The gesture was so easy that it nearly moved her to tears.
Yet their growing affection did not erase the difficult questions.
Ruth still found herself uncertain about Anne’s place in the household. She wanted to respect the dead woman’s memory, but she did not want every decision to be governed by what Anne might have done.
Jonah, meanwhile, was learning that love required more than protecting someone from hardship. It required trusting her to face hardship beside him.
Their first serious disagreement came over the bedroom.
Ruth wanted to move the photograph of Anne from the bedside table to the upstairs landing, where Clara could see it whenever she wished. Jonah thought the photograph should remain in the bedroom, where it had always been.
“I’m not asking you to put it away,” Ruth said one evening. “I only think it belongs somewhere that is part of the whole house.”
“It has always been here.”
“I understand that.”
“Clara knows where it is.”
“She can still see it on the landing.”
Jonah’s expression grew guarded.
“Why does it trouble you?”
Ruth put down her sewing.
“It does not trouble me that Anne existed. It troubles me that I feel I must ask permission to breathe in this room.”
He stared at her.
“That isn’t what I intend.”
“I know. But it is what I sometimes feel.”
He sat at the edge of the bed, rubbing his hands together.
“Anne chose that table. She put the photograph there herself.”
“I know.”
“She liked to see it when she woke.”
Ruth felt a pang of sympathy. She could imagine the young woman, perhaps pregnant with Clara, arranging the room and setting the photograph where the morning light would fall upon it.
“I’m not trying to erase that,” she said.
Jonah’s shoulders eased slightly.
“Then perhaps it should stay.”
Ruth nodded, though disappointment crossed her face.
He noticed.
“Ruth.”
“Yes?”
“What would you like in this room?”
She looked at him, surprised.
“What do you mean?”
“What would make it feel like yours, too?”
She glanced around. The bed, the dresser, the photograph, the curtains, the small table—all had belonged to Anne and Jonah. Even the faded blue quilt had been sewn by Anne’s mother.
“I would like a shelf for my books,” Ruth said slowly. “And perhaps a small writing desk near the window.”
Jonah considered this.
“We can make a desk.”
“And I would like to hang the blue curtains I brought from Boston.”
“The ones with the little white flowers?”
“Yes.”
“I remember.”
Ruth smiled faintly.