What Family Means by Geri Krotow Page A

the issue of mixed race. Will prided himself on having taken the best lessons from his own childhood to use as a measure of how he’d been as a father to our children. He always took it personally when I mentioned my concerns about the kids and their childhood.
    “Yes and no, Will.”
    “What are you wearing?” He’d lowered his voice and I smiled into the receiver.
    “Nothing. I’m folding laundry in front of the kitchen windows, buck-naked.” I looked down at the fuzzy sweats and slippers I wore.
    “Mmm, I want you to fold me up.”
    I couldn’t help laughing.
    “Day after tomorrow, Will. And we’re not done with this conversation.”
    “I didn’t expect we were.”
    Again I laughed. Will knew me best. I had to talk everything out to the last detail. He was more of an internal-operations type when it came to emotions.
    “Still arriving at the same time?”
    “Yeah, the red-eye. But maybe you’ll take a nap with me when I get in?” Will hated flying at night. He treasured his own bed, and having me to snuggle up with.
    “I’m working out of the home studio all day tomorrow.”
    “See you then, babe. Love you.”
    “Love you, too.”
    After we hung up I finished folding the laundry and headed upstairs to get dressed for the day. For the moment I put my frustration on hold—Will always tried to distract me with sex when he didn’t want to deal with the conflicts between us.
    I carried the laundry basket upstairs with me and left it on the bed. I would put away the clean clothes later.
    I yanked the yellowed doily my grandmother had crocheted over sixty years ago off the top of the long cedar chest at the foot of our bed. Cedar chests were one of my indulgences over the years. They were the best kind of storage for my artwork and items of knitted clothing I couldn’t bear to part with after long hours of knitting, ripping out, reknitting.
    The aroma of cedar, wool and baby rose from the chest when I opened the lid. It was as if the old chests breathed. In a sense, they did. They were alive with memories.
    Knitting had been my refuge through most of my life.
    I couldn’t remember what I was wearing or how my hair looked on any given day. But I did remember exactly where I was when I knit each sweater, each pair of socks or mittens, and of course, all my wall hangings. Just the feeling of a project took me back to that particular time.
    So many different wools and other fibers brushed my fingers as I dug through the chest, but I ignored them. I was on a mission. I wanted to find the baby items I’d knitted for Angie.
    When was the last time I’d been in this chest?
    I hadn’t even looked in here when Blair and Stella got married, or when they started talking about babies. The twins’ items were all in a different chest, in the guest room that they shared as boys.
    My fingers rubbed against the soft fuzzy yarn I knew was Angie’s layette.
    Eager to remember how small she’d been and how my stitches had formed these tiny outfits, I pulled on the bundle of cloth, mindless of the layers I disturbed.
    I smiled in anticipation of my long-ago treasure.
    I was wrong. In my hands I held some of Angie’s baby clothes, but my gaze didn’t rest on the pink-and-white cardigans. I stared at the bright red scarf that had been knit by my five-year-old hands.
    Sorrow reached up from the depths of the chest and grabbed me, shaking me hard.
    This wasn’t some memory I’d shoved down or needed hours of therapy to resolve.
    It was what I’d known all my life.
    My dad left us when I was five. The last day I saw him, he’d packed his suitcases as he always did before a trip and gave me the usual hug.
    “Can you bring me something back, Daddy?”
    “Sure, sweetheart. What do you want?”
    “A teddy bear. Brown.”
    “You bet, Debbie girl.”
    He’d tousled my hair and was gone. I didn’t know I’d never see him again, ever. I believed he’d come back, and that he’d bring me my teddy bear. I knitted the