Chapter Four
Eliot
The bell over the door jingles as I step into Purl on Pine.
Friday night means the front half of the shop is mostly empty, but the big table in the back is already occupied.
Marlene is seaming the sleeves of her latest sweater.
Betty sits beside her, working on what looks like the world’s longest scarf.
Ruth’s untangling a skein of yarn with the concentration of a bomb tech.
Jean should arrive in twenty minutes complaining about traffic and carrying enough snacks to feed a church picnic.
“You’re late,” Marlene says without glancing up.
“Some jerk double-parked on Pine and had the whole street backed up for half a mile.” Setting my project bag next to my usual spot, I brace my hand on the back of the chair and ease myself down. My knee cracks, then stops arguing with me for the first time today.
Marlene and Ruth start debating whether bamboo or resin needles are superior, while Betty starts her cast off. Nobody asks whether I’m coming anymore. After six years, it’d be like asking whether the front door plans to show up.
I pull out the blanket I’ve been working on for the past three weeks and get to it.
The motion’s automatic now. Muscle memory. But the first time I picked up a pair of needles, I could barely sit up in my hospital bed.
A nurse named Carol had shown up one afternoon with a canvas tote full of yarn and enough determination to qualify as a controlled substance.
She taught me how to cast on while my body argued with me over every breath.
At the time, I thought she was trying to torture me.
But after a few weeks, I understood. On my worst pain days, I could still work the needles.
Not well, but enough to produce…something.
Couldn’t walk. Couldn’t work. Didn’t think I’d ever feel useful again. But knitting changed that.
Now, I can knit through a conversation without looking down.
Betty eyes me over the rim of her glasses. Somebody’s abandoned coffee gives off the smell of hazelnut creamer, and around the table, needles click against each other. The rhythm is familiar enough that my shoulders start to loosen before I've even worked the first stitch.
“You look tired.”
“Good evenin’ to you too, Betty.”
“That ain’t a denial.”
She sniffs and returns her attention to the scarf in her lap, but I catch the look anyway.
I’ve been coming here long enough to recognize it.
Somewhere over the years, these women decided I belonged to them.
Not in any official capacity. Just enough that if I show up looking worn down, somebody’s gonna comment on it.
“Don't encourage him,” Marlene says without looking up from her knitting. “Last week he claimed barbecue counted as a vegetable because there was coleslaw next to it.”
“In my defense, that was an excellent argument.”
Marlene shakes her head and tugs another length of yarn free. “It was a felony against nutrition.”
Ruth laughs hard enough to lose count and start her row over. Marlene looks pleased with herself.
Not one to abandon a point just because the conversation wandered away from it, Betty stares me down. “None of that changes my original assessment, Eliot.”
I shake my head and work the next cable in the blanket.
“Long week?” Ruth asks.
“Somethin’ like that.” I don’t elaborate, and no one presses me for more. They never do. It took a while, but eventually, these women learned the difference between asking and prying, and I learned I could sit at this table without having to explain myself.
The discussion wanders from yarn to grandkids to a local restaurant that somehow managed to fail three health inspections in a single month.
By the time Jean finally arrives—carrying a bakery box and complaining about traffic—I’ve finished nearly a full row, and lost every argument I’ve participated in.
I listen more than I talk, working another four repeats before my back starts to lodge a protest over sitting still too long.
As I finish my last row for the night, Marlene reaches over and lifts the blanket from my lap. I don’t stop her. She’s been inspecting my work for six years.
Spreading it across the table, she studies the cables running down the center. Around us, the conversation rolls on. Jean’s telling Ruth about a church fundraiser. Betty’s complaining about the thermostat. Nobody pays much attention to the blanket beyond a passing glance.
“Where’s this one going? The women's shelter on Bell?” Marlene asks.
I nod. “They’re so small, they don’t get a lot of donations.”
Her expression softens. Nobody here treats what I do as anything extraordinary. They don’t tell me what a good person I am. They don’t make a production out of it. Knitting’s just something I do, and the blanket’s going somewhere that needs blankets.
Marlene folds it neatly, careful not to let any of the stitches slip, and hands it back. “Your last three have all been navy blue.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “And?”
“Kids need blankets too, Eliot.”
“Last I checked, navy doesn’t card anyone at the door.”
Now it’s Marlene’s turn to stare me down. “You’re remarkably closed-minded for a man who spends his free time making blankets.”
I open my mouth. Close it. The woman once convinced a city councilman to sponsor a fundraiser with nothing but a plate of brownies and a list of statistics. There’s no version of this where I win.
Five minutes later, I’m standing in front of a shelf of yarn in colors harsh enough to make my eyes water. Electric blue. Yellow that rivals the brightness of the sun. A green I’ve never seen outside a box of crayons.
Marlene pulls down skein after skein and holds them out like this is already decided.
“A kid is never gonna be able to sleep under this. You can see it from space.”
“Kids like color,” Jean calls.
“Kids also like eating dirt. And playing with matches. Neither of those are good life choices.”
