Chapter Thirty-Four
The glow of the fireplace casts flickering shadows on the lobby’s stone walls. Belinda takes a moment to look around the room,
and it confirms what she’s come to expect over the years: The Sip & Stitch is the moment when the group of former strangers
becomes a sort of knitting family. Anyone peeking in at the party wouldn’t be able to tell who’d just met three days ago and
who’d arrived already friends. And everyone is dressed in their handiwork: Sheila wears a floor-length Granny Square cape,
Laurel sports a knit jumpsuit and Maggie is dressed in dark blue jeans and a jewel-toned crewneck sweater.
As planned, the bachelor party hasn’t yet joined them. She wants a few minutes alone with her group. She taps the old bell
on the front desk to get everyone’s attention and then waves them to gather around.
“I just want to say, you’ve been a special group this weekend. It’s my twenty-fifth knitting retreat, and the first that incorporated
axe-throwing . . . so thank you for that.
” They laugh, and she feels the love in the room, and now she wishes that she had asked Max to come.
To show him that running the inn isn’t a job to retire from, that it’s a lifestyle: surrounding themselves with people during peak occasions of their lives, helping them make memories.
Giving them the place to do that. And creating their own along the way.
“I always use the last night of the retreat to unveil the group portrait, so here you go,” she says, holding up the framed print. “Hot off the press.”
She passes it around, and while everyone’s looking at it, she texts Max.
Can u stop by the lobby for a minute?
“I hope everyone feels they’ve learned something they can take home with them after this weekend. But remember: Knitting,
like life, is never something you can master. Mistakes will be made. Projects will fail. It’s a process. Embrace the process,
and you will always have a source of joy.” The group applauds. She has mixed feelings, knowing that she herself is struggling
with the process of life at the moment.
“That was really special,” Maggie says, walking up to her. “This whole weekend has been special.”
“Thank you so much for teaching the classes. You got rave reviews!”
“I enjoyed it. And really, by going through the process of explaining things aloud I think it’s going to make my own technique
better.”
She nods. “I’ve found that to be true.” She sees Max across the room. Excusing herself, she makes her way over to him, stopping
to pour herself a mug of their spiked cider: Captain Morgan, apple cider, star anise, orange and ginger root. She takes a
sip and it fortifies her.
“That was quick,” she says. “Thanks.”
“You know I wanted to be here. I’m glad you changed your mind about it.”
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
She leads him from the lobby to the corridor outside the dark tavern, closed on Sunday nights.
She sees through the doors’ windows the chairs are upside down on the tables.
Even from outside, she can smell the restaurant’s lemon-and-pine cleanser.
Here, away from the fireplace, the stone walls hold a chill.
“This feels very cloak-and-dagger,” Max says.
She looks at him. “I don’t want to sell.” She presses her fingers to her temples to ward off the stress headache she feels
building. “I’m sorry. I said I was okay with it, and I wanted to be, but I’m not.”
“Bee, I realize I shouldn’t have brought this up during your retreat. I understand you feel sentimental. But we work practically
around the clock, three hundred and sixty-three days a year. I can’t do that much longer. Maybe you can keep up this pace,
but I’m telling you I don’t want to. This offer is our retirement.”
The cider turns sour in her throat. “And I told you, I don’t want to retire.”
“I understand that. But you can’t ask me not to take this golden parachute. You can find new work in Philly once we move.
I’m not stopping you.” He puts his hands on her shoulders and looks her in the eyes. “I need you to get on board with this.”
Piper waits until the last possible minute to go down to the Sip & Stitch. She wants it to be crowded so she can easily avoid
her mother. By the time she leaves her room, she can hear the undercurrent of chatter and the clinking of glasses from two
floors below.
The lobby is warm and welcoming, the air rich with the scent of crackling firewood and something sweet, like baked apples.
She takes a small plate from a side table and loads it up with crostini topped with fig jam and brie and a few slices of pear. Then she heads over to one of the couches, where Dove and Lexi sip from mason jars. The drinks are garnished with orange wedges and cinnamon sticks.
“Hi, Piper,” Dove says, scooting over to make room for her. “We missed you at Shetland Hap.”
She sits, offering some excuse about needing to get exercise. And it’s true, she did take that walk into town. She’s still
thinking about the phone call with Ethan—what he said about her listening to her gut.
In all the confusion of the weekend, one thing is clear: She wants a future working with animals. She’s not sure exactly what
that will look like, but she knows the next step is going back to school to finish her degree so every option is available
to her.
“Also, your mom did a great job teaching the workshop,” Lexi says.
“Mom taught the workshop?” Piper hasn’t spoken to her since their argument. “What happened to Hannah Elise?”
