Chapter 9 Hog
Chapter nine
Hog
The yarn slid through my fingers like it had somewhere better to be.
"Okay, so you're gonna insert the needle here—" I demonstrated the decrease stitch for the fourth time, holding the needles up so the whole circle could see. "Through the back loop, not the front. That's what gives you the—shit."
I dropped a stitch. My stitch. The one I was supposed to be modeling.
Edith Murillo looked at me over her reading glasses. She was seventy-six, had taught me half of what I knew about knitting, and had never let me get away with sloppy technique.
"Connor," she said, voice dry as Thunder Bay in January, "you've made that decrease ten thousand times. What's got you so distracted you're dropping stitches like a beginner?"
"Nothing." I grabbed my crochet hook from my notions kit—every knitter's emergency tool—and caught the dropped stitch, working it back up the rows until it was secure.
My right hand protested—knuckles still swollen from last week's fight, split one seeping slightly through the bandage I should've changed that morning. "Just tired."
"Your grandmother would've smacked you with her needles for dropping stitches." Edith's voice softened slightly. "She had standards."
Gram had been gone fifteen years, but sometimes I still caught myself looking for her in the circle—expecting her to be sitting in her usual chair by the window, laughing at something Edith said.
If she'd been alive to see me in a Storm jersey? She'd have told the whole circle before my first shift. Hell, she'd have knitted herself a Hawkins scarf and worn it to every game.
"She'd have smacked me for many things," I managed.
"True. But she'd also be proud you're still here. Still teaching." Edith adjusted her work—some complicated cable pattern that would hurt my brain. "She worried, you know. That once she was gone, you'd give this up. Told me so, near the end."
Her words made me blink. "She did?"
"Said you kept things separate. Hockey and knitting. Like they couldn't both be real at the same time." Edith's needles kept moving. "Worried you'd pick hockey and forget the rest."
The rest of the circle had gone quiet—attentive. They'd all known Gram. Watched me grow up in this circle, from the eight-year-old just learning to a hockey-obsessed teenager.
"I didn't forget," I said quietly.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I nearly dropped my needles trying to check it.
Rhett: Kids crushed their crossovers today. Mika says hi.
A smile spread across my face.
"There it is." Edith pointed a knitting needle at me. "That's the face. Someone texted him."
"It's—"
"The contractor?" It was Linda Simmons, Edith's best friend and worst enabler. "The one from the Chronicle photo?"
Fuck. That photo. Rhett and me on New Year's Eve.
"His name's Rhett."
"We know his name, dear." Margaret appeared from the front of the shop, carrying her own project—some complicated lace shawl that looked like spiderwebs and mathematics had a baby. She wore her usual uniform: a cardigan with approximately forty pockets and reading glasses on a beaded chain.
She settled into her chair—not Gram's old chair by the window, but close enough that I saw both chairs simultaneously. "Rhett Mason," Margaret continued. "Good family. His father taught him carpentry before the dementia got bad. Does excellent work—fixed my porch last spring."
"He's good people," one of the younger women added. I thought her name was Sarah. Or maybe Sandra. "Did my kitchen renovation. Showed up on time, stayed on budget, and didn't try to upsell me garbage I don't need."
"And he's dating our Hog," Edith said, like she was narrating a nature documentary. "Look at his ears. Red as Christmas."
I touched my ear. It was hot. Dammit.
"We're—" I started, then stopped. What were we? Dating sounded too simple. Seeing each other sounded like we were pretending it was casual. "Yeah. We're together."
"Good." Margaret's needles clicked. "He deserves someone who appreciates him. You deserve someone who appreciates you. Efficient match."
She made it sound like a business transaction. Maybe it was. Except that business transactions didn't make my knees go weak.
I forced my attention back to my project—a hat for Jeremy, one of Rhett's youth hockey kids. Simple ribbing, nothing complicated. My hands knew the pattern without thinking—knit two, purl two.
It was the same pattern Gram had taught me when I was eight and too loud for everyone except her.
My phone buzzed again.
Rhett: You teaching tonight?
Hog: Yeah. Trying to. Apparently I'm distracted
Rhett: By what?
I stared at the screen. By you. By yesterday. By the fact that you looked at my terrible planing technique and called it natural instead of laughing.
Hog: Bossy women who won't let me check my phone.
Rhett: Sounds serious. Need a rescue?
My thumb hovered over the keyboard. Yes. No. Maybe.
