“Hello, Adelaide,” she says, her voice smooth and motherly, “it’s so nice to finally meet you in person.”
“Oh,” I say. “Peggy!”
“Yes, honey, that’s me. From what I’ve heard, you’re a lovely woman.”
I flush. It’s not often I meet the parents, or grandparents. Aside from my ex-boyfriend Daniel who grew up here with me so I knew his parents by default, I’ve only ever met one boyfriend’s family. And they didn’t like me. So that hasn’t reallymade me feel all that confident about my viability as a suitable partner. Peggy looks at me like she has stars in her dark eyes, illuminated behind her gorgeous blue glasses. It is not funny how much I want glasses exactly like that. Instead, I adjust the gold wireframes on the bridge of my nose.
“Zander’s talked about me, then? Because he talks about you all the time. He thinks the world of you.”
Her smile wobbles. “Thank you. I’m so glad to hear that. I imagine we’ve been unknowingly under each other’s noses for quite some time now. I should have brought Zander to town sooner.”
“I wouldn’t have complained,” I say with a laugh.
“Good. Good. I think you’re good for him.”
“What do you mean?”
Eva, the librarian in charge of the more creative events here, shuts the door to the program room after the final chair fills. I recognize all ten of the women here, all in their usual seats apart from Peggy Browning. Everyone aside from me and a girl fresh out of high school are over sixty. I never said my hobbies were young and hip.
“What’s everyone working on today?” Eva asks. She holds up an embroidery hoop divided into twelve sections. Almost half of them are filled with small embroidered details. “I’m filling in this past week’s year in stitches. It’s really starting to shape up now.”
I have this theory Eva started up embroidery club to ensure she finishes this project. When the program went up on the library’s website at the end of December, The Year In Stitches, where you embroider one icon a day for 365 days, was advertised as something we could accomplish with our time in the club. While a few of the members kept up with it, most didn’t.
I didn’t.
I didn’t come here for structure.
We joke now that embroidery club has more or less become yarn and thread club. So long as you’re creating something, no one really cares. Honestly, you could probably show up and just exist and we’d still be chill.
Light chatter fills the room after everyone volunteers what they’re working on. Peggy pulls out a half-finished needlepoint of a Christmas village.
“I know it’s early,” she says when she notices me looking over. “But I want to be able to hang this up come December.”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t judging. I just wanted to see what it was.”
She flattens it out over her lap, running her knobby fingers over the spaces she hasn’t yet filled. Colourful houses and pristine snowdrifts. It almost looks like our little town.
“To answer your question,” she says, setting up for the next section of work, “I appreciate you giving him a chance. He’s a good kid. He got mixed up in some terrible things and I regret not being there for him every day.”
I thread string through my needle and take a breath. Guilt seems common in the Browning family.
“I’m sure he doesn’t blame you,” I say.
Peggy pauses, sighs. “I’m sure he doesn’t either. He’s too hung up on blaming himself. That’s why I think you’re good for him. He’s due for someone other than me believing in him.” I let out a breathy laugh and she snaps her head toward me. “He’s told you about his past, hasn’t he? I’m not just running my mouth, am I?”
“Oh, he has. Yesterday.” I meet her eyes, frames to frames. She nods and turns back to her work. “I know what happened was awful and I get why he struggles to let that go. I’m not sure I could ever—I don’t know—reconcile, I guess? I’m not sure I’d ever forgive myself. I don’t understand why the town treats him the way they do, though.”
“Beaver Creek is a lovely place and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. But sometimes, a small town is just…small.”
I know all too well what she means. I felt the same after my mom left. The whole town knew and looked at me a certain way, pity ringing their eyes, even if they thought I didn’t notice. I was gossip fodder at school for a while, before the town moved onto the next piece of scandal. Which, thinking back, was likely when Zander’s parents were outed as abusive.
“I couldn’t wait to leave Beaver Creek as a teenager,” I tell her, looping thread through my jeans. “And then I couldn’t wait to come back after I graduated. Funny how that works.”
“I think you’ve given Zander a reason to come back home.”
“Don’t put that all on me.” I laugh nervously.
She chuckles like we’re in on some secret joke. “Of course not, honey. No pressure. I just like seeing him happy. If your blush is any indication, my sense is that the two of you probably glow when you’re together.”
