Not that he’d ever admit it, but Crowley is a champion knitter.
It’s completely by accident; there was, about seventy years ago, a older lady who would sit outside the bookshop and knit while she watched the people go by.
For a week, Crowley watched the woman, and then finally, he had to know. He sat down on the bench beside her, offered her one of the pastries he’d brought for breakfast, and asked the question. “What are you doing?”
The old woman had carefully put the knitting away, took one of the jelly pastries, and answered. “I’m dyig, my dear.”
Crowley had been stunned. “Dying like...”
“Dying like, I’m sixty years old and I have cancer that they can’t treat. So I come out here to this lovely shop, I watch the people who are alive, and I knit for my granddaughter. She’s just about to turn one, and I won’t live to see her turn two. So I knit their stories for her.” After finishing the pastry, she pulled out the blanket that she was working. “The pink square, there was a skinny young thing that come through, and her jacket was just that shade of pink. It made me think of something my granddaughter might wear, so it got this square.” She continued on, pointing to each square and giving the reason behind it.
The next day, Crowley brought the woman a bright red yarn.
“Oh, dear, that would be perfect for your hair!”
The day after, Crowley brought her tan.
“Do you know, this is exactly the color of the jacket that the shop owner wears.” Then, “This bench wasn’t always here, did you know that? I came by one day, and I looked for a place near by, but there wasn’t anything. I came the next day, and here it was.”
The third day, the woman had a spare pair of needles, and shoved them into Crowley’s hands. “Here, start a blanket of your own. If you’re going to sit here and listen to me, least you can do is knit my stories into your own blanket.”
“I don’t know how,” Crowley admitted, but he held the needles like he saw her holding them.
“Just you watch me, dearie, you’ll get the hang of it.”
Crowley did. By the next week, he was well into his blanket, always kept in her bag, of course.
The third week, the lady wasn’t on the bench, although Crowley waited all day. She wasn’t there the next day, or the next. A week went by, and Crowley knew she had died. Only then did it dawn on him that he didn’t even know her name.
A day later, the bell over Aziraphale’s door jangled, and he heard, “Mr. Crowley?”
There was a young man, suit and tie, slick and carrying a lumpy brown package. “Do you have some identification?”
Lawyer. Crowley dug his wallet out and showed his identification, and then waited while a pile of papers were brought out. “What’s this, then?”
“There was a codicil to the will of Mrs. Colleen Leyton. She asked that after her death, this package be delivered to Mr. Anthony Crowley, care of A. Z. Fell & Co. bookshop,” he explained. After collecting the required signatures, he passed over the lumpy package. “I’m sorry for your loss, sir.”
Crowley nodded and took the package into the back room of the shop. Sitting on his favorite couch, he opened the package.
His unfinished blanket sat in the wrapper, along with skeins of unused yarn, a photo album, and a thick envelope.
He opened the envelope, and read the letter. Dear Anthony, I know that you are not going to accept this, but I don’t truly mind. You asked me once why I didn’t fight, why I didn’t keep going. This photo album will answer that. My husband is gone, my children are either passed away or simply don’t care to come home. My granddaughter will lilkely never get the blanket that I made her, and that’s all right, too.
You finish yours, young man. And then you make another. And another. For as long as you’re alive, you knit your stories. That nice shop owner, Mr. Fell, he told me your name. I hope you don’t mind. But he thought you wouldn’t think to tell me, and you didn’t. It’s funny, but I never thought to ask. You were my friend, Anthony, when I didn’t have any others.
Knit that into a square. And then knit one for your friend Mr. Fell.
I’ll see you again someday.
Crowley has never opened the photo album.
But Priscilla Leyton, on her second birthday, received a package from London with a beautiful hand-knit blanket from her grandmother.
And when Crowley gets frustrated, angry, or upset?
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