CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sarah knew her mother would be waiting for her when she got home. She found her elbow-deep in flour and chocolate chips. Her mother had always baked when she was upset, had once said that the process of watching separate ingredients come together into a cohesive whole always gave her hope that things would make sense in the end.
She stopped mixing the batter the minute Sarah walked into the kitchen. “Sarah, I’ve been worried sick about you.” She was across the room in a heartbeat, her sticky hands reaching around Sarah’s shoulders. But even her mother’s warm arms couldn’t erase her deep chill. “You need to take off those wet clothes and dry off.”
“It doesn’t matter, Mom. I’m fine like this.” Sarah didn’t think she would ever feel warm again. Not even after she’d changed into dry clothes. Because the chill wasn’t skin-deep.
She’d yanked out her own heart tonight and replaced it with a block of ice.
“What happened?”
Sarah had just come from telling her father everything. But she’d never known how to confide in her mother like that. She still didn’t.
“I can’t stand to know that you’re in pain,” her mom said. “I know I haven’t been the best mother to you, and that I’ll never be able to replace your father, but if you’ll just give me another chance—”
Sarah finally found her voice. “How can you say you weren’t a good mother to me? You were always there for me. Always.”
“Not in the ways you needed me to be. I knew how to bake muffins and do your hair, but I never knew how to guide you in the direction you seemed to want to go, which was why I left all that up to your father.” Her mother’s face was awash with regret. “But I left too much to him. I see that now.”
“Were you happy? In your marriage?” Sarah hadn’t planned to ask her that. But tonight she needed to know. Needed to know absolutely everything.
“Yes, I was.”
Any other night, Sarah knew she would have taken her mother’s response at face value, simply because it was what she wanted to hear. But she couldn’t do that anymore, couldn’t twist everything up so it fit into a neat little box.
“How can you say that when he was gone all the time?” Sarah asked. “When he never included you in his plans unless he needed his pretty, smiling wife at his side to look good?”
Denise’s eyes glittered. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry to hear you say that. To know you think that. I should have sat down with you before now to talk about our relationship. To explain about our marriage.”
“What’s there to explain? It’s obvious that he thought he was too big, too busy for you.” And, she couldn’t help but think, for his own daughter.
Her mother moved around the kitchen island to take Sarah’s hands in hers, cookie batter and chocolate forgotten. “Come. Sit down with me. Please.” Sarah let her mother lead her over to the kitchen chairs. “You already know that your father and I met when we were both at Georgetown, and we lived there until we had you.”
“Until he dumped us here and started his political career.” Sarah was as surprised as her mother clearly was by the resentment in her own voice.
“No, he didn’t want to leave me here. And he definitely didn’t want to leave you.”
“Then why did he?”
“Because I refused to go back to the city. I refused to leave my mother and father and friends to live on a street full of strangers. I refused to let my daughter go to schools where I didn’t know every single teacher by name. Deep in my heart, I believed that you needed to grow up here. And I loved having you here with me, knowing you were surrounded by people who loved you, who looked after you to make sure you stayed safe.”
“Are you kidding?” Sarah tried to push down the sob that rose up and failed. “Did you see what happened at that meeting tonight? People here hate me. I’ve never fit in. Never.”
Her mother reached over to wipe away her tears then, the same thing she’d done when Sarah was a little girl. “Oh, honey, no. Some people might hate the idea of condos, but they could never hate you. You’ve always been the town’s golden girl, the one everyone has been so proud of since that first spelling bee you won when you were eight. How could you not know how proud we all are of you?”
“I went for the brass ring, Mom. I thought I had it. But I wasn’t strong enough to hold on. Daddy always told me to be strong, but I couldn’t do it.”
“You’ve always been strong. Always. And if you’d seen more of your father, maybe you would have known what reaching for the brass ring meant to him. That it didn’t just mean success. It meant family and love and happiness.”
Sarah reeled from what her mother had just told her. Had she really been wrong about her father’s mantra her whole life? And how would she ever know for sure when he wasn’t here to ask?