“Eliot.” Marlene plucks a fourth color from the shelf. Hot pink. “Don’t argue.”
With a sigh, I hold out the basket. Marlene’s smile tells me she knew exactly how this would end. I was only delaying the inevitable.
As I pay for the painfully bright yarn, Ruth drops a plastic container into my project bag.
“No,” I say, though it won’t do me a lick of good.
“No one says no to my chocolate chip cookies. And you look thin.” She clucks her tongue and starts folding her scarf.
“I look exactly the same as I always do.” I try to slide the container back across the table, but she shakes her head.
“You looked thin last week too. Why do you think I baked?”
I look to Marlene for backup. She’s fiddling with the register. If the woman has a single cowardly bone in her body, I’d be shocked. But even she doesn’t argue with Ruth.
Jean’s next, shuffling over with a second container. “Peach cobbler.”
“Cobbler.” Of course. They’re conspiring against me. They always do.
“My mother’s recipe. Goes well with ice cream. The kind with actual vanilla beans in it.” She narrows her gaze. “Don’t buy the cheap stuff, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am. No cheap stuff.” I nod, tuck both containers into my bag, and swallow the lump in my throat.
Some weeks, Ruth makes biscuits. Others, scones. One December, Marlene slipped a pair of warm wool socks into the pocket of my bag with a note that read, “Don’t you dare donate these. I made a second pair for the shelter.”
The last Friday of every month, Betty shows up with tamales. I can’t remember the last time I left empty handed. Or as lonely as I arrived.
Warm air slaps me in the face as I slip back out the door. But the Texas heat doesn’t bother me as much as it did when I walked in.
The last of the evening’s summer rays blind me as I step inside my apartment. Fuckin’ hell. The west-facing window over the kitchen sink is great in the morning. But this time of day, I hate the damn thing.
Ten minutes later, my eyes have mostly forgiven me, the navy blue blanket is back in the bin under the side table, and the new yarn is spread across the counter. What was I thinking? I’ll get a migraine just looking at the needles.
Kids need blankets too.
Marlene’s right. She’s almost always right. But the next kid’s blanket is going to be sky blue. Or butter yellow. Something I can work on without sunglasses.
My stomach rumbles. Should’ve had some of Jean’s queso and chips. But with my luck, I would have dropped a clump of spicy cheese right in my lap.
I give the container of peach cobbler a longing glance, then put it in the fridge and grab a frozen burrito instead.
Two minutes later, the microwave dings. I bypass the table completely and sink down on the couch. Once in a while I think I should set myself a place. But the television is a lot better company than a blank wall.
I find an episode of This Old House and try not to think about how fucked up my life is that a container of peach cobbler and some cookies almost sent me to my knees in the middle of the yarn store.
Before the first commercial, my eyes start to burn, and I push up with a groan, set the burrito plate in the dishwasher, and search for my eye drops. Spending my days walking through burned-out buildings is a health hazard.
I should turn in early. Lord knows my body’s ready to be horizontal.
But sleep doesn’t come easy. Most nights, I lie awake for hours, taking inventory of the various cracks and imperfections in the ceiling.
When I do manage some shuteye, it’s broken by almost fifteen years of burned and blackened horrors most people never have to see.
My phone rings as I’m staring down at the jigsaw puzzle covering the kitchen table. This one is an underwater landscape with way too much blue. I’ve been working on it for six months and I’m only halfway done.
Well, fuck.
Seeing my former captain’s name flash across the screen twists something ugly in my gut.
I could ignore it. I should ignore it. But he’s the Battalion Chief now, and this could be important.
“Chief.”
“Eliot, how are you doing, son?”
Felton’s raspy voice sends my stomach straight through the floor. The last time we talked, he’d tried to get me assigned to a suspicious fire his battalion had knocked down. But I’d barely been two months out of training, and the case went to the senior investigator, Kurt Lynch, instead. Thank God.
“Fine.” My hand tightens on the phone. “You?”
“Oh, Terry’s countin’ down the days until I retire. She’s got a honey-do list longer than all the firehoses in this city put together.” He chuckles, and I can imagine him rubbing the back of his neck, one of his gentle smiles spreading across his face.
“You puttin’ in your papers?” I don’t know why I’m asking. I haven’t had a meaningful conversation with the man since I kicked him out of my hospital room.
Felton laughs so long, a coughing fit takes over.
You breathe in enough smoke and chemicals on the job, it takes a toll on you…
eventually. “God, no. I’ve got at least another five years.
But Evanston’s last day is the eighteenth.
I’m coordinating a little shindig for him. Sure would be nice to see you there.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Evanston taught me how to read a roof. How to look at the sag and know—before anyone called it, before the IC even got on the radio—whether you had thirty seconds or three minutes to get your crew out. Saved my life more times than I can count.
“I’ll try to make it.”
Felton goes quiet for a long moment, then takes a deep breath. “Evanston would be real glad to see you, Eliot.” Another pause. “We all would.”
My throat feels like someone filled it with broken glass, but I manage a quiet, “Yes, sir,” before the screen goes dark.