by Kate Kelly
“Well, I guess singing on stage and acting in the theatre have a lot in common,” Lisa muses.
“You’re right, honey. For singing and acting to be believable, genuine, they have to come from your soul; you have to make it your truth before you can offer it to someone else. And my god, it was fun! Ha! Musicals, comedies, dramas. I did it all. I even got myself an agent in Toronto and had small parts in three movies.”
“Dad said you were the biggest thing to come out of Peterborough.”
“Oh, I became a big fish in a little pond. And I was married to one of the most respected businessmen around. Jack took his company public in the eighties and never looked back. Yes, Jack was a good man, good company, but he was never Leland.”
“Why? What was it about Leland, Nan? Your first husband, Grandpa Grace seemed like a nice man. I don’t really remember him or Leland. I remember Jack and he was always nice. He loved you and you loved him, didn’t you?” Lisa watches Ruby’s face. She is amazed by the life her grandmother has led, a life of breaking boundaries, of determination, of guts.
“Yes, I loved Jack. He was a good man, but I didn’t love him the way I loved Leland.” Ruby sighs, and Lisa waits. Finally, after a few long minutes, Ruby continues, “I was afraid to divorce John and marry Leland. I didn’t want to feel the way I did in my marriage, but I was afraid of getting a divorce. Looking back on it now, I think fear was what motivated me the most. I don’t know why—I just always felt fear, like an anxious knot in the pit of my stomach. I married John because I was afraid of success, afraid of failure, afraid to continue in opera. Then, in my marriage, I was afraid to love, afraid to be hurt, afraid of not being loved in return. I suppose I was afraid that who I was, was unlovable.” She falls silent, and Lisa reaches for her hand. Ruby’s confession, her articulation of her fears, gives Lisa a glimpse of the woman her grandmother once was—fearful, hesitant, so unlike the woman she knows.
“Leland James. What was it about Leland?” Turning to Lisa, her eyes glowing with a flush of nostalgia, Ruby continues, “John Grace and Jack Richardson were good, steady men, like the tortoise. And Leland was like the hare. Leland lived moment to moment, and his love for me pulsed through his veins with every beat of his heart. Life and love were intense with Leland, and I knew I couldn’t live without that, without him.” Ruby, turning, speaks out at the window. “It sounds melodramatic, doesn’t it? And it’s not true. I could have lived without Leland, but then my life would never have had depth. It wouldn’t have been my life.” Looking out the window, into the landscape of her past, Ruby continues, her voice monotone, her eyes unfocused.
“He was funny and fearless. Maybe it was that, the fearlessness that was such a part of him. With Leland, I could feel the extension of myself in ways I had never known before. I could see a self that I had always been afraid to become, a self that expanded spiritually, sexually, intellectually, socially.” She nods to herself. “Yes, all those ways.”
These were the thoughts that, in quiet moments, circled her mind, private and beautiful. They were thoughts of Leland, an ordinary man, who directed her to all that was within herself, who taught her how to understand her own truth. The knowledge was easy to avoid, to bury within. She needed him to coax them from her, to witness them, to unearth them. Things that were always there.
Perhaps he acted like a magnifying glass? A kaleidoscope? Life with him was more colourful, more intriguing. Somehow it was always more present, more focused. He was her diviner; together, they were regular people with an extraordinary gift, able to find water in the depths of the earth by holding a simple branch. They weren’t extraordinary in themselves. They were flawed and average, fighting weight problems or bad breath. Yet together they unearthed potential, they unearthed life. They knew what was hidden and where it was, and only they could draw it forth.
Nodding to herself, Ruby continues, unaware of her surroundings, drawn into her memory. Her story is deep, faceted, and easily recognized. Her voice, cracked and thin at first, picks up the richness of the singer, the storyteller, the performer, drawing Lisa along with the ease of the train itself. “Every year, when my brother and I were young, my mother took us back home with her to New Brunswick. We looked forward to that, getting away from the city, being with family. Daddy had no family. ‘We were all he had and all he needed’—that was how he’d put it. So, summers at the farm were special: grandparents, aunts, and uncles and cousins to play with, running in the fields, building forts, and riding the old swayback mare. Ha! Such fun for a child.