"Connor." Margaret's voice cut through the fog. "Put the phone away or take it outside. You're setting a bad example."
"Sorry." I shoved it back in my pocket and picked up my needles.
The circle settled into a comfortable rhythm—needles clicking, occasional murmured conversation, and the sound of wool sliding through fingers. It was the part I usually loved. Narrowing our focus to the work in our hands.
Now it felt like trying to meditate in a hockey rink during playoffs.
My ribs ached. They'd been aching for three days, since Desrosiers had caught me along the boards—clean hit, nothing dirty, but I'd gone into the glass wrong. The bruise was spectacular. Purple-black across my left side, tender enough that pulling my shirt on made me suck air through my teeth.
Thirty years old with a body that remembered every hit.
"You wincing, honey?" Linda watched me. "That hit from the other night?"
"What hit?"
"The one from practice. My grandson watches all the Storm games online. He said he saw a clip on Instagram, and it looked like one of your teammates posted it."
Damn Pickle.
"It's fine."
"You're holding your side."
I dropped my hand. Hadn't realized I was pressing against my ribs. "A little sore. Nothing new."
Edith raised an eyebrow. "You've been playing what, twelve years professionally?"
"Thirteen if you count juniors."
"Mmm." She didn't say anything else. Didn't need to. The silence said enough: Thirteen years of hitting and being hit. How much longer can you keep that up?
I knit faster—knit two, purl two. Don't think about it. Don't think about how my knee clicks when I skate backward or how my shoulder pops whenever I raise my arm above my head.
When I was fourteen and convinced I'd play in the NHL, Gram asked me once what I'd do if my body gave out.
You need something that's yours, Connor. Something nobody can take away.
The hour wound down. The knitting circle members put their projects away, zipped up their bags, and rinsed their tea cups in Margaret's tiny sink. Edith hugged me goodbye—carefully. Linda patted my cheek. The younger woman waved.
"Good class tonight, Connor," Sarah-or-Sandra said. "Same time next week?"
"Yeah. I'll be here."
They filed out into the snow, voices fading into Thunder Bay's nighttime quiet. Margaret tidied the back room, stacking chairs and emptying the communal yarn basket.
Instead, I sat with the hat half-finished in my lap, staring at the empty chair by the window where Gram used to sit.
"Alright." Margaret pulled a chair over and sat across from me. "What's going on?"
"Nothing. A little tired is all."
"Connor, I've known you for three years. I know when you're tired and when you're spinning." She leaned forward. "Talk."
The words stuck in my throat. I picked at the bandage on my knuckles instead—dirty, blood-spotted.
"Your hand okay?" she asked.
"Fine."
"You're lying."
"It's not broken."
"That's not the same as fine. You dropped four stitches tonight. You never drop stitches. You checked your phone a dozen times. And you've been pressing your ribs like you're trying to hold something together."
Fuck. She was worse than Coach.
"I'm—" I stopped. Started again. "Yesterday I went to Rhett's workshop. Watched him work. Talked about his dad's business and how he's making it his own. Building something that'll last."
"And?"
"And I'm sitting here making hats for kids and wondering what the hell I'm building. Other than bruises."
Margaret was quiet for a moment. Outside, someone's car wouldn't start—engine grinding, dying, and grinding again.
"Your grandmother asked me something," Margaret said finally. "A few weeks before she died."
My head snapped up. "What?"
"She made me promise to look after you. Not financially—she knew you'd be fine. But to make sure you didn't lose this." Margaret gestured at the shop around us. "This place. This community. The part of you she'd taught."
The shop suddenly smelled overwhelming—wool and lanolin, the faint must of old wood, and Margaret's peppermint tea gone cold in her mug. Every scent was sharp and too present, like my body was trying to anchor itself while my brain refused to process her words.
"Your grandmother worried you'd return to St. Louis one year and never look back. She wanted to ensure you always had a reason to come home."
The ambient noise of the shop—the hum of the refrigerator in the back, radiator hissing, and distant traffic on the street faded to a dull ringing in my ears. My vision tunneled until all I could see was Margaret's face, wrinkled with age and wisdom.
"She what?"
The words came out strangled. My lungs had forgotten how to work right.
I was eight years old again, sitting at Gram's kitchen table while she showed me how to hold the needles. Not too tight, Connor. You'll strangle the yarn. Gentle. Like you're holding something precious.