by Amy Bourret
As Lark’s own tears subside, she lays a soft hand against Ruby’s cheek. “Oh, Mama. Your heart must have been attacking you really bad.”
NINETY-FIVE
Molly, she’ll cry at anything. Movies, music, dog food commercials. But Ruby has never seen Margaret cry until today. Which may be because Margaret is not a pretty crier. Southern belle Molly just opens her eyes wide, and the dainty waterworks trickle out. Her tears wouldn’t even smudge mascara, if Molly wore any, that is. Margaret, though, is a blubberer. Swollen face and snorts and snot.
The house was quiet when the Jeep crunched up the driveway; the covered windows glowed opaque and muted. No decorations outside this time—the Ms were careful not to tip off reporters or even neighbors. But walking into the house was like climbing into the netted play area at McDonald’s. Untethered balloons, bright green, orange, pink, and Lark’s favorite, purple, dotted the living area. Some filled with helium slithered across the ceiling; the ones with plain air bounced around the floor.
Clyde was so excited that he peed on the rug when Lark came into the house. Ruby figured that was his own way of crying at her return. Then he went on a tear, doing figure eights around the kitchen table, around the coffee table, around and around, pausing to head-butt balloons along his path. Lark’s giggle sounded as if it had been shredded in a blender.
The Ms brought pizza and bright-colored cupcakes and bubbly drinks. Ruby drank half a glass of champagne for the toasts—to Lark, to Home, to Forever—then switched to sparkling cider. Antoinette called not long after the toasts. Ruby invited her over, but her friend demurred, telling Ruby that Lark needed a night just with family.
And Antoinette was right. After Lark’s crying spell in the Jeep, the shy-stranger persona returned. She isn’t quite tiptoeing around like Darla said she did, but she’s not acting all home-sweet-home, either. She sits now in the center of the sofa, sandwiched between the Ms. Poor Lark is going to shed a layer of skin after all the hugging and rubbing from both of them. Clyde, exhausted from his seal act, is sprawled across their laps while the Ms make plans for the next century or so.
“You can come to the opening of my show at the gallery.” Molly wiggles with happiness.
Margaret has abandoned her champagne flute, clasps the bottle by its throat. “Let’s go on a trip.” She pauses to take a swig as if the Moët were a longneck beer. “All of us together.”
“You’re drunk.” Molly speaks in a Minnie Mouse voice.
Margaret tucks the champagne bottle between her knees, reaches across Lark to grab the balloon from Molly, sucks helium from its snout. “I’m verklempt. Ver-klempt.”
Lark just sits there between them, a swipe of lime green icing on her cheek. She exudes more relief than happiness. Ruby remembers reading about POWs, how the army put them through a multistep reintegration after their release from war camps. And they weren’t sent to prison by their mothers, weren’t mad at their mothers before they even left. Ruby has some heavy-duty reintegration to undertake.
NINETY-SIX
Long after the celebration has ended, after the Ms have cleaned up the mess and left, after Lark and Clyde have tumbled into an exhausted slumber, Ruby sits on the edge of Lark’s bed. The moon is a bright orb outside the window. Ruby worries about photographers, night lenses, but just for tonight, she has opened Lark’s shade, needing the affirmation in the splash of yellow moonlight on Lark’s serene face, as if God, too, is saying, “Yes, this is our beloved child. Here is where she belongs.”
The moon was full the night before Lark left, too. Ruby can’t quite believe that all of it, Lark leaving, Lark returning, and everything in between, has transpired during a scant few lunar cycles. “To the moon and back,” Lark said tonight before she drifted off. I love you, too, Ruby thinks now, to the moon and back.
She sits and watches. Clyde lifts his head, nods at Ruby, nuzzles back into Lark’s neck. He and Lark have fallen right back into their old tangle of limbs and sheets. Ruby remembers a cat that used to sleep with her like that, cheek to cheek, a paw thrown over her chest and the rest of her nestled in her armpit. Her grandmother had a firm rule about cats in the house; “They’re called barn cats for a reason,” Nana would say. But this particular feline attached himself to Ruby from the time he was an itty bitty kitty. Determined and curious, the cat learned how to squeeze around the loose screen on Ruby’s open bedroom window and leap onto her bed.