Lexi shrugs, and Piper scans the room. She doesn’t see Hannah Elise, but she spots her mother talking to Belinda. She turns
back to Lexi and Dove and changes the subject.
“So, how’s the first week of married life?” She’s pretty sure she remembers them saying they’d gotten married just last Monday—at
Philadelphia City Hall.
They look at each other, smiling in an intimate, connected way Piper recognizes. It gives her a pang.
“Great,” they say in unison.
“What made you decide to do the City Hall thing?”
“It was the only way to make certain it was fully ours,” Lexi says, and turns to Dove for affirmation.
Dove nods, adding, “We wanted to avoid the hassle of dealing with our parents. They haven’t been that supportive.”
“You’re so lucky to have Maggie,” Dove adds.
At this, Piper reflexively looks across the room. And sees her mother making a beeline toward her.
Maggie sees Piper across the room, her high blond ponytail like a bright flag. The scratch on her face is still visible, though
a less angry red.
Had she somehow pushed her daughter into a career she didn’t want? Had Piper felt that the only way she could justify quitting
was to mess up so badly she didn’t have a choice? If so, she knows she owes her an apology, but she doesn’t know where to
start. She can only trust that once they start talking, she’ll find the words.
Maggie interrupts Piper’s conversation with Lexi and Dove, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Can I talk with you for a minute?”
Piper pulls one of her nervous ticks, yanking the ponytail holder out of her hair and then redoing it with a quick twist of
her hands. But she agrees and follows her to a quiet corner of the room.
“I owe you an apology,” Maggie says.
“You’re apologizing?” Piper crosses her arms.
“Yes. It wasn’t my place to come down on you over what happened with Gretchen. It’s your career. Your life.”
“Well, thanks for saying that,” Piper says, unsmiling. Unhappy.
“I honestly never imagined you didn’t love the work. It never crossed my mind.”
Piper sighs. “There were times when I did. Just not enough to give up certain other things.”
“But what did you have to give up? The plan was always that you’d go back to school later if you wanted.”
“I’m giving up my time. I could have had my undergrad degree by now. I’d be that much closer to a long-term career.”
“Okay. Like what?”
“Like . . . animals. I think I want to go to veterinary school.”
“Veterinary school.” This shouldn’t be such a surprise, not if she really thinks about Piper. Piper is not an extension of
herself. “Okay. I get it. But I still don’t understand what I did or said to make you feel pressured to go into fashion. I
mean, I told you it was a great opportunity, and it was. But I’m getting the feeling it’s more than that. Is it my shopping
habit?” She gives a smile to lighten things up, and Piper smiles back.
“It wasn’t something you said. It was something Birdie said.”
Birdie? The minute she hears her own mother’s name, she knows this won’t be good. And sure enough, Piper tells her about the
time when she was a kid that she told Birdie she wanted to be a veterinarian, and Birdie told her she better not get pregnant
and drop out of school like her mother.
Maggie shakes her head. Leave it to her mother to say such a thoughtless, destructive thing. It was exactly the type of cruelty
Maggie ran away from in the first place. A reason she maintains distance from her mother still.
“I wish you’d told me about that when it happened,” Maggie says. “It’s not true. I didn’t lose my career because of you. I
chose you because what I got out of being a mother was more than a career in fashion could offer me. It gave me unconditional
love and a best friend. It wasn’t even a contest. I guess fashion meant as little to me as it means to you. Because I walked
away from it for something bigger and better.”
Piper steps closer and Maggie folds her into her arms. Piper tightens her arms around Maggie’s back, and she can feel her
mother’s heart beating against her own.
“We’ve been so busy with my drama, I never got to hear about your night,” Piper says as she gently pulls back from Maggie’s embrace.
“What about my night?” Maggie says, trying to keep a straight face but feeling her expression betray her with a mischievous smile that
tells Piper all she needs to know.
“Uh-huh. So the wild animals weren’t so bad after all?”
“Let’s just say I’m a bit of an animal lover myself these days.”
“Mom! So you like him!”
The sound of the party gets markedly louder. Even from their secluded spot, it’s clear the bachelors have arrived.
“We should go back in,” Maggie says. She starts to turn, but Piper grabs her arm.
“Mom, I just want to say how much I love you. You’re my best friend. Thank you for this weekend.”
Maggie’s eye tears up. They hug again as someone clangs a utensil against a glass for attention. She didn’t realize how loud
it was until the room falls silent. The only thing left is the music, an Ed Sheeran song. And then Barclay calls out, “All
right, ladies and gents. It’s the moment of truth.”
“I guess we should go back in,” Maggie says. Piper throws her arm around her shoulder.
The mother-daughter retreat was exactly what they’d needed.