Knit in Comfort Read Online Free PDF Page A

really nice to meet you.”
    Megan nodded at her floor, still smiling. “Nice to meet you, too. I hope you had a good trip.”
    â€œI had a trip from hell.”
    â€œI’m sorry to hear that.” Megan glanced up. “Did you drive or fly?”
    â€œI flew. The flight was fine.” She tapped her head. “The hell was in here.”
    â€œOh…”
    Elizabeth bunched her mouth. She’d probably just scaredthe poor woman to death. “I’m fine, really. Just some upheaval. It’s all behind me now.”
    Megan’s brows rose. “Well good. The apartment is in the backyard. You can come through the house or go around, whichever you’d like.”
    Like David’s, her accent wasn’t quite Southern. Elizabeth hadn’t been able to tell for sure on the phone, but she’d suspected not. Disappointing, since the lilting local language-tune made her want to lie down and be told stories past her bedtime.
    â€œI’ll come through.” Who wouldn’t want the chance to see part of someone’s life? Megan nodded and moved aside so Elizabeth could step in.
    Inside, a real home. Not the dreary European-widow look of Elizabeth’s childhood in South Milwaukee, nor the sloppy college-kid apartment she’d shared with then-boyfriend Alan in Boston, nor the bonsai/exotic artwork/koi-pond artifice of her and Dominique’s condo. Instead, a dark paneled living room—with genuine recliner!—and a TV that looked to be all of nineteen inches; a cross-stitch sampler in faded pastels, framed and hung on the wall: Bless this house and all who live within its walls; a shabby floral rug on scuffed plank floors; a coffee table covered with a lace cloth; more lace curtaining the windows. Exquisite lace, now that she looked harder, intricate and cobwebby soft.
    â€œWhat gorgeous curtains.”
    â€œThank you.” Megan kept walking. “We enjoy them.”
    Elizabeth followed slowly, glancing around, taking in as much as possible, itching for her sketch pad to record what she saw. Some people kept journals with words; hers comprised pictures—most recently, failed fabric design ideas. To the left,a dining room with chubby-legged dining table and chairs and a matching sideboard. One of the chairs had been re-glued or repaired, ropes still holding the legs in place.
    On the right, a family room, entrance under the stairs, games stacked haphazardly on shelves, worn and stained olive green carpet, an air hockey table and a fleet of metal vehicles jumbled in one corner—yellow backhoes and diggers and dump trucks. Megan did have children; Elizabeth couldn’t wait to meet them. Husband too? She’d have to ask. To the left at the back, the kitchen—faded and cracked linoleum floor in a yellowing spotted pattern that had probably always been ugly; cheap table and chairs; dingy countertops.
    But everything recently scrubbed and tidy, everything with character and probably a story, everything said family, home, warmth…and comfort.
    â€œYour house is beautiful, Megan.”
    Megan glanced over her shoulder in surprise. “Well. Thank you.”
    Outside, down concrete steps into a garden—an entirely different story.
    â€œWow.” Elizabeth turned slowly, savoring each sight, shape, color and scent. “Your yard is amazing.”
    Megan laughed abruptly, self-consciously. “Thank you.”
    â€œDid you do this all yourself?”
    â€œYes.” She swung her sandaled foot to kick at scalloped black edging. “I enjoy it.”
    â€œWhere I live, you could charge people a fortune to make their yards look like this.”
    Megan laughed again, still nervously. “Mostly I grow what we eat.”
    â€œSeriously, you should think about it.” If Megan was takingin boarders, she had to need the cash. “Dominique had someone design a garden on our building’s roof, and the guy could buy a