"When it finally ended it didn't hurt as badly as I would have thought it would. If it hadn't ended, we would have gone on and gotten married and—I guess it would have been all right." She looked puzzled.
"What kind of a guy was he, Ruth?"
"I told you. Popular and nice and—"
"Underneath."
"I don't want to feel—disloyal or anything."
"Another drink?"
"No. We better order, thanks." After we had given the order, she frowned beyond me and said, "There was something weak about Timmy. Things had come too easily. His mind was good and his body was good and he made friends without trying. He'd never been—tested. I had the feeling that he thought that things would always be that easy all his life. That he could always get whatever he wanted. It worried me because I'd learned the world isn't like that. It was as though nothing had ever happened to him to make him grow up. And I used to wonder what would happen when things started to go wrong. I knew he'd either turn into a man, or he'd start to whine and complain."
"He turned into a man, Ruth."
There was a sudden look of tears in her eyes. "I'm glad to hear that. I'm very glad to hear that. I wish he'd come back."
"I think you would have seen that I'm right. After he stopped going with you, who did he go with before he went into the army?"