Read Not My Daughter for Free Online Page B

Perry & Cass catalogue, but after becoming the darling of the knitting blogs, it had experienced an explosion in online sales.
    A large oak table stood at the heart of the work space. Old and scarred, it was the same one on which they had put together their first season of colors ten years before. Back then, the table was in Susan's garage and PC Wool had only been a dream, conjured up during child-free evenings with a bottle of wine and good friends who loved to knit. Even now, a large basket in the center of the table held small knitting projects, while the bulk of its surface was covered with skeins waiting to be twisted.
    Dropping her coat on a chair, Susan went to Kate. "Are you okay?"
    "Been better," Kate replied. Her eyes were heavy, her hair a riot of ends sticking up around the bamboo double-pointeds at her crown. She opened her arms.
    This was why Susan had come. She needed comfort. Petite Kate, with her big heart and can-do approach, had always offered that. "If it had to be anyone," Susan whispered, "I'm glad it's you. What are we going to do?"
    Kate held her for another minute. "I do not know."
    "That's not the right answer. You're supposed to say that everything will work out, that this is just another one of life's little challenges, and that what happens was meant to be."
    "Aha," Kate barked dryly, "at least I've raised you well. You can keep telling me that. Right now, I'm not a happy camper."
    "What does Will say?"
    "Pretty much what you just did. But boy, this came from nowhere. How can smart girls do something so stupid?" Reaching for a hank of yarn, she deftly twisted it until it was tight enough to double back on itself. "My daughter's neck," she murmured as she tucked one end into the other.
    "I'll ditto that," Susan said, and the angst of the past thirty-six hours poured out. "I can't get past the anger. I can't ask Lily how she's feeling. I can't hold her. She's been my little girl for so long, but now there's this other ... other ... thing between us."
    "A baby."
    "It's not a baby to me yet. It's something unwanted." She waved a hand. "Bad choice of words. What I meant to say was that this is not what we needed at this stage in our lives. Lily was supposed to have all the choices that I did not. What was she thinking?"
    "She wasn't alone."
    "Which blows my mind. I've always loved that our girls did things together. They're all good students, good athletes, good knitters . I thought they'd keep each other from doing dumb things." She had a new thought. "Where's Abby in all this?"
    Kate leveled a gaze at her. "Mary Kate refused to say."
    "She's pregnant, too?" Four would be even worse than three--though three was surely bad enough.
    "Mary Kate just stared at me when I asked."
    "Meaning that Abby is either pregnant or still trying."
    "All I know," Kate said, "is that Mary Kate begged me not to tell Pam."
    "But if Pam can keep this from happening to Abby--"
    "That's what I said, but Mary Kate said Abby would do it anyway, and she's probably right. Of the four girls, she's the least anchored."
    Like her mom , Susan thought. She didn't have to say it. Kate knew. They had discussed it more than once.
    "Besides," Kate said, "it's not like Pam can lock her in a chastity belt."
    Susan snorted. "Not many of those around these days, and what do we have instead? The Web. Information enough there to make naive seventeen-year-olds feel they know everything. What was Mary Kate's excuse for wanting a baby?"
    Kate twisted another hank. "She's been a hand-me-down child. She wants something of her own."
    "Isn't Jacob that?" Susan was generally skeptical of high school pairings, but she liked Jacob Senter a lot. He was a kind boy, dedicated to school and devoted to Mary Kate. Lily had no one like that.
    "But between school and loans," Kate explained, "it'll be years before they can get married. She wants something now. Something her sisters don't have." She screwed up her face. "Did I miss this?"
    "She had love," Susan