A Family for Jason

by Virginia McCullough

  They walked into the house in silence, but Ruby was shaky, almost weak from the trip to the house and Em’s sharp words in the car. “Listen, Em, I don’t want anything, especially not Mike, to come between us.”

  “No, Rubes, Mike won’t ever come between us. Nothing will,” Emma said, her conviction clear. “But I admit it’s frustrating. I’m worried about you for your sake. I don’t want you to miss out on happiness if it’s right there, close enough to touch.”

  Ruby watched Emma get settled on the couch. Then she went to her bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, relieved to be alone. The bedroom was as familiar now as any place she’d ever lived. She had everything she needed, from her computer and tablet on the desk, to her writing journal and favorite slippers and hand lotion.

  Ruby opened her email and saw a newsy note from her mother. Full of talk about her starting as a receptionist at a retirement complex nearby. She’d had a series of part-time jobs since moving to Florida. She liked to work—up to a point. She pinched pennies so she wouldn’t have to find what she called a serious job.

  She read the final line of her mom’s email: The invitation to stay with me is always open. Just say the word.

  She hit Reply and wrote a quick paragraph on Emma’s recovery, the weather, and the final lines: Emma will be fully mobile again soon and she has a housekeeper. We’re doing as we please at this point. I expect to be ready to drive to Florida... Hands poised in the air, something blocked Ruby from typing those final words. The vision of Jason and Mike at the house on the lake loomed warm and full of love. Laughter, too. Lots of laughter.

  She lowered her hands and slumped in the chair. Her dream seemed so possible when the sweet memories took center stage. Still, she knew her limits. If she and Mike ended up like Emma and Neil, it would destroy her. And it would be unforgivable to do that to a vulnerable child who’d already suffered huge losses in his six years. She snapped her attention back to the real world and watched her fingers finish the sentence: ...likely in early December, but definitely before Christmas. She hit the send button before she could change her mind.

  “There, I did it,” she said to Peach, who’d followed her into the bedroom and sat by her feet. “We’ll be on the move again.”

  Later, she and Emma shared leftovers for dinner, an invisible tension still disturbing the air between them. Finally, Emma looked up from her empty plate. “Okay, I’m going to apologize for my tone. I can’t live with bad feelings between us.”

  “Well, me, neither,” Ruby agreed, smiling.

  “But I want to finish what was on my mind.” Emma raised her hands in surrender. “Promise. I’ll only say it once.”

  “I have a feeling you might have already said it, but...” She gestured to Emma to go ahead and speak her mind. Ruby pushed away the plate and set her elbows on the table. This was obviously important to Emma. “Okay...shoot.”

  Emma nodded, but sent her a scolding grin. “Do you remember the big poster boards we had in that special workshop we took? The one about having a vision for the future.”

  “Sure I do. Vision boards. It was my dad’s idea. He brought in the motivational speaker and we did those collages with all our heart’s desires and goals shown in pictures—to make our life map more real.” Ruby flapped her hand in the air. “Sending us on our way with a concept for what we wanted our future to look like.”

  They’d been told to gather photographs and magazines to find and cut out relevant images that meant something to them. She and Emma had signed up along with about a dozen of their classmates. Mike came, but not Neil, who already knew he’d be working in the family auto business.

  “Oh, Emma, I know where you’re going with this.”

  “Okay, okay, then stay with me, Rubes.”

  “Yes, Mike’s collage had pictures of a curly-haired little boy and a little girl with red hair he cut out of a magazine. Mine had a picture of twins. And, ha, ha, ha—everybody laughed.” She folded her arms across her chest, surprised by how much that had hurt. Nothing was funny a month later when things turned bitter and ugly.

  Emma reached out and put her hand over hers. “It was amusing at the time because even as eighteen-year-olds you both included each other and a family on your vision boards. Rubes, is it possible you’re afraid of becoming attached to Jason?” Emma paused. “It’s not only the other way around. I’m just going to say it. He’s right there, a child to love as your own.”

  Ruby got to her feet and let Peach out to the yard. She watched the dog through the door, not wanting to look at Emma. “You act like Mike doesn’t have a say,” she whispered.

  “It might be what Mike wants. He’s been trying to get closer to you since the minute he saw you in the park. You know it’s true. You’re the one running away.”

  Ruby shook her head. Emma meant well. But it didn’t change the risk of another big failure in her life, and this time, hurting not just teenagers, but a vulnerable little boy. She knew that for sure.

  * * *

  RUBY’S BURNING LEG muscles finally shouted an order to stop. Not having Peach with her, she’d sprinted the last mile along the river, her mind preoccupied with the trail proposal. She thought of it as a legacy. Maybe a tribute to Emma and Mike’s commitment to this pretty little town that had grown on her, too, and helped her sort out her life. Or get a start on it, anyway. One good thing had happened—she’d started running longer distances again and pushing herself to cut her time per mile. She might even sign up for a five or ten K race when she got back to Florida.

