Page 60 of Karma Kitty Christmas
Isaac paused as they neared the Kia and hugged Luca, leaning his head on his chest and just standing there, breathing him in.
“My parents would have loved you,” he said softly. “They would haveloathedTodd, but they would havelovedyou. I’m so mad your parents can’t see that. It’s so unfair.”
Luca wrapped his arms tight around Isaac’s shoulders, and for three breaths—one, two, three—they breathed all the things that should have been.
And then Isaac did the grown-up thing and held his hand out for his keys.
“You two sit in the back and cry,” he said. “I’ll get us to pancakes.”
They found a local place that served fluffy pancakes and savory crepes. While Luca and Allegra stopped every so often and wiped their eyes, they still kept chatting about the food, about Halloween decorations, about Christmas, and how they were going to handle the baby in the middle of Christmas.
Isaac listened to them happily, his brain buzzing away with his own plans.
“Whatcha thinkin’?” Luca asked when he and Allegra finally wound down. Casually, he snuck his fork across the table to pick up a whipped-cream-covered banana Isaac had left behind. Isaac laughed at him while he stuck it in his mouth and then answered.
“I should just start my Christmas kid-knitting,” he said, and while that was part of what he’d been thinking about, it wasn’t allof it. “I’ve got my people stuff planned and mostly executed, but I usually spend November and December knitting for the kids.”
“Every kid?” Allegra asked, wiping the last of the whipped cream off her plate with her finger before popping her finger in her mouth. “That’s alotof kids!”
Isaac shook his head. “No. I make them work for it. There’s always skills to master or a contest to win. My fifth period is going to create their own word problems and figure them out and justify their answers, and the best ones get put on the test. I give away four hats there—two for the best grades on the test, and two for what the kids vote as the best word problems, the ones that are challenging but a good test of their skills.” He snorted. “It’s a great exercise, and the contest keeps everybody focused until the test. Anyway, the other classes have something similar. Plus I’ve got three TA’s, andtheyall get something, and I owe a couple of teachers knitwear. It’s time.”
“Wow,” Luca said, shaking his head. “That’s a whole lot of work. What made you decide to do all that?”
Isaac sort of chuckled. “It grew,” he said, thinking about it. “I started knitting and bringing it to school because it calmed my nerves, and—”
“Wait,” Allegra said. “How did you start knitting? You never told us that!”
It was like the question, innocently asked, dropped him through a wormhole in time.
“Can we go to the movies?” Isaac asked, looking outside at the glorious day around them.
“No,” Todd mumbled, doing his crossword puzzle at the breakfast table.
“Maybe visit the park—there’s wind, we could fly kites.” They were getting married in a few months—they had to have more adventures in them than this, right?
“We’re grown men,” Todd said, not glancing up. “No.”
“Maybe I could call that one woman from school—Roxy—and we could go shopping—”
“Oh my God,” Todd muttered. “Isaac, could you sit still for one goddamned minute? My God, get a hobby. Do a jigsaw puzzle, arrange flowers, learn to knit or something!”
Isaac tried to mask his hurt. “Don’t you want to spend time with me?” he asked.
Todd spared him a glance and then rubbed the back of his neck as though trying to calm a fractious child. “I do,” he said, obviously striving for patience. “I do. But my brain is all busy from the workweek and I… Ireallyneed some quiet today. Seriously, Isaac, can we just spend some quiet time together?”
Isaac sighed, deflated, and started to straighten the Sunday supplements, because he knew Todd would get frustrated at the mess if he didn’t. “Fine,” he muttered, and then he spotted the ad flier for a sale on yarn at the craft store, along with needles, hooks, and how-to books. “You know—let me run to the store, though. I’ll be back in an hour. Knitting isn’t really a bad idea.”
“Isaac?” Luca prompted. “Howdidyou learn to knit?”
“I taught myself,” he said, the memory so clear. “Todd was… well, I was driving him batshit because I wanted to go out and do something and he wanted a quiet day at home. So I ran out and got some yarn and some how-to books, and I sat down and read and fiddled and studied and then made this really awful scarf that not even Todd would claim, and I just… just kept doing it. Reading, studying, fiddling. Trying new things. Getting better. Pretty soon, it became an obsession,” he said, smiling.
“Wow,” Luca said, and there was something warm in his eyes. Something forgiving.
“What?” Isaac asked, but he could feel it too.
“Todd’s the one who gave you knitting. And yarn. That’s….”
“That’s the nicest fucking thing I’ve ever heard you say about him,” Allegra said, and Isaac had to laugh.
