Blackbird Knitting in a Bunny's Lair by Amy Lane

They were thick socks with fine yarn, and handsome clocks ran down the sides.

Jeremy had knitted him boot socks, the kind that came all the way up to his knees and then folded over. I mean, it’s my boy’s birthday-you think he’d be here!” “I didn’t realize he’d taken the car,” Jeremy said, puzzled. She was his shining star right there, and his mother didn’t mind that he called her Persy, even a little. Her lip had been stitched up, but she would still need some surgeries to take the tubes out of her ears and make sure the inside was all matched up to the outside when she was grown enough. Jeremy grinned at Persephone who chewed on her teether toy in response. “You don’t know where he is?” Ariadne laughed, bringing the milk to the table with one hand while balancing the baby on on her hip. So there they were, all of the people Aiden loved best-even Johnny and Stanley who had taken the drive out before the roads got icy in September-and Aiden wasn’t there. That baby was toddling around and making all sorts of problems and that was just going to be Ariadne. She’d told Jeremy once that Rory had gotten the hang of packing the baby’s bag and putting it on a chest by the door, so all Ari had to do was grab her keys, wallet-phone, and yarn bag, but still. Rory, Ariadne, and Persephone were almost late for dinner, but then, Ariadne had still, after a year and a half, not gotten the hang of packing the baby bag, her purse, and the yarn bag all together. Aiden’s father took the littlest ones out to go pet the bunnies and chinchillas and such in the outside pen, and Jeremy knew by now that they were gentle with the more tender of the critters. Aiden’s mother brought the cake of course, and Aiden’s brothers and sisters showed up too. Summer was holding onto it’s heat a little, and he’d had to open all of the windows in the snug little two-story, letting the flowing curtains blow in and out as the wind swept the bowl valley of Granby. For him, as he learned to knit-and mastered his craft-it was like he worked all year for those three months, and then the big payoff in December.Īnd because he’d been just the help-and because Aiden had been a callow boy who had grown into a strong and able man-it had not occurred to any of the people who loved him most that Jeremy didn’t have a birthday.Ĭraw and Ben showed up at their house first, since Jeremy had elected to host. Aiden’s in August, Ariadne’s in September, and Craw’s in November.

The first year Jeremy had come to Granby, Aiden had already been eighteen, but as Jeremy’s stay had grown beyond those first few months, when he lived in Craw’s tack room, and into the years in his own apartment, he’d become part of the family unit that celebrated each birthday as it arrived. Jeremy knew when Aiden’s birthday was-the beginning of the fall.

Blackbird Knitting in a Bunny's Lair by Amy Lane