must have been far more intelligent and far less klutzy than Libby.
With a sigh, she flipped the book closed. It was, according to its title, a complete and comprehensive guide to knitting, and as far as she could tell, the complete and comprehensive part was true. At the back of the heavy volume there were pictures of different stitch patterns and instructions on how to knit them, written in what looked to be some kind of code. There was a section on the different kinds of knitting needles—a surprise to Libby since she didn’t know there were different kinds of knitting needles—and another on choosing the right yarn for every project. There were chapters on finishing garments and fixing mistakes.
Comprehensive was the name of the game.
As for being a guide, Libby was pretty certain two-dimensional drawings designed to teach her a three-dimensional skill weren’t going to guide her anywhere but to frustration.
So far it was the only thing about knitting she was good at.
“Mom! You said this was going to be easy.” Meghan’s anguished cry pretty much echoed the words that were bouncing through Libby’s head. Meghan, though, was not talking about knitting. Libby looked up just in time to see her daughter come through the dining room dragging two very full black garbage bags. “It doesn’t look like there’s much junk in there. Until you start digging through it all. There was tons of paper in that cabinet against the wall. And there was plenty of yarn piled in those baskets in there. What do you want me to do with this junk?”
At breakfast they’d discussed their cleaning and organizing strategy over muffins from the nearby bakery shop, but she wasn’t surprised that Meghan didn’t remember. Even as Libby had listed their tasks room by room, and looked at a calendar to set a schedule so they could have the store cleaned out before the end of summer, she knew Meghan wasn’t listening and knew precisely why. Cleaning out years of clutter from a dusty and dreary yarn shop was not Meghan’s idea of fun.
Libby appreciated the help more than she could say. That was the only thing that made it possible for her to force the knitting-induced aggravation out of her voice. “Is that good junk or bad junk in those bags?” she asked.
Her daughter rolled her eyes. Libby was quickly learning this was an all-embracing expression, a sort of universal language practiced by every teenager on the face of the earth. It could mean anything from You’ve got to be kidding to How could I possibly be this smart when I have a mother who is so dumb? and everything in between.
This time she was pretty certain the expression covered the smart/dumb part of the equation.
Libby massaged her temples with the tips of her fingers. “You remember what we said this morning? If it’s just dusty, there might be something we can do to salvage the yarn. Or maybe we can at least donate it somewhere and take the tax write-off. But if it’s got mouse dirt on it, well, in that case we’re going to have to toss it.”
“This is some kind of sick joke, right? You expect me to check to see if there’s mouse poop on this yarn?” Meghan’s face turned as pale as her white T-shirt. She’d been clutching one garbage bag in each dirty fist and now she dropped them and stepped back. “That’s too disgusting for words! There is no way I’m going to do that. There’s no way I should have to! If I was home—”
“You are home.”
“Oh, yeah, right. I forgot. We left our nice house and our nice neighborhood so we could live in the ghetto. We spend our time looking for mouse poop.”
“Meghan…” Libby made a move to walk around the front counter, but Meghan would have none of it. She backed up another step. If that’s the way Meghan wanted it, Libby wouldn’t violate her space. “Why don’t you take a break? You could go upstairs and—”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
It was a rhetorical question and Libby knew better than to answer it. Rhetorical questions from testy teenagers meant nothing but trouble.
“Go!” she said instead, and somehow when she shooed Meghan toward the back of the store, she managed to make it look like a casual gesture instead of the ultimate surrender. “I don’t care what you do up there, just do something that will help make it easier when the movers arrive with our furniture next week. I’ll look through the yarn myself and decide what to do with it.”
“Yeah, go right ahead. Have fun looking for mouse poop.”
Meghan’s final comments rang through the store along with the sounds of her footsteps as she stomped up the steps. The last Libby heard from her was the slam of the upstairs door.
“You handled that well,” Libby told herself, the sarcasm as heavy as the bags she grabbed and dragged to the corner of the room. “A few more years of practice and you really ought to know how to screw up a conversation with your daughter.”