Ruby’s grandfather knew. He would spot the cat in Ruby’s bed when he peeked in on her as he was heading out the door, after bringing Nana’s morning coffee to her bedside, as he did every morning of their marriage. He would whistle softly, and the cat would jump down, follow him out to the yard. Ruby isn’t sure why this particular memory surfaces now, but it makes her smile.
Lark stirs, settles back against Clyde. Ruby wonders what her daughter is dreaming this night. How much will her ordeal change already cautious Lark? Will little pieces of the horror cling to her mind like smoke to clothing, surfacing at random moments, like tonight with Ruby’s cat memory, only without the smile?
Ruby hums the daffy song to the dark room. She thought she might crumble when Lark asked to be tucked in tonight with her baby lullaby. But tonight Lark needed to be a baby, to be cocooned in mother love.
Ruby never has been much of a singer, and her repertoire is limited. In those first few sleepless nights with Lark in the apartment above the salon, though, this was the song that popped into Ruby’s head. She sang it over and over while she paced that small room with the bundle of miracle on her shoulder.
The song became a tradition with them. During her toddler years, Lark would start chanting “The daffy song, the daffy song” before she hit her bed. She would change the words up every now and then, but Lark would give a sleepy giggle and say, “No, Mama, it goes like this.”
Daffodil, daffodil, daffodil-dilly.
Sleep baby, sleep; the moon’s in the sky.
Daffodil, daffodil, daffodil-dilly.
Sleep sweet one, sleep, for morning draws nigh.
Dream, baby dream, of flowers and sunshine.
Dream, sweet one, dream, oh, daughter of mine.
The moon’s in the sky, love. The moon’s in the sky.
Close your eyes to today, love. Morning draws nigh.
Sleep sweet one, sleep baby, sleep daffodil-dilly.
We’ll share tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, you and I.
Ruby isn’t even sure where she learned the song. It certainly wasn’t something her grandmother passed on to her; Nana wasn’t the sentimental, bed-singing type. Ruby’s grandfather sang constantly, while busy at his workbench, while out in the fields, even at the supper table until Nana would give him a look. But he didn’t sing this one. No, Ruby likes to think that maybe, just maybe, her own mother sang it when she held Ruby in her arms.
After the moonlight shifts from Lark’s face to the edge of the bed, Ruby heaves her swollen torso to standing, shakes the creaks out her knees. She gives Clyde a pat on the head, brushes a strand of hair off Lark’s cheek. “A million tomorrows,” she whispers. “We have a million tomorrows, you and I.”
NINETY-SEVEN
Lark sits at the kitchen table, Clyde at her feet. The avocado pit has sprouted long tendrils of roots while she’s been gone; Lark caresses it, talks to it, then places it in a clay pot. “Do you think he will grow, here I mean?” She sprinkles more potting soil into the container.
Ruby sets down her water glass—she’s trying to follow doctor’s orders to drink extra liquids; in the high desert, hydration is imperative. “I don’t know. Santa Fe is not exactly California, but you’re giving him every chance.”
In the week or so that Lark has been home, she has traipsed over every square inch of the house, running her hands over walls and furniture and doodads. She acts like a cat sniffing out new territory in every nook and cranny. Ruby understands the impulse. When she touches Lark, any skin-to-skin contact at all, she can feel a thousand coils unwind
ing in a sacred serpent dance along her spine. She tries not to hover, but she breathes better when Lark is in her sight.
Lark climbs onto the kitchen counter next to the stove top, opens the cabinet where the spices are stored. “You expecting an extra big visit from the Easter Bunny this year?”
Ruby looks past Lark at the shelf, and the stack of food coloring boxes from the pie-safe project, each missing a red squeeze bottle at one end.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Smarty-Pants is back in the building.” Antoinette steps through the side door.
“Wonnie!” Lark yelps, jumps from the counter, and bounds across the room. These days, she reminds Ruby of some of the dementia patients at the nursing home, greeting everyone like a long-lost relative with the same exuberance, even if she sees them several times in a day.
“Whatcha cooking there?” Antoinette asks.
