Read Online While You Were Gone: A Thought I Knew You Novella by Kate Moretti - Free Book Online Page B

thought of never playing again. I should be dramatically missing the lost hours, forgetting pieces I worked so hard to memorize. Instead, I feel guilt that I have none of these feelings. Out of habit, I still run through pieces as I fall asleep at night, trying half-heartedly to keep the memorization sharp. Mostly, I’ve replaced my musical obsession with apathy.
    In the back of my closet, I dig out a plastic bag filled with yarn and knitting needles. When I was a girl, when Paula and Dad were still married and happy, I remember sitting on her lap, watching those two needles wrap around each other so fast they looked like one. The metal of the sticks, and Paula’s nails and her rings, made a kind of beautiful, rhythmic music. I’d hold that neat, tight little ball of yarn. “ Wind that up for me, Kar-bear. ”I’d fall asleep there to the clacking of her knitting, blanket after useless blanket, to the backdrop of Jeopardy! and the tinkling of ice in a whiskey tumbler. As the years faded and I grew too large for her lap, the blankets turned into scarves, and the lulling voice of Alex Trebek muted to silence.
    Then there was a fight, or a series of them, but in my mind they’ve melded into one culminating argument. In my memory, Paula was knitting, Dad was yelling, and I hovered in the hallway, hunkered down against the stair rail. They yelled together, their voices climbing over each other until the crash. I ran in. Paula sat there in her chair, those needles and yarn in her lap, covered in ice and liquor, her hands ever moving to the internal rhythm in her head. The clakety-clack of needles and nails and rings never slowed. She just kept right on with that blanket, a yellow and green chevron-stripe afghan, like she wasn’t soaking wet and stinking. The next day, Dad was gone, and the yarn sat, unraveled and disheveled in the basket next to the chair, collecting puffs of dust on the sticky, drying threads. I never saw her pick it up again until she handed me a bag of all her old yarn and needles, and I shoved it in the back of my closet.
    So now, I hold this old plastic bag filled with fifteen-year-old yarn and wonder if I could do it. Clearly Paula replaced knitting with drinking, but everyone needs a hobby. I look at my dead arm, pinned flat against my midsection with a sling, and wiggle my fingers. Knitting isn’t an option. In the bottom of the bag lies a crochet hook. I pull out the yarn, a pretty bright blue, almost a turquoise.
    I YouTube crocheting instructions. A slipknot, a single stitch. One hand stays relatively stationary. I give it a whirl. My fingers are numb and clumsy, but it’s doable. And more importantly, it’s something to do . So I stitch one long chain, almost as long as my leg. It takes me several hours, but I’m focused, and when I finally look up, like in a fugue, it’s after eleven.
    But look at it! It’s beautiful. I pick up my phone and snap a picture of it. I want to show someone how useful I am, but disgustedly, I realize there’s no one to call. I hesitate only a second before I attach the picture to a text message and press “send.”
    I wait. Five minutes later, Greg texts back. You made that? With a broken arm? That’s kind of amazing.
    I know! I’m bored out of my mind. Come back!
    I wait, but he doesn’t text back. I’m about to give up when my phone rings.
    “Hello?”
    “You must be bored if you want me back. Either that or you need groceries.”
    “Both, actually.”
    He sighs into a pregnant pause. “When I come back, I’ll bring you tea. And cookies, okay?”
    “Really? I’d love that.”
    “Yep, you are officially going stir crazy.”
    He laughs, and maybe I should feel defensive at my lack of company, but I don’t. I want to hand him every part of me, this man I barely know. I don’t want to be coy. I don’t want to play games or tease him. I just want him to know, somehow, that I’ve spent the majority of today, and if I’m honest, the past six days,