The Wedding Shawl Read online

  “Argued about the baby?”

  Hank’s voice was dull, unfamiliar. “She wanted to have it. Her father would have crucified us. I’d have been sent to jail. She was . . . she was . . .”

  “She was practically a child,” Birdie finished.

  The words cut through Hank, and he pressed his forehead into his palms as if in pain.

  Nell saw him nod. Yes, she was a child.

  And he was a fool.

  “You took her to your aunt Penelope’s cottage. To her quarry. You loved her there, and then you let her drown.”

  “I couldn’t swim.” The words were feeble, without meaning or conviction.

  Izzy’s face was beet red with anger. She stepped toward the desk. “And all these years later, innocent Tiffany Ciccolo went to you for help. Her nice old Red Hots coach who always had a ready ear. He would help her, advise her—so she spilled her secret to you. She told you that Harmony had been pregnant with Andy’s baby—as she thought. And she even had the lab report to prove it. But Andy was being foolish, pushing her away.”

  “She had kept it all from the police—the backpack, the lab report. She’d protected Andy for all these years,” Cass said.

  Hank tried to regain control. “I warned Tiffany. Told her to forget it. To forget Risso. That’s what she should have done. It would all have been fine. But she called me the next night and wanted to talk more. Andy was breaking everything off. And maybe she should turn over what she had to the police and move on with her life. A clean slate. A clean conscience. She asked me to help.”

  He lifted his head and stared at a large framed photograph on his desk.

  A smiling Merry Jackson, her eyes laughing and bright with life, looked out at him. Along the wall were more pictures of Merry—singing with the band, playing her keyboard, driving the convertible he’d given her for her birthday, her hair flying about her face. “She’s everything to me. You don’t know, you don’t understand—she’s my whole life. I’d do anything not to lose her.”

  “Even murder?” Nell found it hard to say the word. Hank looked suddenly helpless. A weak puddle of humanity.

  “When I asked her what else she had, she told me about that damn necklace. The medallion. She didn’t know what it was, but I knew—the Pike charm. Harmony had wanted something of mine back then, but I’d refused, so she stole it off my key chain one night and made a necklace out of it.

  “I tried to get Tiffany to give it to me, the lab report, the backpack. I said I’d take care of everything. I was frantic.”

  “And then Tiffany figured it out?”

  “Yeah. After all those years, she finally put it together. She was so crazy about Andy Risso, she couldn’t imagine Harmony ever looking at anyone else. But that night in the salon, she knew. She went crazy. She bit me and screamed that the one last thing she could do for her friend was to go to the police.”

  He dropped his head. “I was just trying to stop her. To calm her down.”

  “But if you didn’t kill Harmony, if it was an accident, why”—Birdie’s voice was shrill—“why this . . . ? Why did you kill innocent Tiffany?”

  But they all knew. The scandal. The knowledge that Harmony’s father, even all these years later, would likely insist on prosecution for rape. But mostly because he would lose the one person in his life who mattered to him.

  A shuffling at the door caused them all to turn.

  Merry Jackson stood in the doorframe, a polishing rag in her hand and tears streaming down her face. “You were their basketball coach, for God’s sake,” she screamed, moving toward the desk. The words were anguished, ripped from her throat and thrown across the room.

  In the distance, sirens filled the air.

  “Oh, baby,” Hank moaned. He started to stand, an agonized look on his face. But before he could move from behind the desk, Merry threw the rag on the floor and turned, directly into the arms of the people who had become as close to her as family could be—and she allowed them to be exactly that.

  Chapter 33

  Ben made eggs, and Nell mixed the dough for scones. Coffee gurgled in the distance. It was late for breakfast, though they’d been awake for a long time. Moving from the bed took more effort than usual, and cuddling in Ben’s arms far outweighed facing a difficult day.

  “The worst part is behind us,” Ben said, and he was right. The night before had stretched out endlessly as the police recorded page after page of Hank Jackson’s life.

