Back on Blossom Street (Blossom Street #4)(69)

“Hello, Grandma,” Alix said, although she knew it was presumptuous to address Pastor Turner’s mother as Grandma, since Alix was no longer going to be part of the family.

“Alix? Is that you?”

She nodded.

“Where’s Jordan?”

Alix shrugged. “Work, I guess.”

Grandma set the watering can aside and clumped over to the house to turn off the faucet. “Well, come inside and have a glass of iced tea. I’m glad you’re here.” Her welcome was so warm, it almost brought Alix to tears.

Obediently Alix followed her to the house.

“I was watering my garden and tending the rhododendrons,” Sarah said as she removed her boots, lining them up on the back steps. “They’re gorgeous this year. Did you notice?”

Alix barely heard her. She stood in the doorway, hands in her pockets, and knew she had to say something, had to explain. “I shouldn’t have come,” she mumbled.

“Nonsense,” Grandma Turner said briskly. As if to prove her point, she took two glasses from the kitchen cupboard.

Alix stepped inside and breathed in the simple beauty around her—the scarred oak table, scrubbed clean, the pots of herbs, the handwoven curtains and braided rug. She loved this house and she loved Jordan’s grandmother. To her horror, she began to cry.

Sniff ling, she ran her sleeve under her nose. “I…wanted to tell you I knit you a shawl.” Somehow she managed to get the words out but she didn’t know if they were even intelligible.

Jordan’s grandmother turned to squint at her. “Where’d I put my eyeglasses?” She started moving things on the table in a fruitless search. “I hear better with my glasses on.”

Despite her misery, Alix grinned. Seeing them on the counter, she walked farther into the kitchen and handed them to the old woman. Grandma Turner slid them on, then looked at her and frowned.

Alix wiped her nose again. “I didn’t know if I was ever going to see you again,” she said. “I came to say thank you and to tell you goodbye.”

“Goodbye? Aren’t you marrying—” Grandma stopped abruptly, her eyes narrowed.

“There isn’t going to be a wedding,” Alix told her, refusing to lay blame or offer elaborate explanations. Grandma Turner would hear all about it soon enough.

The old woman pulled out a kitchen chair, sat down and sighed. “No wedding. Now, that’s a crying shame. I like you, Alix. You’re exactly what this family needs.”

Alix desperately wished that was true.

“Talk about a bunch of stuffed shirts.”

“Grandma!”

Sarah Turner sipped her iced tea, then patted Alix’s hand.

“I didn’t…know where else to go.” Even now, Alix wasn’t sure what had drawn her to the old woman. Telling her about the shawl was only an excuse.

“You came to exactly the right place,” Grandma Turner assured her.

Alix choked on a sob. “I gotta leave.” The old lady didn’t need her blubbering all over the kitchen. Besides, Alix wasn’t in the mood to sit around and exchange polite chitchat.

“Did I ever tell you about Jordan’s grandfather and me?” Grandma Turner asked. “Before we got married?”

“No.”

Grandma passed her a box of tissues.

“The Turner family didn’t think I was the girl for him.”

Alix found that hard to believe.

“As you know, I worked back in the days when it was rare for a woman to hold a job outside the home. The Turner family was in the ministry and disapproved of that.”

“But you did marry him,” Alix said, dabbing at her eyes. She hated showing any kind of weakness.

“Yes, I did—because Lawrence stood up to his family and insisted he loved me. I remember him talking to his parents as firm as could be. He said he was well past the age of consent, well past letting them make his decisions for him. If they couldn’t see the blessings I brought to the family, then they needed to open their eyes.”

Grandma Turner thought she was helping, but the old woman didn’t realize how badly her words hurt. Jordan would never do that for Alix. In fact, he seemed almost relieved about canceling the wedding. What worried him most was facing his mother and telling her the whole thing was off. Alix loved Jordan, but it had become obvious that she wasn’t the right woman for him—and that he wasn’t the right man for her.

CHAPTER 25

“Why do people who love to knit complain about knitting a row with 1200 stitches and not about knitting 20 rows with 60 stitches?”

Candace Eisner Strick, author of Sweaters From a New England Village (Down East Books, 1996), Beyond Wool (Martingale Books, 2004) and Knit One, Stripe Too (Martingale Books, 2007)

Lydia Goetz

I was now standing guard over Margaret, and that was a real switch. From my teen years onward, I was the coddled one, fragile and sickly, and as a result, I developed the troubling habit of waiting for others to step in and take care of me. That didn’t change until my life finally stopped revolving around my needs, my desires—which happened when I opened the yarn store three years ago.

I’ve learned such valuable lessons about running a business and coping with people and making decisions. And that included everything going on in our family. I’d become my sister’s protector, and one manifestation of that was shielding her as much as possible from what was going on with Mom. Margaret had enough to deal with in taking care of Julia—and herself.