Susan was familiar with the Tulsa store. It carried PC Wool-not that she would ever expect her mother to actually buy PC Wool. "I wish I'd known," she said. "We have alpaca. I'd have sent you some." Theirs was exquisitely soft, though not beige. Well, some colorways did have beige, but it would have been paired with celadon and orchid, navy or teal.

"I can afford to buy my own," Ellen said briskly. "Your father's income may have gone down, but that was because he voluntarily took a cut in his pension so that the town could avoid layoffs."

"I didn't mean-"

"Easterners tend to think they have the best restaurants, the best schools, the best doctors. They think anyone with any brains graduated from Harvard, but that is not true."

"I know that, Mom."

"Your father has done very well in his life, and that includes providing for his family. He's made arrangements for me. He's a good man that way, always concerned about me. We own this house, and our savings are safe in the bank. We live quite comfortably. I see no reason why that should change."

Susan was startled by the outburst. Reading into the words, she worried that her father might not be around much longer-or that Ellen feared it. Susan wanted to ask, but couldn't form the words. Here would be something Ellen might share with a daughter and not a son. But not even in the best of times had Susan had the kind of relationship with her mother that she had with Lily.

She regretted that now, when they both had deep concerns. "I would like us to be able to talk on the phone without this tension."

Ellen was quiet for a minute, clearly regrouping. When she spoke again, her voice was calm. "Notes are fine."

"Not for me."

"Phoning puts me in an awkward position."

"With Dad."

"You've never tried to see it from his side, Susan. You decided early on that he was the villain. That was how you saw it, so that was how it was. Maybe if you'd approached him and apologized-"

"I did, Mom."

"Not in years."

"Because the older my daughter gets, the more wonderful she is. I won't apologize for having her. Besides, I've sent cards and gifts. Didn't Dad see that I was reaching out?"

"You never visited."

"I was never invited!" Susan cried, heartsick. "I was told to leave, remember? I was made to feel that I wasn't welcome."

"Your father gave you money to start a new life, and look where you are now."

Susan thought of the struggle it had been, through many months of loneliness and fear. She thought of the latest with Lily, and vowed that, even in this, Lily would have it easier than she had. And she thought of Ellen, who was missing so much, now times two.

"Oh, Mom," she said sadly. "I didn't call to argue. I just wanted to see how Dad was."

"He's fine," Ellen responded. "Thank you for calling."

"Will you tell him I'm thinking of him?" Susan asked. But there was no answer. With the formal thank-you, her mother had hung up.

Chapter 13

Saturday mornings were for dyeing yarn, and if ever Susan needed a distraction, it was now. Wearing her wool jacket over an old shirt and paint-splotched jeans, she took her time entering the barn. The old boards sang of history, with the echo of hooves pawing the straw-strewn earth, a soft snort, the whisper of a whinny. No matter that the inner wood walls were new and insulated and the sounds strictly human, even mechanical when tape was being whipped around boxes of yarn, the original spirit remained.

Now, with the front stalls dim where computers and cartons stood idle, Susan headed toward the light at the back. Halfway there, she smelled fresh-brewed coffee, followed seconds later by the ageless odor of wet wool.

Kate was at a large tub filled with skeins soaking in water to open their pores. "I put these in last night," she said, repositioning them with a stick. "It was a good thing. I just got here five minutes ago."

Susan draped her jacket on the back of a chair. Her friend looked worn out. "Bad night?"

Kate shrugged and kept working.

After helping herself to coffee, Susan joined her at the tub, but Kate remained focused on the wool, either lost in thought or angry.

Fearing the latter and feeling the blame, Susan said, "I really am sorry, Kate. It was a choice between letting word dribble out on its own or setting the record straight with an e-mail. This way we're hit with the reaction all at once, and then it'll be done."

Kate smiled sadly. "Until our girls start to show. Until one of them goes into labor at school. Until the three of them share a bench at the harbor wearing their kids in BabyBjorns."

Susan rubbed her friend's arm. "Tell me about last night."

"Oh, Susie. Either it was my phone ringing or the girls running in to tell me who else had just called."

"People knew it was Mary Kate?"

"And Jess." A punishing look here. "Lily was the tip-off. By the way, you won't have to worry about imitators. The consensus is that the three of them are idiots."

"Your friends said that, too?"

"You mean, the people who called me?" Kate replied, giving the wool another stir. "I'm not sure they're friends. Funny how people come out of the woodwork when they want information." Her voice rose in imitation. "'Oh, Kate, it's been sooo long since we've talked, but did Mary Kate really plan to get pregnant, will she marry Jacob, and what does Will say about this?' It was horrible. Mary Kate is now angry at Jacob for being angry at her, and the tension is probably not good for the baby." She reached into the tub to separate two skeins. "She wanted to come with me this morning, and I told her no. I need time away. If that makes me a terrible mother, I'm a terrible mother." She looked around. "Do you have your colors?"

Susan produced her notebook. "Where's Sunny?"

"Not coming. She says she has too much to do."

It was an excuse. Sunny didn't want to be seen with Susan and Kate, whose daughters were her own daughter's cohorts. "Maybe I should call. She's having trouble with this."

"And we're not?"

"We aren't married to Dan." Easier to blame Sunny's absence on him than on not wanting to work with Susan and Kate. Saturday mornings were a ritual-a reward at the end of the week-an excuse to be with friends, reminiscent of Thursday nights at Susan's garage. When they were caught up in work, they could go on until Susan had to head to school for an afternoon game. When there was little work, a long cup of coffee sufficed. They knitted then, and if they weren't discussing the vagaries of a pattern, they discussed a book, a movie, even a town rumor.

It didn't feel right without Sunny. But that was only part of the problem.

"Has Pam called?" Susan asked.

"No. Haven't you heard from her?"

"Not since yesterday. She was supposed to get back to me about the school board." Not a comforting thought, that one. The unease Susan had felt leaving Tanner's office was as strong now as then.

Putting her cell on the worktable, she opened her notebook and crossed to the far wall, where shelves were neatly lined with bottles of powdered dye. She removed Scarlet, Sun, and Spruce. Liking her colors intense, she measured double the suggested amount into wide-mouthed jugs, added water to each to form a paste, and, after stirring, poured in enough water to make a gallon of stock solution. She would use this straight, diluted, or mixed for variations in hue. Taking a stack of measuring cups and a pair of rubber gloves from the supply shelf, she returned to the dye.

Behind her she heard trickling as Kate removed one skein at a time and squeezed each to remove water. Above the sound came a quiet "Jacob's parents called."

Susan looked back. Kate's expression said the news wasn't good.

"They're upset. I knew they would be. They say Mary Kate used Jacob." Hands filled with wet skeins, she swore softly. "I forgot to lay out the plastic."

Returning to the supply shelf herself, Susan wondered what Robbie's parents would think. Likely the same thing, she decided, which was why she tried not to even look at their house when she drove down the street and pulled into her driveway. She tore a length of wide plastic wrap from the spindle and flattened it on the table. Taking one skein from Kate, she arranged it in an oval.

Oh, yes, she was sorry that Sunny and Pam weren't there. But this part of PC Wool production was really up to Susan and Kate. Susan conceived the colors and worked out the formula, while Kate did the dyeing. The process had evolved from the early days in Susan's garage, growing more nuanced as they took courses and studied under experts. Though they had added implements like the skeining machine, the basic technique remained the same. Susan worked the dye, adding more or less and squeezing it through the fiber.