The possibilities were too frightening to dwell on, and besides, she didn’t have the time or the energy. Libby went back to the front counter, but there was nothing appealing about trying to knit again. Instead she reached for the legal pad where earlier that day she’d begun a to-do list.
So far not one thing was checked off.
Upstairs
Finish cleaning.
Downstairs
Sort through all yarn and knitting supplies, toss what can’t be saved.
Catalogue and store the rest in moth-proof containers.
Thoroughly clean.
Repair ceiling in dining room.
Paint.
Talk to yarn companies, schedule visits from reps.
Stock shelves.
Talk to bank.
Meet with attorney.
Arrange for advertising.
Plan grand opening.
Set date for soft opening.
Just looking at the list, a thread of panic snaked through her. She beat it back with reason. It would take a lot longer than one morning to make a difference in the disaster that was Barb’s Knits. She and Meghan had made a start, she reminded herself, and if Meghan didn’t want to participate…
She looked up at the ceiling, wondering what her daughter was doing upstairs. Was she busy putting their room in some sort of order or was she up there sulking?
Either way, Libby wasn’t worried. Meghan would eventually realize she’d be more comfortable if the room she and Libby shared looked at least a little like her room had back at home. She’d want her clothes in neat order in her half of the closet and the little bit of makeup Libby allowed her—lip gloss and light pink nail polish—displayed on her dresser.
Sooner or later Meghan would come around. At least Libby hoped she would.
As for Barb’s Knits, that was another matter altogether.
“It won’t come around at all. Not unless I make it come around,” Libby told herself. With that in mind, she’d just started to flip through the calendar to check their cleaning schedule when she heard a bang, a crash and the sound of breaking glass upstairs. All of it was punctuated by Meghan’s high-pitched scream.
Libby’s heart jumped into her throat. She had raced through the store and up the stairs before she realized she was even moving. “Meghan? Meghan, answer me. Are you all right? What happened? What—”
She pushed open the kitchen door and found Meghan standing in the middle of the room, covered with plaster dust. She was holding the metal pull chain that belonged to the ceiling fan. The fan itself—or at least what was left of it—was on top of the kitchen table along with about a million shards of glass that sparkled like diamonds in the morning sunlight. The acrid smell of fried electrical wires filled the air.
“I’m sorry!” Meghan must have mistaken Libby’s expression for anger instead of the relief it was. Meghan’s face was coated with plaster dust, and when she started to cry, the tears left rivulets on her cheeks. “I didn’t mean it, Mom. I was just trying to turn the fan on. It’s hot and there’s no air-conditioning and—” The rest of her words were lost in a wail of despair.
“It’s okay, honey. Honest.” Libby did a quick assessment of her daughter’s condition. Except for a cut on her arm, it didn’t look as if Meghan had sustained any injuries. The fan and the ceiling it had once been anchored to were another matter. One Libby would deal with after she took care of Meghan.
She led her to the bathroom. “It’s no big deal. We’ll get the fan fixed.”
Meghan was beyond being consoled. She was scared, she was shocked and she was embarrassed as only a fourteen-year-old can be. She was crying so hard Libby could barely understand her. “And the ceiling? How are you going to fix the ceiling? It fell down right on top of me. I hate it here. Mommy, please, please let’s go home!”
It was the worst time in the world for the phone to ring. Libby left Meghan in the bathroom to wash her face and hands and grabbed the phone.
“Mrs. Cartwright! How’s everything going there?” It took her a moment to recognize the voice of Will Harper, the real-estate agent. “You enjoying our fair city?”
Libby looked at the wreckage in the kitchen. “It’s not exactly a good time to be asking that,” she said. “We’re having a little electrical problem here.”
“I’m not surprised.” She could picture Will shaking his head in an I-told-you-so way. “That property has seen better days.”
Meghan was still crying and Libby could barely hear. She retreated into the living room. “What can I do for you, Mr. Harper?”