“One summer my grandfather—Grampa, we called him—was getting a new well. It was all he talked about, the well—where it would possibly be, how deep, how cold. Yes, it was all he talked about, the well and the drought that had set in. The whole idea of a well was strange to us. The farm already had a well in the front yard, and our chores included bringing in water to the house. But Edward and I had always lived in the city; we never thought about water, about where it came from, how it got to us—it was just something that came out of a faucet when you turned it on. But Grampa’s excitement had infected us, and we began to wonder about the new well. Grampa said that someone would be coming out to the farm to show him where to dig, and we waited with great anticipation for the man to come.
“It was a sunny, cloudless day, and Edward and I were playing under the trees at the side of the house when a man in a rickety old truck came to the farm to determine the exact location of the new well. We were more than interested, since Grampa had never explained anything to us about how to find a well—we had only a vague idea that it was going to be somewhere in the back paddock, near the livestock and fields. The man was not very old, although it was hard to tell. His face was weather beaten, his teeth brown and worn when he smiled, and—every once in a while, to our great amazement—he would lean forward and release a great stream of yellow liquid from his mouth.
“He met Grampa on the porch, pushing his hat back from his forehead, talking and pointing in the general vicinity of the back paddocks, nodding and spitting and nodding some more. Then, after what seemed like forever, he walked back to his truck and starting rummaging in it. Out from the tools and pieces of this and that, he extracted an old forked branch of a tree. Edward and I looked at each other, wondering what on earth he was going to do with it. Would he use it to mark the spot? And how would he find the spot, the place unseen and waiting under all this land, where the water runs, cold and clear, the water that will help Grampa through the drought?
“The man walked out to the paddock with Grampa, the branch dangling from his hand like a mysterious wand. We two kids trailed behind, our anticipation growing with every step. When we got past the chicken coop, just before the big barn, he stopped. He took the branch in both hands like the bars of a bicycle, and, holding it loosely in his fingers, he began walking in measured steps around the whole area. We were captivated, too enthralled to speak or even to laugh. It was a bizarre sight: this strange little man, walking around the yard with an old branch of a tree in his hands, his eyes partially closed, his head tilted toward the sky, and his face as set as a hound dog on a scent.
“He walked back and forth, back and forth like that for ages, sometimes slowing, always intent, almost hypnotic. Just when Edward and I had begun to lose interest, the branch began to quiver. It became a living thing in his hands, trembling and pulling like a leashed animal desperate to break free, its head craning forward and down. The man’s arms, moving in spasms, were ridged and tight with the struggle. We couldn’t take our eyes away from him as he fought for control of the branch that only moments ago had been nothing but a stick, and now seemed possessed by something we couldn’t see, pulling and tugging, alive as if by magic. Just when I thought the earth was surely going to open up and swallow him whole, this man with the magic stick dropped one hand, pushed back his hat to wipe at the sweat that had gathered on his brow, and waved my Grampa over. ‘Dig here,’ he said.�
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Ruby falls silent, her eyes bright with the memory of that day, with the child she was, with mysteries unfolding before her. She smiles at Edward, Grampa, and the farm as they recede from her mind.
“Nan?
“I was afraid to succeed, afraid to love, afraid to know myself.” Ruby turns, her eyes sharp as she looks at Lisa. “Leland was my divining rod. With him, I became who I already was.” Nodding, she looks down at her hands, thin and liver-spotted, the skin transparent, the veins gnarled like old roots. She continues after a moment, her voice resonating gently in the car, her mind like the countryside around her, moving into the past. “I always think of Corinthians when I think of Leland: ‘but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.’”
“That’s beautiful, Nan,” Lisa answers above a whisper, breaking the silence. “I don’t think most people experience a love like that.”
“Yes, that’s true. Had I not met Leland, I would never have guessed that love could be like that.” Sipping her drink and then gazing out the window, Ruby continues, her voice warm with emotion. “I miss it, you know, the intimacy, the nakedness, the comfort. I suppose in a way Leland seduced me with that, the freedom I found in my own sexuality.”