  They had left the police station and gathered on the Endicott deck, hoping the comfort of one another would later bring sleep.

  Hank Jackson had confessed to everything.

  Harmony Farrow had woven a spell around him, he said. He never loved her but he loved that she needed him, something his own family never had.

  And with his aunt’s land at his disposal, he took her there, every chance they got.

  Burning down the cabin was a precaution. Harmony wasn’t careful and left things around. A fire would take care of anything he might have missed. Like Harmony’s class ring.

  The only thing Hank hadn’t anticipated was Harmony’s best friend knowing almost all her secrets and bringing them up fifteen years later as she anguished over a boyfriend to her old basketball coach—the man who always listened, always understood.

  Nell pulled her thoughts from the night before to the smell of scones and sounds at the door.

  Izzy, Sam, and Birdie came in first, with Cass and Danny Brandley just a few steps behind.

  “Scones, please,” Cass said, and leaned against the counter.

  Ben poured coffee and orange juice. “Quietest I’ve ever seen this group,” he said.

  Another voice came from the doorway. Merry Jackson poked her head into the room. “The door was open.” Behind her was the rest of the Fractured Fish band.

  “Come in, all of you,” Nell said. “Ben, put more scones in the oven.”

  “I came to thank you for being with me last night,” Merry said. Her face was drawn, and Nell knew she hadn’t slept, but as she had told the police, she would be fine. It might take a while, but she had a bar and grill to run, and a band in which to play, and that was what she’d do.

  Nell passed out plates, then stood behind Andy. He hadn’t said a word. But Nell knew he would be fine, too. It would take time to process it all, but Andy was strong. He had lost a mother. He would get through this. She touched his shoulder lightly, then moved on to fill orange juice glasses and coffee mugs.

  They would all be all right.

  Of course they would.

  It was Thursday. And in ten short days, they had a wedding to celebrate.

  Chapter 34

  They gathered in Nell and Ben’s bedroom—the wedding party. Izzy was in a small adjacent dressing room with her mother. On the bed, the shawl was laid out in a perfect circle. Sunlight slanted across it, and the silky stitches sparkled like moonlight on water. A perfect circle.

  The circle of their friendship.

  Cass, Birdie, and Nell were there, dressed in their summery black dresses and strappy sandals, just as Izzy had suggested, though Birdie confessed she had sneakers in her bag.

  M.J. herself had taken over the special job of hair and makeup, and true to Tiffany’s promise those weeks before, it was a joyous time, with cold drinks or champagne, small sandwiches, and plenty of music.

  And now they were ready.

  It had rained the day before, enough to freshen Claire’s carefully tended plants and turn the pine needles a vibrant deep green. In the morning, the sun came out with a vengeance, drying the grass and the chairs, the deck, and the pathway. Claire was there at dawn.

  She had moved into a new apartment with a little patch of garden outside the door, but she had spent hours that week in Izzy’s wedding garden—and with Ben and Nell, talking, shedding tears, and beginning to heal. But on Izzy and Sam’s special day, she’d be back, sitting proudly in the middle of the wedding yard that had helped bring her back to life.

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sp; Nell walked over to the windows, open to the backyard, where guests had begun to gather. A string quartet, sitting in a half circle near the rosebushes, had begun to play. Strains of Beethoven and Bach were magically luring guests to the rows of white chairs that formed a fan across the yard.

  Two vases filled with soft blue hydrangeas marked the beginning of the pathway through the middle of the chairs.

  Izzy’s aisle.

  Izzy’s aisle. Nell shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

  Birdie came up beside her and smiled. “I have them, too, Nell dear. Shivers of joy.”

  “Don’t forget me.” Cass came up on Nell’s other side and looped an arm around her waist.

  They watched Andy and Pete in the distance, walking toward the pine trees that began the Endicott Woods. Andy carried his drums and Pete his guitar. Merry Jackson was a few steps behind.