Will laughed. “Oh, no. That’s not what you’re supposed to be asking. I’ve called, Mrs. Cartwright, because I’m going to do something for you.”
“Like?”
“Like admitting you were right and I was wrong. Doesn’t happen often, let me tell you. I know this market like the back of my hand.”
“And—”
Meghan peeked into the room. She saw that Libby was on the phone so she didn’t talk loud—at least not too loud—when she wailed, “I can’t find the bandages anywhere!”
Libby trailed into the bathroom, sure they’d unpacked a first-aid kit the day before. She looked in the medicine cabinet and on the shelves under the sink. She checked the linen closet in the hallway.
“I’m sorry,” she said when she remembered that she still had the phone to her ear. “You’ve caught us at a bad time. You were saying….” She found the first-aid kit under a stack of towels, flipped it open and whisked out a bandage. She handed it to Meghan at the same time she whispered, “Put some antibacterial ointment on that first,” and then got back to her conversation. “About the market?”
“I was saying that you were right and I was wrong. You see, Mrs. Cartwright, I just heard from the Tip-Top folks. You had them pegged from the get-go. You turned down their initial offer and as it turned out, so did the folks who own the other property they were considering. You’re a genius. You caught them between a rock and a hard place. They just called me. They’ve upped their offer.”
“More money? How much?”
Meghan couldn’t have had any idea who she was talking to, but she did have a sixth sense as to what they were talking about. She sniffed and hurried over to where Libby was standing. She jumped up and down, her hands folded in supplication.
“Please!” Meghan knew better than to take the chance of disrupting the deal and kept her voice at a stage whisper. “It’s those drugstore people, isn’t it? Please take the offer, Mom. Let’s get out of here.”
Libby hushed her. It was hard to listen to both Will Harper and Meghan, but she did catch the figure. It was fifteen thousand dollars more than Tip-Top had originally offered, nearly all her original asking price.
“It’s a gift,” Will said.
“Maybe, but—”
“But you’ve seen the property, Mrs. Cartwright. You’re there now, right?”
“I am, but—”
“You really think you’ll be able to clean up that mess?”
She did. At least she had until the ceiling fell down.
Libby’s shoulders drooped with the weight of the reality that seemed to crash down along with the ceiling fan. Sure, she’d had great plans for the place and, yes, she’d had every intention of carrying through with them. But now…
She looked into the kitchen at the pieces of glass that littered the place like confetti. She remembered the endless to-do list down on the front counter. And the mice. She thought of how, in spite of what she’d hoped, there wasn’t one clue about Barb or her life anywhere. A trickle of sweat glided between her shoulder blades. She read the desperation in her daughter’s eyes.
“Give me twenty-four hours,” she told Will. “Let me sleep on it. Tomorrow I’ll let you know for sure if I’m going to stay. Or take the offer from Tip-Top.”
CHAPTER 4
One more night in a hotel wouldn’t blow their budget.
At least not completely.
Libby set the ice bucket on the machine at the end of the hallway that led to their room at the Embassy Suites and lectured herself: she had nothing to feel guilty about; it was just one more night; and after their disastrous day, she and Meghan deserved a little TLC, not to mention some air-conditioning.
She pressed the button on the front of the machine and watched as the ice crashed into the bucket below. Her shoulders ached. Her head pounded. There was ceiling plaster in her hair and her scalp itched. Her fingers were sore from the tiny cuts that had resulted from picking up the last bits of glass in the kitchen that refused to be corralled by the broom and dustpan. She was dog-tired, and if the expressions on the faces of the folks behind the front desk when she and Meghan walked in meant anything, Libby had a sneaky suspicion the two of them looked like earthquake refugees.
“One more night,” she told herself. “And tomorrow—”
She thought back to her conversation with Will and congratulated herself. She had been firm with him. At least as firm as any woman could be who had just seen her kitchen ceiling crumble, her budget—now that she had a ceiling to fix—blasted to hell, her daughter freak and her plans for a neat and orderly move go up in smoke and with the smell of burning electrical wires. Still, she hadn’t given in to the temptation of a knee-jerk response and instantly accepted the new offer. That was a good thing. Wasn’t it?
