Chapter 3. My Grandfather Has More Instagram Followers than Me
My Grandfather Has More Instagram Followers than Me
For as long as I could remember, my life had always revolved around the Yarn Fanatics.
The store was practically my second home, because I used to spend all my free time there: after school, on the weekends, and during school holidays, helping Oma, my grandmother.
Knitting was one of her passions, and she had worked her ass off to turn the place into one of Port Benedict’s go-to crafting suppliers, so when I first started running the store eighteen months ago, I knew I had my work cut out for me if I wanted to live up to her legacy.
It was a gorgeous summer morning, and the cobblestone sidewalk was already teeming with people, mostly customers for Twisted Sweets, Ellie’s bakery next door.
Our precinct, a strip of shops at the back of Port Benedict Plaza, housed around twenty stores, including an organic juice bar, an art gallery, a yoga studio, and a secondhand bookshop.
Towering oak trees framed the sidewalk, along with a few antique-style cast-iron benches and vintage streetlights, making the vibe—as Ellie had once said when she first moved into the city—idyllic and charming as hell.
My grandparents had bought our brick building many years ago when it was still affordable, because they’d always been big believers in property investing as a retirement nest egg.
They’d renovated it, turning the place into its current facade—white painted bricks with a blue doorframe and window frames—while still keeping the beautiful original architecture of the building intact.
Our window display had piles of pastel-colored yarn, bright scarves and beanies, thick knitted blankets, and cute crocheted animals, artfully spilling out of old wooden crates.
As customers walked in, the wall to their left would have rows of knitting needles and crocheting hooks.
The other two walls had floor-to-ceiling shelves, filled with yarn in every color imaginable, arranged from the darkest to the lightest color.
There was a long wooden table in the middle, with baskets of more yarn and piles of knitting books.
Everything looked warm, inviting, and aesthetically pleasing, so apart from rotating the window displays every other week, I hadn’t reorganized the store, because it was what Oma had done before she was gone.
Because changing it felt like I was somehow removing traces of her from my life.
“Good morning!” Nicole, my grandmother’s longest-working (and only) staff member, burst through the front door as I was counting the float in the register and handed me a to-go coffee cup. “Grabbed your oat milk latte. Love the new pun outside, by the way.”
“Thanks, Nic.” I grinned at her. “It’s what I do best.”
She drained her own coffee, then shoved her handbag into one of the drawers underneath the counter. “Better get ready, the crew will be here any minute.”
Before I could respond, she was already hurrying toward the front of the store, where we’d set up a few comfortable chairs in a small corner nook for Nicole to run the knitting and crocheting clubs.
Sure enough, five minutes later, the front door swung open again and a few women walked in as they chatted with each other.
We ran a few clubs a week, and today’s club was called Yarned and Fabulous.
It was the OG club, the first one that my grandmother had started back in the day, and although it had gone through a few iterations of names and members, the main objective of the club remained the same: to provide a space for people to get together and share their passion for knitting.
There were a few other, newer clubs, because when I took over the store after Oma was gone, I had this irrational fear that our regular customers would take their business and loyalty elsewhere (even though the store was doing perfectly well).
So I had the idea of starting themed clubs, hoping to attract different types of members to join and bring new customers in.
Thankfully, it worked.
There was one called Knit ’n’ Chat, which was mostly geared to beginner knitters and crocheters.
The Knotty Tea Society was for those who loved having a drink while they knit, and it didn’t really have to be teas, because the rules were extremely loosey-goosey—we’d had people bringing iced coffees, pale ales, even pitchers of homemade margaritas.
The last club was our most popular one, called the Fellowship of the Strings, and it was basically if a knitting club had gotten married to a book club.
We’d even had a few authors come in to talk about their books while they knitted book sleeves with the members.
“Kim!” Melly, the owner of a women-only yoga studio in our precinct that I sometimes went to, beamed at me. “How’s my favorite yoga student today?”
