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Show iJoodworth/73 her. Their eyes don't meet. Their hands don't touch. Only the mouth of the wine bottle touches the lip of the glass. Ned stands up. His chair falls against the floor. Balancing his plate in one hand, he retrieves the chair, sets it on its feet. His knife and fork slide off the plate, land on the floor. Grunting, he picks them up, too. "Can I get anyone any more?" "No, thank you," arty says. "Not just yet," her mother answers. "This business with names is a strange thing," Ned says, taking the steak from the oven. "Sometimes I think we should have started with our names. Named Jake Ned, and named you for your mother." Marty thinks of being 'Ruth' her whole life. The name makes her mouth feel airy, like trying to whistle wrong. "How come you didn't?" "Well," her father comes back to the table, sits down. "I guess I just thought we were going to have more children. So we could start with some of the older family names. And then... we decided not to have any more children, after all." Ruth has eaten her asparagus tips, and is eating her rice, • grain by grain. "You all took up so much time. So much time and energy," she says. They eat in silence. Ruth cuts her meat into small pieces, finishes her wine. Marty scrapes her fork against the plate, licks off the steak grease. Ned licks his fingers, one by one. "Maybe it's just as well Jake wasn't named after you, dear." Both Marty and Ned look up. Ruth sits primly, her knife and fork, side by side, bisect her plate. Her hands are folded in her lap. Marty thinks she means that maybe then Ned would have died, too. But that doesn't make sense. Maybe Ned's name would have saved him. "Who knows what he wnni H havp. inherited from you?" |
