A Harsh and Private Beauty

by Kate Kelly

  RUBY’S FINGERS TREMBLE as she dials the number of the house in Maine, remembering the long summers spent there, the long warm evenings on the porch, the beach, the bonfires her father would make, the wind-up gramophone playing scratchy music while they danced into the night.

  “Hello?” Ruby’s eyes sting at the sound of her mother’s distinctive voice, tentative but sweet.

  “Hi, Mom. The kids and I are coming for a visit.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful, dear. When?”

  “I’ll be on the late train.” Ruby struggles to keep her voice calm.

  “Tonight? Isn’t this a bit sudden? Is everything all right, dear?” Jeanie’s voice turns sharp with concern.

  “Yes, Mom. Everything is fine. I just need to see you and Daddy. I just … I just miss you….” Her voice cracks with emotion. She is worried about putting her parents in a difficult position, but she is overwhelmed by the intimacy of her mother’s voice. With effort, Ruby stops herself from spilling out the truth, from laying it down before her mother like the weight it is. She holds back the gravity of the situation, that her daily life has become a tormented existence: being married to one man and pregnant with another man’s child.

  Daniel is at the train station to meet them. He lifts Phoebe with one arm and hugs Francis and Ruby with the other. Ruby can imagine herself melting into him, lingering under the protective care of his arm, but he moves away, too quickly, looking for the luggage.

  “Is this it, then?” He lifts the small case, concern deepening the lines around his mouth.

  “Yes. That’s it.”

  “Leaving in a hurry were you, Jewel?”

  Ruby buries her face in her hands, sobbing at the use of her baby name; the late-night train station, the children, the few passengers, all is forgotten in the immensity of her emotions.

  “Oh, Ruby, sweetheart. Are things that bad?” Daniel places Phoebe on the ground and smiles at Francis before moving to his daughter, taking her in his arms. It will be okay, honey. Don’t cry now. You’ll frighten the children, and I’m sure they’re confused as it is.”

  Ruby nods and moves away from him, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Here, honey.” Daniel hands her his handkerchief, and Ruby, unable to find her voice, nods again. His handkerchief is soft against her face and smells of her father, of her childhood. The memories sting her eyes again. She swallows against the lump in her chest, her emotions threatening to break the surface, leaving her a crumpled mass of uncontrollable tears. I can’t go there. I can’t go there…. I mustn’t go there….

  Blowing her nose and dabbing again at her eyes, she smiles, a weak, pale smile. Looking at her father, she nods.

  “Good,” he answers, nodding. “Francis?” He turns to his four-year-old grandson. “Take Mommy’s hand. I’ll take Phoebe and the suitcase and we’ll go see Grandma. Shall we?”

  Francis nods, his eyes serious and watchful. He takes his mother’s hand.

  It is not until later that night, when the kids are bathed and in bed, that the adults can talk more openly about the implications of Ruby’s hasty arrival.

  “So, what does all this mean, honey?” Daniel asks, handing Jeanie and Ruby a glass of bourbon and then pouring one for himself.

  Following her parents out onto the small porch, Ruby sits on the Adirondack chair beside her mother. “I don’t know, Dad. I just don’t want to go back. I think I want to leave John, I suppose.” Ruby shrugs, unable to look up from her drink.

  “Really, Ruby.” She hears her mother’s voice beside her, gentle but practical. “What kind of an answer is that, honey? We’ve been through this before, and I thought it was settled then. Wives don’t just leave their husbands. It’s just not done.”

  Ruby sips her drink, then stares into her glass. “Even when they feel like they’re dying?”

  “Oh, Ruby!” Her mother’s laughter echoes in the shadows of the cottage, shimmering like moonlight off the water. “Nobody dies just because they feel like it.” She shakes her head. “And separation, divorce, well that’s just such a big step.”

  Turning to Daniel for understanding, Ruby holds his gaze. He has always been the parent who would give in. Even as a child, she knew that if she dug in her heels, her father was no match for her will. He believed in “live and let live” and found it difficult to force his will upon his family. “Daddy, you must understand how I feel. I just can’t go on like this.”