  “Thank the good lord they have that crazy band,” Birdie said. “It will be a tonic no doc could prescribe for our Merry—and Andy, too.”

  “I thought they were playing at the reception, not the ceremony,” Nell said, watching the trio as they arranged their instruments on the grass.

  “Don’t fret, dear,” Birdie said, patting her hand. “Some things are just meant to happen.” Her smile told Nell she knew more than she was saying. It also said her lips were sealed and Nell would have to wait to hear what Cass, Birdie, and Izzy had arranged.

  Soon enough. Soon enough she’d hear their surprise—a single, simple song they had asked Merry, Pete, and Andy to sing during the wedding ceremony. The song that Nell and Ben had danced to nearly forty years before at their own wedding.

  “Our Love Is Here to Stay.”

  “And it is,” Izzy would tell her aunt, and then she’d brush away Nell’s tears. “Just like yours and Uncle Ben’s.”

  The three women looked out toward the pines again, where the aisle ended and Izzy and Sam’s life would begin. Sam stood beside Ben beneath the giant maple tree, a look of total contentment on his face. In minutes, he and Izzy would stand together beneath the tree, facing their family and friends, and tell each other how their lives—and those of all the people sitting there, cheering them on—would be connected forever. How much they loved the way the other smiled, cared for other people, laughed in a goofy way and cried when bad things happened to good people.

  Then the officiant would say the final words and present them to their friends.

  Sam and Izzy Perry.

  Married.

  Sam would lift Izzy off the ground, whispering to her that it was a miracle. That he loved her with this life. He’d kiss her soundly as their friends clapped, put her down on the soft mulched ground. And then to her surprise he’d lift her up again, kiss her again, as if he’d never let go.

  “He looks almost peaceful,” Cass said. “Not anxious or nervous.”

  Nell nodded. He was smiling easily at friends and family, talking softly to Ben at his side, but his eyes kept returning to the top of the deck, the spot where his partner for life would appear.

  “When something’s so right, that’s how you feel,” Birdie said.

  They turned away from the window just as the door to the dressing room opened.

  Izzy’s mother walked out first. She moved to her sister’s side and handed Nell a tissue.

  They stood with their arms around each other, looking through tears as the young woman who filled both their lives with joy walked into the room.

  Izzy stood dry-eyed, composed, and beautiful, a radiant smile filling her face. She looked around at each of them, gathering them into her heart.

  Her hair was brushed to a shine and pulled to a knot at her neck. The watery silk dress fell from spaghetti straps to the floor, flowing over the slender curves of her body in gentle waves. She was elegant.

  “Grace Kelly,” Birdie murmured.

  Izzy laughed, a throaty, slightly too-loud sound that would never have come from the Philadelphia-born princess.

  She reached down and took the top off a box on the floor. One by one, she pulled out three silk scarves. They were knit in a graceful loopy pattern, long, narrow, flowing. Late-night homework, Izzy told them.

  Each scarf was a different color—deep crimson for Nell, a bright green to match Birdie’s eyes, and a brilliant blue scarf for Cass. Brilliant splashes of color against their black dresses.

  “From me to you,” Izzy said, and handed a scarf to each of them. “The colors of life.”

  They savored the silky feel and fine stitches, as knitters do, then looped them twice around their necks, the ends trailing gracefully to the bottoms of their dresses.

  Cass twirled around the room, the scarf catching the fading sunlight and flowing around her body. “We’re beautiful. We will outshine the bride.” On the second twirl, she grabbed a tissue from the box on the nightstand and hugged Izzy fiercely.

  Izzy laughed and hugged her back. Her Cass. Her Birdie.

  And her aunt Nell.

  Nell and Birdie moved to the bed and picked up Izzy’s wedding shawl. They folded it into a half circle and lifted it around her shoulders. Izzy caught it on each side with her arms and it slipped down over her body, a swoosh of exquisite silk and cashmere yarn, of hearts and seashells.

  “I’m wrapped in friendship,” she said.