“You know.” I shrug. “Just trying to stay pose-itive.”
Melly chuckled with amusement, while Nicole shook her head from where she was setting up the nook. “She’s on a roll this morning.”
“You mean like my yoga mat?” I quipped, prompting Melly into another wave of snickers.
“Oh, please.” This came from Anahita, who owned a music shop a few buildings away from us. “It’s a bit too early in the morning to be trading cheesy puns.”
“But you usually love my cheesy puns.” I raised a questioning eyebrow at her as they all took their seats around the table. “Something’s not right.”
“She’s been having a rough few days.” Selma, the young woman who worked at the secondhand academic bookstore on the corner and sometimes helped Nicole run the Fellowship of the Strings, patted Anahita with sympathy. “You want to tell them about it?”
She waved her hand. “We’re here to knit, not to hear tales of my sordid love life.”
“Oh, but I live for stories of sordid love lives.” Melly began to pull out her needles and balls of yarn from an oversized drawstring bag. “Hit us with it.”
Anahita sighed. “My boyfriend is leaving next week. For twelve months. He accepted an overseas secondment in Dubai last month and didn’t even tell me until four days ago.
In Dubai! I don’t believe in long-distance relationships, so I’m seriously considering breaking up with him.
I don’t have the bandwidth to juggle a business, be a single parent to my four-year-old, look after my elderly mom, and keep a long-distance relationship alive.
It’s just too hard. I’m this close”—she held her thumb and index finger half an inch apart—“to a full-blown breakdown, and I don’t have time for one. ”
“He didn’t even tell you?” I frowned. “Major red flag right there. What’s his excuse?”
“He thought I was going to freak out and stop him from going. How pathetic is that?”
“I’d dump his sorry ass if I were you,” Melly said. “You deserve better.”
“That’s what I told her,” Selma said as she reached into her embroidered jute bag and took out her own knitting supplies. “The fact that he didn’t say anything until the very last minute means he doesn’t respect you.”
Anahita blew out a long breath. “I know. And I will. But my daughter worships him. I don’t know how to break the news to her that he’s leaving.
” She swallowed, looking like she was on the verge of tears.
“She’s gone through so much the past couple of years since the divorce, and now it’s the same thing all over again. She’s going to be crushed.”
“I’m so sorry.” Nicole leaned in and gave her a hug. “We’re always here for you. And she’s got you, and you’re an amazing mother. Whatever you need, you just let us know.”
The other two women murmured similar sentiments, and as I watched the scene in front of me, I thought, This is why I have to keep Oma’s business alive.
Because this place was more than just a yarn store.
It wasn’t just a spot for these women, or the knitters in the other clubs, to meet every week to share their love of the craft, or to learn new techniques, or to be inspired by each other’s creations.
My grandmother had created a community staple: a safe space for these people to connect with fellow knitters, to share their lives and build meaningful friendships, and support each other in good and difficult times.
“You guys are the best.” Anahita wiped her eyes. “I’m truly lucky to have found you all.”
And I knew, without a doubt, that if I couldn’t inherit the business, and the store was to close, it wouldn’t just be hard for me.
It would be devastating for them, too.
That afternoon, after locking the store, I drove to Opa’s house, a neat one-story cottage-style home ten minutes away from my place, with white paneled shutters and herb plants overflowing out of the window boxes.
He’d been living on his own since Oma was gone, and no matter how many times I offered to move back into my childhood home, he always insisted that he was fine, that I was only a phone call away should he ever need anything.
“Opa? It’s me.” The smell of something burning greeted me as I walked in with the food I’d picked up on the way.
“In the kitchen.”
I followed the sound of music and found him humming to an Elvis song as he pulled out a tray of burnt fish from the oven.
He’d been trying out healthier recipes lately, which was great because he needed to watch his diet, if only he wasn’t so bad at cooking.
So to save us both from food poisoning (because I wouldn’t subject anyone to anything I’d cooked either, not even myself), I usually got takeout for dinner.