Part 3
I took my hand off the chair and walked to the bin. The blanket lay near the top, tangled with a ribbon and a damp napkin. I lifted it carefully, brushing away the ribbon, then a flower petal caught in the wool. The lower border was folded inward. Nothing had fallen out.
At the shop, I had folded skirts while customers described funerals and wedding dresses while mothers argued over guest lists. My hands could finish a familiar task without help from the rest of me. I smoothed the blanket over my forearm, brought the corners together, and lowered it into my tote. Walter’s shorter message was still at the bottom, in its own envelope.
Lauren turned from the phone. “If you want to take it back, that’s fine. I was only—”
“You won’t have to make room for it,” I said.
She looked at the bag. “Evelyn, I didn’t mean for you to—”
“I’m going home.”
I thanked Joyce for having me. She answered in the bright voice she had been using all afternoon, though she didn’t quite meet my eyes. I wished Lauren and the baby well, then nodded to Marjorie. My son remained beside the window while I got my coat.
Nobody followed me through the front door.
I carried the tote to my car, put it on the passenger seat, and closed the door before I began to cry. Through the windshield, I could see two balloons floating above the porch rail. One had caught in the flowers by the steps.
I took the blanket out again. A sour, sweet smell from the bin had caught in the wool, and a damp mark darkened one edge. I pressed it against my chest anyway. I had pictured showing Nathan his father’s handwriting that afternoon. I had never pictured carrying it out like something I had stolen.
“I’m sorry, Walter,” I said.
After a while, I put the blanket down and wiped my face with a tissue from the glove compartment. I couldn’t change what Lauren had done, and I couldn’t make Nathan speak after the room had gone quiet.
The child would still receive everything his grandfather had saved.
I would have to find a safer way to give it to him. I drove home with both hands on the wheel. At a stoplight, I noticed a loose blue thread against the black fabric of my tote. I tucked it inside before the light changed.
Marjorie called while I was putting water in the kettle. I let the telephone ring once more than I needed to, then sat at the kitchen table to answer. She skipped her usual greeting.
“I should have gotten up,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I kept thinking someone would stop her. Then it was over.”
I held the phone against my ear and looked at the blanket beside me. Marjorie had come through enough trouble with me to deserve the truth. I didn’t want to comfort her by pretending I hadn’t missed her help.
“I would have liked somebody beside me,” I said.
“I know. I’m sorry, Evie.”
She waited, and I let myself breathe before answering. “I’ll be all right. The papers are safe.”
“You’ve checked?”
“The pocket’s still closed. I’m about to open it.”
Marjorie told me she had spoken to Nathan after I left. She thought he knew about the bonds and his father’s last letter; when she discovered he didn’t, she explained. He had left the room before she could tell him that I had taken the blanket home.
“He went white,” she said. “I called after him, but he was already through the door.”
“Did you tell Lauren?”
“Not while she still had an audience. I wanted to talk to you first.”
We stayed on the phone until the kettle began to whistle. She asked whether I wanted company, and I said I needed a little time alone. Before we hung up, she promised that the next time I stood, she would stand too.
I made tea and let it cool while I found my seam ripper. The little tool had a red bead at the point and a handle worn smooth from years at the shop. I slid it beneath the first stitch, lifted, and drew out the loosened thread. Soon I could reach inside the pocket without stretching the knitting.
The documents were dry. I spread them across the table in their dated bundles and ran a finger over Walter’s writing on the envelope.
The private letter remained sealed.
Eighteen years seemed a long time to wait for a conversation with a man I had wanted to talk to that morning. I remembered reading his words back in the hospital. He had asked for water, swallowed with difficulty, then made me change a sentence because it sounded too solemn. Now the final version lay before me, addressed to a boy who would never hear him arguing about it.
I returned everything to the pocket but left the seam open. My tea had gone cold by the time Nathan called. His breath sounded close to the receiver, and I could hear the turn signal of a car.
“Mom, please tell me you have the blanket.”
“I have it.”
“Everything in it?”
“I’ve just checked. Nothing’s missing.”
The clicking stopped. For a few seconds, all I could hear was him breathing. Then he said, “Aunt Marjorie told me Dad left a letter.”
“For Benjamin. He’s to open it when he’s eighteen. There are savings bonds too. Your father started buying them when you were two.”
“He never said.”
“He wanted to give them with the blanket.”
Nathan tried to speak and couldn’t. I knew that sound from the nights after Walter died, but this time I let him find his own way through it. I laid my free hand on the ivory wool and waited.
“I laughed,” he said at last. “I heard myself do it, and I still didn’t stop.”
“I heard you too.”
“I thought if I could get through the afternoon, I’d explain it to her later. Take her to lunch, tell her how long you’d worked on it. She couldn’t have meant it the way it sounded.”
“Did she mean it?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Somewhere outside his car, a door slammed.
“She meant to throw it away,” he said.
“And you were going to explain that to her over lunch?”
“No.”
I heard him swallow. He said my name the way he had as a boy when he had broken something and wanted to show me before I found it myself. I kept my voice steady, though there was plenty I could have said badly.
“You knew I had made it. You knew how my hands have been. That was enough for you to come across the room.”
“I know.”
“You looked at me, Nathan.”
“I know, Mom.”
He began crying again, more quietly. I wanted to go to him, put my hand on the back of his neck, and tell him we could leave the whole afternoon behind us. Instead, I sat with the open seam across my lap and thought of the baby who would learn what people in his family did when someone was hurt.
“There’s a child coming,” I said. “He’ll need us to do better than this.”
“Tell me how.”
“I want you and Lauren to come here. Joyce too, and Marjorie. I’ll give Benjamin his grandfather’s gift with all of you present.”
“Lauren might need a little time.”
“Then we’ll arrange a time. I’m asking you to bring your family, not explain why they can’t come.”
“I’ll get them there,” he said. I looked at Walter’s chair. “This time, stay in the conversation.” “I will…”
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