Free The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood Page A

baby…
    “Mary?” Scarlet was saying, her hand resting tenderly on Mary’s arm. “Are you all right?”
    “I should get home,” Mary managed.
    “Sadie, Sadie, married lady,” Lulu said.
    Later, standing in her bedroom doorway, dizzy and melancholy, Mary studied her husband’s sleeping face. It had become topographical from grief. Even in sleep he wore his sadness plainly. CNN blared from the television, talk of wars and distant tragedies. Mary walked over to the television and turned it off, sending the room into darkness except for the blue moon that lit up the sky.

Part Three
    KNIT TWO TOGETHER (K2 to g)
    Patterns are more specific about decreasing than increasing. Decreases done in certain ways slant the stitches to the right or left. For many patterns this is an important element; for others it doesn’t matter at all that much.
    —NANCY J. THOMAS AND ILANA RABINOWITZ,
A Passion for Knitting

5
    LULU
    ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT, Mary stayed in bed and watched TV. Even as the doorbell rang and children’s voices chirped, “Trick or treat!” to Dylan, Mary stared at the television.
    Downstairs, Dylan marveled at miniature Spider-Men and Harry Potters. He claimed each witch the scariest, each princess the loveliest. Mary did not think of the way that Stella always chose a winged creature for her Halloween costume: butterfly, bumblebee, fairy. She did not think of how meager that list was, how it should have grown over the years, adding bats and ladybugs, raptors and dragonflies.
    Eventually Dylan came upstairs.
    “What a crowd!” he said. “We never have such a crowd.”
    “Usually we’re among them,” Mary said without looking at him. “We’re trick-or-treaters.”
    He stood in front of the television, holding a pastry box tied with string.
    “Someone got mixed up and gave us candy instead of the other way around?” she said, taking it from him.
    She pulled the string from the box and opened it. Inside, nestled in a tight row, sat three cannelles.
    “Scarlet brought them?” Mary said.
    “I found them on the doorstep. No note.”
    Dylan sat beside her on the bed.
    “What a terrible night,” he said.
    Mary handed him one of the pastries and took one for herself, letting its perfect sweetness fill her mouth.
    “It might have been better if we’d done it together,” he said, not looking at her. “If we’d both been down there.”
    Mary shook her head. “I told you I couldn’t,” she said. “You could have hidden up here with me.” She tried not to sound defensive.
    But Dylan said, “I guess I can’t hide from everything like you can,” and she heard that too-familiar edge in his voice.
    “I’m sorry,” Mary told him, though she wasn’t certain what she was sorry about: sorry that Stella had died and she couldn’t handle it? Sorry she couldn’t be more like him in the face of this?
    “I’ll fight you for the third one,” Dylan said, changing the subject, letting their frustration lie there between them.
    “One holiday down, and an infinite number to go,” Dylan said, licking crumbs from his fingers.
    “And my mother’s threatening to come for Thanksgiving,” Mary said, her hands shaping the string into the Eiffel Tower.
    Too early one morning her mother had called. “I’ve been invited to eat with Saul and his family,” she’d said, “but if you want me there, there I’ll be.”
    “Saul?” Mary had said, cranky. She hated starting the day with a phone call from her mother. “Who’s Saul?”
    “I’ve only mentioned him a few hundred times,” her mother said. “A neighbor. A friend. His children, all three of them, come down from Houston for Thanksgiving. With their spouses. And their children.”
    “Lucky Saul,” Mary said.
    “Eight grandchildren. He’ll have a full house, that’s for sure. I said I’d make my sweet potatoes. The ones I do so beautifully? The casserole? And of course help with the turkey.”
    “It sounds like you should stay there then,” Mary