LITMIR.BIZ

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to Courtney’s life was signing her up for that knitting class. Courtney had been feeling abandoned and alone, and within weeks, she’d made three friends. Three good friends. The other members of the class were older, but the bonds they’d built were strong even now, more than a year later. She had an extended family of knitting friends, too, with Jacqueline, Carol and Alix, as well as Margaret. They’d all been supportive and encouraging at the time she’d needed it most.

      Courtney walked across the lawn and hurried up the steps to the dorm. She stopped long enough to collect her mail and quickly sorted through the envelopes. Sure enough, there was a card with Andrew’s distinctive handwriting and the WSU return address. She was proud of him, proud he’d been awarded a major scholarship. She didn’t really expect their long-distance romance to last. They were both young, as her grandmother often reminded her—too young to be serious. Grams was right about that. Andrew, however, was her connection to that wonderful year. First and foremost, they were friends, and she wanted to maintain that closeness. Forever, she hoped, even if their romantic interest waned. Andrew said he felt the same way.

      Inside her room, Courtney tore open the envelope and discovered a humorous card with a cat sleeping in the sun on a bed of roses. The cat resembled Lydia’s Whiskers, who often slept in the shop window. Opening it, she read: Wake up and smell the roses. Below that, he’d scribbled a few lines of encouragement about an upcoming test.

      This was one of the reasons she liked Andrew so much. He was so thoughtful, and unlike other star athletes she knew, he wasn’t stuck on himself. He regularly did little things to let her know he was thinking of her.

      Courtney stayed in touch with Annie, too. It was just Annie and her mom at home this year, and the changes in the family dynamic had required an adjustment, according to Annie. Courtney missed her a lot. When they’d first met, Annie had been angry and bitter. The brunt of that anger was directed toward the woman whose name Annie refused to mention—her father’s second wife. Annie had blamed this woman for everything. Oh, she’d been plenty pissed at her dad, too, but they seemed to be working that out. At least she saw him every week for lunch or dinner, which Courtney was glad to hear. Annie’s father had made a big mistake, as far as Annie was concerned, and now he had to live with it. Annie claimed he and “that woman” deserved each other—but she still loved her dad.

      Sitting on her bed, Courtney read Andrew’s note a second time, then logged on to her computer to leave him a message. She discovered an e-mail from her father waiting for her. He’d rented out the house in Chicago for a second year, and Courtney felt fine about that. She’d kept some things of her mother’s but she no longer thought of the place as home. He was still in Brazil, working on another bridge project, and seemed to be enjoying the adventure. The money didn’t hurt either. She answered him, and then e-mailed Lydia about the progress her friends had made knitting.

      Once the girls on her floor discovered that Courtney could knit, they’d wanted her to teach them. Soon every girl in the dorm had a pair of knitting needles in her hands. Actually, two circular needles, since the most popular pattern so far had been socks. Courtney had knit a dozen pairs in the last year. Her father loved his and wore them constantly. Even her older brother bragged about his socks, and Andrew had three or four pairs now. Annie was knitting, too; Bethanne had taught her.

      A knock sounded at her door. “Court, do you have a minute?” Heather, one of the other girls on her floor, peeked inside.

      “Sure,” she said and stood up from her computer, leaving the e-mail to Lydia unfinished.

      Heather stepped into the room with a ball of fingering weight yarn tucked under her arm and her knitting in her hands. “I hate to bother you,” she said guiltily.

      “It’s no bother.” They sat on the edge of the bed while Courtney examined the other girl’s project.

      “I think I dropped a stitch,” Heather murmured.

      Courtney could see that she had. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a crochet hook in my desk. They work wonders.” After retrieving the hook, she sat down with the half-completed sock.

      “I can’t look,” Heather said, turning her head to stare in the opposite direction.

      Courtney smiled. “I did the same thing to Lydia the first time I dropped a stitch. She told me we all lose a stitch now and then. Just like life, don’t you think?”

      “It is,” Heather agreed. “We get so busy that it’s easy to let some things slide. We can either pick them up again, or let them stay lost…. I never thought about knitting like that, though.”

      “I didn’t either,” Courtney confessed, “until I took Lydia’s knitting class.”

      “You’re right.”

      Courtney caught the loose stitch and carefully brought it up through the rows until she could slip it back on the thin needle. When she’d finished, she returned the sock to Heather.

      “You learned a lot from those other knitters in Seattle, didn’t you?”

      “I did,” Courtney said. More than she could possibly explain to anyone who hadn’t taken part in those weekly sessions.

      Elise was close in age to her grandmother—certainly older than anyone else she called a friend—yet that was how Courtney viewed her. They all kept in touch, and Elise phoned her every few weeks. Bethanne did, too. Courtney almost wished her father had stayed in Seattle longer so she could’ve introduced the two of them. She knew, from Lydia and Elise, that Bethanne was seeing men from time to time; it wasn’t something Annie talked about. Bethanne’s booming party business kept her busy these days, which Annie did like to mention.

      All her Blossom Street friends—Bethanne, Lydia, Elise and the others—had helped Courtney deal with the grief of losing her mother. Five years had now passed since her mother’s death, and while the pain wasn’t as raw as it had once been, Courtney had never completely filled the emptiness in her life. But she’d seen how Bethanne’s love for Andrew and Annie had carried her through the divorce. Maybe, years from now, when she had children of her own, she’d find that same kind of strength and completeness. Bethanne’s love for her kids, Elise’s for Aurora, Lydia’s for Cody—these mother-child bonds reminded her of what she, too, had once had. That feeling was one of gratitude as well as sadness. Courtney recognized anew how deep her mother’s love had been.

      Lydia and Margaret reminded Courtney of her relationship with her own sister. She was close to Julianna in much the same way Lydia and Margaret were close. They supported each other and they bickered. Courtney found it entirely natural. She’d once heard Lydia explain that it hadn’t always been like that, but seeing how well they worked together now, this was difficult for Courtney to believe.

      After a couple of months, when they’d all considered each other friends, Lydia had talked about her experience with cancer. Courtney would never have guessed that Lydia had gone through chemotherapy and radiation. When she’d said this, Lydia had been absolutely thrilled and claimed it was proof she had “stepped outside herself.” Courtney wasn’t sure what that meant but was happy about Lydia’s reaction.

      “Thanks, Court,” Heather said, collecting her knitting and leaving the dorm room.

      “Glad to help,” she said and sat back down at her computer.

      She read over her e-mail to Lydia. “I realized again that living in Seattle was a blessing in more ways than I could count. A Good Yarn—” That was where she’d stopped when Heather came in. But she knew exactly what to say next.

      47

      CHAPTER

       BETHANNE HAMLIN

      “Mom, phone!” Annie shouted from the top of the stairs.

      “Which line?” Bethanne called from the kitchen, her hands buried in hamburger.

      “Business line. Do you want me to take it?”

      “I’ll

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