THIRTY
WOULD YOU BELIEVE ME IF I told you that I toyed with the idea of staying? Maybe Ruth’s broad hints as my pregnancy progressed finally wore me down or maybe I realized how much I needed her. Where would I have gone? I hadn’t kept up any of my friendships in the south, so wholly had I given myself to the cause of eradicating tuberculosis in this lifetime. I had family and I’d written a couple of letters to them but I’d been unable to construct a plausible version of the conversation I’d need to have when I showed up at their door in my current state. I had painted myself into a corner.
You’ll remember that I’d found that cabin, Jude. One morning in late May after I’d been forced to concede that twelve hours on my feet was no longer possible I set a basket of food into a canoe and po