  “I think I do, honey, but it is not just you involved in this. You have to think about John and the children. You have to understand the consequences of your actions. You have to respect the lives entrusted to you: your children and your husband.”

  “I do respect the children. And I respect John, but he is living his life, pursuing his goals. He’s hardly ever home. I feel like my life is over before it has even begun.”

  “Oh Ruby, that is just not right,” Jeanie interjects, looking from Ruby to Daniel and then back again. “Your life is just beginning. You live for your children and your husband. That is what a mother does. And what a wonderful thing it is.”

  “But it is not enough for me, Mom. I have a right to the life I want. If I’m unhappy, how happy can John and the kids be?”

  “You already have all life has to offer, Ruby. There isn’t anything more,” Jeanie answers, as if explaining something to a child.

  “There is more,” Ruby says quietly, but her mother isn’t listening. She rushes on with her own line of reasoning.

  “Daniel, don’t you think Ruby has a full and blessed life? Tell her there isn’t anything more…. Daniel?” Jeanie looks from Ruby to Daniel, realizing that he has retreated from the conversation. She looks at Ruby, her face pinched with concern, a world of unspoken communication passing between them.

  Leaning forward in her chair, Ruby touches her father’s arm, her voice gentle with worry. “Dad?”

  Daniel looks up as though he is waking from a dream, his eyes taking in his surroundings. He makes an effort to rouse himself; it is a struggle he is getting used to, one he knows he must undertake. “Ruby, what is it, honey?”

  “Are you all right, Dad? You just seemed to wander off there. Where you thinking about your fishing holes?” Ruby laughs unconvincingly.

  “Yes, I’m fine. It’s nothing, really.” Standing abruptly, Daniel bumps the small table holding his drink but quickly steadies it, one hand on the table the other on the glass. “Well, it looks like I need another drink. How are you girls? Anyone for another drink?”

  “No, I’m good, Dad. But I would love a tea.”

  “A tea?” Daniel laughs. “All right, but it will take me a few minutes, you know, boiling the water and all.” He turns to Jeanie. “And for you, my dear?”

  Jeanie smiles, handing her husband her empty glass. “I’ll join you in another drink, honey. But make it a short one.”

  When he has left the front porch, the screen door banging on its hinges, Ruby turns to Jeanie, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. “What’s going on with Dad?”

  “I don’t know, honey. In the last few years he has been falling into these moody silences. Sometimes they pass quite quickly, but lately they have been lasting longer. Sometimes for days.”

  “I don’t remember him ever being like this, Mom. Has something happened?”

  “No, nothing. Well, except for life. He has never been one to talk about the past, and there have been certain things, you know—the war, the babies dying, his brother’s death. Your father likes to move on, always looking forward, letting memories slip quietly into the past as if they never really happened.” Jeanie rubs her bottom lip with a finger and looks past Ruby to the screen door. Then she continues, finally voicing a thought she has had for a long time but has not been able to articulate: “I think, sometimes, he gets lost in the silence of not saying.”

  “Mom, what happen
ed in Chicago? I can barely remember that time, but I think, somehow, it was frightening. I don’t know why.” Ruby falls silent, trying once again to gather impressions, feelings that are always just beyond her grasp, real but unsubstantial, like cobwebs on skin. “Why did you and Dad leave, Mom? Did something happen?” Leaning forward, Ruby takes Jeanie’s hand; it is small and thin, like a child’s. Ruby has always thought of her father as the stronger one in the family and her mother as the weaker one, but lately she is not so sure.

