August Ever since Jacks funeral Sandra had been covered in glass. Not glass from an accident, shattered bits of windshield or the hard razor-cut edges of a plate glass window. Nothing like that. Sandra was covered in a thick layer of elastic glass that stretched over her body like another skin, holding her in and keeping everybody else out. It moved with her wherever she went, invisible under her clothes, into the shower, into bed, into the sun, and kept her cold as ice. Friends knocked on it. She could hear them, but the glass was over her eyes, too, so that everything she saw was far away, even though she knew she could reach out and touch. She was covered in ice-cold glass and would never be warm again. So when Sandra saw the gaudy envelope in the mailbox, her heart sank. She knew what it was-her invitation to the annual dinner she and a group of school friends had maintained for over thirty years. She would have to go, of course; she couldnt not go, but she dreaded it all the same. Another item on the list called First Meetings Post Jack. More hugging and caring and how-are-you-getting-on to negotiate. The first widow among them, an object of compassion, confrontation, and curiosity. How do you think shes dealing with it? Not too badly. Immersed herself in work. And what she couldnt tell them, hadnt told anyone, was that her days were as dry-eyed as a desert. She didnt know how to weep. She reluctantly tore open the envelope and propped the invitation on the mantelpiece. Over the years they had tried a vast range of restaurants. This one would require a new dress. That same afternoon Martha McKenzie walked down Muggs Hill Road, her strawberry hair glowing in the meek offering of the South Australian winter sun. She was rugged in her overcoat, and as usual she carried her three big bags: the expandable striped bag, the tapestry carpetbag, and the old brown suitcase. As she approached the corner near the bus stop something shimmering caught her attention. The shimmering was in front of a small bluestone church that Martha had passed hundreds of times but never entered. Martha was not in the habit of going to church. She was forty- seven years old and hadnt needed church yet, nor it her. Martha was decidedly uninterested in churches; the last time she had been to church she was ten years old and had bitten an old man on the hand, for good reason. She was long-sighted, but she wore her glasses now for knitting. She squinted at the shimmering. Martha liked things to be right side up and comprehensible, though some things, she knew, could not be explained. This was like a heat haze or the flummery flow of air above a gas pump on a hot day. Martha looked carefully left and right down the narrow street, then tramped across it to the church. Here she was distracted by something else. Above the steps leading up to the front porch was a heavy wooden door, cheerfully painted but firmly shut, and on the door Excerpted from Knitting: A Novel by Anne Bartlett All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
