Chapter 6: Crochet
The bell above the door of ‘The Cozy Nook’ didn’t so much ring as emit a feeble, arthritic clunk. Alex stepped over the threshold and was immediately, overwhelmingly, assaulted by the smell. Not just lavender and rosewater, but the deep, dusty, woolly scent of a thousand skeins of yarn, the ghost of old tea, and polish on ancient wood floors. It was a smell that felt like it had weight, settling on her tongue and in her lungs. She resisted the urge to cough.
The place was a fucking explosion of color, but a quiet one. Where the flower shop had been a shout of vibrancy, this was a whispered symphony. Shelves bowed under the weight of yarn in every conceivable texture and hue: fat, chenille ropes in pastel pinks and blues, delicate lace-weight threads the color of sea glass, sturdy wool in heathery grays and browns. It was organized in a way that felt both chaotic and deeply intentional, a rainbow bleeding into itself.
In the center of the small room, two ancient, high-backed armchairs flanked a small gas fireplace that flickered with fake, but convincing, orange light. In one chair sat an old woman, her white hair a cloud around a face so wrinkled it looked like a carefully crumpled piece of parchment. Her hands, moving with a swift, avian precision, worked a pair of steel crochet hooks, a spill of emerald green yarn cascading from a bag at her feet. In the other chair, an old man with a magnificent, snow-white mustache read a newspaper, thick glasses perched on the end of his nose.
They both looked up as the door clunked shut. Alex, a towering monolith in black denim and leather amidst the softness, felt like a vandal who’d wandered into a sacred temple.
The old woman’s eyes, however, didn’t hold judgment. They were a clear, watery blue, and they crinkled at the corners with immediate warmth. “Well, hello there,” she said, her voice like the rustle of dry leaves. “Don’t often get your sort in here.”
Alex wasn’t sure what ‘her sort’ was. Tattooed giants? People who looked like they broke things for fun? She gave a curt nod. “Just need some yarn.”
“You’ve come to the right place,” the old man said, folding his paper neatly on his lap. His voice was deeper, a gravelly rumble. “Martha knows every strand in this shop like they’re her own children.”
Martha set her hooks down carefully in her lap. “What are you after, dear? Knitting or crochet?”
“It’s… for someone,” Alex said, already feeling out of her depth. She strode over to a shelf heaving with the kind of yarn Angel was always going on about—the absurdly soft, fluffy kind. She recognized it from the half-finished, lopsided scarf currently residing on her own pillow. She pointed a blunt-tipped finger. “That kind. The… fluffy shit.”
The old man, whose name tag on his cardigan read ‘Albert’, snorted softly. Martha just smiled wider. “Bernat Blanket Big. Excellent choice. It’s like crocheting with a cloud. What color?”
Alex scanned the wall. She knew this. This was easier than flowers. Angel’s palette was specific: things that looked like food or sky. “That one,” she said, pointing to a skein the color of marshmallow. “And that… lilac. And the peachy one. And the… fuck, that blue that’s like, just before the sky gets dark.”
“Periwinkle,” Martha supplied, heaving herself up with a soft grunt. She moved with a surprising steadiness, pulling down the hefty skeins. “How many?”
“Two of each?” Alex said, then reconsidered. Angel always ran out. “Make it three.”
“A substantial project,” Albert observed, watching as Martha assembled the pile on the worn oak counter. The register was a massive, brass-edged antique that looked like it should telegraph sums to a head office.
“He goes through it,” Alex muttered, pulling out her wallet. She watched Martha’s hands, knotted with veins but deft, as she packed the yarn into a large, sturdy paper bag with twine handles. She lined them up side-by-side, a soft, comforting battalion of pastel.
“A he?” Albert said, his bushy eyebrows rising above his glasses. “A young man who crochets. That’s wonderful.”
“Yeah,” Alex said, a defensive edge creeping into her voice. “He’s good at it. Makes weird little creatures and shit. Bunnies with fucked-up ears. They’re… cute.”
Martha finished packing and smoothed the top of the bag with a gentle pat. “It’s a beautiful craft. Soothing for the hands and the mind. What’s his name, your young man?”
Alex hesitated. The name felt too intimate, too soft, to give to these strangers in this quiet, wool-scented world. But their faces were kind, expectant in a way that held no malice. “Angel,” she said, the word leaving her lips quieter than she intended.
The effect was immediate. Martha’s hands stilled on the bag. Albert’s mustache twitched, then spread into a beam that transformed his entire face.
