closely at her. Everything all right, darling? Peter’s been all right?
Yes, yes! she said, surprised.
Did she look unwell? she wondered. Did Peter?
We’re fine, she said. See you tonight?
He blew her a kiss, but then he was gone before she could say more.
• • •
Ruth loved listening to the boys’ choir at Derry, though she had to fight back tears when they sang “Soldier’s Hallelujah” or “Once in Royal David’s City” or even “Polly Wolly Doodle.” She knew it was idiotic, weeping over “Polly Wolly Doodle” or “Jim Along Josie,” but she couldn’t help it. Tonight they would sing the school song after Peter’s address. That, too, might unmoor her. It had been a day of feeling unmoored.
There had been so much to love about their lives at Derry. And now it felt as if it was slipping from their grasp.
For many years she’d worked shifts at the school’s tutoring center, where her enthusiasm for grammar and punctuation had helped buoy her spirits during sessions with glum boys and their awful essays about Petrarch or their pets or global warming. She brought chocolate chip cookies on the afternoons she worked.
The cookies went some distance toward cheering up the recalcitrant.
Her favorite job over the years had been working in the school’s infirmary, a duty that made her feel competent and kindly and brought out a fussy, bossy Florence Nightingale streak in her. She liked bustling around, fixing glasses of ginger ale with bent straws, cutting the crusts off toast triangles, tucking a flower or two into a vase on a tray. It had not been difficult for her to be patient with boys who were sick. She played gin rummy or Russian Bank with them, read to them for hours from
Treasure Island
or from Sherlock Holmes. She took temperatures, chattering away cheerfully while the boys held the thermometers in their mouths, lips closed, eyes on her face. Itwas funny, she thought, how her habitual shyness disappeared at those times.
Over the years she had often been asked to take the night shift at the infirmary, when they were short-staffed. She never minded the hours sitting in the moonlight in a chair in a boy’s room, watching him sleep. Sometimes she dozed, her chin on her chest, but mostly she found herself wakeful, gazing for so long at a boy’s features as he slept that his face seemed to pass through a thousand expressions as she watched, his eyelids moving, his lips opening and closing, a fist coming up to brush an ear or graze a cheek.
The infirmary’s west windows looked out over the lake. If the night was warm, she opened the window and listened to the water, the chorus of frogs, the little lapping sounds against the shore, or, if the dam was overflowing, the steady sound of water going over the sluice. These were times of absolute peace for her. There was nothing else she ought to be doing, nowhere else more necessary for her to be. Somewhere, she knew, other people were doing more important things, but when the moonlight fell into the room, she felt herself and the sleeping child joined together in a powerful embrace, and she watched over her charge as if guarding a prince.
At those times she felt, she imagined, some measure of what it might have been like to love a child of her own.
She did not leave the boy, whoever she was watching, until his eyes opened in the morning.
Then she’d smile and stand up, smoothing down her skirt.
Welcome back, she’d say.
• • •
She’d always liked listening to Peter’s speech on the first night of the year. She had never grown immune to the cheering nature of his remarks, the sense he conveyed to the boys that they were beginning—that the whole community was beginning together—a great adventure. Yet now as she left the dining hall, the open doors of the main building ahead of her and a glimpse of the night sky through them, she felt desperate to get outside.
This day could not end quickly enough, she thought.
She stepped outside
Yes, yes! she said, surprised.
Did she look unwell? she wondered. Did Peter?
We’re fine, she said. See you tonight?
He blew her a kiss, but then he was gone before she could say more.
• • •
Ruth loved listening to the boys’ choir at Derry, though she had to fight back tears when they sang “Soldier’s Hallelujah” or “Once in Royal David’s City” or even “Polly Wolly Doodle.” She knew it was idiotic, weeping over “Polly Wolly Doodle” or “Jim Along Josie,” but she couldn’t help it. Tonight they would sing the school song after Peter’s address. That, too, might unmoor her. It had been a day of feeling unmoored.
There had been so much to love about their lives at Derry. And now it felt as if it was slipping from their grasp.
For many years she’d worked shifts at the school’s tutoring center, where her enthusiasm for grammar and punctuation had helped buoy her spirits during sessions with glum boys and their awful essays about Petrarch or their pets or global warming. She brought chocolate chip cookies on the afternoons she worked.
The cookies went some distance toward cheering up the recalcitrant.
Her favorite job over the years had been working in the school’s infirmary, a duty that made her feel competent and kindly and brought out a fussy, bossy Florence Nightingale streak in her. She liked bustling around, fixing glasses of ginger ale with bent straws, cutting the crusts off toast triangles, tucking a flower or two into a vase on a tray. It had not been difficult for her to be patient with boys who were sick. She played gin rummy or Russian Bank with them, read to them for hours from
Treasure Island
or from Sherlock Holmes. She took temperatures, chattering away cheerfully while the boys held the thermometers in their mouths, lips closed, eyes on her face. Itwas funny, she thought, how her habitual shyness disappeared at those times.
Over the years she had often been asked to take the night shift at the infirmary, when they were short-staffed. She never minded the hours sitting in the moonlight in a chair in a boy’s room, watching him sleep. Sometimes she dozed, her chin on her chest, but mostly she found herself wakeful, gazing for so long at a boy’s features as he slept that his face seemed to pass through a thousand expressions as she watched, his eyelids moving, his lips opening and closing, a fist coming up to brush an ear or graze a cheek.
The infirmary’s west windows looked out over the lake. If the night was warm, she opened the window and listened to the water, the chorus of frogs, the little lapping sounds against the shore, or, if the dam was overflowing, the steady sound of water going over the sluice. These were times of absolute peace for her. There was nothing else she ought to be doing, nowhere else more necessary for her to be. Somewhere, she knew, other people were doing more important things, but when the moonlight fell into the room, she felt herself and the sleeping child joined together in a powerful embrace, and she watched over her charge as if guarding a prince.
At those times she felt, she imagined, some measure of what it might have been like to love a child of her own.
She did not leave the boy, whoever she was watching, until his eyes opened in the morning.
Then she’d smile and stand up, smoothing down her skirt.
Welcome back, she’d say.
• • •
She’d always liked listening to Peter’s speech on the first night of the year. She had never grown immune to the cheering nature of his remarks, the sense he conveyed to the boys that they were beginning—that the whole community was beginning together—a great adventure. Yet now as she left the dining hall, the open doors of the main building ahead of her and a glimpse of the night sky through them, she felt desperate to get outside.
This day could not end quickly enough, she thought.
She stepped outside
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