by Jim Nelson
“How much are plane tickets?” Cynthia said.
“The police will be looking for Ruby at the airports,” Hanna said. “We’ll have to drive.”
The question Hanna weighed now was whether they returned to California. They might have to run farther than Mexico to remain a family.
Cynthia stood to leave. Hanna asked her to stay a moment.
“Are you okay with what Ruby did?” Hanna asked.
Cynthia sat back down. She unfolded the hand towel and folded it again in her lap.
“I had it all planned out my mind,” Cynthia said. “I was going to do what was right for me.” The words emerged from her mouth with a rugged sturdiness. “I would have the procedure and live a full life.” She shrugged. “Piper was good at making me think it was all my idea and not hers.”
“You came back,” Hanna said. “Just like Ruby came back. You didn’t blindly follow Piper. You made your own choices.”
Cynthia said, “Ruby cooks and cleans. Ruby washes our feet. She makes sure we wear sunscreen. I thought when I left, Ruby would be there for you. I would run to a new life. I would run to Shur Spring to be Hagar’s sister. Ruby would stay behind and be the good bridge daughter for you.”
“Ruby is here and you are here,” Hanna said. “It all worked out.”
“But Piper was wrong in the end,” Cynthia said with a bittersweet smile. “She thought we would abandon you.”
Hanna gripped Cynthia’s hand and forced a smile. Hanna could not help but think Piper had won.
—
Hanna had spent a week of work vacation days to visit the farm, only to spend half of the time in a San Francisco jail. She’d burned up another week of vacation time in preparation for the custody hearing and preparing for Cynthia’s finality. Her most recent paystub noted her vacation time had dwindled to hours. Marketing campaigns and web promotions had deadlines. She’d been unable to keep up with the workload. The company had cooperated with her needs. They allowed her to work from home and make up missed days on the weekends. She knew the charity would not last forever.
To top it off, Hanna claimed additional time off of work using Ruby’s disappearance as an excuse, even though Ruby was safe and sound. She’d always thought of herself as an honest person—most people do—and now Hanna found herself jury-rigging excuses and piecing together outright lies to remain home near Ruby.
Todd sent Hanna the occasional “just checking in” types of emails. Saw something on the news tonight about bridge daughters and thought of you. He friended her on the social networks. Now he’d begun to send her short messages through those systems as well.
I’m sorry to hear about Ruby, his latest email read. I can’t tell you how bad I feel. Let me know if there’s any way I can help.
And the conclusion: If you need to talk to someone or just want to grab a coffee, let me know. I’d love to catch up with you. I feel like it’s been a long time since we talked.
Hanna lingered over love, a mistake on his part, a word a man should excise from his vocabulary when exploring the possibility of a relationship. Hanna felt nothing toward Todd. Even the idea of friendship outside the office felt burdensome. She could enumerate a half-dozen qualities she found attractive in men—must-haves—and he possessed none of them. When she thought of Todd McManus, the first word to come to mind was stability. She did not find that attractive at all.
It scared her. The things she found attractive in men, they described Vaughn as surely as 10½ described his shoe size. The more she told herself she would never be with a man like Vaughn, the more she knew she would, one day, or never at all.
—
By the third day, Ruby’s fever had receded. With a palpable relief, Hanna removed the antibiotics from Ruby’s bed stand. She’d been uncomfortable giving Ruby any of the prescription drugs she’d found at the rental, but she had little choice.
The pill bottle of pseudogefyridol from the Chicago pharmacy remained on the bed stand. Ruby would always need a supply for as long as she lived.
While Cynthia cooked dinner, Hanna entered Ruby’s darkened bedroom. She pulled a chair beside the bed. She sat for half an hour holding Ruby’s hand. She slept in a fetal position. Ruby’s breathing was sporadic. Her soft skin was moist and alkaline. Deep in a dream, she murmured incomprehensibly now and then.
Hanna slipped off her shoes and gently joined Ruby. When the girls were young, both liked to join Hanna in bed. Cynthia quit before age four, while Ruby kept joining her until age eight, when Hanna put an end to the ritual.
