What Family Means. Geri Krotow

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СКАЧАТЬ Buffalo, New York

       Debra

      THE SCREAM LODGED in the back of my throat. I swallowed and bit my lip. I no longer viewed the knitting needles in my hands as tools that turned a hand-spun mohair blend into a piece of art.

      They were potential weapons.

      If I heard one more boring remark about family trees from any of the ladies seated around the café table, I was going for it.

      I was going to poke my eyes out.

      “I like knitting, but it’s not the same as scrapbooking.” Shirley sat across the table from me and went on to rave about how scrapbooking had changed her life.

      I wasn’t convinced. “Shirley, that’s nice, but isn’t it a lot of work, clipping and gluing and finding the right colored papers?”

      Our group’s youngest member at age thirty-four, Maggie paged through Shirley’s latest creation. Her slim hand turned another sheet of Shirley’s ode to her youngest grandchild.

      “I agree. Give me a ball of good yarn and my rose-wood needles and I’m set for any journey.” Dolores laughed. She was her own best audience.

      Nine of us sat at the restaurant table, our breakfast dishes long cleared. We’d met here every Wednesday morning for the past several years. To knit, talk and grouse.

      Maybe I could steer the conversation back to knitting.

      “I just think it’d be tough to go through every single photo I’ve ever taken.” I kept purling as I spoke. “Besides, the best time of my life is now. I love to look at baby pictures of my kids, but to have to sift through them all…”

      I shuddered at the thought of the boxes and boxes of photos shoved under the eaves in our attic.

      “Can anyone help me with this? I dropped a stitch rows ago but I can’t bear to rip this out now.” Maggie held up the wool sweater she was making for her husband. It was a beautiful cable pattern. But an ugly ladder ran down one of the cables.

      “Let me show you how to fix that.” I stood up to walk over to her when my cell phone rang.

      “Hang on.” I reached into my purse and pulled out my phone.

      It was Violet, my mother-in-law.

      “Hey, Vi.”

      “Debra.” Her voice was soft, too soft.

      “What’s wrong?”

      Alarm made my simmering estrogen flush turn into an all-out hot flash. I started fanning my face with a knitting pattern.

      “My legs are swollen again and I’m having a hard time moving around.”

      “Did you take your pills this morning?” Vi had chronic congestive heart disease. At eighty-five she was doing pretty well but every now and then her symptoms flared, despite the medications.

      “Yes, but the cold’s making my bones ache.” I heard her sigh and the resignation it carried. Vi was used to good days and bad, but the “bad” days seemed to be getting worse, as though her circulatory system was wearing out.

      And with it, her desire to continue the fight.

      “I’ll be home in a few minutes. Keep the phone with you.” I put the phone back in its purse pocket and gathered up my knitting, shoving the needles into the large ball of yarn.

      “I’m sorry, Maggie, I have to go. Can you get someone else to help?”

      At Maggie’s murmured agreement, I finished my cup of tea.

      “Debra, of all people, you should put together a series of scrapbooks about your family. You’ve been through more than any of us. You’re a living part of American history!” Shirley’s intent gaze was on me and I saw the serious glint in her blue eyes.

      I waved my hand. “Please. Let’s not be drama queens. We’ve all had our troubles.” I returned my knitting to my tapestry tote bag. I was sorry to leave and even sorrier that Vi wasn’t feeling well. But I was also secretly grateful for a way out of the knitting group’s current conversation.

      “I have to go. Vi needs me. But let me say this.” I looked at Shirley.

      “I’m a fiber artist. I knit, I weave, I create. I do things for my family every day. Why take time to agonize about the past? I don’t want to miss a minute of today. Anyway, I thought scrapbooking was to celebrate the joy of life.”

      Shirley didn’t buy it.

      “There are many ways to celebrate life and our families,” she said. “But scrapbooking gives your children a history to draw from.”

      She was the most vocal of our group, which I’d started almost a dozen years ago. Not one local election passed that Shirley wasn’t involved in, and she took up what, in my opinion, were some pretty odd causes. However, I had no argument with that as long as I wasn’t one of them.

      I swallowed a sigh.

      “I do celebrate my family, Shirley. We have great dinners whenever we can, usually on Sundays. Angie just moved back to town. Blair and Stella are finally talking babies, and Brian is successful.”

      I didn’t mention that Will was angry at me for being too involved with the kids. Nor did I bring up my suspicion that Angie had come home to Buffalo to distance herself from her husband. That I thought Blair and Stella were approaching their attempt to start a family more like purchasing a new car. Or that I worried that Brian was too driven in his architectural career to ever find a soul mate, much less have a family.

      “Deb, you’ve got to admit that none of us have had to fight for our husbands or family like you.”

      Shirley referred to the fact that I’m white and Will is black. It’s not as big a deal today. When we first met over fifty years ago, it was more than a big deal. It was a showstopper as far as relationships and marriages were concerned.

      I pulled out my car keys.

      “Of course we had some hard times,” I said. “But at least I’ve known Will since we were both kids. He’s been a part of my life forever. Not many spouses can claim that.”

      I didn’t want to examine the volcano of emotions that threatened to erupt at just the idea of looking back at our past. Our present was the best yet for Will and me. I didn’t want to mess with it.

      I wouldn’t mess with it.

      “Come on, Debra, it couldn’t have been easy back in the sixties and seventies.”

      No, but Paris made it all possible.

      I acknowledged the errant thought but didn’t share it with my friends. It was too private. Paris was the time in our lives that sustained Will and me through the storms that awaited us.

      “No, it was never easy. But my kids have grown up in as normal a world as I could hope for. None of them seem to have suffered. In any event, I see no point in putting myself through СКАЧАТЬ