It's Not That Hard

I looked up when Chris came in with one of his knitting bags and settled on the bed next to me.

“What now?” I grumbled, shifting as his weight unbalanced me. I was trying to get comfortable but being this pregnant meant I was never comfortable. And I was always hot.

“I thought I would find something to keep you preoccupied, since you can’t get out of bed for a while, and our usual bed bound activities are currently verboten.” He grinned at me, and my facial expression didn’t change. I was not amused. He held up the bag. “I’m going to teach you to knit. You said you wanted to learn.”

“When did I say that?” I grumbled, taking the knitting needles he handed me and holding them both in one hand.

“At Christmas,” he replied, digging through his bag and retrieving a yarn cake. He held it out to me, and I stared at it for a beat before taking it with a sigh.

“I was being polite. I don’t actually want to learn to knit. It’s basically tying knots over and over again. That…I don’t know. I don’t think my fingers can do that. Especially right now while they look like giant sausages.” I held my hands up in demonstration. He took one hand and kissed my fingers gently.

“Beautiful sausages,” he smiled. I rolled my eyes. “Come on, it’ll be fun and easy. I’m going to teach you something easy. Baby booties.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “That doesn’t sound easy. Shouldn’t we start with something, I don’t know, flat?”

“These are super easy. You’re going to be knitting and purling and turning the heel, slipping some stiches, nothing too crazy. It’s labeled as an ‘easy’ pattern online.”

“If I turn my ankle, that’s a bad thing. And everything else you just said sounded like total gibberish.”

“Turning a heel on a knitted item is a good thing. It’ll make sense when we get started. Come on. Let’s cast on.”

“I’m going to cast you out of my bed.”

“You won’t. you’re going to love this. Now. Hold your needles like this.” He held his up in demonstration. I gave him a long-suffering look, then complied.

Twenty minutes, and probably five restarts later, even Chris was feeling frustrated. I had sweat dripping down my sides. “I don’t understand why you can’t get cast on,” he muttered, finally taking the needles from me.

I watched as he expertly cast on a neat row of…stitches? I had no idea. I sat back against the pile of pillows behind me, my hands resting on my large belly. I rubbed one with the other absentmindedly.

“Chris,” I asked finally. “Are my hands supposed to itch?”

He didn’t look up. “What?”

“Never mind.” I took the needles back when he handed them over.

“Ok, now, try that first stitch I showed you. The basic one.”

I sighed, and tried it, slowly. I held my breath, afraid that if I breathed wrong, the whole thing would fall apart like it had the last five times. It did not. I nearly screamed with excitement when I suddenly had two needles attached by one tiny stitch.

“Now what?” I asked, looking up at him expectantly.

“Well, now you do it again, all the way down.”

“Ok.” I carefully repeated the stitch, incredibly aware of Chris watching me, his own breath held, as I awkwardly pulled the loops of yarn from one needle onto the next. We both let out a huge breath of relief when I was finished. “I’m knitting,” I crowed, holding up the tiny row.

“Now, do that about twenty more times.”

My elation plummeted. “Twenty more time?” I balked. “That’s so many.”

“Well, that’s how knitting goes, Emma,” he said patiently.

I scowled and looked back at the lumpy, uneven stitches on my needle. “Fine,” I muttered.

We sat and knitted side by side in comfortable silence for a little while. Chris had been knitting for years, and ever since we’d found out about the baby, he’d been knitting for her practically non-stop, every spare moment he had. She had a MOUNTAIN of things, especially since it was a family hobby. Blankets and caps and booties and sweaters. Even a stuffed animal or two. Might as well get something from me, too.

After a few minutes everything fell apart. “Chris,” I said suddenly. “Help.”

“Is it time? Are you going into labor? Do I need to call the doctor?” He started to scramble off the bed, looking around wildly for the bag we’d packed to take with us.

I shot him a look. “What? No. I’m having trouble with the knitting. Calm down, for crying out loud. Jesus.” I held up my hands. I was hopelessly tangled in the yarn, my sausage fingers caught up in it.

He stared at me, dumbfounded. “What…how…?” He looked like a confused puppy.

“I don’t know, it started to slip, and I tried to stop it and then this happened.”

“I’ve never seen that happen in real life. That’s something that only happens in movies. I feel like you’re trying to make knitting difficult. It’s not a hard hobby.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “It’s not hard for you because you’ve been doing it since you were a literal child. I’ve been doing it for, oh, I don’t know, thirty minutes?” I held up my hands again. “Please help me get untangled.”