Lark untangles herself from Antoinette and holds up a spice jar. “I’m burying Brad. I’m gonna put some garlic in the dirt to make sure he grows into some go-ood guacamole.”
“Brad?” Antoinette asks.
Ruby shrugs. “Wait for it…wait for it.”
Lark skips over to the table, opens her arms with the flair of a magician’s assistant. “Pit. Brad Pit, my avocado.”
Antoinette’s laugh bubbles up from her toes. Lark holds her position with a satisfied smirk for a beat or two before dissolving into giggles herself.
“Oh, little girl, I’m gonna want me some of that guacamole,” Antoinette says.
Ruby holds her belly with one hand, pinches her side with the other. Their laughter is out of proportion to the joke, but at least the tone of Lark’s giggle has descended from dog-whistle range. “You two are going to make me pee my pants.”
“She’s a peeing machine,” Lark says.
Antoinette nods. “Yep. And that gas. Whoo-ie.”
“Make fun of the fat person, why don’t ya. I’ll be right back.” Ruby waddles across the room to the hall, listening to the laughter, music that has been missing from this house for too long. She and her daughter, they’re both going to be okay. She wipes her eyes with her hand, wondering what that African language would call tears of joy.
When Ruby steps out of the bathroom, Lark is in front of her, heading out of her bedroom. Ruby pauses at the doorway to the living area, takes in the scene.
Lark and Antoinette stand facing each other, Antoinette’s hands wrapped around Lark’s. Clyde, as usual, has his nose in the middle of the action.
“Tell him.” Lark speaks quietly; Ruby can barely hear the words. “Tell him I’m sorry. That he had his wreck.” Lark pulls her hand away, and a thin gold chain dribbles from Antoinette’s palm, dangling between her fingers.
“I’ll give it back to him if you want, Larklette,” Antoinette says. “But he gave it to you; he wanted you to have it.”
Ah, now Ruby understands what’s going on. The Saint Christopher medal. Chaz’s medal.
Lark drapes an arm around the dog’s neck. “I’m safe now. And he’ll need it in his new job, because he doesn’t have his gold shield anymore.” She glances over her shoulder, spots Ruby. A sheepish shadow falls across her face.
“It’s okay.” Ruby walks into the room. “You can talk about him in front of me.” Since their conversation in the car, Lark hasn’t asked any questions about Chaz. Ruby didn’t doubt that Lark sensed there was more to the story than she was told, yet she seemed to accept that he was gone. She also must have sensed Ruby’s sadness. His absence lurks around the house—jumping out to slap Ruby across the face at odd moments—and the rest of the time simply lingering, like a scent of aftershave in the air, as she moves through the days. “You don’t have to pretend he doesn’t exist.”
NINETY-EIGHT
A horn toots in the driveway. Ruby turns off the faucet, leaves the breakfast dishes to soak. The waffle iron sits open-jawed on the countertop, drips of crusty, brown batter and a blur of melted rainbow sprinkles on the sides.
“Come on,” Ruby calls. “Shoes. Backpack.”
She thought about taking Lark away, hiding out at the Ms’ cabin, but Lark needs a semblance of normalcy. She needs her first day back to class with her friends. When Ruby called the principal to warn her about the media, the principal was resolute; no reporter is going to get anywhere near this child on school property.
But Lark has a better chance of avoiding detection if Ruby stays far away.
When Ruby peeks through the paper covering the door panes, Margaret’s tinted-window SUV is pulled right up to the edge of the front porch, doors flung open wide to block the view from the street.
“I’ll be fine,” Lark says as Ruby hugs her. “Mama. Let go.”
Ruby forces her arms to separate from Lark’s back, like prying magnets apart, and opens the front door. As a screen, Molly stands on the porch with Margaret’s golf umbrella held out beside her like that dancing fool in Singin’ in the Rain. Lark gives Ruby a little-girl wave, dashes alongside the umbrella, and into the car.
As Lark’s head disappears behind the closing door, Ruby resists the urge to call out to her to come back. She isn’t going to cause Lark to miss school, even if it takes old-movie antics to get her there. But she doesn’t even try to quell the panic pounding in her throat as she watches her child disappear from her sight once again.
