The Longest Ride(49)

“And my father?”



“I loved him, too. How could I not? He was family.”



I smile, recalling that in later years she was always more patient with him than I was.



“Can I ask you a question?”



“You can ask me anything.”



“Why did you wait for me? Even after I stopped writing? I know you say that you loved me, but…”



“We are back to this? You wonder why I loved you?”



“You could have had anyone.”



She leans closer to me, her voice soft. “This has always been your problem, Ira,” she says. “You do not see in yourself what others see in you. You think you are not handsome enough, but you were very handsome when you were young. You think you are not interesting or smart enough, but you are these things, too, and that you are not aware of your best qualities is part of your charm. You always see so much in others – as you did in me. You made me feel special.”



“But you are special,” I insist.



She raises her hands in delight. “This is what I am talking about,” she says, laughing. “You are a man of deep feelings, who has always cared about others, and I am not alone in recognizing that. Your friend Joe Torrey sensed it. I am sure that is why he spent his free time with you. And my mother sensed it as well, which was why she held me when I thought I had lost you. Because we both knew that men like you are rare.”



“I’m glad you came that night,” I say. “I needed you.”



“And you also knew, as soon as we fell into step at the park, that you were finally ready to tell me the truth. All of it.”



I nod. In one of my final letters, I’d briefly told her about the bombing run over Schweinfurt and Joe Torrey. I mentioned the wounds I’d received and the infection that had followed, but I hadn’t told her everything. On that night, however, I started at the beginning. I related every detail and I held nothing back. On the bench, she listened to my outpouring of words without speaking.



Afterward, she slipped her arms around me and I leaned into her. The emotions washed over me in waves, her whispered words of comfort unleashing memories I had tried too long to bury.



I don’t know how long it took for the storm inside me to subside, but by that point, I was exhausted. Yet there was one thing remaining that I had not revealed, something that not even my parents knew.



In the car, Ruth is silent. I know she is replaying what I said to her that night.



“I told you that I got the mumps while I was in the hospital – the worst case the doctor had ever seen. And I told you what the doctor said to me.”



Ruth remains quiet, but her eyes start to glisten.



“He said that mumps can cause sterility,” I say. “That’s why I tried to end it between us. Because I knew that if you ever married me, there was a good chance that we would never have children.”





9





Sophia





“A

nd then what?” Marcia asked. She was standing in front of the mirror and applying a second coat of mascara while Sophia recounted her day at the ranch. “Don’t tell me you slept with him.” As she said it, she examined Sophia’s reflection in the mirror.



“Of course not!” Sophia said. She crossed one leg beneath the other on the bed. “It wasn’t like that. We just kissed and then we talked some more, and then when I left, he kissed me again at the car. It was… sweet.”



“Oh,” Marcia said, stopping in her attempt to dab on some mascara.



“Don’t hide your disappointment. Really.”



“What?” she announced. “The way you looked just now makes me think you wanted to.”



“I barely know him!”



“That’s not true. You were with him, what? More than an hour last night, and six or seven hours today? That’s a lot of time together. That’s a lot of talking. Horseback riding, a couple of beers… if it was me, I might have grabbed his hand and just dragged him inside.”



“Marcia!”



“I’m just saying. He was seriously hot. You noticed that, right?”



Sophia really, truly, didn’t want the whole “hot” thing to start up again. “He’s a nice guy,” she said, trying to head it off.



“Even better,” Marcia said, giving her a wink. She applied a glossy coat of lipstick before reaching for a hair clip. “But okay, I get it. You’re different than me. And I respect that – I really do. I’m just glad you’re done with Brian.”



“I’ve been done with him since I broke up with him.”