Page 76 of Summer Longing
“We have nothing to hide. What are you afraid of?”
“Where will they send Mira while we’re going through thisprocess?Foster care. What if we never get her back?” Her voice was shrill.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Fern said.
“I don’t know! Once we get a government agency involved, it’s out of our hands. There’s no turning back.”
“Elise, that’s life. We can’t control everything, and we certainly can’t keep on pretending we’re in a legitimate adoption process just to avoid the emotional messiness of the real thing. Enough is enough.”
Elise shook her head. “I’m not willing to lose another baby.”
They locked eyes, neither one blinking. Fern finally looked away. “Well, I can’t be a part of this anymore. I want a child as much as you do. But not like this.”
“Don’t give me that ‘I want a child as much as you do’ crap,” Elise said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that when we found out I couldn’t carry a child, you could have stepped in and tried. But you refused. You said you’d never wanted to experience pregnancy, that wasn’t part of the deal, and it was just over for you.”
Fern jumped up, walked to the closet, started throwing clothes into a duffel bag.
“Where are you going?” Elise said.
“I’m moving back into the room above the tea shop.”
“You mean for the night?”
Fern shook her head sadly. “I think you know the answer to that, Elise.”
Ruth could not sleep.
An hour earlier, she’d heard Ben climbing the stairs to the third floor. She lay in her bed, picturing him in that room, under the sloped ceiling, next to the books and candles she’d bought for Olivia’s arrival. Never had she imagined this situation.
She tried not to think about their reunion in the living room, the strong response she’d felt to his touch. She tried to take Dr. Bellow’s advice about handling a troubling thought: Accept it but let it drift away and don’t give it too much weight. Dr. Bellow attempted to teach her mindfulness, just existing in the moment, not thinking about the past or the future. Ruth was terrible at it. “Remember, you control your thoughts, your thoughts do not control you,” she’d said.
Really? Because at the moment, she felt her thoughts had her on a short leash.
You are not still in love with your ex-husband,she told herself. She repeated the mantra again and again, turning restlessly until she gave up on sleep and headed downstairs.
The entire house was quiet. She lingered for a minute outside of Olivia’s door, listening for any sign that she was still awake. The room was silent, but she suspected if she opened the door, she would see the glow of her iPhone. Although lately, Olivia seemed to be a little less glued to it.
Ruth drifted into the kitchen and opened the cabinets looking for the tins of Fern and Elise’s loose-leaf tea. She found one labeledSLEEP BLEND; the ingredients were chamomile, passionflower, and lavender. Now she just had to locate that metal ball that worked as a reusable tea bag, a device Elise called a tea infuser.
She opened and closed drawers but came up empty.
“Can I help you find something?”
She looked up and saw Elise standing in the doorway, wearing a red-and-white-plaid robe. Her hair was in a messy ponytail, and even though her eyes were hidden behind glasses, Ruth could see they were red and puffy. “Um, the tea infuser.”
“I think it’s in the dishwasher.”
Ruth checked the utensil tray in the dishwasher and found it. “Thanks,” she said. “Want some tea?”
“I need something a little stronger,” Elise said, opening a cabinet and pulling out a bottle of Maker’s Mark. She poured a glass and drank most of it standing at the counter. “Thanks, by the way, for the soap. I used it for Mira’s bath tonight.”
“My pleasure. I was thinking…”
Elise started to cry. She turned away from Ruth, put both hands on the counter, her shoulders shaking with sobs. Concerned, unsure what to do, Ruth crossed the room to stand behind her. She placed a hand gently on her shoulder.