Vaughn had abandoned them by this point. Hanna’s anger and despair subsided to a frenzied period of sleeping with men with no intention of seeing them again. Hanna found it embarrassing to have to send away Ruby in the middle of the night with a strange naked man beside her. Hanna felt judged in these parental moments, as though the men were sizing her up as a long-term mate on this first, and usually last, date. Hanna could afford to hire a babysitter, of course, and she could even find a babysitter to watch the girls overnight. Hanna always felt being near her bridge daughters was a mother’s first responsibility, and she abided.
Ruby’s dainty warm body welcomed Hanna into bed. The child’s soft quick breaths of sleep were audible heartbeats for Hanna to gauge. Hanna spooned Ruby, thinking it would comfort her in some manner. It comforted Hanna. She gently slid her left arm beneath Ruby’s neck and allowed her right arm to follow the curving flow of Ruby’s fetal frame.
Her right palm came to rest on Ruby’s belly. A small mushy mass of belly fat filled Hanna’s splayed hand. Ruby was always a tad pudgy, a little girl who liked extra scoops of ice cream for dessert and cheese pizza for breakfast. Hanna pressed inward, searching out the hard knot beneath the fat. Ruby Jo was in there.
She’d read about Blanchard’s Procedure on Wikipedia; she knew the transformations occurring at that moment. Stapled to the rear of Ruby’s womb, the comatose gemmelius was receding in mass. The bi-graft caused immediate reductions in the first twenty-four hours. The gemmelius would continue to contract over the next month. Unlike Cynthia, dainty Ruby never developed an excessively prominent display. Ruby Jo would have been a diminutive infant. Wearing the right clothes, Ruby could pass as a normal pre-teen within a week, Hanna reasoned.
She squeezed tighter against Ruby. She had a new daughter, thirteen-year-old Ruby, older sister to little Barry and the best mother’s assistant imaginable. If Wikipedia was right, Ruby would live on average another seven years, perhaps twelve if she stayed healthy. She’d grow gaunt and frail, although she might continue to grow in height. She’d develop gray hair if she survived to her twenties. Be it God or Nature, a bridge daughter was designed to expend all her energies toward the child within. When that purpose no longer existed, the clock slowed, the gear work began to rust, and the inner workings ground to a halt.
—
Lately Cynthia began requiring assistance climbing out of bed. The process left her breathless and aching about her waist and belly. She woke up mornings with a tender lower back and sore shoulders. Like her father, she adamantly refused all offers of help from Hanna. Cynthia would bat away Hanna’s outreached hands so she could rise from bed on her own.
A week after Ruby’s return, it was Ruby offering the hand of assistance. Cynthia refused. After rocking twice to sit up and failing, she acceded. Ruby, slight and plump compared to her bony twin sister, acted as an anchor for Cynthia to leverage.
For all her weakness her first week home, at the start of the second, Ruby abounded with vim and vigor. She rose early, bathed and dressed, helped Cynthia from bed, and made a full breakfast for the house. Ruby’s appetite roared back. She ate two helpings of her own breakfast while Cynthia, sick to her stomach and constipated, picked at her eggs.
Dr. Bellingham prescribed pseudogefyridol for Cynthia. The drug was a preventative measure to counter the Hoff’s Syndrome in Hanna’s family tree. Hanna chanced to ask him for an additional dose to avoid the hassle of a refill. He s
aid it was not possible.
“In two weeks, we’ll put her on PGN,” Dr. Bellingham said at the conclusion of the examination. Under his breath, he added, “And, you have my sympathies about Ruby.”
At home, in the hall bathroom, Hanna attempted to cut the tablet in two, one-half for Cynthia, the other for Ruby.
“Why did he give you sympathies for Ruby?” Cynthia asked bluntly.
“Who did?” Ruby asked.
“Dr. Bellingham has sympathies for you,” Cynthia said. “He talked like you were dead.”
Hanna said to both of them, “When bridge daughters run away, they don’t come back.”
“Is that why I’m a secret?” Ruby asked.
The girls held cups of water while Hanna fumbled to split the pill with a butter knife.
