The only time the melancholy could not touch her was when she was sitting with the others in the workshop. Instead of thinking This is the last set of ice crystals I will ever paint with my sisters, she took comfort in the thought that these Christmas decorations would be going with her on the long voyage across the ocean. She would probably not be there to watch Marie work on her new idea of a series of baubles in the shape of bells, but she would hold the finished items in her hands when she got to New York. Perhaps she would be able to hang them on her own tree next Christmas! And so every time she picked up a globe, opened the bottle of silver solution, or took a brush into her hand, it soothed the pain of her imminent departure. Whatever else might happen, the glass would always be there to connect her to her sisters—and to Lauscha.
And so day followed day, and week followed week.
“Well then, I’m going over to see Magnus.” Marie was already halfway out the door, with a light jacket over her shoulders and her sketchpad under her arm, when Johanna called her back.
“Do you have to spend every evening with him? I really don’t know what you see in him,” Johanna said irritably. “Magnus is a nice lad of course, but . . .”
“But what? He’s a nice lad, and that’s enough for me,” Marie shot back. “Perhaps that’s just what I like about him—the fact that he’s not always asking something from me, that he’s not always prodding at me the way you do. He takes me as I am, and I do the same with him.”
Ruth pretended not to see Johanna look to her for support, and carried on brushing Wanda’s shock of blonde hair with a soft brush. She didn’t know what Marie saw in Magnus either—she thought he was rather a dull dog—but she certainly wasn’t going to stick her nose in like Johanna.
“I don’t know why you’re always picking on Magnus. He was the one who picked you up off the street and brought you back home. But you seem to have forgotten about that,” Marie said to Johanna. “And you have no cause to complain about his work. He’s blowing almost as many globes as Peter or I. He turns up on time and he’s reliable to boot,” she added defiantly.
“You’re right,” Johanna conceded. “All I meant is that . . . he’s so quiet. And he hardly ever laughs.”
“I’m sure that he saw some terrible things when he was out in the world,” Marie said, and there was suddenly a note of pity in her voice. “But I don’t spend my time poking and prodding at him like Griseldis does, trying to discover his secrets. I can let him be sad if he must. In fact he’s something of an inspiration to me.” And with that, she left, slamming the door behind her.
Johanna shook her head as she watched her go.
“Will you just listen to that? His sorrow’s an inspiration to her.”
“Let her be,” Ruth replied with a grin. Johanna was puffing herself up like a broody hen again.
Ruth put Wanda gently down on the bench—she had fallen asleep while her mother was brushing her hair—and frowned.
“Do you think that the two of them . . . are more than just friends? Marie and a man—to be honest I never even considered that,” Ruth said.
Johanna sighed. “Well, she is still our little sister. But I suppose we need to get used to the idea that she’s grown up by now.”
Well hark who’s talking! Ruth thought. Who was it after all who always wanted to make Marie’s decisions for her?
But she kept this thought to herself and instead said, “That’s not what I meant. Rather . . . well you have to admit that when she goes around wearing pants like that with her hair combed straight back she doesn’t really look very feminine. And she’s never shown any sign of being interested in men.”
Johanna nodded but said nothing.
Ruth stood up to take Wanda upstairs to bed. When she came back, Johanna was still sitting there.
“When I think about it, we haven’t had much luck with men, have we?” Johanna raised her eyebrows ironically.
I have! Ruth thought, but she shrugged noncommittally.
“That depends. Isn’t the saying that you make your own luck?”
Johanna looked up. “I wouldn’t have expected you to agree.”
“Why not?” Ruth answered. “Nobody forced me to marry Thomas. And he and I are the only ones to blame for the failure of our marriage. We were never right for one another, from the very start, but I saw that too late. Or rather I was too blind to see it.”
“You say that so calmly,” Johanna said in surprise. “It’s as though you were talking about the weather, but it changed your whole life.”