A tear rolled down her mother’s cheek, quickly followed by another. “All this time I wanted to think that my way was right, that I did the best I could, that I made the best decisions I knew how to make. Instead, I held you captive in a place you couldn’t wait to get out of. Your father tried so many times over the years to get me to change my mind, but I wouldn’t bend.” Denise covered her mouth with her hands. “I just wouldn’t bend.”
“Are you saying that our living here without him was your decision?”
“Yes.”
“And you stood up to him again and again?”
“Yes.”
“And yet, all this time I thought you were going along with whatever he wanted because he was so strong and you were—”
“Weak.”
“No!” Sarah almost shouted the word. “Gentle. Nice. Because you loved him too much to tell him what you really wanted.”
“I still love him,” her mother said softly. “Every second of every day.”
“But you were so unhappy sometimes,” Sarah said, unable to forget those bleak hours after her father left again for DC, when both she and her mother knew he wouldn’t be coming back for weeks. “Didn’t you ever wish that you had married someone who wanted the same things you did? Someone who would be there every morning and every night?”
“I’d be lying to you if I said no. But what I felt for your father was bigger than where we lived. Or how much time we were able to spend together. My only regret about loving him is the toll it took on you, not always having two parents in the same place at the same time.” Denise wouldn’t let Sarah evade her gaze. “Is that what’s holding you back with Calvin?”
“I never stopped loving him. He told me he loved me too. That he forgave me for leaving before. I had everything I ever wanted.” Sarah had to close her eyes against the pain. “And I blew it tonight when Jerry stood up and asked that question. I tried to explain, I tried to apologize, but Calvin won’t forgive me. Not this time. And why should he? I left him before.” She tried to breathe, but couldn’t find any oxygen. “This time he’s leaving me first.”
Denise scooted her chair over and put her arms around her. “Calvin never stopped loving you before, and he won’t stop now, I can guarantee that. Because real love doesn’t have anything to do with perfection. Real love is what happens when everything isn’t perfect…and you love each other anyway.” She tilted Sarah’s face up to hers with her index finger. “Promise me you’ll give all of this some time. Not just for Calvin, but for you too.”
Sarah had never looked at her mother as anything more than a politician’s wife, a mother, and a small knitting store owner. She could never understand why her mother hadn’t wanted more. But now, as they talked—finally connecting the way they should have talked years ago—Sarah saw the truth: Through her innate gentleness, through her baking, through her presence at Lakeside Stitch & Knit, Denise Bartow had always made a difference in people’s lives. On a smaller scale than what her father had been able to accomplish as senator, but no less important to the lives she had touched.
Instead of her father, should Sarah have been giving the credit to her mother and grandmother—to all of the incredible women she’d connected with at the yarn store? Women who were strong enough to triumph over anything life threw into their paths. Women who had all of the strength but none of the glory.
“I know this has been a hard night for you,” her mom said, “but your grandmother has been waiting up for you to tell her about the meeting tonight. I hope you’ll tell her how poised and strong you were.”
But Sarah couldn’t leave yet. Not until she said something she didn’t say nearly enough. “I love you, Mom.”
Her mother’s eyes were awash with tears. “And I’ve never loved anyone more than I love you.”
They hugged for a long time, both of them crying. Finally, Sarah pushed her chair back and was halfway out of the room when she realized there was one more thing she needed to say. “Thank you for offering to sit with Mr. Klein tonight. I didn’t expect him to attend the town hall meeting.”
Again, there was that surprising spark in her mother’s eyes, a slight flush in her cheeks. “It was no problem at all. Actually, he was very nice.”
“It’s okay with me.” The words were difficult for Sarah to force out, but that spark that had been missing from her mother’s eyes made it possible to get them out. And to know that she was doing the right thing. “It’s okay if you want to see him again.”
Her mother stood up so fast she almost knocked over her chair. “Your father—”
“Is gone. But you’re still here.”
“No. Really. I couldn’t possibly be with another—”
“I’m not saying you have to marry the guy. But if he asks you out—and I really think he will—can you at least think about saying yes?”
Her mother took a deep breath. “Maybe.”
Just then, Sarah’s phone rang again. She cringed at the hope in her mother’s eyes. “It’s not Calvin.”
“Please, just look, just in case.”
The hope in her mother’s eyes was almost enough to spill over into her, but when Sarah looked at the screen, she could barely get the words out. “It’s my boss again.”
