🎧 Chapter Four | The Yarn Garden
What you need to know:
A mother of two, recently married to a new man—a brilliant doctor—discovers there is something “off” in the relationship after a strange incident with the car that could have killed them all. Her best friend recommends couples therapy. Waiting for names of good therapists, Jennifer decides to take up a new hobby…
Chapter Four
The Yarn Garden
I clean, then re-stack the mugs, pull on my coat, loop the strap of my messenger bag on my shoulder and leave my office. The house I share with Rick, a block away, is tucked in an edgy, hip neighborhood of older houses. I don’t go home though. I walk in the opposite direction past a drumming store, Heart Coffee, a stand of mailboxes, a dog food store. Beyond the sidewalk, six lanes of traffic rush both ways, the whoosh of commuters hurrying home in the fading light.
At the intersection, I press the walk button. Waiting for the light to change, I dig into my pocket, tug out my phone. “I need to run an errand over on Hawthorne,” I type. Hit send.
Rick types back. Asks after the kids. Where are they? When are they coming back?
“With Steve. They’ll be back at eight,” I type.
“How about the Scream?” he writes. “7-ish?”
The Scream is what we call a restaurant next to our house.
“Sure,” I write back.
The light changes.
I shove the phone into my pocket, cross through the glare of the headlights of waiting cars and trucks, that dense smell of exhaust laced into the cooling evening air.
At first I think, Yeah, Fran’s right, therapy makes sense. Give it a try. Then comes doubt. Did I rush in with Rick? Finally, predictably, I arrive at shame: Three marriages? What’s wrong with me?
The click clack of my boot heels on the concrete.
I pass one of those skateboard parks where kids jump, twist, hop about. The rumble of wheels. The scrape of wood on concrete. No doubt, none at all, one of these kids will end up in the hospital with a broken wrist, arm, leg, neck. Soon. I offer silent thanks that Spencer is a computer nerd.
A sharp turn onto Hawthorne. Heading west, I continue three more blocks. Finally, I stop, push open a glass door. Overhead, a brass bell rings with a high, bright sound.
At the register, a woman wearing owlish glasses and a heavy cabled sweater adds up merchandise spread across the counter. Knitting needles, a booklet of some kind, hanks of baby blue yarn. On the other side of the counter, the customer waits. Behind her, another woman stands in line, arms full.
“Welcome to The Yarn Garden,” the clerk says to me, an expression of harried happiness her face. “If you have any questions, be sure to ask.”
“Thanks,” I say, close the door behind me. “Busy.”
“Yep,” she says. “Everyone wants to knit these days.”
I stand there a moment. That momentary overwhelm. It’s like being in a book or a record store. What do I want again?
Finally, I thread my way toward a wall of yarn. Stand. Stare.
While taking classes in my MFA program last summer, I watched several women knit during the lectures. Needles flying. Yarn unspooling. Over the hours, they whipped out hats, gloves and scarves. One women made a blanket. Then I read, online, how knitting helps calm a worried mind and settles the nervous system. Something about using both hands helps cross the central axis of the brain.
I meander through room after room of floor to ceiling yarn tucked into bins, wedged into shelves, stacked on top of each other. Rainbow colored balls, hanks of baby soft cottons, cones of velvety cashmeres. Fingering. Sport. DK. Worsted. Chunky. Extra chunky.
“Can I help?” a woman asks.
I startle around. The young sales woman wears tights, a trim skirt, and an expertly knitted cardigan. “Kim” according to her name tag.
“I want to get started on a knitting project. Kim,” I say. “I’ve sewn a lot. Curtains, mostly, but I’ve never knitted before. Is it hard?”
“Nah,” Kim says with a breezy wave. Her wrist is tattooed with a chain of daisies. “What would you like to make?”
“What would I like to make?” I hear myself say, look at the bins again. Each has a sample square that hangs from a safety pin. I touch over a light gray one that is crazy soft.
“Maybe a shawl?” I say. “With something like this?”
“That’s a beautiful yarn. Spendy but worth it,” Kim says, grabs a couple hanks of Cascade Pure Alpaca, motions me to follow.
A moment later, we stand in another room of tables, stools, books. Kim tosses aside the yarn, opens a book titled Vogue Patterns.
“You want something that doesn’t demand much in the beginning,” she says, flips to a section on scarves, wraps, shawls. “This is nice. Straight knit purl with a cable twist.”
I look at the photo of the finished product, then at Kim in disbelief.
She rests a gentle hand on my shoulder. “It looks hard,” she says, “but I’ll get you started and take you through a few rows. You’ll see.”
Ninety minutes later, Kim is my new best friend, having taught me how to cast on, knit, purl, and master something called a criss-cross-cable technique. I haven’t thought about Rick or therapy or anything beyond each stitch. Knit two. Purl two. Knit two.
“Look at you,” Kim says, the two of us sitting on a sagging yellow sofa in one of the community knitting rooms. Around us, several women chat while knitting happily. Cups of tea on side tables. Canvas knitting bags overflowing with their creations. “You’re a natural.”
Soon, I stand at the counter. Kim tallies up twenty balls of yarn, circular needles, cable needles, a pair of clever palm sized snippers, a crochet hook (to pick up dropped stitches), the Vogue pattern, and a canvas bag with “Listen to Your Mother” written under a stencil of the earth.
“Three seventy-five,” Kim says, stuffing the supplies into a bag with Yarn Garden stamped on the front.
I slide my card onto the counter as if all is well. Inside I have a small heart attack. Three hundred bucks? For yarn?
“I can’t wait to see how it turns out,” Kim says, snaps up my Visa, runs it through, then rips off the receipt which she tucks into the top of the bag. She slides my purchase across the counter. A radiant smile on her round face. She must work on commission.
I take the bag, head to the front door, then stop.
“What if I make a mistake?” I ask.
Kim files her copy of the receipt into the cash drawer, shoves it closed with a hard thud.
“Just come on into the store and we’ll sort you out,” she say, steps around the counter, tugs down the hem of her sweater. “We’re always here.”
Next:
Jennifer meets Rick at a neighborhood restaurant for dinner. Can she muster the courage to suggest therapy to this perfect man?
