Page 29 of Bluebell Tides

Over the next few years, as Sloane graduated from preschool to kindergarten to a prestigious elementary school on the Upper West Side, Ruth watched as first Kelly, then Reese, and then Dina fell in love and married other members of Manhattan's elite. Ruth was there for them for each milestone: carrying bouquets down wedding aisles and toasting champagne.

Sloane was, of course, the flower girl for all of their weddings, and she danced as long as she could at each reception before she fell asleep in a hotel room upstairs. Privately, Sloane cried each time, asking Ruth if she would still see her aunts after they got married. Ruth wasn’t sure what made Sloane so frightened of being abandoned. Ruth had never left her, not even for a single night.

“Your aunts will always love you,” Ruth told Sloane, rubbing her back.

One after another, Ruth’s friends had their first babies, then second babies. While Dina announced she was done after two, Kelly and Reese had three.

Meanwhile, Ruth’s professional career grew increasingly overwhelming, so much so that she had to hire a nanny to help with Sloane some days. Because Sloane quickly became an overachiever at elementary school and in her various sports and music clubs, she was maybe too occupied to notice how busy her own mother was.

Weekends were usually theirs to share—either with just the two of them or with Kelly, Dina, Reese, and their children. But as Sloane grew older and even more involved, and as Ruth changed careers from publishing to journalism, their time together became less frequent, so much so that sometimes, when they sat together for dinner, Ruth peered across the kitchen table and wondered if this teenage girl was a stranger.

Maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Sloane still looked remarkably like Quentin. That had never let up. Some features hinted at Ruth’s face, but not many.

It wasn’t till Sloane was fourteen that she asked Ruth about her father. Ruth often wondered what had taken her so long. She guessed that Sloane, in her way, had deduced that Ruth didn’t want to talk about it. Sloane was exceptionally intelligent, after all.

They were at the dinner table, digging into tacos from the local stand. Sloane’s question dangled over Ruth, and her enormous eyes were watchful. Ruth had to think quickly.

“I was very young when I got pregnant with you,” Ruth said finally, wiping her fingers on a napkin. “Your father was young, too. We didn’t know what we were doing. We certainly didn’t know how to stay in love with one another.”

Sloane’s eyes twinkled. “You loved him? He loved you?”

“Yes,” Ruth said. It was the simplest answer in the world because it was the truth.

Sloane leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “And he loved you?”

“He did,” Ruth said.

“Who broke up with whom?” Sloane asked, her voice warbling. It was clear she’d had these questions ready for a long time.

“I don’t remember,” Ruth said. “But he wasn’t ready to be a father.”

“He left when he found out?” Sloane asked.

This seemed a simple answer, so Ruth nodded.

A year after that conversation, Sloane asked for her father’s name. “I want to be able to reach out to him,” she explained, leaning over the table, her brow furrowed. “I want to be able to ask him…”

But Ruth didn’t let her finish. “Honey, we’ve been through so much together, you and me. I raised you just off Yale’s campus. You slept in your crib while I studied for endless exams and wrote papers. You were just a little thing when I walked across the stage at my graduation. We’ve never needed anyone else. Okay?”

Sloane’s cheek twitched. She didn’t say anything.

The following evening, Ruth met Dina, Reese, and Kelly for dinner. Over a first round of cocktails, Ruth told them about Sloane’s questions. To her surprise, all of her friends supported her telling Sloane about her father’s identity.

“She’s a great kid,” Dina said. “She has no plans to leave you, or betray you, or make you feel unloved. She just wants to put together the pieces of her own past.”

Ruth closed her eyes and tried to swallow down her anger. How dare her friends say this? She reasoned that they were all married to men, which meant that they had more empathy for men and what they went through. But Ruth didn’t want to extend any empathy to Quentin Caldweck nor any of the Caldwecks. She and Sloane were fighters. They didn’t need anyone.

Later during dinner, Kelly suggested that Ruth go on a date with one of her coworkers, a guy around their age who was divorced and an obsessive reader. Ruth dismissed the idea altogether, and Kelly huffed and said, “Are you going to punish yourself forever? Are you going to punish Sloane forever?”

Ruth blinked at Kelly, then at her other friends, realizing they’d all spoken about this at length and concluded she was in the wrong. She stood, paid her bill privately, and left the restaurant. All night, she shook in bed, unable to sleep.

Within the week, Kelly, Dina, and Reese all called separately to apologize to her for what they’d said and done. But Ruth was emotionally injured. Her friends thought she was broken. Maybe she was.

She accepted fewer and fewer of their invitations. She didn’t want to face them despite the love she still had for them in her heart.

Time sped up. Sloane grew older. She made friends. Ruth put her nose to the grindstone and married her work.

Then, all at once, it was spring of 2022, and Sloane Landers was eighteen and ready to graduate from high school. Because Sloane requested it and because Ruth owed them for the first several years of her daughter’s life, Ruth invited Dina, Kelly, and Reese to a little party at her apartment. They came, bringing their children and plenty of gifts, and for a little while, Ruth laughed and recounted old stories with her friends. Throughout, Sloane sat on the opposite end of the table, cackling with her high school friends.