The morning light surrounds Ruth in a halo.
“I wish I could have met him,” she says.
“You would have liked him.”
Ruth clears her throat, considering this, before turning away. She faces the snow-caked window, her thoughts her own. This car, I think, has become my tomb.
“You were also thinking about the hospital,” she murmurs.
When I nod, she emits a weary sigh.
“Did you not hear what I told you?” she says, turning to me again. “That it did not matter to me? I would not lie to you about this.”
“Not on purpose,” I answer. “But I think that maybe, you sometimes lied to yourself.”
She is surprised by my words, if only because I have never spoken so directly on this matter. But I know I am right.
“This is why you stopped writing me,” she observes. “After you had been sent back to California, your letters became less frequent until they finally stopped coming at all. I did not hear from you for six months.”
“I stopped writing because I remembered what you’d told me.”
“Because you wanted to end it between us.” There is an undercurrent of anger in her voice, and I can’t meet her eyes.
“I wanted you to be happy.”
“I was not happy,” she snaps. “I was confused and heartbroken and I did not understand what had happened. And I prayed for you every day, hoping you would let me help you. But instead, I would go to the mailbox and find it empty, no matter how many letters I sent.”
“I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to do that.”
“Did you even read my letters?”
“Every one. I read them over and over, and more than once, I tried to write so you could know what happened. But I could never find the right words.”
She shakes her head. “You did not even tell me when you were to arrive home. It was your mother who told me, and I thought about meeting you at the station, like you used to do when I came home.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I wanted to see if you would come to me. But days passed and then a week, and when I did not see you at the synagogue, I understood that you were trying to avoid me. So I finally marched over to your shop and told you that I needed to speak to you. And do you remember what you said to me?”
Of all the things I’ve said in my life, these are the words I regret the most. But Ruth is waiting, her tense expression fixed on my face. There is a fierce challenge in the way she waits.
“I told you that the engagement was off, and that it was over between us.”
She arches an eyebrow. “Yes,” she says, “that is what you told me.”
“I couldn’t talk to you then. I was…”
When I trail off, she finishes for me. “Angry.” She nods. “I could see it in your eyes, but even then, I knew you were still in love with me.”
“Yes,” I admit. “I was.”
“But your words were still hurtful,” she says. “I went home and cried like I had not since I was a child. And my mother finally came in and held me and neither of us knew what to do. I had lost so much already. I could not bear to lose you, too.”
By this, she means her family, the family that had stayed behind in Vienna. At the time, I didn’t realize how selfish my actions were or how Ruth might have perceived them. This memory, too, has stayed with me, and in the car, I feel an age-old shame.
Ruth, my dream, knows what I am feeling. When she speaks, it is with a new tenderness. “But if it was really over, I wanted to understand the reason, so the next day, I went to the drugstore across from your shop and ordered a chocolate soda. I sat next to the window and watched you as you worked. I know you saw me, but you did not come over. So I went back the next day and the day after that, and only then did you finally cross the street to see me.”
“My mother made me go,” I admit. “She told me that you deserved an explanation.”
“That is what you have always said. But I think you also wanted to come, because you missed me. And because you knew that only I could help you heal.”
I close my eyes at her words. She is right, of course, right about all of it. Ruth always did know me better than I knew myself.
“I took a seat across from you,” I say. “And then, a moment later, a chocolate soda arrived for me.”
“You were so skinny. I thought you needed my help to get fat again. Like you were when we met.”
“I was never fat,” I protest. “I barely made weight when I joined the army.”