Barbara Delinsky - The Family Tree

So she stopped beside him in the small pebbled lot, unlocked the door, and showed him where to put the boxes. He had barely left when her manager, Olivia McGinn, arrived wanting to know all about Dana, again distracting Ellie Jo from her chores at the house. Other customers arrived, and the shop was abuzz.

There was excited talk about the baby, excited talk about Dana, excited talk about the boxes. Ellie Jo wasn’t sure she would have been able to concentrate enough to actually sell yarn. Fortunately, Olivia could do that. Indeed, at that very moment, she was waiting on a mother and her twenty-something daughter who were just learning to knit and wanted novelty yarns for fall scarves.

Customers like these were good for sales; novelty yarn was expensive and quickly worked, which meant that if the customer enjoyed herself, she would soon be back for more. One scarf could lead to a hat, then a throw, then a sweater. If that sweater was cashmere at upwards of forty dollars a skein, with eight or more skeins needed, depending on size and style, the sale could be hefty. Moreover, a year from now, this mother or her daughter might be one of those to rush to the shop when there was word new yarns had arrived.

That was how business worked. Ellie Jo had learned through trial and error, after her initial resistance to selling these same pricey items. Natural fibers remained her favorites, but if novelty yarns brought in trend-seekers who subsidized the shop’s more organic tastes, who was she to complain? In recent years, she had developed the utmost respect for innovation.

That was why, putting off her return to the house a bit longer, she took a box-cutter and opened the first of the new boxes. This was no novelty yarn. A blend of cashmere and wool, the skeins included the golds, oranges, deep rusts, and dark browns that would be big for fall. The line was a new one for The Stitchery, but from Ellie Jo’s first view of it at the knitting show in April, she had known it would sell.

The front door dinged yet again, and Gillian Kline excitedly called her name. Gillian taught English at the nearby community college, an occupation whose hours were flexible enough to allow for frequent visits to the shop. She was fifty-six, of modest height and a weight that had her forever dieting, but her most marked feature was a head of red waves that had neither faded in color nor thinned with age.

Now, with that hair caught up in a fuchsia clasp that only Gillian would dare wear, and a bouquet of pink roses in her hand, she went straight to Ellie Jo and gave her a long hug. Gillian had been one of Elizabeth’s closest friends, and in the years since her death had been a surrogate daughter. Neither gave voice to the fact that Elizabeth should have been here to welcome her granddaughter.

‘For you, Great-Gram Ellie,’ said Gillian. ‘Your Lizzie is perfect .’

Ellie Jo lit up. ‘You’ve seen her?’ She took the flowers, which were taken from her seconds later and put in water.

‘Just now,’ Gillian said and rummaged in the satchel that hung from her shoulder. ‘Hours old, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’ In no time, she had a picture of Dana and the baby on the monitor of her digital camera, for the other women to admire.

Ellie Jo was relieved. Dana looked tired but happy and totally comfortable holding the baby. It was hard to see if Lizzie looked any different from expected; Dana was so washed out that, by comparison, any child would look dark – not that the coloring bothered Ellie Jo one whit. She just wasn’t up for questions.

‘She’s so sweet!’ cried one.

‘She has Hugh’s mouth,’ decided another.

‘Zoom it in,’ ordered a third, and Gillian complied.

Juliette Irving, a friend of Dana’s and herself a young mother, with year-old twins asleep in a stroller by the door, remarked, ‘Look at her! Is that Dana’s nose? When will they be home?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Gillian said.

‘Elizabeth Ames Clarke,’ announced Nancy Russell, clearly touched by the name. A florist whose latest passion was knitting flowers, felting them, and sewing them on shawls, sweaters, and purses, she was a contemporary of Gillian’s, another child hood friend of the first Elizabeth.

‘It’s a long one,’ Gillian warned. ‘Can we do it over night?’

‘It’ was a hand-knit quilt, with the baby’s full name and date of birth worked into designated squares. The women had already made squares in yellow, white, and pale green. Now, with the sex of the child known, the remaining squares would incorporate pink. Each piece would be eight inches square, in a fiber and shade of the knitter’s choosing, with those closest to Dana and Ellie Jo doing the lettered squares.

‘We’ll need them by noon tomorrow, so that we can stitch them together,’ Nancy advised. ‘Juliette, can you call Jamie and Tara? I’ll call Trudy. Gillian, want to call Joan, Saundra, and Lydia?’

One of the women, Corinne James, had taken the camera from Gillian and was viewing the picture close up. Corinne James was Dana’s age. Tall and slim, she had stylish shoulder-length hair, wore fine linen pants, an equally fine camisole top, and a diamond-studded wedding band. Although her friendship with the knitters hadn’t spread beyond the shop, she was there often.

‘What an interesting-looking baby,’ she observed. ‘Her skin is dark.’

‘Not dark,’ argued another, ‘tan.’

‘Who in the family has that coloring, Ellie Jo?’ Corinne asked.

Ellie Jo was suddenly warm.

‘We’re trying to figure that out,’ Gillian answered for her and caught Nancy’s eye. ‘What do we know of Jack Jones?’

‘Not much,’ replied Nancy.

‘Jack Jones?’ Corinne echoed.

‘Dana’s father.’

‘Does he live around here?’

‘Lord, no. He was never here. Elizabeth knew him in Wisconsin. She went to college there.’

‘Were they married?’

‘No.’

‘Was he South American?’

‘No.’

‘Is “Jack Jones” his real name?’

Ellie Jo fanned herself with the invoice from the yarn box. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ she asked Corinne, not that she was surprised by the question. Corinne James had a curious mind and, surprising for a woman her age, something to say on most every topic.

The younger woman smiled calmly. ‘“Jones” is a good alias.’

‘Like “James”?’ Gillian asked pointedly. ‘No, Corinne. “Jack Jones” is his real name. Or was. We have no idea if he’s still alive.’

‘Doesn’t Dana know?’

‘No. They’re not in touch.’

‘So where is the dark skin from?’ Corinne persisted, as though involved in a great intellectual dilemma. ‘Hugh’s side?’

Gillian chuckled. ‘Hardly. Hugh’s family is your basic white-bread America.’

‘Then your husband, Ellie Jo?’

Ellie gave a quick headshake.

‘Earl Joseph was ruddy-cheeked,’ Gillian told Corinne, ‘and the kindest man you’d ever want to meet. He was a legend around here. Everyone knew him.’

‘He was soft-spoken and considerate,’ added Nancy, ‘and he adored Ellie Jo. And Dana. He would have been beside himself with excitement about the baby.’

‘How long has he been gone?’ Corinne asked.

Gillian turned to Ellie Jo. ‘How long has it been?’

‘Twenty-five years,’ Ellie Jo answered, fingering the new wool. Yarn was warmth and homespun goodness. It was color when days were bleak and softness when times were hard. It was always there, a cushion in the finest sense.

Kindly, Corinne asked, ‘How did he die?’

Ellie Jo felt Gillian’s look, but the accident was no secret. ‘He was away on business when he fell in his hotel room and hit his head. He suffered severe brain trauma. By the time help arrived, he was dead.’