“Hi, Ruth . . . You seem to be unable to find the doorbell. What can I do for you?”
“Oh, sorry. I’m too upset. I know I was here a few hours ago, but I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
“Come in.” Lillian kept her smile graceful as Ruth stepped inside.
Hearty and spicy dinner aromas mingled with the smell of bleach, and both followed Sunny out of the kitchen door and into the dining room. Lillian motioned for Ruth to sit.
“Would you like some coffee or tea, Mrs. Appelbaum?” If Sunny had been perturbed by the loud door pounding, she gave no sign of it.
“Tea would be lovely, thank you,” Ruth replied at the same time that Lillian said, “That’s not necessary.”
Lillian tapped her index finger to her lips as if to take back the words, or to soften them. Of all people, she shouldn’t be contesting an offer of hospitality. Worse, Ruth—this girl who had such confidence, such fight—looked like she’d just lost a war.
“Cream and sugar?” Sunny asked.
“Please,” Ruth said, and Sunny slipped out of the room.
“I’m sorry to bother you.” Ruth tapped her fingers on the table in a rapid patter. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Calm down and tell me what’s going on.” Lillian didn’t consider herself particularly intuitive, but the Ruth in front of her was about as subtle as a dump truck unloading its freight.
“It’s Carrie,” Ruth whispered just loud enough for Lillian to hear. “I should have spoken up earlier, as soon as I saw, but I didn’t even—I mean—I never. I said I wouldn’t tell, but now, how can I not?” Ruth’s words shot out hard and fast like BBs.
“Slow down, Ruth, I can’t follow you.”
Ruth inhaled. “Carrie has bruises on her.”
Lillian blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I touched Carrie’s hand, she flinched, and I got this weird feeling—an instinct, I guess—and I pushed up her sleeve and her wrist was bruised.”
Why had Ruth come to her with this scuttlebutt? “That doesn’t mean anything except that Carrie’s probably a klutz and was embarrassed.”
“Are you serious? She pulled her arm away. She didn’t want me to see her wrist.” Ruth’s voice rose.
“Not everyone likes to be touched, Ruth. I expect it made her uncomfortable.”
Ruth dismissed Lillian’s response. “You don’t understand. She was afraid of what I might see.”
Her mother’s long sleeves flashed into Lillian’s mind for some reason. She ignored it. “What did Carrie say about the bruise?”
“That he didn’t mean to do it.”
“He?”
“Her husband, Eli.”
“See? It was an accident.”
Sunny returned with the tea. She smiled at Ruth as she slid the china cup and saucer across the polished table. As she swiveled to leave, she raised one eyebrow at Lillian.
“You didn’t see the mark on her wrist. Or the other one.” Ruth lowered her voice to a breathy breeze, the way adults during Lillian’s childhood had whispered cancer.
“Other one?”
“That’s why she insisted on a scarf on Monday. There was a bruise on her neck. She said she walked into a cabinet door. She said it was an accident.”
“I’m sure it’s exactly what Carrie said it was.” It had to be. Nice suburban people didn’t do such things.
“Does Carrie seem like a klutz to you?”
Lillian had to shut this down. It would be terrible for Carrie and Eli if this rumor tainted their reputation. Highly unfair. After all, Eli was a vice-principal. And it wouldn’t look good for Lillian’s classes—or their community—if something like this got around, whether or not it was true, which Lillian doubted very much. Ruth was young, a newlywed, not from here. Those New York types could be excitable.
But Lillian liked Ruth. “Husbands and wives fight. Some more than others. Carrie probably took an accidental spill when it happened.”
“So it’s okay if he hurt her?”
“It’s none of our business.” What people did in their own homes was no one else’s business. Her grandmother had taught her that. She’d shut down any questions Lillian had tried to ask about what had happened to her parents. Eventually, she’d learned not to ask.
She still felt that way. Lillian surely didn’t want anyone poking around her and Peter’s marriage.
“Carrie was here today, and she was fine. She wasn’t upset. She didn’t ask for help. Where did she go after our class?”
Ruth’s shoulders slumped as she appeared to study the wood grain in the dining table, dragging a finger along the walnut. “She went home to make a brisket.”
“She went home to make dinner for her husband.” Lillian stood. “Which is what you should do, Ruth. And what I should get back to.” She looked toward the kitchen, then started for the front door. “If Carrie and her husband are going through a rough patch, the best thing you can do, if she asks, is help her figure out how to fix it. And I’d say brisket is a good start.”
Ruth walked through the door and turned back to Lillian. “How can you be so calm? Aren’t you worried?”
“About whether our dinner will overcook? Yes. About Carrie? No. And you shouldn’t be either.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because things like that don’t happen here.”
Ruth stepped onto the portico and Lillian shut the door.
After she left, Lillian turned around to find Sunny standing in the foyer with her hands on her hips, her head cocked to the side. She shook her head, picked up the teacup, and disappeared into the kitchen.
Lillian gathered her notebook and pencils from the dining room and straightened the chairs. There. No evidence the room had been used for anything other than for show, or the occasional appropriate gathering.
Peter would be home soon. Ruth sitting there, fidgeting like a child, insinuating herself into Carrie’s marriage, was the last thing Lillian wanted to explain, or lie about. She had to compose herself more after this unexpected visit. Ruth’s incredulous stare, her worried and shaky voice seemed to remain in the room. The remnants crawled over Lillian’s skin.
It was none of their business, yet there they had been, whispering about other people’s lives. Even if Carrie and her husband were having some newlywed strife, that’s all it was, nothing more. Ruth had no proof of anything. She was Shirley’s daughter-in-law, but that was no reason that Lillian should believe Ruth over Carrie.
Tink.
Clank.
Thud.
Lillian could hear Sunny setting the kitchen table, reminding her of the time. She should call the girls away from their homework, but frankly, she liked the quiet before Peter came home and dinner began. Sunny needed to catch the bus, and Lillian had kept her longer than usual today. Lillian poked her head into the kitchen.
“You can leave, Sunny,” she said, jerking her head to the side as if Sunny wouldn’t know where to find the door. She had already untied her apron and pulled it around to her front.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Sunny wrung the apron as if it had been washed and she’d been charged with removing all the water.