dizzying truth growing inside her. She was certain, at 17, that she had seen the one perfect complement leave her life on a northbound troop train. She had convinced herself, to stop the pain, that she would never, ever see Harry Stein again.
But still she wrote; she had to do something. And she did have a plan.
âI think,â she wrote that March, âwe both know that we have met the Other Half, the half that would make the sum of us better than the parts. I know your family would never forgive you. I know you would break the heart of that girl back in Richmond. I know all that, and perhaps what Iâm about to do is just my way of keeping a piece of you in my arms â¦â
Ruth wouldnât know for another three weeks, when she finally received a letter from Harry, that he and Gloria had already married. They did it quickly on Harryâs two-day pass to Richmond before his unit was shipped to Texas for desert training that would never be used.
âWhy didnât you tell me?â he wrote in that first letter to her, the one he had put off for weeks. âWe could have done something.â But he wondered what, and a small, selfish part of him hoped she would take care of this, that it would somehow, magically take care of itself. He had met a girl he might love more than any other, ever, but life was long. He would, by dint of will, get over it.
âWhy didnât you tell ME?â she wrote back, three days later. But she knew it was inevitable that Harry would marry the girl everyone expected him to. It was only a question of when.
Harry has come to believe that every life has a defining moment when a person does either what is right or what is expedient, but he wonders how many have faced such a well-marked intersection and taken such a wrong turn as he did in that dark second winter of the war.
If Ruth had told him in February that she was pregnant, would he have done the right and honorable thing? He has always wanted to believe he was not the kind of man who would have let a 17-year-old orphan in a small North Carolina town endure the pain and humiliation that logically would follow, had he known all the facts.
He knows the range of possible answers:
He might have looked for an abortionist, not an easy or safe route.
He might have, with some thought, taken her across the South Carolina state line for a quick marriage that they would have quietly ended, long distance, without Gloria or the Tannebaums or the Steins ever knowing, just to give the baby its fatherâs last name.
Less likely, he might have done the thing he thought of doing a hundred times before he and Ruth parted at the train station, the thing you could look back on at the end of a long and eventful life and say, âWhen everything mattered, everyone told me I must not do this, but I knew in my heart I should, and so I did.â That is, he might have chanced the loss of his birth family and most of his friends and become a stranger in a strange land, the Jew who married the Crowder girl after he knocked her up.
He and Ruth both know, without ever expressing it, that the Harry Stein who lived in early 1943 would either have run away or, worse, stayed with regrets.
And so you have the riddle of Harryâs life. He could have chosen one of two potentially very pleasant futures.
One would have been with the one girl he remained sure (when he was sure of little else) would complete him. He knows that, if he could only have gone off and lived his life with Ruth, braced against the scorn of his whole community back in Richmond, knowing that his parents bore the brunt of all that disapproval, it would have been a good life. He can see that now. They would have had friends, they would have had money. They would have been forgiven, in time. They would have had, even failing all that, each other.
Or he could marry Gloria, whom he had loved and liked for three years, and settle into the bosom of his family and
But still she wrote; she had to do something. And she did have a plan.
âI think,â she wrote that March, âwe both know that we have met the Other Half, the half that would make the sum of us better than the parts. I know your family would never forgive you. I know you would break the heart of that girl back in Richmond. I know all that, and perhaps what Iâm about to do is just my way of keeping a piece of you in my arms â¦â
Ruth wouldnât know for another three weeks, when she finally received a letter from Harry, that he and Gloria had already married. They did it quickly on Harryâs two-day pass to Richmond before his unit was shipped to Texas for desert training that would never be used.
âWhy didnât you tell me?â he wrote in that first letter to her, the one he had put off for weeks. âWe could have done something.â But he wondered what, and a small, selfish part of him hoped she would take care of this, that it would somehow, magically take care of itself. He had met a girl he might love more than any other, ever, but life was long. He would, by dint of will, get over it.
âWhy didnât you tell ME?â she wrote back, three days later. But she knew it was inevitable that Harry would marry the girl everyone expected him to. It was only a question of when.
Harry has come to believe that every life has a defining moment when a person does either what is right or what is expedient, but he wonders how many have faced such a well-marked intersection and taken such a wrong turn as he did in that dark second winter of the war.
If Ruth had told him in February that she was pregnant, would he have done the right and honorable thing? He has always wanted to believe he was not the kind of man who would have let a 17-year-old orphan in a small North Carolina town endure the pain and humiliation that logically would follow, had he known all the facts.
He knows the range of possible answers:
He might have looked for an abortionist, not an easy or safe route.
He might have, with some thought, taken her across the South Carolina state line for a quick marriage that they would have quietly ended, long distance, without Gloria or the Tannebaums or the Steins ever knowing, just to give the baby its fatherâs last name.
Less likely, he might have done the thing he thought of doing a hundred times before he and Ruth parted at the train station, the thing you could look back on at the end of a long and eventful life and say, âWhen everything mattered, everyone told me I must not do this, but I knew in my heart I should, and so I did.â That is, he might have chanced the loss of his birth family and most of his friends and become a stranger in a strange land, the Jew who married the Crowder girl after he knocked her up.
He and Ruth both know, without ever expressing it, that the Harry Stein who lived in early 1943 would either have run away or, worse, stayed with regrets.
And so you have the riddle of Harryâs life. He could have chosen one of two potentially very pleasant futures.
One would have been with the one girl he remained sure (when he was sure of little else) would complete him. He knows that, if he could only have gone off and lived his life with Ruth, braced against the scorn of his whole community back in Richmond, knowing that his parents bore the brunt of all that disapproval, it would have been a good life. He can see that now. They would have had friends, they would have had money. They would have been forgiven, in time. They would have had, even failing all that, each other.
Or he could marry Gloria, whom he had loved and liked for three years, and settle into the bosom of his family and
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