She can't help but shiver at the thought. She'd much rather run off to the rural areas of their dear country with Ruby, to never have to see her husband again. There's that chance that they will not come back, yes, but dwelling in that thought only makes her more desperate with confusion.

 

"That they will," she concedes, leaning a hand down to squeeze Ruby's.

 

"The war will end. But I don't want this to end."

 

Sadie sighs. "I don't want it to end, either, my dear Ruby." She turns to face her, eye to eye, and cups her cheek. "But both our husbands are busy men— even more so when they come back from the war. Perhaps we'd still be able to see each other."

 

Ruby is younger than her, maybe only by a few years, but she still looks so youthful when her face breaks off into a grief neither of them can comprehend. It's a grief that comes too-soon, like the prospect of a dying family. But this time it's a dying love they're both holding onto as the clock ticks on. 

 

Tears gather around Ruby's eyes. "I want to see you all the time," she tells her, grabbing at her shoulders.

 

"I know, dearest," Sadie shushes, pressing a hand against her back. "I do too."

 

"We should just— just *leave*," she hisses out. "We should just leave, make a life for ourselves out there. In the country. *Something.*"

 

They're both women of the city, having grown up in New York; all restaurants, glitzy nightlife when the Prohibition died down. Even if they could escape to a pastoral life, they couldn't make anything out of it.

 

"We aren't women of the country, Ruby," she says, pressing a kiss against her forehead.

 

"We can learn," she says, a sob breaking off out of her mouth. "Tomorrow we can start learning, and the day after tomorrow we can learn more. We have to escape. We have to go."

 

"We don't *have* to."

 

"Please, Sadie," she begs. "Please. I don't want to let my husband touch me ever again. If I have to bear his children I'll go crazy. I swear I will go crazy."

 

Sadie's heart lurches for her. For her naive, younger lover, for the fact she has not yet come to terms with the reality of a man one is tied down to. She wants to say yes, to be able to leave with her, to run off to the pastoral idylls, to live in a farm, something. But she knows she cannot just disappear and leave her husband and her family, her brothers and sisters.

 

"We can't," Sadie tells her, holding her hand, squeezing hard as she cuddles up to her. "I'm so sorry, my love, but we can't."

 

Ruby buries her face on her lover's chest, crying quietly. She can't do anything except hold her, rub her back, mutter reassurances. Life is cruel for women, even more so women like them. But she has to try to do all she can while not entertaining dumb fantasies, those that will harm everyone except for them.

 

She can't be selfish. She won't allow herself to be selfish, even for the love of her life.