and now they talked. Penny maintained her oddly formal texting style and excessive use of smiley faces. Ruth maintained her disbelief at the fact that Penny actually wanted to interact with her, for fun. Or something. Whatever.
But Penny’s Happy Easter :) wasn’t the only message. There was one from a number Ruth hadn’t saved, which made her pause in the act of ferreting out her Shea butter.
Here it bloody goes, then.
Ruth’s breath caught in her chest.
“You don’t know how lucky you are.”
Hayley rolled her eyes. “That my parents never take me anywhere?”
“That your parents never take you to church,” Maria corrected. “Tell her, Ruth.”
Ruth grunted.
“You’re ungrateful cows, the both of you,” Hayley muttered. “Youse get Sunday dinner after. What do I get? Fish fingers, if Laura’s about.”
“So learn to cook,” Maria winked.
“Cooking’s for suckers. Tell her, Ruth.”
Ruth wrapped her tie around her finger, as tight as it would go, until the school’s burning torch logo disappeared. Then she let it unravel and felt the blood return to the digit.
“Are you listening, Ruth?”
Ruth grunted.
The school bell rang, signalling the end of the day, and she pursed her lips. She’d go straight home, get changed, Mum would drag a comb through her hair, and then they’d be marched down to church for Good Friday. Maria would go through the same process at the Catholic church in the next village over, and Hayley would get to go home and watch TV.
She caught Maria’s eye and sighed. “Here it bloody goes, then.”
“Oh,” Maria laughed. “She speaks.”
Ruth stared at the text for what felt like a painfully long time. Then she remembered that she had things to do, an important day to prepare for. Really, she should ignore the text completely.
Instead, she typed out:
Oh. She speaks.
Then she put her phone face-down on the counter and got on with her hair.
34
One thing Evan could not have predicted about Ruth was her extensive knowledge of hymns.
She appeared to have memorised at least ten, by his calculation. Of course, it could have been a hundred. At this point, they were all blurring into one, and Evan was staring down at the dogged, old hymn book he’d found in his pew and mouthing along silently.
Hopefully, he looked enthusiastic enough to convince Patience Kabbah. The tiny, brightly-dressed woman seemed utterly serene, but he still didn’t completely trust that. She had produced both Ruth and Hannah. She had to be secretly terrifying, somehow.
Right now, in an enormous hat with a beatific smile on her round face, Patience seemed anything but terrifying. That made him even more suspicious.
But at least she seemed, thus far, to like him. He really, really needed Ruth’s mother to like him.
When the service was finally over, Evan realised that the hard part had only just begun. Standing beside someone during church was an easy interlude of occasional friendly eye contact. But now he’d go back to Ruth’s family home, and have dinner, and Ruth loved her family more than anything so if he fucked up somehow…
“Hey.” Ruth’s voice was soft, her hand capturing his. “Let’s go.”
Her mother and sister were making their way through the milling crowd of churchgoers, moving leisurely toward the huge, wooden doors. He found himself studying the metalwork of the door’s hinges, analysing how they’d been designed. Then he pulled himself together, his fingers tightening around Ruth’s.
“You seem slightly dazed,” she murmured, her lips pursed in that almost-smile.
“I’ve never been to church before,” he replied under his breath. “I didn’t think there’d be so much… singing.”
“Lucky for you, we only have to go twice a year.”
Evan tried not to grin wide, or squeeze her hand, or do anything to give away how those words went straight to his heart. If he did, she might realise the implications of what she’d just said and come over all embarrassed.
But really—who knew twice-annual obligations could feel so romantic?
“Twice?” he said. “Easter and…?”
“Christmas.” She shot him a smile, a real smile. “You’re bad at this.”
“I know.” He smiled back, not even caring that they’d stopped walking, that they were standing in the middle of the church, hands joined, staring at each other like happy little lemmings.
Then a familiar voice said, “Miller. Ruth.”
Evan drew in a deep, deep breath. He hoped that by the time he was ready to exhale, he’d be less pissed off than he currently was.
It didn’t work, exactly. Instead, Evan and Ruth turned as one to find that the voice he’d assumed was Daniel’s belonged to Mr. Burne.