“It’s not that difficult, though,” he insisted. “If I could figure it out at 12, you can surely figure it out now. You’re smart.”

“I would kindly like you to envision me flipping you off so hard right now.”

He put his hands on his hips and pursed his lips. “So, you’re just going to give up? After a few little setbacks?”

“Few little setbacks? I’ve been turned into Lobster Boy and for the love of all that is holy will you please unyarn me? My hands feel like they are on fire.”

His eyes widened and he came around the bottom of the bed quickly. “Seriously? Why didn’t you say something?” He reached across me and grabbed his bag, rummaging around before pulling out a pair of scissors, not wasting time with unwinding the yarn and simply cutting it off my hands.

The skin was pink and hot, but that could have been from the fact that it felt like it was a million degrees in the room. He rubbed them gently between his, but that wasn’t helping. I pulled away from him, irritated. I pushed him out of my way and waddled towards the bathroom to wash my hands.

“So, I guess that was an unapproved fiber,” I called back to him.

“It’s something Aunt Leann sent, I thought it was ok.” He was standing in the bathroom doorway. “She has the same skin allergies as you, so she said it should be fine.”

My hands were feeling better under the cold water but still not great. I wanted to cry. “I need lotion or something.”

He nodded and went to my nightstand to get the cream I put on whenever I had a reaction. I followed him and settled back on the bed, using the sheets to move the offending yarn out of the way before I sat down. Chris perched on the edge of the bed and took my hands in his, one at a time, and carefully smoothed the cream over my hands.

“Better?” he asked, his voice low and soft.

I had tilted my head back, tired and sore. “Somewhat. Thank you.”

“Maybe we should try something different. A washcloth or a scarf. And I’ll find something else for you to use. Something synthetic that’s nice.”

I opened my eyes in disbelief as he screwed the cap back on the cream and put the tube away. “Seriously?”

“What?” He didn’t look up as he tidied up the yarn remnants and the needles I’d abandoned. “I’m not saying today. You’re obviously not in any condition to knit today. Your hands are too slippery from the cream. But maybe tomorrow.” He stashed everything into another one of his many (so many) yarn bags and settled back down beside me and picked up his project, resuming where he’d left off. I stared at him in amazement.

“I’m not going to do any more knitting, Chris. I feel that it is too hard for me.”

“Oh, come on. It’s really…”

“If you say that it’s not that hard one more time, I may take that knitting needle and stab you with it,” I interrupted. “Multiple times. Indiscriminately.”

He bit back a laugh. “But you can make such awesome stuff with knitting. Like this.” He held up his project and showed it to me. It was a sock, and on the bottom, somehow, was the word “Fuck.” I stared at it.

“What…?”

“Oh, here’s the mate.” He rummaged through his bag and held up the other one. It said “Off.”

I burst out laughing. “Why in the world are you making socks that say ‘Fuck Off’? Are you trying to be subtly subversive? I mean, I love them, I think that’s amazing, and I hope you wear them to every boring meeting you ever go to, but what?”

“I met this amazing girl once who had the worst case of sailor’s mouth ever, and she managed to clean it up to marry me and be a part of my world so she wouldn’t offend my parents, but sometimes, I miss that beautiful potty mouth.”

I blushed slightly. “Oh.”

“But now you’ve ruined the surprise, so I guess I’ll have to keep them.” He looked down at the socks thoughtfully. “I’m not sure if they’ll fit. I may have to gift them to someone. You think…”

“No, they’re mine,” I reached for the “Off” sock and held it against my neck. The yarn was soft and silky against my skin. “I’ll wear them for special occasions.”

“Just like when you swear now,” he grinned.

“Exactly.” He leaned over and kissed me lightly. “So, if not knitting, and you’re bored of books and television, what do you think you’ll do instead?”

I sighed and handed him back the sock. “Well, I’d been cross-stitching before I got pregnant, and then the morning sickness wiped me out and I got out of the habit. I’m feeling pretty stabby these days, I could go back to that. Plus, cross-stitch has the added benefit of not being a pile of wool draped over me and making me sweat even more. There are some pretty great patterns out there with swears on them, you know. You aren’t the only one who gets to be subversive with your hobby.” I was starting to get excited about this. I reached for my phone and started to look up cross-stitch patterns and supplies.

Chris looked at me side eyed. “Cross-stitch? Isn’t that kind of an old lady hobby?”

