Harry & Ruth by Howard Owen Page B

right, wondering if it was just a phase.
    Ruth was just starting out with the diner, and between that and the usual uproar of life with Henry Flood, she knew that she had sometimes taken capable Naomi for granted.
    Then came the Olympics, and then college out West, and Naomi was gone permanently. And then Hank’s problems caught Ruth like a thunderstorm out of a clear blue sky.
    â€œHarry,” Ruth wrote in early 1963, “there are times I think there will never be a moment when I can just sit back in my easy chair, take a deep breath, and say ‘Everything’s safe. Everybody’s all right. Nothing is wrong. There is nothing to worry about.’ Nothing is safe. Hardly anybody seems all right, and everything is wrong. There is everything in the world to worry about.”
    It was about as close as she came to visible despair, and she closed the letter with an apology and a promise that she would be in better spirits the next time she wrote. And she was, ready again to fight nature and bad luck.
    Harry and his sister sit up late, by his standards. Artie has gone to bed. Harry is leaving in the morning, and he supposes his brother-in-law—old golfing buddy, winking co-conspirator against “the girls,” excellent dirty-joke teller Artie—knows he and Freda would like to be alone for a while.
    They chit-chat for a few minutes, the TV turned down low. Harry is back in the seat of honor, the one in which he slept so well in the pre-dawn. Freda, who walks three miles a day, sits up straight in a wing chair 10 feet away, facing him.
    â€œSo,” Freda says, at last, “have you seen Gloria?”
    He tells her of his last visit.
    â€œShe was a good girl,” Freda says. “But you were a good boy, too, Harry.”
    â€œThank God for little sisters,” is all he can think to say, and suddenly they’re both crying.
    They talk some more, about their children, about Ruth, about the place in Safe Harbor. Freda asks him, in a low, conspiratorial voice, how he’s doing, really.
    â€œI’m hanging in there,” he tells her, unwilling to either lead her on with false promises or fall on the floor, hug his knees with his arms and moan, “I’m dying, Freda. I’m dying!” Better for all concerned, he feels, to be “hanging in there.”
    Too soon, it is after midnight.
    â€œWell,” Harry says, trying to rise, “I guess I’d better get to bed.”
    â€œYou’ve got a big day tomorrow,” Freda says, helping him up. There is something in her voice like doubt, perhaps about Harry Stein’s ability to weather a big day.
    He shuffles off to bed, then lies there in sleepless pain, wondering why they didn’t just stay up all night, talking about the good times.

TEN
    â€œI guess,” he wrote, “that I’m going to have to come down there and marry you myself, just to save you. Give me a week to take care of the divorce.”
    â€œHarry,” Ruth wrote back, “don’t even joke about something like that. I am not going to be a homewrecker. And besides, I’ve already got a fella, haven’t I?”
    That was in April of 1947. Three months later, after a letter in which Harry presumed to advise her against marrying the young war veteran to whom she had become engaged, she put her foot down.
    â€œYou seem to believe only what you want to believe,” she wrote. “Well, believe this, Harry Stein. I am going to marry Henry Bullock Flood on the eighth of September, in the living room of my grandmother’s house, in Saraw, North Carolina. He is a fine man. He is the most courageous man I have ever known. He will be a good husband and a good father. I’m sorry, Harry, but it is time for strong words.”
    Ruth had become somewhat exasperated with Harry Stein. She had put from her mind any thoughts of his ever returning, no matter how much he hinted of it. She knew she loved him, but she was