  “Well, life happened … and death.” Jeanie nods to herself, smiles, and then turns toward Ruby. “I’m not sure that there is a simple answer to your question, honey. Your father had a good job. The accounting business was just starting—in its infancy really—and your father was on the ground floor. He also did the books for private businesses. He was always a good provider. But things were difficult. I had had two miscarriages before you were born and then, three years later, Jamie. Then Jamie died. Those years, honey, they seem lost to me. Grief will do that.” Shrugging almost imperceptibly, Jeanie pauses. “Your father dealt with his grief in his own way, but some days it was difficult to go on. You get up and put one foot in front of the other, wondering all the time why you’re even bothering to continue. It’s painful and pointless, but you just keep doing it, and slowly it hurts less and less. And then one day, life begins to have purpose again. I don’t know exactly why we left Chicago. I think it was your father’s way of getting over Jamie’s death, but sometimes I wonder if there was more to it than that.”

  “Like what?” Ruby asks, just above a whisper.

  “Your father’s brother, Michael, was killed in a robbery at a flower shop of all things, along with the man he worked for. It was a flower shop with offices above, but they also had interests in a few other businesses around town. Daniel did the books. The day after they were killed, some men came to the house to speak with your father. I knew one of them. They were acquaintances of your Uncle Mike, and I never liked them. They were what you would call ‘shady characters.’ But your father had a business relationship with them. Anyway, something happened that day that frightened your father, and we left Chicago the day after we buried Michael. It was a good thing too, because Chicago became a dangerous place.” Jeanie nods as the memories resurface in her mind’s eye. After a moment she continues, her voice bright.

  “It was the era, you know. There’s no denying that. It was a fun, exciting time. Your dad would take me to the jazz clubs—they called them speakeasies. It was during prohibition and drinking in the club was illegal. But really, that’s what made the atmosphere, that and the music. The music was something else! We saw Joe Lewis, Billie Holiday—so many great names!” Caught up in the nostalgia, Jeanie smiles whimsically, her eyes liquid with memory. For a moment, Ruby can see clearly the young woman her mother once was. “We would dress up in high style and go out on the town, and you knew that this was something just beginning, something exciting and important. But there was always a feeling of foreboding—at least for me, young, Canadian girl that I was—that things wouldn’t last.”

  “What would give you that feeling, Mom?”

  “Well, there was always the threat of being raided by police, and we all knew that the club owners were mostly criminals. My goodness, if you were selling liquor in any establishment at that time, you were a criminal. I suppose we were all breaking the law. Prohibition was just such a ridiculous thing. It ended up being more bad than good, with all the illegal drinking and transporting of liquor. Chicago was like a dynamite keg just waiting to explode, and we got out just in time.” Looking again at the screen door, Jeanie continues, “So, I’m not sure why we left—I don’t know if it was from grief, or if it was something your father was involved with that frightened him—but whatever it was, it was fortunate for us.

  “We had money. Michael had left your father a good sum, and we used that to buy a home in Outremont and for your dad to start up his accounting business. We moved to Montreal, and we never looked back. It was the best thing we ever did.”

  They are silent, listening to the summer sounds outside the porch: the soft hum of night bugs, the breeze through the dunes, the ocean against the shore, soothingly rhythmical.

  “He has always been so present and articulate,” Ruby says, her voice thick with emotion in the darkness. “He was always the one starting the conversations over dinner and insisting that Edward and I join in. Remember the discussions he would start, Mom? He always expected us all to have our opinions on politics or religion. He just loved to be in the middle of a good argument. This is so unlike him.” Turning to her mother for an answer, Ruby watches Jeanie shrug, her eyes worried and compelling.

  “I know,” her mother answers.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing, Mom. Dad is strong and so are you. Look at all the things you’ve been through.” After a moment, she continues, “Well, I think it’s time to turn in.”

  “Yes I suppose it is getting quite late. It’s easy to lose track of time here, isn’t it, honey?”

  “Maybe Dad is just tired?”

  “Yes, maybe.”

  They are silent for a long time, isolated in the darkness, listening to the movement from the kitchen, Daniel making tea.