I snorted. “Hello kettle. I am pot. Nice to meet you.”

“I, however, am not an old lady,” he said primly, needles clicking away. I stared at him for a second, with his “Fuck” sock wiggling away in front of him almost obscenely. I snorted again and then started to laugh. He looked up at me, perturbed. “What?”

“You are just…ridiculous, that’s all.” I looked back at my phone. “If I find what I want, can I just get it?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

I scrolled for a while, pausing every once in a while, to show him patterns and designs I liked. We both oohed and aahed over a few more advanced looking designs before settling on one that was a stained- glass window looking pattern. I added all the needed items to my cart and checked out.

“And you’re sure you can do that?” he asked curiously, looking at the picture of the pattern detail on the site.

“Of course. It’s x’s and counting. I can do that over and over again. It’s mostly patience and stabbing things. I can be very patient and when I’m not…that’s where the stabbing comes in.”

He raised one eyebrow at me. “Knitting is a lot of patience, too, you know.”

“And knots. I was never good at knots. I couldn’t tie my shoes until I was nine.”

His mouth opened and closed in shock. “How did I not know that until now.”

I shrugged. “I don’t exactly advertise that fact. It is not something I put on resumes.” I shifted again in the bed, rubbing the side of my belly. “There are few knots in cross-stitch. It’s mostly just…coming up in one place and going down in another. I can absolutely do that. Knitting is…all about wrapping the yarn around a stick in just the right way. And sliding it onto another stick in a very specific order. Lots of knots tied in very specific ways. I may be able to do it when I’m not grumpy and hot and huge, but today is not that day.”

Chris grunted in acknowledgment and kept knitting, his needles clicking along pleasantly, though not as fast as they had been earlier. After a moment, he asked “Why did you learn to cross-stitch? Who taught you?”

“My mom’s mom,” I answered, after thinking about it. “She’d learned from her mother, and back and back. Rumor has it that back during the revolution, his ancestor was a ladies’ maid who did fine embroidery who taught the skill to her daughters and the skill got adapted a bit to cross-stitch over the years. The two are very similar. I prefer cross-stitch, though. I like having holes.” I yawned and shifted down in the bed, so I was laying on my side. I reached out and rested my hand on his thigh, squeezing it lightly. He smiled but kept knitting. “It was always something we did together in the evenings while watching TV. She made beautiful samplers and pieces for every baby in the family. She even found a way to cross-stitch on clothes, at one point. It was a way for her to keep her creative side active in the midst of raising a family and dealing with the rigors of war and deprivations. They didn’t always have money for the supplies she needed, so she’d create her own patterns and save them for when the money would be available. Mom may still have some of those patterns, honestly.” I yawned again, nearly asleep now. I hadn’t realized how tired I was.

“I learned to knit when I was sick and couldn’t get out of bed for a while.” Chris’s voice was quiet in the stillness of the room. I was awake enough to listen to him. “I rarely got time with just my grandmother, because she was so busy with everything she was doing, so it was extra special that she came and spent that time with me, teaching me and making sure I learned something that she enjoyed so much.”

I smiled and squeezed his thigh again. “Is that why you’ve made so many things for the baby?” I teased. “Because you love knitting so much?”

He was quiet for so long I wondered if he’d heard me. I craned my neck to look up at him and was about to repeat myself when he opened his mouth. There was a line between his eyebrows, and he was frowning slightly. I wasn’t sure if it was at my question or at his sock.

“You and your grandmother cross-stitched as a way to pass time and relax at the end of the day and as gifts to give people to celebrate things. Cross stitch is more of a…decorative thing. It’s pretty, but not terribly useful.” He glanced down at me quickly. “Not to be mean.”

“No, that’s fair. But you can make pillows and quilts with it.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “Ok. But I knit when I’m emotional. When I’m nervous or upset or worried. I need to keep my hands busy. It’s my form of pacing. My hands are pacing for me, turning useless miles my feet would walk into useful knitted miles that can keep my loved ones warm and cozy. I can’t keep you and the baby safe by sheer force of will and presence. I can’t knit a way to keep the baby inside until it’s safe for her to be born, though if I could, believe me I would, but I can knit blankets and clothes for her to wear when she comes out so no matter what, she’s warm and protected when she’s here.”

I was quiet, gently rubbing his thigh with my hand in an attempt to comfort him. “So, you hoped I’d find the same comfort in knitting that you do?” I asked finally.

