November 28, 2011

Catherine had wanted to ask Dad about Ruth and why she'd died twice as soon as he got home that day. But he had arrived with a grand set of plans to have a special dinner and have some nice wine and sit and talk, and he was trying so hard for things to be nice for her that she didn't want to ruin it by asking questions he would hate hearing.

But for nearly two weeks, Ruth lived rent-free in Catherine's mind. There weren't any pictures of her, not on the internet nor anywhere in Dad's house. Maybe he had them saved in a special place. In his office at Thames House, maybe, or digitized and kept on his computer. Those were two places Catherine wouldn't be snooping.

What had she looked like, this mysterious love of her father's life? Blonde like Catherine's mother? Was she young and slim and beautiful, as was Dad's type in the past? Perhaps she was very different from anything Catherine could even conceive of. But whatever she looked like, Catherine had to believe she was beautiful in some way, and she had a look of intelligence. It was a certain sort of look. Not even in clothes or makeup or hair, like one might expect, but it was in the eyes. Intelligent people had a particular spark to their eyes. Catherine had spent her adult life watching others, learning through the lens of her camera. Interviews and investigations all over the world. No matter how educated or wealthy—or how uneducated and poor—Catherine could always pick out the intelligent ones. They were the ones she wanted to choose as subjects of her documentaries as much as possible. Ruth surely had that same look. Dad was no fool, after all, and he was old and tired now. Catherine couldn't imagine him with anyone silly and shallow these days. Someone like that might have turned his head when he was younger and catting around on Catherine's mother, but not anymore. He wouldn't waste his time with that. Ruth must have been brilliant.

She wished Dad talked about her, even just to reminisce on happy memories. Now that Catherine knew her name, she felt an almost desperate, obsessive need to understand Ruth Catherine Evershed. Her middle name was Catherine. A common name, obviously, but it felt meaningful to her. She wanted to know Ruth. It was a bit ridiculous, actually, this yearning to know a dead woman. Catherine felt like a pathetic child in an orphanage dreaming about what her mother might have been like. But of course Catherine had a wonderful mother. The metaphor just didn't really work with fantasizing about Dad's girlfriend.

But Catherine had been in London for almost a whole month and she'd barely figured anything out. Dad was doing a little better some days. They had dinner together most days now, and he sometimes talked to her about things that made them both laugh. One Sunday, they even watched a film on television together. Getting to spend time with him and get to know him like this was really lovely. But he still wasn't sleeping properly. Catherine found him having nightmares about Ruth's death at least once each week. She helped him up to bed, and he thanked her, and she hugged him tight, wishing she were brave enough to ask him how she could help him. But Catherine didn't know if talking about Ruth would help him. She didn't want her curiosity to blind her to what Dad actually needed. So she just tried to be there to wake him from the nightmares as best she could.

On that particular day, Catherine got bored of watching television and trying to work and decided instead to tackle Dad's library. Well, really, it was his study. But two of the four walls were lined with tall bookshelves and each and every one was packed tight with books. He had some other bookshelves in the sitting room, but those weren't very interesting. Everything Dad cared about was in the study.

As soon as she started properly looking at the shelves, she saw that there was barely any sense of organization. There was some loose alphabetization, but some of it was by title and some by author as far as she could tell. The subject matters were all mixed up. It was a mess. Catherine Townsend prided herself on having systems of organization for everything.

First thing was to take everything down. Then she could separate them into piles and put them back in an orderly manner. That was the plan, at any rate.

As organized as Catherine liked to be, she was also easily distracted. She got curious and wanted to explore and where it left her was sitting on the floor with mountainous piles of books all around her. And hours later, that's how Dad found her.

"What the bloody hell have you done?!" he bellowed, walking by the open door to see the chaos around her.

"I was going to reorganize your books," she defended, not being afraid of his temper. After all, he was just mad at the mess. She'd fix it. He'd calm down. It would be fine. She added, "I'll clean it up, I promise. I just got a bit distracted. You've got a really cool collection, Dad."

But Dad did not calm down. He looked to be vibrating with rage. "Put them back exactly as you found them," he barked.

"They weren't organized at all! I'm going to fix it," she replied.

He gritted his teeth and set his jaw. "They were organized perfectly. They are my books and organized the way I wanted them. Put them back."

Catherine hauled herself off the floor, tossing the Ovid volume aside as she did so.

"Pick that up!" Dad practically shrieked.

She was starting to get a little frightened of him now. She picked up the book, Amores, and held it up. "It's fine, Dad, it's just a book. What's wrong with you?"

He snatched it out of her hand. "That book is very important and irreplaceable. I don't think I have to explain why," he said, opening up the front cover and shoving it in her face.

Ruth,
 Happy Birthday
- Harry

Yes, Catherine understood now. That was a very important book. He'd given her a book of Latin love poems for her birthday one year. Rather obscure, but very sweet. Romantic, even.

"She read Classics at Oxford," Dad explained quietly.

Well that was enough to break Catherine's heart. Not an obscure gift at all. One that would have been very meaningful to Ruth, and one that showed Dad knew her and understood her and certainly loved her. "I'm sorry," Catherine replied softly.

He nodded, pressing his lips in a tight line. He'd calmed down now, which was good, at least. "Put the books back how they were, please. There was a system."

"What was the system? I didn't see one."

"They were in alphabetical order in Latin. When I was suspended awaiting a disciplinary tribunal and bored out of my mind, Ruth was stuck at home on medical recovery. We spoke over the phone a lot, and to give us something to do, I read out every title and she translated it to Latin and we alphabetized them together."

Catherine's stomach knotted with guilt. Not only was there a purpose, but it was a very important one. A physical reminder of Ruth's presence in the house for Dad to keep forever. And Catherine had ruined it.

Dad added, "But I suppose you can't really recreate that. Never mind. Just put them however you were planning. It'll be fine."

With that, he turned and walked out. Catherine felt like she was about to be sick.

He'd taken Amores with him.