She had made a trade, love for a career. But even that had gone wrong. For Craig to be calling her again and again on a Thursday evening meant she’d screwed up in a big way at the town hall meeting. She hadn’t just lost Calvin, she was going to lose her job too.
Blinded by the tears that were coming again, Sarah didn’t see the bag on the floor until she stepped on it. Bending down to pick it up, she realized the Fair Isle sweater she’d been obsessively working on was inside.
* * *
Lightning continued to light up the sky when Sarah knocked softly on her grandmother’s bedroom door. She wasn’t surprised to find her sitting up in bed knitting.
Knitting the wedding veil.
Sarah’s gut twisted hard enough that she had to stop, had to take a deep breath to recover before crossing to her grandmother’s bed. “Grandma, I’m so glad you’re better. And that you’re finally back home.” Sarah almost forgot she was soaking wet as she went to hug her.
“Give me a kiss first, and then after you’ve put on something dry of mine, we can have a good long hug. There’s a nightgown in your size folded up in the left corner of the armoire.”
Sarah pressed her lips to her grandmother’s soft cheek, then took out the soft nightgown. As she unfolded it, she realized just how old the fabric was. The workmanship was incredible, with hand-sewn lace along the neckline, wristbands, and hem, and rows of tucking and insertion on the front. “This is beautiful.” She was extremely careful with the soft, thin fabric as she changed out of her wet clothes in the bathroom.
“Lovely,” Olive said when she emerged. “Now come give me that hug.”
Sarah should have been there to take care of her grandmother. But as soon as Olive’s strong, slim arms came around her, she knew that it was exactly the opposite.
“Everything is going to be all right. I promise you it’s true.” Sarah didn’t say anything, just let her grandmother stroke her hair. A while later, she pointed to the bag. “Is that the Fair Isle?” When Sarah nodded and pulled it out, her grandmother said, “I knew you’d do a wonderful job with it.”
“What made you think I could figure it out? Especially when I’ve never seen such a complicated pattern before.”
“You can do anything you set your mind to.”
“I used to think that was true,” Sarah said softly.
“Tell me what your first thoughts were when you first saw this pattern.”
“I’m not sure you want to hear those kinds of words, Grandma.”
“You kids think you invented dirty words. And sex.” She pinned Sarah with a wicked look. “You most definitely didn’t.”
Not sure she wanted to picture her soft, sweet grandmother having wild monkey sex with anyone, Sarah quickly said, “The pattern looked like another language. One I couldn’t see the point of figuring out.”
“But you did.”
“I had some help.” From Jordan, while Calvin had made them spaghetti.
“You could have given up.”
“You wanted me to help you make it. I couldn’t have given up.”
“I’ve wanted you to do a lot of things,” her grandmother pointed out. “But you’ve always marched to the beat of your own drummer.”
Sarah blew out a breath. “I figured since I’ve accomplished some really difficult things in my career, I couldn’t let a sweater be the thing that broke me.”
“But it didn’t break you, did it?”
Sarah looked down at the partially—perfectly—finished sweater on her lap and found a smile. “Not even close.”
“Pull out a strand of your hair. A long one.”
Sarah frowned. “What? Why?”
Her grandmother didn’t reply, she simply waited for Sarah to do as she asked. The strand of hair came out with a quick tug, probably nine inches long.
“Now wrap it around the blue yarn.” Still not understanding, Sarah did as her grandmother directed. “Now knit a row.”
Even though she was still wondering what was going on, Sarah followed Olive’s directions once more. Her grandmother didn’t say anything else until she made it to the end of the row.
“There’s a knitting superstition that if you knit one of your own hairs into a garment, it will bind the recipient to you forever.”
Sarah had never believed in superstition, only what she could see with her own eyes, only what she could hold in her two hands. So then why were chills running through her? “But I’m already bound to you, Grandma.”
“We both know you haven’t been making this sweater for me. Just as we both know you’re strong enough for any challenges that come your way.”
Her grandmother was right about one thing at least. Every stitch Sarah had made had been for Calvin.
“Do you remember the story I was telling you about my first love?”