“Something like that.” He gave me a sheepish smile.

“Then maybe you should have picked a different fiber and pattern.” I shifted slightly, my hip hurting from laying on it. I smiled up at him and sighed. “I think maybe later. But for now, I need something smaller and lighter and simpler that I already know. But I appreciate your thought. And I appreciate your pacing.” I reached out and put my hand on his, gently stopping his hands for a moment. He let me lightly push his hands down into his lap. “But maybe you can stop pacing for a little while and just be with me, without yarn that makes me itch and needles that are a hazard to everyone’s health between us. Not all the time, but once in a while.”

He looked down at me for a moment, then nodded. “Of course.” He carefully situated his knitting so he wouldn’t lose anything, then put it all in the bag and put the bag on the floor. “I’m here. What do you need?”

I smiled. “I just need you. I know I’m supposed to be strong and independent and all that, and I usually am, but right now, I need you to be strong for me so I can fall apart a little bit.”

He shifted down in the bed and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me as close to him as my belly would allow. “Absolutely. I guess I was quietly falling to pieces around my knitting needles. And leaving you here on your own.”

“Pretty much,” I agreed. “But soon, I’ll cross stitch you something that says “Fuck The Patriarchy” and we’ll be even. You have to promise to hang it somewhere people will see it and be too polite and embarrassed to say anything.”

He laughed. “Please try to make it hard to read, so they don’t realize that’s what it says right away.”

“Well, obviously. Where would the fun be if it was obvious? I want people to get really close to it and then be shocked. Clutch their pearls. Literally. I’ll probably make it pretty small, too.” Chris was stroking my hair and it was putting me to sleep.

“Subversive cross-stitch, subversive knitting. This is a trend I can definitely get behind.”

I nodded, nuzzling his bicep. “That’s the great thing about cross-stitch and embroidery, though, that you have missed. It isn’t always just decorative and pretty. It’s about being subversive and angry and showing men that they don’t own women in our own way. We may look like we’re docile creatures, sitting by the fire and making pretty things.” I yawned again, and rolled over, so my back was pressed against Chris’s chest. “But we were really planning and plotting and revolting and being subversive all along.” I pulled his arm around me and pressed his hand against the spot where the baby was kicking hard. I felt the intake of his breath against my shoulder as he felt the miracle of his child in my belly. “We were planning how to take charge and passing it down through our needles and threads. Passing messages sewn into clothes and handkerchiefs, stories sewn into tapestries and samplers, family histories sewn into pretty pictures. It’s so much more than just an ‘old lady hobby.’”

He pressed a kiss against my hair. “You’re right. Here I am, being ruled by you.”

“Well, and her.”

“Mostly her,” he agreed. “She’s bossy. I can’t imagine where she gets that from.”

“Certainly not me. I’m just a docile woman, sitting by the fire, sewing pretty yet useless pictures.”

He huffed into my hair. “Sure, you are.”

I sighed softly and wiggled a little, scooting back against him. “I think I’m going to take a nap now.”

“It’s 2:30 in the afternoon.”

“I’m sleepy.”

“Do I need to stay for naptime?”

“If you’d like.”

“I’m not sure how to read that response.”

I opened one eye and looked over my shoulder at him. “If you don’t want to take a nap with your pregnant, bed bound wife in the middle of the day, then don’t.”

He stared at me blankly. “It’s a trap, isn’t it. If I go, since I have work to do, I’m in trouble. But I’m not actually tired, because it’s 2:30 in the afternoon. And if I take a nap now, I’ll be up really late and not able to sleep and then I won’t be able to get up and work tomorrow.”

I blinked at him. “Do whatever you think is best.”

He groaned and moved his hand from my belly where the baby had stopped kicking and ran it over his face. “That is the worst thing you could say. Just…how mad are you going to be if I go do some work?”

“It’s fine. Go.” I rolled back onto my side and closed my eyes.

“Emma.”

I didn’t look at him and didn’t respond. I heard him sigh and felt the bed shift and his weight move away from me. A few minutes later, the mattress dipped again, and he was back. I looked over my shoulder to see what was happening and he was sitting with his laptop.

“I have a few emails, then I’m here, not doing any other work. But they’re really important and I have to check them.” He looked at me pleadingly, but I didn’t respond. I simply turned my head away and closed my eyes.

A few minutes later, I fell asleep to the sound of the needles clicking softly, though not as quickly as they used to.