Of course, she had promised she’d talk to Will the next day, and one of the hard lessons she’d learned in the days since Rick told her he’d never really understood what love was all about until he met Belinda was that tomorrow always came. Whether she wanted it to or not.
“Maybe Will is right,” Libby said, not caring that she was talking to herself. There was no one around, and even if there was, one look at her and they’d probably assume she was crazy anyway. “Maybe we should just cut and run. It’s the smart thing to do. It’s the logical thing to do. And if it isn’t what Barb wanted…”
She propped the ice bucket in the crook of her arm and trudged down the hallway, pausing outside the door to their room. From inside she could hear Meghan’s voice. She was on the phone.
What Barb wanted…
What Barb didn’t want…
That shouldn’t have entered into her mind in the first place; she had no way of knowing what Barb really wanted and it looked as if she’d never know. If Barb had wanted to give Libby some sort of insight into her life and help Libby get to know her better, that wasn’t ever going to happen. Thirty-some years of absence and a cleaned-out apartment had made sure of that.
And what did it matter anyway? What difference would it make now?
As they had so many times before for so many years, the questions pounded through Libby’s head.
Until now, she’d always held out hope—preposterous or not—that she would come to some understanding of her mother’s life. That she would someday be at peace with Barb’s decisions. A trip to Barb’s Knits was Libby’s own personal quest for the Holy Grail, her chance to get as up close and personal as she could with the woman she’d last seen—
“Don’t go there,” she warned herself, and as she had done so expertly before, she put the thought out of her head. Call it a twist of fate. Or just a sick trick played by a brain that was mush and a body that was exhausted beyond being able to care. No sooner had one memory been suppressed than another surfaced. It was vague and disjointed, as memories often are, seen through the eyes of a child but processed now by an adult who wondered how much of it was real and how much had been distorted and repositioned into new shapes like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope.
“Don’t go far, honey!”
In her mind, Libby could see Barb standing at the end of a grocery store aisle. Her dark hair spilled over her shoulders. Her skirt, with its swirls of green and red and blue, was so long it was hard to see that her feet were bare. There was a white carnation tucked behind her ear, and she was wearing the red-and-blue beads Libby had strung for her at a street fair. Barb’s eyes were bloodshot, and she swayed the way she did when she played the Beatles or the Rolling Stones on the record player in the living room and she held Libby’s hands as they danced around in a circle.
“You stay close.” Barb’s words were dreamy, and she wasn’t watching her daughter when she spoke. Her eyes were on the tall man who stood at her side. He was as skinny as the green beans Grandma Palmer served at Sunday dinner, and his hair was the color of straw. It was longer than Barb’s.
Try as she might, Libby couldn’t recall his name. She wondered if she ever knew it. She was certain, though, that Barb had spent a lot of time with the man. She had a blurred recollection of long afternoons when Barb and the man stayed in his bedroom while Libby watched Sesame Street. And flashes of memory that featured the man on the guitar and Barb singing “Puff the Magic Dragon.” Libby knew that they spent a lot of their time smoking pot because the first time she smelled it in her college dorm she immediately flashed back to that day in the grocery store and the sweet scent that had clung to her mother’s clothes.
In her mind’s eye, she watched Barb wind her fingers through the man’s. She saw the way he leaned forward and whispered in Barb’s ear. She heard her mother laugh.
“You’re a wild man!” Barb didn’t say it as if it was a bad thing. She grabbed one end of the long scarf she’d knitted out of black wool and kissed the man on the mouth, right under his bushy mustache. “One of these days, you’re going to get me in real trouble.”
Barb and the man hurried down the snack aisle, and the memory ended abruptly. It picked up again with a sense of anxiety and a mother’s knowledge that the little girl who had grown into Libby was tired and bored. It must have been past dinnertime; of all the insignificant things to remember about a day that had changed her life, Libby remembered being hungry.