“You’ll need to find more,” Cynthia told her.
“We can make this stretch,” Hanna said.
“You can only use me as an excuse for another three weeks,” Cynthia said.
“I can call Piper,” Ruby said.
“No,” Hanna said. “Never call her again.”
The third day, Cynthia refused the medicine.
“I don’t have Hoff’s,” Cynthia said. “Give them to Ruby.”
Hanna held the cup of water and broken tablet out to Cynthia. “Don’t argue with me.”
“Don’t argue with me,” Cynthia said. “You’ve got to start thinking about your future.”
Excused from going in to the office, Hanna began sleeping in late. Anxious late nights organizing their trip to Ensenada left her exhausted. Planning the trip meant planning her future finances, and it looked grim. Hanna did not expect to hold her job much longer. Progressive companies like her San Francisco-based firm would not fire her while on maternity leave. She sensed they would find an excuse to release her afterwards. And she knew she could not expect future checks from Vaughn. Even if he did send them, she could not cash them, not after his maneuverings.
She debated phoning the lawyer her father had hired, verify client-attorney privilege, and spill to her the circumstances about Ruby. She never followed through. What would the lawyer advise other than to turn in Ruby?
—
One morning, Hanna sat before her notebook computer answering work email. The front doorbell rang. Ruby called out Got it! The padding of her feet down the entry hall sent Hanna running from her chair.
“Never answer the door,” Hanna hissed. She had Ruby by the arm. From Ruby’s expression, she knew Ruby was scared and shocked and on the verge of crying. She turned Ruby around and pushed her toward the rear hall. “Go to your room and close the door.”
Once Ruby was out of sight, Hanna checked the peephole. She slumped against the door.
“Can I come in or not?” Vaughn called through the door. “How about it?”
“No,” Hanna said.
“That’s not nice,” he said. “A man can’t say goodbye to his wife and bridge daughter before he leaves town?”
There was no sending him away. Hanna opened the door Vaughn, fragrant with smoky aftershave and decked in a cyan-blue suit with his shirt collar undone. An umber sports car was parked in the street. Hanna recognized the woman in the passenger’s seat, the same woman who picked up Ruby at the Bridge Services office. Adele, Hanna recalled.
Hanna called for Cynthia to join them. Cynthia approached with a slight waddle in her step.
“Hi,” was all she offered her father.
“Come here.” Without asking permission, he pushed through the half-open door and stepped into the hallway. “Give me a big one,” he said with his arms extended.
He hugged Cynthia as best he could manage, squatting a bit to meet her height and keeping his waist out to avoid touching her pregnancy. He rocked her back and forth, murmuring My little bridge. Cynthia glared over his shoulder at Hanna. She did not return his hug.
He released her and looked her up and down. “You’re a man and a half.” He pointed at a torn corner of tissue paper on her chin held fast by a dot of blood. “A splash of Aqua-Velva will take care of that.”
“You’ve said goodbye,” Hanna said. “It’s time to go.”
“What about Ruby?” he said.
Hanna did her best to control the slight shock within her. “That’s not funny.”
He chortled. “You heard from the police?” he said.
“Nothing yet.”
Vaughn straightened his back and peered left and right. “I’m sure she’ll turn up. The police are pretty good about these things. Bridges don’t just up and disappear.”
“I’m asking you to leave, Vaughn,” Hanna said.
“I’ll leave when I’m damned ready to leave.” He peered down the rear hall leading to the bedrooms.
“Vaughn—”
“I could’ve sworn I heard Ruby’s voice when I rang the bell.” Vaughn took two steps toward the rear hall. “Ru-bee?” he called out in a soft voice. “Daddy’s here.”
“Knock it off.” Cynthia stepped between her father and the hall. “We told you to go. So go.”
Vaughn smirked. He twisted at his waist to look back at Hanna. He could barely contain himself. He burst out laughing.
“You are so precious when you’re angry.” He leaned down to Cynthia and tweaked her nose. “You’re the last word around here, huh?”
“I’m the man of this house,” Cynthia said.