“Wow, Nan, that’s pretty progressive!” Lisa, almost breathless, struggles to find the words to express her dismay. “I never knew that, well, that sex was…”
“What, honey, do you think your generation invented sex? Ha! How do you think you got here?”
“No, it’s just that…”
“It’s been around for a long time, a long time, in all its glory and guilt.” Pausing, Ruby turns toward the window, her thoughts hurtling by like the countryside reflecting in her eyes. “I suppose that in embracing that part of myself, I could embrace who I was. Sex was so reserved with John Grace; he was a good man trying to live by some sort of social ethos. I don’t think Leland ever felt that pressure, or if he did, he dismissed it. He was a maverick. He lived by his own rules, and it was seductive to be around someone who could be like that. And he was right, ha! The only good thing about living a long time is seeing how the whole world can change; everything can turn upside down in a matter of years. Female sexuality was never discussed in my day, not in what was considered respectable society. You had to wade into the whole thing with trepidation, knowing something was there but never sure what. Then it all changed, and now women can jump in with both feet! They’re even expected to! Well, let’s just say that Leland threw me into the deep end, and I learned to swim quite well.” Smiling, Ruby winks, patting Lisa’s hand as though she is a child too young to understand the complications of the adult world. “With Leland, I experienced all that, all of life, all of myself. When I started seeing Jack, it wasn’t as if I was letting go of any of it; it just became another chapter, one that would have meant nothing without the chapters leading up to it.”
“Nan?” Lisa asks when she can find her voice. “Have you ever told my dad about any of this?” She waves her arm to indicate the breadth of what her grandmother has just shared. “Or aunt Phoebe and uncle Frank? Do they have any idea about…?” Lisa lifts her hand, unable to formulate the right question.
“You mean about my sexual liberation?” Ruby answers nonplused.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.” She takes a deep breath and settles deeper into her chair, her body tired with the effort it takes to communicate these days. “I don’t think I ever really talked to the kids about things like that. I regret that. Maybe if I had been more open, more receptive…. I don’t know. You always pull at the truth, you know, pull it and shape it into something different, something acceptable, respectable. I shaped it into what I wanted it to be, what I needed at the time. Who would want to know about a grown woman’s sexual awakening, her growing understanding, or her struggles?”
Dropping into silence, both women are consumed by thoughts that are difficult to articulate. Ruby feels the need to share something of herself, the only thing she can offer, with her granddaughter. “When I was married to John Grace and falling in love with Leland, it was a confusing, chaotic, exciting time for me,” Ruby continues, her voice weakening with fatigue, or maybe regret. “It was a time of discovery, a time of loss. The divorce took up all my waking thoughts, I was consumed by the need to be free. Nobody knew that I was having an affair; it seemed I was right in the middle of it before I had even realized I had made that decision. I couldn’t turn away from what I found with Leland—I tried. I really did. But I couldn’t, and the only decision left to me was to divorce.” Sighing, Ruby continues with an effort, her words coming to Lisa as if from a dream. “My life with Leland felt like it was something apart, nothing to do with my children, or my parents. Who could understand? It was such an event to confront my parents with the disappointment of my failed marriage. I can still hear my mother’s voice the day I told her about the divorce.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN you’re divorcing John?” Jeanie’s voice is tight with shock, her eyes darting from her daughter to her husband.
“Ruby. You’ve just had your third child. You can’t divorce your husband. It’s just not done.” Daniel’s words seem to put an end to any further discussion, but Ruby stands defiant. Looking at his daughter and shaking his head, he continues, “John has never beaten you. He’s a good solid man. You are not divorcing John Grace, and that’s final.” Daniel’s blue eyes flash as he shakes his head, snapping open his evening paper. They are on the front porch of the summer house in Maine, the children settled for the night, the late summer sky brooding with fading light.
“I am, Daddy. I’m a grown woman, and I’ve made my decision.”
“Oh, just like that?” Daniel asks, looking over his paper, unwilling to engage in this discussion any longer.
