Ruth feels tears prickle. The last few months have been a nightmare. The room suddenly feels too dark to her. It’s hard to see what she’s doing, and everything looks a little fuzzy, and ill-defined. I need more light, she thinks.
She snaps on the overhead. It illuminates the room harshly, taking away some of the cozy, showing up the worn edges of the cabinets, a dark stain on the scrubbed pine table. The letter, no longer dissolving gradually into shadow, looks a bright, clinical white. Ruth stares at it.
“Ruth, are you okay?” Jayne asks. Did her question touch a nerve? And when was it that Ruth last appeared to be herself? Jayne can hardly remember. All eyes have been on the baby since he was born and Ruth wanted him so badly that Jayne assumed she was ecstatic after having him, snug in a fluffy cloud of maternal bliss.
But perhaps not.
Ruth feels blindsided. No one ever asks if she’s okay, not like this, withfeeling, as if they truly want to know the answer.
It’s hard to know what to say. Growing up she learned that you report success, not weakness. With her childhood vitamin supplements she absorbed the idea that love and friendship are conditional, that you can be disliked if you don’t present your best self, that no bond is so close as to be unbreakable.
The thought of sharing even a little bit of her true self is alarming, let alone her darkest worries, the ones that are laced with shame.
She puts on a smile before turning to face Jayne. “I’m fine, really,” she says. “I’m tired and working too many hours and Toby is hopeless with the baby but it’s my new happy place.”
“I thought Toby would be great with Alfie. He’s so—” Jayne searches for a word. “Immature” presents itself, but she’s not sure she knows Ruth well enough to say it. Their friendship is still more careful than that.
“Such a child himself?” Ruth cuts in.
“Well, I wasn’t going to say that exactly,” Jayne says. But, yes, Professor Toby Land has never grown out of his boyish looks (not handsome, but almost), his clowning around, his openhearted affability. He wears his hair long enough to show off a charming cowlick, his eyes are rarely without a soft twinkle.
The gang love to tease him about the tweed suits and bowties he sometimes wears. These are playful affectations and eccentricities he delights in. But he’s also, apparently, brilliant in his field and much loved by his students. It’s not difficult for Jayne to imagine. Toby is far from her type as a partner, but she’s always felt herself slightly softened and quietly charmed by him.
“I thought he’d be good with Alfie, too. I never considered that he might not be, but he struggles.” Ruth feels safe sharing this much, a fraction of her burden. “I don’t think they’ve bonded very well, but that’s probably my fault because I don’t trust him to do a lot of stuff with Alfie. But I think it’s not uncommon for men not to bond with small babies. I’ve read quite a lot about it. When Alfie’s big enough for Toby to do stuff with him I’m sure it’ll be different.”
She stops abruptly, afraid that she’s talking too much and too fast. She does that sometimes. She turns back to her peeling, hoping she’s shared enough to prevent Jayne from prying further, afraid that if Jayne pushes her, she’ll spill everything.
From upstairs, the sound of the shower ceases. Emily will be down soon, Jayne thinks. She lowers her voice.
“Emily’s so freaked out about the letter that she was trying tohead down to the farmhouse even though she was freezing out there, actually shaking from cold. Can you help me reassure her?”
“I don’t know how.” The words are out of Ruth’s mouth before she can stop them, and she regrets them instantly. She doesn’t want Jayne to know how scared she feels. “Will you find a pan and fill it with water for me?” she asks. “A big one.” She halves a peeled potato. The knife thumps onto the board and the pieces scatter, one falling onto the floor.
“Fuck!” Ruth says. She seals her lips and shuts her eyes. That was an overreaction. When she opens her eyes again Jayne is looking at her with concern.
“Ruth—” Jayne says.
“No! Look! I’m fine. I just want to get this done.”
“We can do it later.”
“I want to get it done now. I’ll reheat it later.”
And it’ll go to mush, Jayne thinks, but says nothing. She’s never seen Ruth as agitated as this.
She touches Ruth’s arm gently and Ruth drops the knife as if burned. It clatters on the kitchen surface. Her self-control fishtails. She’s strongly tempted to share everything she fears with Jayne, and there is so much more that frightens her than the letter.
But she can’t. Why is she even considering it? Is she unraveling because she’s so far away from home? Or because the letter, hoax or not, feels as if it’s bringing everything to a head?
The truth is that Ruth has been feeling crazy lately, and she can’t admit it. It’s mortifying. And it’s a secret she’s been keeping for long enough that it feels impossible to share. She’s afraid that if she does, she might find her life is too shattered to put back together.
She has a powerful urge to get out of here, to return to her normal life, where she feels less exposed, where it’s easier to distract herself from what she’s afraid of.
“I wish you’d got a signal,” she says to Jayne. “You know, maybe I’ll wander down the track to the farm myself. It would be nice tobe reassured, don’t you think? I’d like to hear Toby’s voice and to check in with my mum.”
This seems like a terrific idea to Ruth, suddenly. She’ll be the one to brave the weather and put all their fears to rest. The thought of being a sort of savior for their little group appeals to the dormant teacher’s pet in her.
But her thoughts immediately turn negative. What if she manages to call Toby but he doesn’t answer his phone and the other men do? Or what if her mother doesn’t pick up? It would be unbearable.