“Carlos. You were making him a sweater.” Sarah suddenly remembered something else. “That first day I was home, in the store, you told me it was a Fair Isle, didn’t you?”
“Yes, it was. This very pattern you’ve been working on, actually.” Olive’s eyes grew cloudy with memories. “Our first kiss was on the carousel—on the chariot behind the matched pair.”
“What did he say when you gave him the sweater? Did he like it?”
Olive’s light blue eyes flashed with pain. “I never got the chance to give it to him.”
“What happened? You loved him, didn’t you? Didn’t he love you back?”
“Yes, he loved me. So much that he left only hours before I could tell him I’d made my choice to be with him, no matter the struggles ahead of us.”
“But if he’d really loved you, wouldn’t he have stayed? Wouldn’t he have given you the chance to choose him?”
Olive sighed. “I’ve thought about that question for seventy years. And I still don’t know what the right answer is. Until Carlos, I thought love was all fun and kisses. And then I learned about his past and thought I was in way over my head.”
“What kind of past?”
“Before he came here to work for my father, he lost everything in a fire. His wife and son. His business.”
Sarah’s hand moved over her grandmother’s. “That’s horrible.” And not all that different from what Calvin had dealt with ten years ago. “So Carlos came to the lake to start over?”
“I don’t think so,” her grandmother said with a shake of her head. “I think he came just to try and figure out how to make it through another day.”
“And then he met you. What a light you must have been for him.”
“Do you know, that’s exactly what he said to me. That I was the light in his dark world.” Olive looked down at the lace veil in her hands. “But I was so afraid. So afraid that I’d fail him. So painfully aware of the two different worlds that we lived in.”
“I know exactly how you must have felt,” Sarah murmured softly.
“I never said those words to him, but he knew me well enough to look into my eyes and see the truth of my feelings. The morning after he told me everything on the carousel, he was gone.”
“He left without saying good-bye? How could he have done that to you? Especially if he loved you too?”
“Because he saw me for exactly what I was: a young, frightened girl.”
“You would have learned how to be strong, Grandma. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever known.”
Sarah suddenly wondered why she’d never seen the fierce strength in her mother and grandmother so clearly until tonight.
“I waited for him. Waited even when my mother tried to convince me that it was all for the best. Waited even when my father tried to threaten me into marrying Kent. I wrote letters and never heard back. And I knit. Every free moment I had was spent with needles and yarn. Knitting was the only way I could stay even the slightest bit sane. And you’re right, somewhere in all that stubborn waiting and knitting, I grew strong. And knew that if I ever got the chance to get love right, I wouldn’t quit until I’d loved with everything in me, I wouldn’t give up because I was afraid or because I didn’t think I was strong enough. I would just love.”
Despite the fact that she was pretty sure she already knew the answer, Sarah had to ask, “What happened to him, Grandma?”
“I scoured the casualty list in the newspaper every week for his name, but I knew he wouldn’t be on it. Until the day that I knew he was.” Her grandmother’s eyes had never looked so sad. “Carlos was killed on active duty.”
“That’s so awful. So unfair. I wish you’d never gone through any of that.”
“Oh no, even knowing how it ended, I would have done it anyway. I would have loved him.” She squeezed Sarah’s hand, surprising her with a smile. “But I loved your grandfather too. Strong and true.” Sarah was afraid her grandmother was only saying that because it was what she wanted to hear. Obviously reading her mind, Olive said, “At first it was a different kind of love. Your grandfather went to fight in the war too, enlisting not long after Carlos. And during that time, I found solace in knitting for the war effort. That was when Lakeside Stitch & Knit first became a reality.”
“But I thought you didn’t open the store until the fifties?”
“Oh, I wasn’t anywhere near having a fancy shop back then, not until after I’d had your mother and she started school, but that didn’t stop me and your aunts and my friends from meeting every Monday night to knit.”
Sarah quickly did the math and realized the Monday night knitting group had been around even longer than the store.
“When Kent Hewitt returned from the war,” her grandmother continued, “I was still grieving over Carlos. But even then I could see that your grandfather had left a boy and come back a man. Just as I’d been a girl when he left, and he’d returned to a woman. At first I tried to push him away, but he was confident enough to prove it to me with flowers and laughter and kisses.” Her grandmother smiled a secret smile that Sarah wasn’t sure she’d ever seen before. “Wonderful kisses.”