  They stood in silence, the air filled with the words that they didn’t need to say aloud. Nell reached for another tissue. “Just in case,” she whispered.

  Izzy stood quietly, composed and peaceful and dry-eyed. She looked around the room at the women she loved.

  Then she waved her hand like a magic wand.

  “Now go, all of you,” she said, a slight catch in her voice.

  “There’s a man out there waiting to marry me.”

  And so there was.

  And so she did.

  Izzy’s Wedding Shawl

  Izzy’s shawl was inspired by a shawl designed by the talented Bethany Kok and is reprinted here with her kind permission. Although the Seaside Knitters altered the motifs in the pattern slightly and didn’t hand dye their yarn, the feeling of the sea pervades both garments.

  For photos of Bethany’s shawl, pattern diagrams, bead placement tips, and details on dying the yarn, please visit: www.knitty.com/ISSUEspring09/PATTshipwreck.php

  For a printable pattern, please visit my Web site: sallygoldenbaum.com

  Size

  One

  Finished measurement

  Diameter: 57 inches after blocking

  Materials

  Knitpicks bare merino wool, silk sock yarn (The Seaside Knitters used a cashmere silk blend for Izzy’s wedding shawl.)

  Recommended needle size (all US)

  1 set US#4 dp; 1 24- or 32-inch #4 circular; 1 each 40- or 47-inch #4, #5, #8, #9, #10, #10.5, and #11 circular needles (Always use the needle size that gives you the gauge below; each knitter’s gauge is unique.)

  Gauge

  29 stitches/17 rows=4 inches in stockinette stitch on US#4

  Approximately 5000 Czech glass seed beads size 8/0; stitch markers, yarn needle, rust-proof pins.

  Strawberry Pattern

  (Worked in the round over a multiple of 9 sts)

  Bleeding Heart Pattern

  (Worked in the round over a multiple of 12 sts)

  Madeira Pattern

  (Worked in the round over a multiple of 10 sts)

  Directions

  Using Simple Ring method (see Pattern Notes), CO 8 sts. There are 9 sts on needle, including loop formed at beginning of CO. Divide sts between needles and join to begin working in the round. After first few rounds have been worked, pull strand which forms beginning loop to tighten.

  As number of sts increases, switch to shorter US #4 circular needle, then to longer US #4 circular needle, as necessary.

  Section 7

  Note: While working Section 7, place beads randomly throughout. See Pattern Notes online RE: placing beads.

  Finishing

  Weave in ends,
but do not cut tails. Immerse shawl in lukewarm water until saturated. Block center of shawl (sections 1–6). Block section 7 by gently spreading flat with hands, but do not pin. Border will not lie perfectly flat; edge should curl slightly. Allow to dry completely. Unpin shawl and trim yarn tails.

  Pattern © 2009 Bethany Kok

  Nell and Ben’s Grilled Lobster Tails with Orange Butter Sauce

  For the first Friday-night dinner in The Wedding Shawl, Ben grills lobster tails for family and friends and bastes them with Nell’s special orange butter sauce. It’s a hit with all! (Serves 8)

  8 6-ounce tails

  2–3 sticks unsalted butter

  2 tablespoons lemon juice

  2 tablespoons orange juice

  Grated orange zest from one medium-sized orange

  Grated lemon zest from one medium-sized lemon

  ¼ teaspoon chili powder

  1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated

  ¼ cup chopped parsley

  2 tablespoons capers (optional)

  Freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste

  Preheat grill to a hot temp. Oil grill racks lightly.

  Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat, and stir in the lemon and orange juice, zest, ginger, chili powder, capers, and parsley. Simmer until butter is melted. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  Prepare lobster tails: Cut away the membrane on the underside of each tail, stopping when you reach the fantail at the end. Pull gently apart and insert a metal skewer lengthwise into each one to prevent them from curling up as they cook. Salt and pepper the tails and brush the meat side lightly with the warm butter sauce.