“Thomas is over and done with as far as I’m concerned, whatever it might say in the parish registry. There’s nothing for me to get worked up about. Sometimes it’s helpful just to see things plain . . . Perhaps you should try that.” To her horror, the conversation was venturing into deep waters. It wouldn’t be long before she started talking about Steven.
“Just to see things plain . . . that’s the sort of thing that Peter might say . . .” Her sister heaved a deep sigh.
Ruth frowned and looked over at her. “So what about you two? Is anything ever going to come of that or not?”
Johanna looked up as though she had been expecting just this question.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Oh, it’s all so crazy.” She ran her hand through her hair. “He’s spent years telling me that we were meant for one another and that he was just waiting for me to see it.”
“And now?” Ruth hadn’t noticed any change in Peter’s behavior toward Johanna. But she hadn’t been paying much attention either. “Does this mean you’ve realized now that you love Peter and he’s lost interest?”
The only answer was another deep sigh. “I don’t know that I would put it that way. But more and more often these days, I find myself wishing he would take me in his arms,” Johanna admitted. “Sometimes I want to do that to him . . .” she added, blushing.
She clearly had trouble admitting this, so Ruth bit back a mocking remark. All the same she couldn’t quite keep the sarcasm from her voice.
“Why have you suddenly changed your tune after all these years?”
“It’s not so sudden as all that. In the last six months I’ve begun to notice that Peter is more than just a big brother. It might sound strange, but the real reason is what happened with Strobel. After that I began to watch Peter more closely. To be honest for a while I was just waiting to catch him out in some sort of wickedness—after all, he’s a man too. But I never did, thank God.” There was admiration in her voice. “Peter stands above the world in so many ways. He’s so self-assured, and his whole demeanor is so . . . engaging! Whenever I look over at him at work these days, I keep thinking: there’s a man who can really make a woman feel safe. I can even imagine him putting his arms around me and kissing me, because I know that it would be nothing like what Strobel . . .” She turned her eyes away.
“Why don’t you try telling him everything you’ve just told me?” Ruth asked.
Her sister waved a hand. “I’d just feel silly. After all these years . . . And who knows what he thinks of me these days. He hasn’t tried anything for ages.” She looked up sadly. “If he still loves me, why doesn’t he do something, say something?”
Ruth couldn’t suppress her smile any longer. “He’s a fairly clever man, if you hadn’t noticed.” If Peter had kept up his overtures toward her sister, Johanna certainly wouldn’t be talking this way now. Ruth sighed. It was so simple! All she had to do was help Johanna see what was right in front of her . . .
“Do you still have the atlas that Peter gave you two Christmases ago?”
Johanna nodded glumly. “It’s upstairs. Why?”
“If you want my opinion, Peter was giving you much more than just a book there.” Ruth laughed. “That Christmas I only had eyes for my new brush set, but I can still hear what he said as though it were yesterday: You have to find out for yourself where you really belong!”
A little smile flitted across Johanna’s face. “I’m surprised you remember.”
“Sometimes people say things you can only understand in hindsight,” Ruth remarked thoughtfully. “You think you know what you want from life, and then in the end it turns out to be quite the opposite. Just look at me: I thought that I would find fulfillment by marrying a Heimer, and that turned out to be a great disappointment. And you thought you would find fulfillment in the world of commerce. You never even dreamed that commerce could come to Lauscha, did you now? We don’t always find happiness where we expect it. Sometimes we have to approach it the long way around . . .” She broke off. “And sometimes happiness is somewhere else entirely.”
Johanna was looking at her skeptically. “You’re not usually one for such wise words. I just wonder what all this has to do with Peter?”
If I carry on like this, I’ll talk myself into trouble, Ruth thought. She had turned into such a chatterbox that if she had known the name of the ocean liner that she would be boarding next week, she would probably have blurted that out to Johanna too.