The handwriting on it was shaky, written in the blue ballpoint pen Rose always kept by her grocery list.

It was dated October twelfth.

My stomach dropped.

That was the day after the doctor told her the cancer had returned, and there was nothing left to do.

She had never told me that part.

She had just said she was feeling a bit tired.

The tag read: “For Helen. For our fifty-third year of walking. I might need you to help me with the sleeves, my hands are getting a bit stiff.”

I stared at the paper.

I didn’t cry.

My throat just closed up so tightly I couldn’t swallow.

She knew.

She knew she wouldn’t finish it.

But she had started it anyway, the very day after she got her death sentence.

Clara sat down at my table and put her face in her hands.

“She worked on it every night,” Clara whispered.

“Even when her fingers were too swollen to hold the needles properly. I told her to rest, but she said you’d freeze on the winter walks without it.”

I looked at the grey wool.

The stitches near the top were loose and uneven.

They were clumsy, not like Rose’s usual perfect work.

Her hands must have been shaking.

“I don’t know how to knit, Helen,” Clara said, looking up with wet eyes.

“But I want to learn. I want us to finish it.”

I looked at Rose’s daughter.

She had her mother’s eyes, the same sharp, clear blue.

I reached into the basket, pulled out the other skein of grey wool, and handed her a pair of plastic needles.

“Sit down,” I said.

My voice was a bit rough, but it was steady.

We sat at the kitchen table while the sleet tapped against the window.

I showed Clara how to cast on.

Her fingers were clumsy, and she dropped three stitches on her first try.

“It’s okay,” I told her.

“Your mother dropped her first ones, too.”

We sat there for three hours.

We didn’t talk about the funeral, and we didn’t talk about January.

We just talked about how Rose always cheated at cards, and how she used to put too much salt in her potato salad.

By noon, Clara had knitted four inches.

They were tight and crooked, but they were there.

We are going to finish the cardigan.

It won’t be perfect.

The sleeves will probably be two different lengths, and the collar will be a bit lopsided.

But next January, when the wind comes off the lake, I will wear it.

And I will walk.