The Longest Ride(74)

An hour later, they were gone. By then the sky had turned gray, and Ruth and I meandered back to the house. In the kitchen, I wrapped my arms around her as we stood gazing out the window. Then, without a word, I took her hand and led her to my room.



Though my vision is hazy, I can make out Ruth sitting beside me again. Perhaps it is wishful thinking, but I could swear she’s wearing the robe she’d worn the night we first made love.



“Thank you,” I say. “For helping me catch my breath.”



“You knew what you had to do,” she says. “I am just here to remind you.”



“I couldn’t have done it without you.”



“You would have,” she says with certainty. Then, toying with the neckline of her robe, she says almost seductively: “You were very forward with me that day at the beach. Before we were married. When my parents went to Kitty Hawk.”



“Yes,” I admit. “I knew we had hours to ourselves.”



“Well… it was a surprise.”



“It shouldn’t have been,” I say. “We were alone and you were beautiful.”



She tugs at the robe. “I should have taken it as a warning.”



“Warning?”



“Of things to come,” she says. “Until that weekend, I was not sure you were… passionate. But after that weekend, I sometimes found myself wishing for the old Ira. The shy one, the one who always showed restraint. Especially when I wanted to sleep in.”



“Was I that bad?”



“No,” she says, tilting her head back to gaze at me through heavy-lidded eyes. “Quite the contrary.”



We spent the afternoon tangled in the sheets, making love with even greater passion than the night before. The room was warm, and our bodies glistened with sweat, her hair wet near the roots. Afterward, as Ruth showered, the rain began, and I sat in the kitchen, listening as it pounded against the tin roof, as content as I had ever been.



Her parents returned soon after that, drenched by the downpour. By then, Ruth and I were busy in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Over a simple meal of spaghetti with meat sauce, the four of us sat around the table as her father talked about their day, the conversation somehow segueing as it often did into a discussion about art. He spoke of Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Futurism – words I’d never heard before – and I was struck not only by the subtle distinctions that he drew, but by the hunger with which Ruth devoured every word. In truth, most of it was beyond me, the knowledge slipping through my grasp, but neither Ruth nor her father seemed to notice.



After dinner, once the rain had passed and evening was descending, Ruth and I went out for a walk on the beach. The air was sticky and the sand packed under our feet as I gently traced my thumb along the back of her hand. I glanced toward the water. Terns were darting in and out of the waves, and just past the breakers, a school of porpoises swam by in leaping formation. Ruth and I watched them until they were obscured in the mist. Only then did I turn to face her.



“Your parents will be moving in August,” I finally said.



She squeezed my hand. “They are going to look for a house in Durham next week.”



“And you start teaching in September?”



“Unless I go with them,” she said. “Then I will have to find a job there.”



Over her shoulder, the lights in the house went on.



“Then I guess we don’t have much choice,” I said to her. I kicked at the packed sand briefly, drawing up the courage I needed before meeting her eyes. “We have to get married in August.”





At this memory, I smile, but Ruth’s voice cuts through my reverie, her disappointment evident.



“You could have been more romantic,” she tells me, sulking.



For a moment, I’m confused. “You mean… with my proposal?”



“What else would I be talking about?” She throws up her hands. “You could have dropped to one knee, or said something about your undying love. You could have formally asked for my hand in marriage.”



“I already did those things,” I said. “The first time I proposed.”



“But then you ended it. You should have started all over. I want to recall the kind of proposal one reads about in storybooks.”



“Would you like me to do that now?”



“It is too late,” she says, dismissing the notion. “You missed your chance.”



But she says this with such flirtatious overtones that I can hardly wait to return to the past.





We signed the ketubah soon after we got home from the beach, and I married Ruth in August 1946. The ceremony was held under the chuppah, as is typical in Jewish weddings, but there weren’t many people in attendance. The guests were mostly friends of my mother’s that we knew from the synagogue, but that was the way both Ruth and I wanted it. She was far too practical for a more extravagant wedding, and though the shop was doing well – which meant I was doing well – both of us wanted to save as much as we could for a down payment on the home we wanted to buy in the future. When I broke that glass beneath my foot and watched our mothers clap and cheer, I knew that marrying Ruth was the most life-changing thing I’d ever done.