  She cooled down by strolling to the edge of the playground, and leaned over to rest her hands on her thighs to stretch her back. When she finally straightened up, there was Mike, leaning against the bridge, with an amused smile. He looked ready to tease her about something.

  “Isn’t staring at an out-of-breath sweaty woman against the law?” she hollered. “If it isn’t, it ought to be.” More to the point, why was he there? As if on cue, her body started tingling, first her shoulders and down her arms. Her legs would soon follow, if they weren’t too tired from her run.

  “I came down on a whim to look for you.” He came closer, but still kept several feet of space between them. “You mentioned you’ve been running more and using the trails.”

  “I left Peach at home so I could do sprints.” She slipped off her headband and shook out her hair.

  Grinning, he cocked his head. “Uh, do you need to go home and dry off or something?”

  “Well, sure, but it’s not an emergency.” She waited for him to explain himself, but when he didn’t, she said, “Why were you looking for me?”

  “Because I wanted to see you,” he responded, as if that was obvious. “Also, I’m really here because I don’t feel right about the way things are between us.”

  She let her head drop back and looked at the sky. “Mike, there isn’t any us.” Her own lie made her wince.

  “Oh, right,” he scoffed. “In any case I’d like to put us on the table.”

  She laughed. Of course she did. He wasn’t angry with her. Just exasperated. Besides, this conversation was inevitable. She glanced at the bridge. Their big talk, the closure they never had, well, maybe it had to be here at the bridge. Where else? Sighing, Ruby folded her arms across her chest. “I’m listening.”

  He pointed at her crossed arms. “Sure you are. But if that’s the best I can get, I’ll take it.” He rubbed the back of his neck and caught a quick look at the bridge. “Ever since I saw you here in this park I’ve wanted—needed—to talk about what happened to us.”

  Ruby lowered her gaze, as if something on the ground demanded her attention. She couldn’t argue with that, nor would she run. Not this time. She stole a glance at him now and saw a man’s eyes and a mature, deep love, not a boy’s innocent first love.

  “When I woke up this morning, my feet hit the floor and I knew I wasn’t le
tting one more day come and go without talking to you. We’ve been dancing around everything. You think I hated you, and I believe you abandoned me. Or, really, us.”

  “You let me run away without even trying to find me. But, Mike, so what? That’s all in the past. We’ve moved on.”

  He put out his arm and, without touching her, steered her closer to the gravel shoulder at the start of the bridge. “In the past, huh? In twenty years, through college and law school, my job at a prized firm, closing down the resort, my dad’s death, learning I have a son, I’ve never moved on.” He stopped long enough to take in a breath. “And I don’t think you have, either.”

  “It’s not like we had some misunderstanding, Mike. What happened to us was permanent. We each lost a parent—and each other—in the same instant.”

  Mike’s head jerked back, as if startled.

  “What?”

  “I was surprised by what you said. I was talking with Gloria and she said almost the same thing in the same words. Like a double trauma.” He braced his hand on the side of the bridge. She stepped a couple of feet closer, but kept her distance. A safe distance. But her rapid heartbeat didn’t know it.

  Mike thrust his arms toward her, across the gulf between them. “I blamed your dad, Ruby. I did. I admit it. I hated him for killing my mom. That’s what I believed at the time.”

  Ruby nodded. Right. That was the problem. “I blamed my dad, too, at least until we found out the other driver had been drinking so much he could barely stand up. And your dad blamed my dad.” She raised her chin and made herself meet his eye.

  “Twenty years ago.”

  “And it’s a fact that won’t disappear.” Ruby shook her head. “You said even the mayor acted funny when she saw you.”

  “Who cares what she thinks. I sure don’t and I can’t imagine you do,” Mike said. “I do care that you understand I’m not some kid blaming your father for what happened to my mother anymore. If I did that I’d become my dad. Bitterness turned him into an old man way before the years did.”

  Ruby listened as Mike filled in all the blanks. It wasn’t until law school that Mike felt okay about leaving his dad alone during the week to run the resort. By the time Mike took the job in Ohio, the resort was beyond outdated. “Finally, rather than do any work on it, he decided to sign most of the property over to what would become the sanctuary and move closer to me. But he was as miserable in Cincinnati as he’d been here. It had nothing to do with geography.

  “When my dad couldn’t take care of himself, let alone the business, it was easy to blame your dad for everything.” He smiled sadly.

  “You could have asked Neil where I went. Or, Emma, obviously. They always knew where I was.” She kicked the stones in front of her, stirring up gravel dust and coating her running shoes.

  Mike grimaced. “After their wedding, I rarely saw Neil and Emma. I’d tried to put it all behind me. I sure couldn’t allow myself to contact you.”

  “Why?”

  “Same reasons you didn’t contact me. I was mad, confused, hurt.”

  Mike kept his arm braced on the bridge, but shifted his gaze to the water rushing over the rocks below. Ruby’s gaze followed. Without the sun to give the rocks their bluish cast, they were just ordinary stones under gray water.