NINETY-NINE
Lark kneels on the sofa, bends the blind slats to make a peephole. “They’re still there. Three of them.” She spins around, throws herself down onto the sofa. “This sucks.”
Ruby swipes her own forehead. They’ve never before needed a swamp cooler, but the room is stifling, stale without the cool air circulating through windows. She doesn’t even bother to caution Lark about her language. The press siege is wearing her down, too. The reporters are relentless. The phone is unplugged. And the answering machine. Anyone who needs to reach them will know what’s going on.
Clyde jumps up on the sofa, takes Lark’s place at the window, his chubby paws on the cushion top, nose under the blinds. “Get down.” Lark tugs his collar. “You don’t want to end up on national TV.” The dog flinches at Lark’s unusually harsh words. The way he puts his head on Lark’s knee is worthy of its own Oscar.
Little Miss Red Suit showed up at the salon yesterday after Ruby left. Margaret said she never imagined that ohm-chanting Zara knew so many four-letter words. Among other invectives, she told the reporter that if she wasn’t gone in five seconds, she would walk out with a curling iron up her cute little skirt. One of the other hairdressers recognized the reporter; she’s a talking head for a court cable station, all luridness, all the time. Red is her signature color, the magic carpet she hopes to ride to prime time.
Ruby offered to stay away so that the salon’s business wouldn’t be disrupted, but Margaret shrugged off the suggestion, told her the ladies love the intrigue. Then she posted a REPORTERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT sign on the front door and let it be known that anyone, staff or clients, who talked with the press about Ruby and Lark would be included in the firing line, or at least shunned for life. The latter threat carries some real weight; Margaret still hasn’t forgiven a cousin who borrowed her car and racked up several hundred dollars in unpaid parking tickets twenty years ago.
And today the reporters are gathering outside their house. Just a small camp, not a full-fledged army. Not yet anyway. Now Ruby knows how Chaz’s fish felt. No, this is worse. Glug at least got fed. Ruby and Lark just get violated.
“How about a game before bed? Scrabble?”
Lark doesn’t answer, just recrosses her arms against her chest. Lark loves Scrabble; she routinely trounces Ruby. Lark can see words in the mess on a rack, while Ruby just sees mess. But not even the chance to skunk her mom tempts Lark today. “How ’bout just bed.”
Ruby follows Lark into her bedroom. “They’ll lose interest soon. Last time—”
Clyde startles Ruby out of her words as he scuttles past her, growls at the window. She rushes to his side. M
aybe tomorrow she’ll nail plywood over this window, batten down the hatches to protect Lark from the media storm. But for tonight, she double-checks the latches, tugs at the shade to make sure it covers every speck of glass. That is when she sees the shadow.
Ruby runs out the front door, Clyde at her heels. She grabs the garden hose, turns the spigot on full blast, and aims the cold gushing water at the cameraman skulking along the side of the house. The man shrieks, curses, covers his lens with his jacket. And runs down the driveway with Clyde snarling at his heels. The crash of camera against asphalt, plastic and glass chattering, shattering, is gunshot-sharp against the evening quiet.
At Ruby’s whistle, Clyde comes bounding up the drive, his teeth a flash of grin in the dark. Ruby follows him in through the door, locks it behind her, pats the brown grocery sacks taped over the glass panes to make sure that they are secure. She storms to the phone, plugs it in, and calls Chaz’s ex-partner, Krueger.
He probably can feel the blaze of her words through the phone line. “Hold on,” he says. She hears him on his cell phone, calling in a favor from the police captain. “They’ll be right there,” he says to Ruby through the landline as he thanks his boss on the other phone. “And the cruisers will drive by all night.”
When Ruby walks back into Lark’s bedroom, Clyde stands guard in front of the bed, where Lark sits cross-legged, her face a mask of shock and indignity, her pj’s clenched to her chest. Ruby sits down beside her. “I think Clyde helped himself to a cameraman’s bum for a bedtime snack.”
“Good boy, Clyde.” Lark strokes the dog’s head, and he looks back at her with a mixture of complicity and adoration. “I wish you could eat them all.”