Vaughn leaned back and roared. Putting on a feigned expression of seriousness, he said, “Now, precious, why don’t you get your sister for me so I can say goodbye.”
A blur smeared in the air between Cynthia and Vaughn, a quick chocolate flash the color of Cynthia’s bridge daughter dress. Vaughn’s eyes bulged from their sockets for a fraction of a second. He leaned at the waist and expelled a long gasp, the hiss of air escaping a bicycle tube. With both hands on his Adam’s apple, he stumbled backward.
Hanna rushed to stop Cynthia, afraid she would strike again. Vaughn coughed properly now, deep rough ones. He leaned against the wall for support until he could straighten up.
“You put a leash on that dog,” Vaughn said, red-faced. He staggered for the entry, looked back at Hanna and Cynthia a final time, and slammed the door behind him.
—
There was no getting out of the visit. Hanna’s father and Jackie planned to stay the night in Berkeley and return home the next day after lunch. Hanna could not imagine Ruby remaining hidden in her room for such a length of time, but she also knew she couldn’t reveal the secret to her father and stepmother either. Not yet, she reasoned. Later, once everything had settled, she would clue them in. She arranged to meet them away from the house for the duration of their time in Berkeley.
Hanna joined them at the downtown lodgings Jackie preferred. Once a hostel for hippies and backpackers, in the 1990s, it upgraded to a wine-themed bed-and-breakfast. The only remnants of its past was the flurry of international flags hanging over the entrance, now tattered, limp, and, in the case of the Warsaw Pact countries, out-of-date.
When Hanna arrived, the couple had already checked in and moved their bags upstairs. Jackie remained in the room to freshen up. Hanna and her father waited in the downstairs lounge sipping Petite Syrah from stemware. He asked for news on Ruby.
“Nothing yet,” Hanna said. “The detective could only say they were still looking.”
“Which detective?” he said.
“His name is Matthewson.”
“I talked with him yesterday.” Her father shook his head, his wine-stained lips pressed together in a grim crimson line. “They’re not looking where they need to be looking. They were typing up reports when Ruby was first on the lam. When I asked where they’d looked that first day, do you know what he said?” He drank. “‘The city.’ The city? I said, ‘You’re looking in the city?’” He motioned toward the picture window, the wine in his egg-shaped glass sloshing about. “They should be looking out there. Ruby’s headed for points unknown.”
“Dad,” Hanna said.
/>
“What?”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Let the police do their work,” she said. “I’m sure they’re doing their best.”
He leaned toward her with his legs spread, moving his hands as he spoke. “Aren’t you the least bit worried what Ruby might have done to herself?” He dropped his voice. The front desk was on the other side of the lounge and manned by the owner. “What if she got a Blanchard’s?”
His drawn, rawboned face pleaded, the stark expression of a man peering into the void once again. Hanna recognized the face. She’d seen a younger version of it when her father was a bachelor and drinking away his life in dumpy apartment houses populated with other sad men, divorcees who’d lost the house and kids in the settlement. It was a time when her father was on a first-name basis with the cooks at dingy burger places and bartenders in shopping-mall bars. It was the face of a man who bought Johnnie Walker in the economy-sized bottles with the built-in pourer. And, she now knew, a man who’d struggled with the passing of his own bridge daughter, a girl who looked exactly as Hanna did when she was thirteen years old.
“Dad—I know why Mom made you leave us. She told me.”
Her father, embarrassed, sank into the plush antique chair, its upholstery ornate with curlicues of grape vines. “Don’t think less of me,” he said. “I loved you. But I loved the other Hanna too.”
“Dad,” Hanna whispered. “Ruby’s alive.”
“I pray she is.”
“She’s at home,” Hanna whispered. “She’s safe.”
It did not register. “What are you saying?”
“Ruby had a Blanchard’s,” Hanna said.
Aghast, he said, “Are you okay with that?”
“Ruby will be mother’s assistant,” she said. “Together, we’ll raise Barry. When he’s old enough, we’ll tell him she’s his older sister.” Which is the truth, Hanna realized for the first time.
“People will talk,” he said.
“We might have to move,” Hanna whispered. “Some place far away.”
“The police—”