Chapter Nine
Maggie looks around the room for Piper. She’s already bought a bunch of yarn, most of it for Piper, and wants to show her.
She finds her talking to a small group standing in front of a wall covered with framed photos. Maggie recognizes one of the
women from Instagram: Hannah Elise. She always posts some impossibly gorgeous sweater or elaborate throw and insists the patterns
are easy.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Maggie says, coming up behind Piper and touching her shoulder. “But I picked up a few things for you
and don’t want you to double-buy,” Maggie says.
Piper picks through the basket. “A few things? Mom. I think you got enough for the whole retreat.”
Her basket is a bit stuffed. She snagged a deep, dusky brown baby alpaca, soft and plush with a subtle sheen. And blue Malabrigo lace,
hand-dyed and exceptionally soft, made from 100 percent baby merino wool. She found a bulky yarn in a heathered, rustic tweed
that seems made for the autumn weekend. Everything she sets her eyes on looks special, each holding the promise of happy hours
to come.
“Nice stash,” Hannah Elise says, introducing herself and a couple who are apparently on their honeymoon. Maggie thinks, If I met someone willing to go on a knitting retreat as a honeymoon, I’d get married, too.
A loud burst of male laughter, followed by some shouting, comes through the wall from the restaurant next door. Maggie had
almost forgotten about the bachelor party.
Belinda calls out, asking for everyone’s attention for a moment, and the buzz of conversation quiets down.
“Welcome, everyone. For those of you who are new to my retreats, a special welcome. We are standing in what I think of as
the sort of home base of the retreat, the Pearl S. Buck Room—named after the author of The Good Earth among many other titles. But since the room has become knitting retreat central, we have come to call it affectionately the
Purl.” She spells it out to clarify and is met with appreciative laughter.
“I’m delighted to see everyone chattering away and getting to know one another already. And I can tell you from many years
of experience: By the time you leave here, you’ll have made at least one new forever friend. As a memento, I’ll take a group
photo before the end of the weekend. It’s a retreat tradition, as you can see from the frames covering that entire wall over
there.”
So that explains all the photos behind her.
Piper leans over and whispers, “Mom, I’ll catch up with you later.”
Later? “Where are you going?”
Piper says something to elaborate, but Maggie can’t hear because her voice is swallowed up by noise coming from the restaurant
next door.
“What?” she whispers back.
“I said, Hannah Elise is going to show me some things from her latest drop.”
“Wait—you’re leaving? What about yarn shopping?”
Piper glances pointedly at Maggie’s full basket. “I think you’ve got that covered.” She leans over and hugs her. “I won’t be long. Have fun!”
Maggie knows it’s irrational, but she feels a little rejected. She and Piper should be experiencing the opening event together.
And worse, she can’t even hear the tail end of Belinda’s remarks because of the men making so much noise next door. What if
it’s like this during the entire retreat? How is she supposed to lose herself in the pleasure of creation if it sounds like
they’re at Madison Square Garden?
She looks around, but no one else seems to notice, while she simmers with a building rage. Rage at the bachelor party for
being loud, rage at Gretchen for firing Piper as a client, and yes, maybe rage at Piper herself for leaving her in favor of
a knitting influencer.
There’s another roar from the restaurant and it sends her over the edge.
Aidan and his father-in-law, Barclay, sit at opposite ends of the group table at the inn’s restaurant, Bucks Tavern. Everyone
is hooting and hollering, and Scott, the groom-to-be, is doing a shot of bourbon. They’re going around the table toasting
Scott. Aidan didn’t, as a rule, drink during the day, but now everyone at the table is looking at him expectantly. It’s his
turn to speak.
“You’re up, buddy,” Ritchie says. Sometimes, Aidan almost forgets that Ritchie and Nancy were brother and sister. They didn’t
look alike and never acted alike. Aidan had always felt more of a connection with Barclay.
