The Longest Ride(29)

“Your parents eventually came to like me.”



“Yes.” She nods. “But that is because I liked you. You made me laugh, and you were the first to help me do that in this country. My father would always ask what you had said that I found so funny, and I would tell him that it was less about what you said than the way you would say things. Like the face you made when you described your mother’s cooking.”



“My mother could burn water and yet never learned how to boil an egg.”



“She was not that bad.”



“I grew up learning how to eat and hold my breath at the same time. Why do you think my father and I were as thin as straws?”



She shakes her head. “If your mother only knew you said such terrible things.”



“It wouldn’t have mattered. She knew she wasn’t a good cook.”



She is quiet for a moment. “I wish we could have had more time that summer. I was very sad when you left to go back to university.”



“Even if I’d stayed, we couldn’t have been together. You were leaving, too. You were heading off to Wellesley.”



She nods, but her expression is distant. “I was very fortunate for the opportunity. My father knew a professor there, and he helped me in many ways. But the year was still very hard for me. Even though you had not written to Sarah, I knew you would see her again, and I worried that you might still develop feelings for her. And I was afraid that Sarah would see the same things in you that I did, and that she would use her charms to take you away from me.”



“That would have never happened.”



“I know this now, but I did not know it then.”



I shift my head slightly, and all at once there are flashes of white in the corners of my eyes, a railroad spike near my hairline. I close my eyes, waiting for it to pass, but it seems to take forever. I concentrate, trying to breathe slowly, and eventually it begins to recede. The world comes back in bits and pieces, and I think again about the accident. My face is sticky and the deflated air bag is coated with dust and blood. The blood scares me, but despite this, there is magic in the car, a magic that has brought Ruth back to me. I swallow, trying to wet the back of my throat, but I can make no moisture and it feels like sandpaper.



I know Ruth is worried about me. In the lengthening shadows, I see her watching me, this woman I have always adored. I think back again to 1940, trying to distract her from her fears.



“And yet despite your concerns about Sarah,” I say, “you didn’t come home in December to see me.”



In my mind’s eye, I see Ruth roll her eyes – her standard response to my complaint. “I did not come home because I could not afford the train ticket,” she says. “You know this. I was working at a hotel, and leaving would have been impossible. The scholarship only covered tuition, so I had to pay for everything else.”



“Excuses,” I tease.



She ignores me, as always. “Sometimes, I would work at the desk all night and still have to go to class in the morning. It was all I could do not to fall asleep with my book open on the desk. It was not easy. By the time I finished my first year, I was very much looking forward to coming home for the summer, if only to go straight to bed.”



“But then I ruined your plans by showing up at the train station.”



“Yes.” She smiles. “My plan was ruined.”



“I hadn’t seen you in nine months,” I point out. “I wanted to surprise you.”



“And you did. On the train, I wondered whether you would be there, but I did not want to be disappointed. And then, when the train pulled into the station and I saw you from the window, my heart gave a little jump. You were very handsome.”



“My mother had made me a new suit.”



She emits a wistful laugh, still lost in the memory. “And you had brought my parents with you.”



I would shrug, but I am afraid to move. “I knew they’d want to see you, too, so I borrowed my father’s car.”



“That was gallant.”



“Or selfish. Otherwise, you might have gone straight home.”



“Yes, maybe,” she teases. “But of course, you had thought of that, too. You had asked my father if you could take me to dinner. He said that you had come to the factory while he was working to ask his permission.”



“I didn’t want to give you a reason to say no.”



“I would not have said no, even if you had not asked my father.”



“I know this now, but I didn’t know it then,” I say, echoing her earlier words. We are, and always have been, the same in so many ways. “When you stepped off the train that night, I remember thinking that the station should have been filled with photographers, waiting to snap your picture. You looked like a movie star.”