“But what about Carlos? Weren’t you still in love with him?”
“You wouldn’t believe how long I spent telling myself that I couldn’t possibly love Kent because I’d already given my heart away. It took Kent never giving up on loving me for one single second for me to see that loving Carlos had actually opened up my heart so that I could love Kent fully and completely. If not for Carlos, I might have spent my whole life running scared from love.”
But Sarah still had to know. “What happened to the sweater you made for him?”
“At first, I held on to it because it was my only true link to him. But then after he died, it wasn’t something I could give away to anyone else. I thought about unraveling it a thousand times, but I just couldn’t. Because first loves are something special. And even though I found love again with your grandfather, I still believe that if you can make that first love work, you should give it everything you’ve got.”
Olive’s words rocked through Sarah. She’d had a second chance at first love, but she’d been scared—too scared to realize just how precious it was.
“I know you’re looking for answers, honey. But maybe all you really need to know is that you left Summer Lake a girl—and came back a woman. Strong and loving.”
Sarah looked down at the wedding veil on Olive’s lap, then at the sweater on her own, at the precise way she had wrapped her dark hair around the blue yarn, making sure it would never come unthreaded from the sweater. So many strands woven together. Alone, they could easily be broken, but together they were strong.
And when her cell phone rang again, she knew she was finally strong enough to answer it.
* * *
“Hello, Craig.” Sarah had given her grandmother one more big hug, then put a jacket on over the antique nightgown and left the cottage to take the call.
“I got a call from Mr. Klein,” Craig said in a hard voice, “and it sounds like things are going off the rails in that little town of yours.” She could hear his irritation. “Look, I don’t know what happened tonight, but we’re going to need a bulletproof plan to fix it. There’s no room for error this time, no second chances to try to get it right.”
With every word he spoke, it became more and more clear to her that of all the things that had gone wrong tonight, trying to keep the Klein Group on board was not the thing she needed—or wanted—to fix first.
“I can’t leave my family’s store,” she said. “Not with my grandmother still recovering from pneumonia. And not without a good manager in place.” But even as she spoke, she knew that she was doing it again. Trying to take the easy way out, refusing to make any declarations about her real feelings because she was afraid of disappointing her boss. Because she was afraid of being a failure. “Actually, the truth is that my heart’s not in the game anymore. And I think we both know it hasn’t been for a very long time.”
“What the hell could you be heading off to do that’s better?”
“I’m going to manage my family’s yarn store.”
Sure, she could get another job in the city, but not only did her family need her to run the store—she also didn’t want to leave Summer Lake. Even though it would be so much easier to run from Calvin again, to go back to the safety of her city life.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Sarah found herself smiling as she said, “I am.”
* * *
She tossed and turned for a couple of hours in her old childhood bed before she gave up on sleep. She’d gotten too used to Calvin’s warm body beside her, to his arms wrapped around her waist, to feeling his warm breath against the small hairs of her neck as she spooned into him.
The rain had stopped. She slipped on her shoes and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. Now that the storm had cleared, it was one of those perfect full-moon autumn nights, the kind they put in movies and posters that made people want to come to the Adirondacks to forget their cares. The same people that the Klein Group hoped would buy a condo on the waterfront.
Picking up a flashlight, she left the porch and headed for the dock. After uncovering the rowboat and putting on her life vest, she used the oars to push away from the shore. The lake was empty and slowly, surely, Sarah rowed out into the middle of it. She had never needed a gym while she’d lived here, just the grass and mountains and lakes as she’d grown up running and hiking and swimming and sailing.
She shipped the oars, then leaned back to look at the stars, and as the sky darkened, they appeared before her one by one. She took a deep breath of the sweet, cool air, then another and another, and then she finally rowed herself around to face the opposite shore to see if there was a light on across the lake.
And if someone was out there missing her as much as she missed him.
But there was only darkness.
Shivering, Sarah knew she needed to get back to the dock before her frozen fingers were unable to hold on to the oars. She had the rowboat halfway turned around when from the corner of her eye she saw something flicker on Calvin’s porch.
A single light came on.