Careful not to wake her husband, Ruth slipped out of bed and tucked the covers around him. She dipped her hand into the nightstand drawer where she stored the study guide. Just because she was waiting to share her plans with her in-laws didn’t mean she couldn’t prepare. After all, she had 399 more hours to go. At least. Flashlight in hand, Ruth snuggled onto the window seat and flipped through the study guide.
When the sun rose, so did Asher. He propped himself up on one elbow and beamed at her. That gaze sent pleasurable shivers up her spine. Ruth was overwhelmed, overcome. She never wanted to disappoint him—she couldn’t imagine a day when she’d tire of his admiration. He crooked his finger and Ruth hurried back to bed.
She could wait just a little longer to chisel down her 399 hours.
Later that morning, Ruth sat outside on the front steps. The sun was shining through high, white clouds, and crisp air swirled around her as she balanced a sealed Tupperware container on her knees. She looked up to the sky, closed her eyes, and let the sun spread its warmth over her. In a few minutes, her new friends would be here to pick her up.
She plucked a leaf that had escaped the lawn cleanup from the boxwood. She tucked it into her pocketbook and vowed to press it inside one of her thickest novels, a memento from her first autumn as a married woman.
She fiddled with the Tupperware container on her lap, which Shirley had carefully packed herself after Ruth told her that Irene had invited the girls on a picnic this morning. “Irene said not to bring anything.”
“Of course she did. That’s what she’s supposed to say.”
Shirley pulled an in-case-of-emergency tinfoil-wrapped apple cake from the freezer and set it on the counter to thaw. An hour later, she sliced up half of it and set the pieces into the milky white rectangle that now sat on Ruth’s lap, rescuing her from housewife humiliation.
When a dark-green sedan drove up the street and idled in front, Ruth leaned forward and waved. Irene waved back from the driver’s seat. As Ruth stood, her stomach flipped with nerves. The unexpected emotion gave her pause. Did she care whether these women liked and accepted her? Yes, yes, she did. Until now, she hadn’t looked for approval from anyone. The realization that she wanted it threw her.
A child’s hand waved from the backseat window of the car. That hand was attached to Irene’s youngest—Harry or Hedy, something with an H and Y, or was it a T? Ruth should have paid better attention, like she normally did.
The short brown curls she could see from her vantage point on the steps gave no clue as to whether they belonged to a boy or girl. Her gut didn’t tell her, or even hint. Ruth didn’t mind children, but she was partial to adults. She trusted a maternal instinct would surface when she needed one.
She hoped so. She didn’t have a mother, but weren’t these things a given? Didn’t every woman want a child of her own?
Whoever that little person was, bouncing in the back seat, he or she was joining the picnic. Perhaps Ruth, Harriet, and Carrie were the interlopers. However it happened, she had been delighted to be included in the outing—it proved she was trying. She’d maximize this chance to get to know the Diamond Girls plus one.
Ruth slid into the front seat of the sedan and closed the door with a thud. She drummed the Tupperware lid. “Apple cake. Enough for us all, courtesy of my mother-in-law.”
“Carrie’s not joining us, so we’ll have more than enough. I figured you’d bring something.”
Shirley had been right. Irene had expected Ruth to bring something, and Ruth herself hadn’t known. She had so much to learn. That’s what she disliked about beginnings—they could be awkward as heck. She would have to jump in and get over that part quickly. Ruth turned around and waved. The toddler waved back.
“Well, hello there. I’m Ruth.”
“Say hello, Heidi.” Irene peered into the rearview mirror. The child said nothing. “Sit back, darling, here we go.”
Ruth whirled to the front as the car moved forward. Heidi. “Thanks for thinking of this,” Ruth said. “And for making it happen.”
Irene chuckled. “Stephen knows I can’t be cooped up in the house all week, so sometimes his brother picks him up on the way to work and then I have the car. That way he knows I’ll also go to the supermarket and run all the errands. I was out at Penn Fruit as soon as the other kids were off to school.”
Ruth’s in-laws had given Asher a car for college graduation, but since he went to work with his dad every day, he left his car at home for his mother to drive. Growing up in New York, with its excellent mass transit, Ruth rarely needed to drive and, while she could, she never was that comfortable with it. Walking or riding buses was easy in Wynnefield, but she really should drive more often to get comfortable with operating the car, and to improve her skills.
She made a mental note. Though it still wouldn’t have occurred to her to ask the girls to a picnic.
“It’s thoughtful of him to leave you the car.”
“Not really.” Irene’s tone was more matter-of-fact than malicious. “Then I don’t make him babysit on Saturday and I can run errands all by myself.”
“Oh.” How different were their lives! Ruth had so much to get used to. What would the rules be for a working woman lawyer when she and Asher had kids? Would she be able to relate to these women and their household errands then?
Irene stopped the car in front of a large stone duplex and beeped the horn. “Today was selfish of me. I like to get the baby out in the fresh air in the fall, and I thought it would be a good way for us all to chat in a more casual setting. You know, no big house and fancy-pants rules.”
Harriet emerged from the front door.
“Although I think she likes those,” Irene said.
Harriet bopped down the steps, toward the car, and right into the back seat. “Hi, girls, and hello to you, little lady,” she chirped, addressing Heidi, who bounced in reply. Ruth hadn’t elicited that kind of reaction.
“So, what did you ladies bring?” Harriet said. “I brought the fall fruit salad from Ladies’ Home Journal. Are we picking up Carrie next?”
Irene shook her head. “Said something about a pot roast in the oven and that there will be other chances to get together and have some fun.”
Pot roast? Ruth had had coffee with Carrie yesterday and she hadn’t mentioned she wouldn’t be coming on the picnic. Ruth felt a modicum of disappointment. Maybe they weren’t as close as she’d assumed.
Minutes after they arrived at the park, Irene covered the picnic table with a red-and-white gingham cloth and set out a stack of egg-salad sandwiches on rye, wrapped in waxed paper. Pickles, coleslaw, a can of chips, chocolate chip cookies, Harriet’s fruit salad, Ruth’s apple cake, and a thermos accompanied them. Irene draped towels on the attached benches, placed silverware into one empty coffee can and matching gingham napkins in another, then unwrapped red flowers—marigolds, maybe? Ruth was not a flower expert. Harriet arranged the blooms in a small mason jar. Anyone who passed by would have thought the girls were throwing a party, not a picnic. A week ago, she would have found this silly; today she found it charming.
When Ruth was a child, her father had joined her for tea parties as readily as chess matches. Would he have considered his time with Ruth to be babysitting if her mother had lived? She had no idea how involved her father had been as a parent while her mother had been alive. Had he regarded his time with her brothers as a chore? Ruth couldn’t fathom it. All she knew was that her father tended to all the siblings’ needs. She missed the idea of a mother more than she missed a mother she didn’t remember. But watching Irene with Heidi, Ruth wondered what picnics would have been like with her mother and what kind of a picnic she would have with her own children one day.