“My mouth’s already watering!” she said, laughing. “I can practically smell the turkey and the stuffing!”
“Have you ever thought what it would be like to leave Lauscha?”
Steven’s question took her breath away.
“Leave Lauscha?” She put a hand to her throat. She felt like she was choking.
All afternoon, she had somehow managed to forget the circumstances of their meeting, forget that the clock was ticking away as they laughed and gazed into one another’s eyes. But his question brought it all back. As though she needed another reminder, the oak-cased grandfather clock at the end of the room struck six. The café would close at seven.
“How could I ever leave Lauscha?”
“It seems to me that the real question is how you could stay. What future do you have here?” Steven asked quietly. “After all you tell me about Thomas Heimer, I worry for your safety. That man isn’t going to leave you alone. What if he’s lying in wait for you or your daughter one day when there’s nobody nearby?”
“He’s not interested in Wanda,” Ruth said, dismissing the idea.
Steven looked skeptical. “There’s no shortage of tragedies that occurred because someone thought if I can’t have her, then nobody will . . .”
Ruth raised her hands in despair. “Why are you frightening me like this? I’m married to him. I know that Thomas will never set me free—he’s too proud for that—but that doesn’t mean he’s going to kill me.” Tears sprang to her eyes. There was no future left for her anywhere; she had thrown it away long ago.
“Ruth, Ruth . . .” Steven whispered. He stroked her head gently. “Don’t cry. I’m here. I’ll take care of you.”
How could that be? Steven had his life to lead, and she had hers. She sniffled as she told him so.
“Have you forgotten that I’m an American?” he answered with a roguish grin that didn’t really suit her mood. “We Americans aren’t so quick to knuckle under when things aren’t going as we’d like. If we don’t like the way things are, we change them. And I get the feeling that you can change things too.” He lifted her chin.
Ruth wiped the last tears from her eyes.
“How many women would have spent their life alongside a husband who beat them rather than take the brave steps that you did and leave him?” Steven asked. When she didn’t answer straightaway, he added, “Do you know any other woman who would have dared go to Mr. Woolworth’s room looking for him? You began taking your fate into your own hands long ago.”
“When you look at it like that, I suppose I did,” she said, smiling a little. “Crying won’t help matters, my father always used to say, you have to do something too.”
She didn’t quite know what they were talking about. What did he want her to say? Where was he going with this?
“Oh, Steven,” she sighed. “Perhaps there might be some point in our talking like this if things were different. But as it is, even the kindest twist of fate wouldn’t be enough to give me what I wish for most—which is to turn back the clock to before I was married.”
“That’s not what you really want,” he said. “For one thing you wouldn’t have your wonderful daughter”—he nodded at the photo of Wanda that Ruth had shown him—“and for another thing we would never have met.”
“Well, that’s true too,” Ruth laughed. “You have a gift for finding the silver lining in any cloud.”
He joined in her laughter.
“Wait, I have something for you.” He bent down under the table for his briefcase then put a glass object in front of Ruth. It was shaped like a heart.
“A heart of glass?” She lifted it carefully and nestled it in the middle of her palm. It felt cool and soft. She held it up to the light.
“How beautiful.” Her own heart suddenly felt even heavier. “Glass can break so easily . . .”
“I knew that you would see the hidden implication straightaway. Mr. Woolworth found this heart in a department store in England recently. He actually wanted to find a glassblower who could make us something like it last time we came. But unfortunately—or perhaps I should say thank heavens—we forgot the sample in our Hamburg office. What do you think? Could this be an order for you?”
So it was a sample, not a present. Ruth put the heart back down on the table. She shrugged.
“Marie can certainly manage it. What size order were you thinking?” If she had to die of a broken heart, she didn’t want to starve to death as she did so, she thought with a touch of dark humor.