  “YOUR GRANDDAD AND I separated for the first time that summer, but I knew it was the beginning of the end, in so many ways. I wanted to leave John and be with Leland, and I should have. But I didn’t. Not for years. My father and mother were struggling with Daddy’s silent moods, which were getting worse and worse. For the first time, I saw my parents as so very vulnerable. I was pregnant with Gary, and it just seemed easier for everyone if I stayed with John.”

  “But you were in love with Leland James?”

  “Yes, I was in love with Leland James. I have always been in love with him. From the very first time I met him, I wanted to be known by him fully, in every way, the good and the bad. And I was. That summer I ached with the love I felt for him. I was in love with Leland,” Ruby nods and then continues, almost to herself, “and I was pregnant with his child.”

  Lisa, taking a drink from her glass, chokes on the Pepsi; the fluid forced up through her nose is sharp and cold. Reaching for the napkin on the table, her mind reeling, Lisa blows her nose, shaking her head to dislodge the feeling. She must have heard her grandmother wrong, or maybe Ruby is talking about something else, someone else. Turning toward Ruby, her eyes tight with the struggle to comprehend, Lisa asks in a voice lowered with confusion. “Nan?”

  “Yes, lovey?”

  “Nan, did you just say you were pregnant with Leland’s child?”

  “Yes, I did just say that.”

  “Did you have that child?”

  “Of course I did.” Ruby nods as if to emphasize the banality of the question.

  “Are you saying that my dad, your son Gary, is Leland’s son?”

  The question hangs, an expectant bubble between them, pierced by Ruby’s forceful voice. “Yes, Lisa. Gary is Leland’s son.”

  Lisa understands for the first time what it means to be struck dumb. She stares at Ruby, her mind ricocheting in uncontrolled directions, incredulity and realization staggering across her face. Ruby is calm, looking out the train window as if nothing has changed, her profile in the afternoon light burning into Lisa’s mind like a laser; her grandmother’s image becomes a shadow on her retina as she looks away, searching in confusion.

  “Who knows about this? I mean, does Dad know? Do Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Frank know?” Shaking her head, Lisa answers her own question. “They can’t. I’m sure we would all know.” Looking again at Ruby, Lisa feels like she is seeing her for the first time, a stranger on the train, revealing secrets from a lost past. Questions struggle for attention, paralyzing in their magnitude, their implications. Her mind runs through the years until she arrives at this moment. Taking in her grandmother with a new perspective, she asks the only question that
matters: “Why are you telling me this now, Nan?”

  Ruby, whose attention has been absorbed with the struggles of a fly in the sill of the train window, replies without turning. “Maybe it can help you with your decision.”

  “Help me with my decision?” What decision? Lisa wonders. This new revelation has pushed her own pregnancy into the background. This is something quite different; it is too big to allow room for anything else. “Nan, you have to tell Dad. He has a right to know. He has been going for blood work. He’s been having health issues. He’s worried. Mom’s worried. I’m worried. They have to know that Leland is Dad’s biological father. What did Leland die of, Nan? Wasn’t it cancer? Dad will have to know; he’ll have to be told. We all need to know.” Lisa’s voice pitches upward as the magnitude of this information rolls over her with a physical power. She shakes her head either with incredulity or to clear her thoughts, she is not sure. The action is automatic, involuntary, as if it is somehow facilitating her understanding.

  Ruby nods, still captivated by the fly’s efforts, so like her own. “Yes, I must tell Gary.”

  “No, Nan. Not must—you will! You have to tell him! You have to tell everyone!”

  “I think they must already know.”

  “How would they know if they were never told?”

  Ruby turns to look at Lisa, her eyes, pale and large in the sunlight, compel understanding. “You don’t have to be told something to know the truth of it.”

  Lisa is still struggling to understand. “How old was Dad when you married Leland?”

  “Gary was around two when John and I divorced, and just starting school when I married Leland. The children were raised with Leland. After the divorce, John Grace travelled more and more for his job and saw the children less and less. I didn’t think it fair to burden Gary, to single him out as different, as the reason I couldn’t stay with John. There was no point bringing to light something that would hurt everyone.”