Page 86 of Summer Longing
When it became clear he was not going to respond, she turned her attention back to her stalks. Ben continued to sit there. His presence was a bit disconcerting, but, well, she’d welcomed him as a guest.
She was acutely aware of him watching her work.
“Fine,” he said finally. “I’ll admit it would have been difficult for me to come out here.”
“Because you stopped writing.”
“Yes,” he said, an edge to his voice. “Because I stopped writing.”
She knew it. “So why did you just walk away from writing? I never asked you to give it up.”
“You didn’t have to,” he said. “It was one thing to spend my time trying to become a playwright when it was just me…out here…living on the arts council’s grant. Or even when I was at school, where it seemed a noble pursuit compared to my friends getting wasted at parties. But once I was about to head out into the real world and try to make a life with you, it stopped making sense.”
“There was room for both.”
“Was there? Ruth, I was with you when your father lost all his money. I saw what it did to you and your mother. I had no desire to spend years, maybe decades, as a starving artist. And I certainly had no intention of asking you to marry one.”
The weight of his words felt crushing to her. She shook her head, wanting to go back in time, to have this conversation thirty-five years earlier. “You never said any of this to me. If you’d said this at the time—”
“You would have panicked.”
“That’s not true!”
“Ruth, it’s easy for you to say that now; you’re a woman with total financial security. But think back to where we were. You didn’t even have a college degree.”
It was true.
“No wonder you resented me,” she said quietly.
He shook his head. “I never blamed you. But yes, it was hard at times to see you living your dream when I’d given up my own.”
“I encouraged you to go back to writing! Olivia couldn’t have been older than eight or nine when I suggested that to you. There was plenty of time.”
“Ruth, I devoted years and years and spent a small fortune on medical school to establish myself as a physician. You don’t just walk away from that to chase a dream you had when you were a teenager.”
She didn’t agree. But what was the point of debating it now? Still, she felt a terrible, creeping sense of regret. Yes, she’d always known he’d resented her career. But she’d blamed him for his own circumstances, figuring he hadn’t had the nerve to go for it as a writer. Now, hearing him articulate exactly why he’d given it up and realizing that so much of it had been because of her, she felt as if someone had just given her the news of a death.
“I wish…” She wished what? What would she have done differently?
“Ruth,” he said. “It’s not worth getting into all this. I’ve been very blessed in life. I have no complaints.”
He’s letting me off the hook,she thought. Ben, who still, after all this time, knew her as well as anyone, must have read the distress on her face.
“And again, I appreciate you letting me stay here. But I’ll be out of your way by Friday.”
Friday? That was only two days away. “Is Olivia leaving too?”
“That’s the plan.”
“It seems so sudden. You don’t have to rush off.”
“Rush off? I’ve been out here almost a week.”
“So? What’s the point of being retired if you can’t spend time at the beach?”
He smiled. “Ruth. You can visit her in New York. I’m sure that window is a little more open now.”
Ruth sighed. “I’m just afraid it won’t be the same. I shouldn’t fuss—I’ve had some time with her. But of course, it’s never enough.”And I won’t see you.
