Ruby smiled. “Thanks. ”
Nora looked at her and paused. “Dean invited us to go sailing on Saturday. ”
“What will I say to Eric?”
“Oh, Ruby,” she said gently, “you start with hello. ”
Ruby barely slept that night. At first, she tried to tell herself it was the heat. Even with the windows open, summer had always been sweltering on the second floor.
I missed you.
If there was one thing Ruby knew, it was that she hurt people, and she didnt want to hurt Dean again.
He deserved a woman who could return his love as fully and freely as he gave it. That was the one thing shed known even as a teenager.
Finally, at about three-thirty, she went out onto the balcony and sat in the chair her grandfather had made. In the dark before the rising sun, she tried to pull peace from the familiar sounds and smells. The whoosh of the waves . . . the hoot of a barn owl, not too far away . . . the scent of her grandmothers roses, climbing up trellises on the side of the house.
Write. Thatll get your mind off everything.
She reached for the pad beside her. Then she stopped. Frowning, she drew her hand back.
For the first time, she considered the impact of her article. Shed agreed to write it because shed wanted to hurt her mother, to strike back for all the pain shed suffered as a young girl.
&
nbsp; But she wasnt a child anymore.
Before, she hadnt wanted to know why Nora left them. Or maybe shed been so damned certain that shed seen everything that mattered.
But marriages broke up for reasons; women like her mother didnt just up and leave their husbands on a sunny summers day.
Ruby had glimpsed moments in the past days, images that didnt fit with the picture shed drawn of her mother. And there was the “best of” file shed read. The first “Nora Knows Best” column appeared months after her mother had left . . . and in a cheesy local newspaper that couldnt have paid her more than gas money.
It didnt fit, and that bothered Ruby.
She closed her eyes . . . and remembered a cold, crisp October day that smelled of ripening apples and dying black leaves. Dad had been in the living room, sitting in that leather chair of his, drinking and smoking cigarettes hed rolled himself. The whole house had smelled of smoke. Caroline had been gone on a field trip to the Museum of Flight in Seattle and theyd missed the ferry back. Ruby had been in the bedroom, reading Misery by Stephen King. “Groovy Kind of Love” was on the turntable.
There was a knock at the door. Ruby sat up in bed, waiting to hear her dads footsteps, and when he went past her open door she recognized the stumbling drunkenness of his gait. Please, she thought, dont let it be one of my friends . . .
She heard him say, “Nora,” in a voice that was too loud, belligerent.
Ruby froze; then she heard the scratching whine of the record players needle being scraped across vinyl. Everything went quiet. Chair springs creaked.
Ruby slipped out of bed and crept to the door of her room, pushing it farther open.
Dad was in his chair, Mom was kneeling in front Of him.
“Rand,” Mom said quietly, “we need to talk. ”
He stared down at her, his hair was too long, and dirty. “Its too late for talking. ” Mom reached for him; he lurched to his feet, swaying unsteadily above her.
Ruby couldnt stand it another minute, seeing her fathers pain in such sharp relief. “Get out,” she yelled, surprised at the strength in her voice.
Mom got to her feet, turned around. “Oh, Ruby,” she said, holding her arms out.
As Mom came toward her, Ruby saw the Changes in her mother, the gray pallor in her cheeks . . . the weight shed lost . . . the way her hands, always so strong and sure, were blue-veined and trembling as she reached out.
Ruby sprang backward. "Go-go away. We dont want you anymore.