No Regrets

was happy that their second baby would be born there with his father close by.
    Rolf bought plane tickets to bring the pregnant Elinor and their little boy to Vancouver, the Canadian city about 140 miles north of Seattle. Many people hoping to emigrate to America go first to Canada because it’s easier to cross its borders.
    Elinor was shocked, almost speechless, when Rolf admitted to her that he had learned they weren’t really married. But he quickly explained that he was now divorced from her older sister and he wanted to marry her legally. He had even obtained a Canadian marriage license.
    It should have been a rather romantic happy ending— except for the fact that Rolf had yet another woman in his life, someone he had met in Seattle while Elinor was in Norway. Her name was Nettie Ruth Myers, and, like Elinor, she was a generation younger than Rolf.
    Outside of her immediate family, she seldom answered to “Nettie,” and preferred to be called “Ruth.” Ruth had a very strong personality and a native cunning that made her much more talented in getting what she wanted than Elinor was.
    And what Ruth wanted was Rolf.
    Despite Rolf’s denials, Elinor suspected that from the beginning. Ruth was omnipresent in their lives, and when Rolf introduced Ruth to Elinor, he explained that she was a close business associate of his. But Elinor wondered what kind of business that could be, since Rolf cared only about his ships and wasn’t in any way a businessman.
    Worse, Elinor, heavily pregnant and feeling unattractive and awkward, was suspicious when Rolf said he had hired Ruth to be a kind of “housekeeper” who would help Elinor until after their baby was born. She didn’t want Ruth around and she didn’t need her, but Ruth moved into their Vancouver house and made herself at home.
    Elinor was worried—and she had reason to be. She herself had become intimate with Rolf when she was in his first wife’s home, caring for her own sister. If he had cheated with her, how could she be sure he wouldn’t cheat on her with another woman? The whole plan was too much like the one Elinor had lived through in Seattle; the only thing that would change would be that now Elinor would be Rolf’s wife, and Ruth would be the other woman living in their home. Elinor didn’t care for Ruth at all. Ruth wasn’t friendly and she seemed to wield more power over Rolf than Elinor herself ever had. Ruth did very little housekeeping and she certainly didn’t appear to be doing any business with Rolf. After Elinor gave birth to her second son, Erik, Ruth Myers didn’t leave. In fact, Ruth became even more entrenched in their lives. She gave her opinions very freely on what should have been private matters.
    “Once,” Elinor later recalled, “Ruth suggested that I return to Norway and have the children adopted out! It was a very miserable situation for me.”
    Elinor wouldn’t think of giving up her boys. She loved Rolf and Eric; they were Rolf’s natural sons. And Rolf seemed to care for Elinor and the little boys. Still, however outrageous Ruth’s remarks were, Rolf never asked Ruth to move out.
    It was a stressful time—two women, each of whom wanted to marry the man they shared a house with. It was a standoff, but neither woman gave up.
    In 1961, Rolf obtained another Canadian wedding license, and told Elinor that he really did want to marry her. It seemed that Elinor had won her man back. But there wasmuch more than a slight hitch in his plan to marry her. To Elinor’s horror, Rolf confessed that he was already married to Ruth Myers, and had been for months.
    That didn’t mean, he said with truly flawed reasoning, that he couldn’t marry Elinor, too!
    “I was so suspicious of their relationship all along,” Elinor said. “When I found out that they were married, I knew I didn’t want to marry him again.”
    Rolf assured Elinor that he’d had no choice but to marry Ruth. It wasn’t that he loved her, but she had threatened to expose him—and told him that Elinor would, too. He wanted to stay in America, his adopted country, but Ruth lied and said that Elinor was threatening to turn him over to immigration authorities for fraud.
    “Ruth says you’re going to tell them about how I lied about my age way back when I stowed away on the ships from Norway,” he told Elinor. “She said they’ll deport me for that.”
    “I wouldn’t do that,” Elinor breathed. “How could you believe I would betray you?”
    But