Wishes and Stitches Read Free Page B

to—he was probably the best thing Pederson had ever contributed to the practice.
    She stared at the lace chart, her eyes unseeing. Her hand moved to the phone resting next to her thigh. It hadn’t rung again yet; her mother must be leaving the message to end all messages.
    Okay. She tried again, pulling the fabric away from the needles to look more closely at it. In the previous row, had she missed a yarn-over? Could she fake a fix for that? She glanced at the pattern she’d placed in plastic page protectors in a binder. Did she have to rip back? Oh, great. That would be the capper for today. To say that ripping lace never went well for Naomi was an understatement. And since she rarely remembered to use a lifeline, hoping for the best, the yarn always, always won.
    Times like this, she missed Eliza the most.
    The phone rang again. Yep. Right on schedule. Naomi didn’t need caller ID to know who it was.
    â€œHi, Mom.”
    â€œSweetheart. How are you?”
    â€œFine.” Her mother never wanted an actual answer—she just needed to ask.
    Her mother sighed. “Oh, sweetheart. She called again. Can you believe it? And you know what she wanted?”
    â€œMoney?” Naomi tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder, leaving her hands free to start knitting. She’d just forge ahead not knowing where that yarn-over had gone, believing everything would be okay. Like Eliza would have. Even though Naomi never quite believed it herself.
    Her mother gasped. “How did you know?”
    She should really get one of those cordless headsets like Bruno had at the office. Naomi knitted three stitches before she answered. Maybe she could redeem today a tiny bit. “Because Anna never calls you, Mom, and when she does, she needs money. It’s not that hard to do the math.”
    â€œShe wouldn’t tell me where she was. That kills me, you know it’s killing me, right?”
    â€œYes, Mom.”
    â€œYou’d tell me if you knew where she was?”
    Naomi made a face she was glad her mother couldn’t see. “She never calls me, you know that.”
    â€œShe might one day, though. And if she does, just do your best to find out where she is, and Daddy and I will drive or fly out anywhere and get her. We’ll bring her back, and we . . . we can fix her, I’m sure we can.”
    â€œAnna’s a big girl now. She’s all grown up.” Naomi dropped another stitch and, stifling a curse word, paused for a moment while she caught it. “You’ve done all you can, now she’s going to live her life.” Even if that meant stripping in seedy bars and having inconsequential affairs with inappropriate men. Naomi thought her little sister had made some pretty crappy choices, sure, but Naomi, at least, had given up years ago trying to save her sister, even when she wanted to. Anna was just Anna.
    â€œBut her life is awful ,” said her mother.
    Naomi heard the low rumble of her mother’s husband’s voice in the background. “What did Buzz say?”
    When Naomi was five, her parents had divorced, and she’d gone to live with her father. By the time Naomi was nine, Buzz Maubert was Maybelle’s second husband and the newborn Anna’s father. Both times Maybelle had married, she’d gone for men with good jobs who pulled in enough money to keep her in her name-brand clothes: first a doctor, then a lawyer, even though Naomi couldn’t think of too many men more different from her fastidious father than Buzz. Before he’d retired, when Buzz left his office, he’d roared away on his Harley, and he hadn’t been just a weekend warrior—he loved everything about motorcycles, including fixing them, getting the grease under his nails. Now that he could stay home and work on them all day, Maybelle tolerated the dirt he tracked in with his leather riding boots because his retirement package allowed her to hire a