“Angel,” Martha breathed, the word a sigh of pure delight. “Oh, what a glorious name.”
“Isn’t that just perfect?” Albert rumbled, his eyes twinkling. “A young man named Angel, making beautiful things with soft yarn. That’s a picture.”
“It’s a name that carries a weight of kindness,” Martha added, her blue eyes locking onto Alex’s dark ones. “You don’t name a child ‘Angel’ without hoping some of it wears off on them. I’ll bet it did.”
Alex stood there, wallet in hand, disarmed. She was used to reactions to Angel’s name—a blink of surprise, a poorly hidden smile, sometimes a scoff. Not this. This was unadulterated, genuine approval. It felt like a blessing from a pair of ancient, yarn-wielding priests.
“He’s… yeah,” Alex managed, her usual crude vocabulary failing her. “He’s kind.”
Albert pulled a pen from his cardigan pocket—not a biro, but a proper fountain pen with a sleek black body. “Would you like us to write the name on the bag? For when you give it to him? A little presentation.”
It was such a small, old-world gesture. Alex nodded, mute.
Martha slid the bag toward him. With a careful, practiced hand, Albert uncapped the pen. He didn’t just scrawl it. He took his time, the nib scratching softly on the brown paper. He wrote in a beautiful, looping cursive: For Angel.
The three words looked monumental. A declaration. Alex stared at them. The flowers had been a guess, a stab in the dark guided by panic and the advice of other lost men. This… this was known. This was buying ammunition for his particular kind of happiness. Seeing his name written so elegantly, so purposefully, on the package made her throat feel tight.
“That’ll be sixty-seven fifty,” Martha said softly.
Alex fumbled with the bills, overpaying in her distraction. Martha made change, the coins cool and heavy.
“You treat him well,” Albert said, not as an order, but as an observation tinged with hope. He recapped his pen with a definitive click. “A young man who creates things needs someone to appreciate them. To be a… a sanctuary.”
The word landed in Alex’s chest with a physical thud. A sanctuary. Was she that? She was loud. She was rough. She left cigarette butts in his favorite mug and her boots tracked mud on his floor. She teased him until he blushed, pushed him until he gasped. Sanctuary sounded like silence and sunlight, not the storm she brought with her.
But then she remembered him curled into her side, his head on her shoulder, his breathing deep and even as she scrolled on her phone. The way he’d reach for her hand under the table at the library, his small fingers threading through hers. The absolute trust when he turned his back to her in the night. It wasn’t sanctuary in the traditional sense. It was something else. A pact. I am your mess, he’d said. And you are my quiet. She hadn’t understood it then.
Maybe she was starting to.
“I try,” Alex said, the words raw. She hooked the twine handles of the bag over her fingers. It was satisfyingly heavy. “Thanks. For the…,” she gestured vaguely at the bag, at the writing.
“Our pleasure, dear,” Martha said, settling back into her chair and picking up her emerald project. “Happy early Valentine’s Day.”
Albert gave a final, solemn nod and reopened his newspaper.
The bell clunked again as Alex left, stepping from the wool-scented, fire-lit quiet into the sharp, gray reality of the out-of-town street. The cold air was a shock. She hefted the bag, the solid weight of it a comfort.
She walked towards the bus stop, the bag swinging at her side. Her phone buzzed. A photo from Angel: the ranunculus bouquet, now perfectly arranged in a clear glass vase on his windowsill, backlit by the pale afternoon sun. The message read: They’re watching Totoro with me. They’re good company. Less chatty than you.
A grin spread across her face, fierce and possessive. She typed back, her thumbs finding their familiar, crude rhythm: Save the chat for me. Got your ammunition. Be ready to craft me a fucking army of weird dick-shaped bunnies.
His reply was instantaneous: Alexandra!
She laughed, a short, sharp bark that fogged in the cold air. She could see him, flustered and trying not to smile, his ears pink. Sanctuary. Maybe it wasn’t a place. Maybe it was a person. And maybe, for someone named Angel, sanctuary looked a lot like a six-foot-three disaster in a leather jacket, swearing at a bus stop while carrying a bag of softness with his name written on it in perfect cursive.
The bus approached, its brakes hissing. She climbed on, paid, and slumped into a seat by the window, the bag of yarn occupying the space beside her like a silent, pastel promise. The city began to blur past, grids of concrete and glass slowly replacing the low shops. She was heading back. Back to their mess, to the noodles with extra fish cakes, to the quiet hum of his contentment, to the space she was, against all odds, learning to call home.