“No, not just like that. You know John and I have been unhappy for years, really, from the day we were married.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Yes, all right—it’s my fault. I just can’t be what he wants. I’ve tried, Dad. I’ve tried, and all I ever feel is unhappy.” Ruby turns away, looking out into the evening light, the heat of the day hanging along its edges, the sound of crickets and bullfrogs enveloping them in musical silence. She has made up her mind as surely as night is falling, and she knows her father will comply, will eventually succumb to her wishes. He has always found it difficult to deny her anything, the child he longed for, the daughter he wanted.
Daniel, now ensconced behind his paper is unable to concentrate. He always imagined himself the father of daughters, surrounded by women. Before Ruby was born, Jeanie had endured two miscarriages, and disappointment had taken up residence in her face. Fear and caution marked the duration of her third pregnancy. After eight months of trepidation, Ruby emerged, screaming with health, a small, beautifully defiant fury, her colouring like Daniel’s own: pale white skin, fine black hair that grew in gypsy curls, and dark blue eyes that he was reluctant to look away from. It was Ruby’s presence that allowed him to function so clearly on one of the worst days of his life. His brother’s death had been wanton and cruel, but the reality of his daughter—held snuggly against his chest, her head tucked under his chin, the weight of her three-year-old body—had anchored him in the present. There was nothing he would not do for her.
“Lots of couples are unhappy, Ruby,” Jeanie says, her voice returning to her. “Married life is like that sometimes. You just make the best of it. You raise your children, you work alongside your husband, and you get by, day by day. You get by. You have a duty to your family. That’s all there is to it.”
How can Ruby explain to her mother that she doesn’t want to just get by? That she doesn’t want to live her life out of duty, a life that screams, “Is this all there is?” That she can’t go on living her life feeling like an outsider?
It is Leland and his prodding, his incessant questioning, his nee
d to get to the core of Ruby Grace that forces her to finally look long and hard at her life, at the life she has accepted, like her childhood catechism, without question, without wondering if there could be something more, something bigger.
After the crushing disappointment with LaLiberté—her career stalling, never really taking flight—she had allowed fear and disappointment to lead her into the safety of marriage.
The brilliant and renowned Alfred LaLiberté, who had worked with the finest musicians in Europe, who had taught at the best studios, had offered himself as Ruby’s vocal coach after hearing her sing. He was an impassioned task master, strict and rigorous in his teaching, his love of music evident in his every thought. He taught for and expected perfection, and he believed he had found it in Ruby. She was a dedicated student with a talent whose depths were yet to be reached. It was only a matter of time until she achieved recognition; he knew this, but Ruby wavered. He understood that it was fear that had chased her into the arms of John Grace, and he grieved for her future as a singer, as an artist.
“You are still young,” he said. “We will continue to practise, and you will have another chance soon.” LaLiberté urged her not to give up; he told her that this period was simply a slight setback and that with continued hard work she would one day grace the world stage with her undeniable voice. He had tried to persuade her to take John Grace as a lover, to explore that part of her life, but to remain single. “Famous women have done it for centuries, my pet. Take your lover but remain free, unencumbered. An artist is married only to her art!”
But it had been two years of constant vocals training, engagements, and receptions, with no recognition. It was demoralizing. She was tired of being the solo artist; the pressure, the isolation manifested in nausea and weakness. LaLiberté’s coaching, his relentless optimism, was too much to handle alone. Marriage seemed like an escape to a safer haven, a quiet lull in the ocean of ambition, and Ruby was too young, too inexperienced to break with social convention. She moved into marriage like a mooring ship, bumping with the choppiness of the sea, into the safety of the slip. But havens too quickly become prisons, and her new husband was not as she had imagined he would be. He was not a supportive bystander, encouraging her operatic dreams, helping shore her up to continue the drive toward success and prima donna status. No, John Grace wanted a wife, a mother for his children, a partner and supporter for himself. John, as much as he appreciated her growing celebrity and artistic bent, was a traditional man. Their discussions about her continued singing and vocal training soon turned to heated arguments, belittling and damaging.