Summer Island

She knew she needed to handle Ruby with kid gloves, to treat her daughters pain (which Nora never that she had caused) respectfully, to let Ruby make all the first moves toward a reconciliation. No matter how much it hurt, how deeply the ache went, Nora didnt want to bulldoze the situation.

But Ruby had always brought out the worst in her. Even in the good times, her younger daughter had had a way of saying things that rubbed Nora the wrong way. More often than not, they both ended up saying something they regretted.

And Ruby knew that every coldly spoken “Nora” would break her heart just a little. It was, she knew, Rubys way of reminding Nora that they were strangers.

You have to keep your cool.

And for Gods sake, dont tell her what to do. . . or pretend you know her.

If theyd gone somewhere else, maybe this would have been easier, but nothing new could grow here, not in this soil contaminated by the past.

It was in this house that Nora had made her biggest mistake--and given the life shed led, that was saying a lot. This was where shed come when she left Rand. She had meant for it to be temporary. At the time shed simply thought: Space; if I dont get some space I’ll start screaming and never stop.

All shed wanted was a little room, some time to herself. Shed been overwhelmed by her life. A twenty-minute ferry ride had seemed perfect. She hadnt known that two miles could stretch into more than a decade.

She remembered that whole summer, and the bad years that had preceded it, in excruciating detail.

She remembered how it had felt and tasted, that slowly descending depression, like a thick glass jar that closed around you, sucking away the air you needed to breathe, creating a barrier between you and the world. The hell of it was that shed been able to see all that she was missing, but when shed reached out, all she touched was cold, hard glass.

It had started with a few dark days, a few nightmares, but as the winter had turned into spring, and then into summer, she had simply . . . fallen. All these years later, shed never found a better word for it. Shed felt then-as she did now-as brittle as a winter leaf. It had always taken so damned little to break her.

If she hadnt left Rand then, she believed she would have died. Her pain had been that great. Still . . .

Shed thought she could come home again, that women were granted the same latitude in marriage that men were. How naive she had been.

She reached for the bedside phone and picked it up, thankful to find a dial tone. She wouldnt have expected any less from Caroline.

She dialed Erics number, but no one answered. He was probably exhausted from the trip. He tired so easily these days.

She didnt want to think about that now, about how the cancer was erasing him. If she thought about that now shed fall apart, and with Ruby on the other side of that door, Nora didnt dare fall apart.

She dialed another number. Dr. Allbright answered on the second ring. There was a moment of silence at the other end, the sound of a match flaring. “Hello?”

“Hi, Leo. Its me, Nora. ”

He inhaled, blew the smoke from his cigarette into the phone. It came through in a whooshing sound. “How are you?”

“Im fine,” she said, wondering if he could hear the lies in the same way that he could see them on her face. “You asked me to call when we arrived, so . . . ”

“You dont sound fine. ”

“Well . . . Ruby and I are crowded in with a lot of old ghosts. ” She tried to laugh. "This house . . . ”

“I dont think you should be there. We talked about this. With all thats happening, you should be in the city. ”

It was nice to have someone care about her--even if she paid him to do so. “And let the vultures pick at me?” She smiled ruefully. “Of course, it appears to be open season on Nora Bridge wherever I go. ”

“Ruby,” he said.

“I knew it wouldnt be easy. ” That much was true, at least. Shed known how much it would hurt to see her daughters bitterness in such sharp, close detail; and it did.

“We talked about this, Nora. If she hates you, its because she was too young to understand. ”

“Im fifty, Leo, and I dont understand it all. ”

“You owe it to yourself-and to Ruby-to tell her the truth. ”

She sighed wearily. The thought of opening herself like a rotting flower to her beloved daughter was more than she could bear. “I just want to see her smile at me. Thats all. Just once and I could carry that image forever. I dont expect her to like me. . . let alone love me. ”