Aidan stands and raises his glass, surveying the group. In addition to Ritchie and Barclay, and Scott, there are four of Scott’s
Penn State fraternity brothers.
“Scott, it’s incredible this day is already here.
” He remembers the day Scott was born. He and Nancy rushed to Doylestown Hospital at four in the morning.
Cole would be born eight months later, but at the time, Nancy hadn’t even known she was pregnant yet.
“And I know if your Aunt Nancy were here with us, she’d want me to tell you how proud she is of you, and how much we both wish you both every happiness in your lives together. ”
He hadn’t planned on evoking his wife, but the occasion made it impossible not to think of her, to want to acknowledge her
in some way. Now, after so much time has passed, he’d gotten over the constant feeling that he was being robbed of her presence.
They met as lifeguards down the shore. It was the summer after college, and his father told him to take the summer to do outdoor
work as a sort of last hurrah before adulthood began and he was stuck working in an office all day. So he went to the beach
and there was Nancy, with her white-blond hair down her back and the freckles across the bridge of her nose. And those long,
tan legs. He’d be the first to admit he’d noticed the legs first. In fact, he did admit it to her, on their third date—when
he already knew they’d be together long enough to someday laugh about it.
She’d been gone now longer than they’d been together.
“To you, Scott.” He takes his seat and downs a shot of whiskey, just as a woman appears at the table. She’s wearing a sticker
name tag that reads “Maggie.”
“Excuse me,” she says, hands on her hips. “You know, you’re not the only guests at this inn. Can you please keep it down a
little? We’re at an event right next door and we can barely hear ourselves think.”
“I’m sorry—I can’t hear you,” Scott says, clearly messing with her.
“I said, we’re right in the next room and can barely hear ourselves think!”
“Well, this is a bachelor party,” Scott says, emphasizing the word party.
“You’re being very rude,” the woman says. She has wavy dark hair to her shoulders, bright blue eyes, and would probably be
very attractive if she didn’t have such a sour expression on her face. Scott starts to snicker.
“You don’t have to be a dick about it,” Cole says to Scott.
Okay, this is enough. Aidan stands up again. “Sorry we disturbed you. We’ll try to keep it down.”
The woman starts to say something, stops, and turns and walks out. Beside him, Cole is bickering with Scott. What’s gotten
into those two?
“Boys, come on now,” Barclay says. “I thought you’d agreed to play nice this weekend.”
Aidan doesn’t know what that means, but from the look on Cole’s face, he does.
“Am I missing something?” Aidan says.
“Apparently, everyone at this table is missing something: I’m twenty-four. I’m a grown man. I think you and Grandpa and Uncle
Ritchie forget that sometimes.”
Cole gets up and leaves.
Ritchie? What does his brother-in-law have to do with anything?
He looks over at Ritchie, who just shrugs and takes a swig of his beer.
Aidan doesn’t like feeling clueless, especially not when it comes to Cole.
He prides himself on being a hands-on father.
It was shocking to find himself a single parent when he first lost his wife.
But he gained his footing. He learned to juggle running the business and being both Mom and Dad.
Still, he always envied friends who were able to provide their children with a two-parent home.
They took turns playing bad cop; no matter what issue or crisis they were dealing with, one of them always had the bandwidth to be the good guy.
To be a friend and not just a parent. Aidan never found that balance.
Once, when Cole was a freshman in high school, he discovered Cole trying to make a bong out of a cored apple. It was funny,
really. He was so far from getting it to work. But there was no margin for error, for laughing, when he needed to be stern
and set an example. And there was no one to talk to about it behind the closed bedroom door after Cole went to sleep. Aidan
always felt like there was a third dimension to parenting he couldn’t experience.
But now, it’s time to relax. Time for the victory lap; he’d done his job. Cole was a decent, responsible young man. But clearly,
something is going on. Fortunately, he has an entire weekend to figure out what that something is.
In the meantime, he’ll make sure to avoid the angry brunette.