Summer Island

“I would give anything to take it all back. ”

Nora smiled sadly. “The truth always hurts, Ruby. Its a law of nature, like gravity. ” She glanced out at the Sound. “When I read your article, I saw myself. That doesnt seem like much, but Ive spent a lifetime running away from who I am and where I came from. I never trusted anyone enough to be myself. When I started my advice column, I knew people wouldnt like me, so I made up Nora Bridge, a woman they could trust and admire, and then I tried to live up to that creation. But how could I? The mistakes Id made-the woman I really was-kept me on the outside all the time, looking in at my own life. ” She looked at Ruby again. “But I trusted you. ”

Ruby squeezed her eyes shut. “I know. ”

“I was right to trust you, Ruby. I knew it when I finished reading. You listened and you wrote, and when it was over youd revealed me. From the girl who hid under the stairs, to the woman who hid behind the metal bars of a mental institution, to the woman who stood behind a microphone. ” She smiled. “To this woman, who isnt hiding now. You made me see me. ”

"I know I gave away all your secrets, but Im not going to publish the article. I wont do that to you.

“Oh, yes you are. ”

Ruby wasnt surprised that her mother didnt believe her. “Im making you a promise. I wont deliver it. ”

Nora leaned forward, took Rubys hands in hers, and held them tightly. "I want you to publish this article. Its a beautiful, powerful portrait of who we are, and it shows who we can be, both of us. It shows how love can go wrong, and how it can find its way back to the beginning if you believe in it. What you wrote. . . it isnt a betrayal, Ruby. Maybe it started Out that way, but why shouldnt it have? We had a long, long road to walk. And at the end of it, what I saw was how much you love me.

Ruby swallowed hard. “I do love you, Mom. And Im so sor-”

“Sshh, no more of that. Were family. Were going to trample all over each others feelings now and again. Thats the way its supposed to be. ” Noras eyes were bright with unshed tears. “And now, were going to go inside and call your agent. Im appearing on Sarah Purcell with you. ”

"No way. Theyll eat you alive.

“Let ”em. Ill be holding my daughters hand for strength. They cant hurt me any more, Ruby. And Im itching to fight back. "

Ruby stared at her mother in awe. She was doing it again, changing before Rubys eyes. She had a sudden glimpse of yet another woman altogether. “Youre amazing. ”

Nora laughed. “It took you long enough to notice. ”

Chapter Twenty-five

I had my fifteen minutes of fame, and amazingly, when the clock struck the quarter hour, I was still famous. My mother and I had become, it seems, symbols that the world wasnt on such a fast and ugly track, after all. It makes sense, when you think about it. We live in a time when the evening news is laden with one depressing story after another.

Sadly, none of it surprises us anymore. We sit in our living rooms, on our plush sofas that a decades affluence has allowe

d us to purchase, and we shake our heads at the stories. Sometimes-boldly-we turn off the news or change the channel What we rarely do is a. why. Who has declared that murder is more news worthy than the heartwarming story of an elderly woman who delivers Meals-on-Wheels to local AIDS sufferers?

But, as Dennis Miller says, Im off on a rant like Its just that I have seen firsthand that celebrity is not the utopia Id imagined, and it has made me question my interpretations of the world around me. people have more money . . . and less freedom; they have more choices. . and less honesty. Everything is a trade-off. And when we let the media choose our heroes for us, we are lost already.

What Mom and I discovered was that we are not as isolated-any of us-as we believe. People want good news as well as bad, and they loved the story of my redemption. Girl hates mother . . . girl learns to love mother . . . girl gives up career to keep from breaking her mothers heart.

People loved it. They loved me.

But most of all, they loved my mother. They heard the story of her whole life, laid Out before them like a novel, and they cheered at what she had overcome. She became something more than a celebrity . . . she became one of them. An ordinary woman, and surprisingly, it made her more famous and more beloved.

I listen to her on the radio now, and I hear the responses. Every now and then she gets an angry caller, who labels her a hypocrite and a loser for abandoning her children.

The old Nora Bridge, I think, would have fallen apart at such a personal and accurate attack. No more. Now, she listens and agrees, and then goes on, talking about the gift of mistakes and the miracle of family. She hopes that people will learn from her bad choices. And she wraps that spell around them, the one only she can spin, and by the end of the show, her listeners are reaching for tissues and thinking about how to find their way back to their own families. The smart ones are reaching for the telephone.

Theres no substitute for talking to the people you love. Thinking about them, dreaming about them, wishing things were different . . . all of these are the beginning. But someone has to make the first move.

I guess thats one of the things I learned this summer but its not the most important; its not the thing I will hold close and pass on to my own daughter when the time is right. The truths I gathered on Summer Island were so easy; they were lying right there on the grass. I should have tripped over them. I would have, if only I Would have opened my eyes.

As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is in the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is in my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is in the beating of my heart.

I cannot now imagine a life without her.

I know how precious time is. I learned this from my friend, Eric. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see him as he once was, laughing, standing at the bow of his sailboat, looking forward to the rest of his life. I hear his voice in the wind, I feel his touch in the rain, and I remember . . .

Life is short. And I know that when Eric loses his battle with cancer I will find the missing of him unbearable. I will reach for the phone then and call my mother, and her voice will bring me back to myself A daughter without her mother is a woman broken. It is a loss that turns to arthritis and settles deep in her bones. This I know now.