She also remembered the way her throat tightened and her stomach bunched when she lost sight of her mother. The beginnings of a full-scale tantrum built.
Libby was not an emotional child. It never occurred to her to be dramatic. Rather than yell, she walked around the store, and by the time she got back to where she’d started, her feet hurt and her legs were tired. She was hungrier than ever.
As clearly as if it were yesterday, she remembered eying the shelf where the chocolate-chip cookies were displayed. It was high and she couldn’t reach it. She must have been carrying something—though she couldn’t have said what—because she remembered setting that something down. With two hands free, she swept aside the packages of pretzels on the shelf closest to the floor and climbed. She could see over the edge of the cookie shelf, but her arms weren’t long enough to reach. She stretched, and her elbow knocked against boxes of graham crackers. They hit the floor.
Libby stretched some more. Finally her fingers met their mark. She clung to a package of cookies and pulled. By the time she was settled on the green tile floor again and had a cookie in her mouth and another one in her hand, she heard a voice from the end of the aisle.
“There!”
Libby looked up to see a lady pushing a shopping cart and standing next to a man in a blue shirt. He was frowning.
The lady pointed at Libby. “I told you, Greg, she’s running around the store like a wild Indian. No one’s watching her. She’s bound to get into trouble.”
“Or to get hurt.” Greg hurried over to where Libby stood in the wreckage of graham cracker boxes and cookie crumbs. He bent down and looked her in the eye. “Hey, little girl, what’s your name? And where’s your mommy?”
Libby didn’t answer. To this very day, she felt the certainty of her decision. She didn’t have to say a word. After all Barb was in the store and pretty soon she’d show up and explain that Libby was her little girl.
Her eyes round and that extra cookie tucked behind her back, Libby waited.
Barb didn’t come.
Libby looked down the long aisle in both directions.
She didn’t see Barb or hear the sound of her laugh.
Her mouth was dry. Her tummy rumbled. “Mommy?” she said, but suddenly her throat was knotted, her voice came out too quiet for Barb to hear. “Mommy?” she called again, louder this time.
Greg stood and looked in every direction. “I don’t see your mommy around,” he said. “But don’t worry, we’ll make an announcement over the PA system. Do you know your mommy’s name?”
“There was a woman.” The lady with the shopping cart craned her neck to look toward the front of the store. “I saw her a while ago. She was with that young man. You must have seen him. The one with all the hair.” She clicked her tongue. “Hippies,” she said, sounding like Grandma Palmer did when she said it.
“Those two?” Another woman came around the corner. She glanced over her shoulder at the big front windows that looked out at the parking lot. “They just left. No more than a minute ago. You don’t suppose they could have—”
“Mommy?” Libby darted forward, but she didn’t get far. The man with the blue shirt scooped her into his arms.
“We can’t have you running all over Pittsburgh by yourself,” he said. “What do you say, ladies?” He plunked Libby down in the shopping cart among rolls of toilet paper, bags of apples and six cans of tomato soup. “You’ll stay right here with her, won’t you? I’m going to call the police.”
Had Libby been paying attention, she would have known exactly what was happening. As it was, she watched in horror as the white van she recognized as Barb’s boyfriend’s cruised by the front windows and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street.
Her eyes filled with tears and the tantrum she’d been holding back burst with the force only a four-year-old could muster.
“Mommy!” Libby’s voice rose in panic, volume and velocity. “Mommy! Mommy!”
Libby sucked in a breath, steeling herself against the sharp pain of her memories. She wasn’t sure if they were genuine or the product of an imagination that had had years to fill in the blanks. She wasn’t sure it mattered.
Barb hadn’t so much abandoned her in that grocery store as she’d simply forgotten her. Libby often wondered if Barb felt bad about what had happened. She didn’t know for sure, she only knew that soon after, Barb signed over her parental privileges to Grandma and Grandpa P and effectively ended any relationship she’d ever had with her daughter.
So what was Libby trying to prove with this crazy quest of hers? What was she trying to salvage?
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