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She smiled stiffly and even took a sip of her drink, the bubbles buzzing on her tongue. “Louisa, I told you before that I didn’t love Jed,” she said firmly, setting her glass down. “You might fancy I do because I was a bit cold after Christmas, but I can tell you it wasn’t that. The truth is, I thought the island and all of its residents were, well, mine. I didn’t want to share them with anyone—you know well enough I was reluctant to have you come that first summer. Childish jealousy, I know, but there it is.” Ellen shrugged, and Louisa looked both uncertain and relieved. Ellen knew it was better for everyone to believe she’d never loved Jed, or even imagined herself in love with him. If only it could have been a childish flight of fancy instead of this consuming ache.
“I am glad to hear it, Ellen. I would hate to think you were pining.”
“Certainly not,” Ellen replied with the barest of smiles. “I have never pined in my life.”
“You will come to our wedding, then?” she asked with a little smile. “Although Jed must ask first, as you know!”
“Of course I will.”
Ellen occupied herself by taking another sip of her drink, and then instantly regretted it. The bubbles were too much, and went right up her nose.
“And what will you do?” Louisa asked. “Go back to nursing school, I suppose? Will you stay at the hospital there after you graduate?”
The picture Louisa painted, which Ellen had already imagined far too many times, was as bleak as ever. Spend the rest of her life at KGH? She could not. Yet she did not know what other choices she had.
“I don’t know what I shall do,” she said. “I shall have to wait and see.” She thought of Ruth, waiting to die, and Hamish’s store, perhaps already becoming a thing of the past, and she wondered if anyone’s future was certain, even Louisa’s, waiting as she was for a marriage proposal that had yet to come.
SIX
As July moved into August, the fields turned dry and brown under a blazing sun and Ruth’s health continued to worsen. Ellen and Hamish took turns sitting by her bed, bathing her wasted, feverish skin, trying to get her to take a little broth, although it barely wetted her lips before she turned her face away.
One evening as twilight began to settle over the fields, Ellen sat by Ruth’s bed while the older woman slept. In sleep, Ruth’s face was relaxed instead of taut with pain, her chest barely rising with each labored breath.
Ellen breathed in the smell of cut grass from the open window. She heard a child run with a hoop down the street, the tinkling laughter floating up to the room like the sound of bells. As dusk deepened, the sound of crickets began in earnest, a chorus that could become deafening in the middle of the night.
Ellen smiled in bittersweet memory of when she and Da had first arrived in Seaton. She’d never heard such a ruckus before, and had slept with a pillow over her head those first few weeks, as had Da.
Until he left. Ellen’s smile faltered slightly as she thought of her father. The letters from New Mexico had been less and less frequent; she had not one all year. It was hard to remember his face, his Scottish burr. It was hard to remember Mam as well.
“Ellen.”
Ellen started in surprise. Ruth had wakened, and was looking up at her with a faint smile.
“I’m glad to see you’re awake.” She smiled back. “Will you take some broth?”
“No, I’m not hungry.”
“You need to keep your strength up—”
“No, I don’t.” Ruth smiled again, and even in her wasted condition her face looked, for a moment, quite beautiful. “At some point, Ellen, there’s no need for that anymore.”
Ellen paused, swallowed. “Is there anything I can get you?”
“Yes, there is.” Ruth’s hand reached for Ellen’s own. “Your sketchbook.” Ellen stared, speechless. “You didn’t think I knew, did you? Hamish told me.” Each word was drawn out slowly, with effort. “He showed me the drawing you’d done of me. It was like looking in a mirror, only better. You saw me as I didn’t even see myself. Didn’t even know I could.” This speech caused Ruth to close her eyes, a sheen of sweat on her forehead.
“Sometimes I don’t know what I’m going to draw,” Ellen confessed quietly, “or why. I hope it didn’t offend you—”
“It amazed me.” Ruth opened her eyes. “I’d like to see your other sketches,” she said, “if you’ll show me.”
Ellen nodded. This was the last thing she’d expected, yet it was a request she could not deny. She’d brought her sketchbooks to Seaton, though she had not opened them. She had not touched them in months. She went quickly to her room. There was a pile of them now, in her trunk, and after a second’s hesitation Ellen took the ones from her first years in Seaton.
“I haven’t drawn much of anything in this last year,” she confessed. “I’ve been too busy.”
“That’s just as well. I have enough to catch up on.”
Ellen helped Ruth sit up a bit in bed, propped by pillows. She was amazed at how fragile Ruth had become; it was as if her bones were hollow.
With trembling hands Ruth began to turn the pages. She studied each sketch carefully—the ones of the robin on the tree outside Ellen’s window, the rows of sweet jars in the store, the brook encased in winter ice.