  “For what it’s worth, Ruby, I’ve accepted who my parents were and I can live with it. My mom loved my dad. I know she did. And I know he loved her, no matter what had happened. They were human. Just like your dad was. And humans make mistakes sometimes. It doesn’t mean we love anyone less.”

  Ruby closed her eyes against the image of her dad and Ellen. She wanted to believe what Mike was saying was true.

  Ruby’s body had cooled down from the run, leaving her cold in the chilly breeze, even in a sweatshirt. She rubbed her arms to warm them and glanced up at the darkening sky.

  “I’m sorry, Rubes. You’re cold. It looks like it’s about to dump rain on us now.” He took off his jacket and handed it to her. “Let’s duck under the bridge. I won’t keep you much longer.”

  The first drops of rain hit the roof of the bridge at the same time they were sheltered under it. Ruby put Mike’s jacket around her shoulders and let her mind drift back to the day she always thought of as her escape. She was on her way to Wisconsin, where she spent a summer numbly going through the motions at a resort. Hour after hour, mile after mile, the rain beat down on her car, but nothing was going to slow her down for long. All summer, she’d dutifully called her mother every few days to see how the packing for the Florida move was going. And Mike was afraid to leave his dad alone. “I wish you hadn’t gone through that with your dad. That must have been so hard.”

  Mike reached for her hand and she let him take it. “I knew I’d grown up when I stopped thinking of your dad as the villain. My mom was an adult. She made her own choices. Like you said in my office, whatever happened between our parents had nothing to do with us.”

  Not exactly. “It wasn’t supposed to. But it blew up in our faces, not theirs. That being said...” Ruby told Mike about visiting her childhood house. “I was thinking about how much fun my dad could be.”

  When Mike smiled he finally looked like himself again. “Your dad never acted like I was trying to get in good with him. I liked him a lot.”

  “I allowed myself to just say that he was a wonderful dad. I can say that and yet still be disappointed that he hurt my mother.” The rawness of her words startled her.

  Mike drew her in and she let her head rest on his shoulder. “That’s not such a shock. They broke promises. They were reckless.”

  Ruby let out a guttural sound of frustration. “Exactly.” A long moment passed before she spoke again.

  “Can we forgive each other our mistakes? Can we accept that we were kids?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Mike released her, but held on to her hand. “That’s the reason I had to talk to you. To finish what we started in my office. You’re going to leave, Ruby. I get that now. I’m letting you off the hook.”

  Since she hadn’t seen that coming, her expression apparently showed she was lost in their conversation.

  “I’m not going to keep pretending that will change,” he said. “So, Ruby, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. Accept that we were young and had no control over what the adults did.”

  Even in this tender moment, she couldn’t resist joking like they used to. “But Mike, we were such great kids.”

  “And modest.” His laugh was tender. “Really, Ruby, I couldn’t let you leave again without talking about this. You’ll get yourself a great job—when you’re ready. I hope you give yourself plenty of time.”

  She nodded to show she understood.

  He drew her to him and kissed the top of her head, letting his mouth linger there. She remembered that he’d always liked the feel of her hair against his skin.

  As they waited for the rain to let up, he told her about Jason’s progress in therapy. His drawings and the house he built and the balloons sent up as a symbolic way of sending sadness and fear away. “Does this sound familiar?” he asked. “The kinds of activities, the behavior, I mean.”

  “I’ve seen counselors do things like that in a kids’ healing program I set up,” she said. “All kinds of games and role-playing to bring emotions to the surface and build inner strength. Based on what I see of him, Jason’s obviously responding well.”

  Ruby smiled to herself. If Mike had wanted to clear the air between them, he’d succeeded. She could leave in a few weeks without feeling like she was running again. “Any sign of him talking?” Call it intuition, but she still felt certain it wouldn’t be long.

  Mike answered with a quick no. “I keep hoping, though.”

  “I suppose everyone involved tells you to stay patient,” Ruby said, mentally walking in Mike’s shoes.

  “Oh, yeah, but I’m not go
od at patience.”

  She chuckled. Kind of like her.

  “I wish I could offer some words of wisdom about your Jason. He’s such a wonderful kid. Fun and sharp. Kind, too.”

  “It’s meant a lot to me that you care about him.”

  “He’s easy to like.” She deliberately avoided saying Jason was easy to love because Emma’s words about Ruby becoming attached to Jason rushed back. She would miss the boy more than she wanted to admit.

  When the rain stopped, she accepted Mike’s offer of a lift home. They pulled into Emma’s driveway, but before Ruby could get out of the car, Mike grabbed her hand. “Friends? I mean, I want to see you when you come around to visit Emma.”

  This was it, Ruby thought. Another way of saying there really is no us. She swallowed hard. “Of course, we were always friends, and that’s what we are from here on out.”

  She hurried out of the car and up the stairs to the door without looking back.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MIKE BROKE WITH his new rule to wait outside the school for Jason to exit through the door surrounded by classmates. He wanted to tell Mrs. Cermak about Gloria’s work with Jason and check in on the classroom. Usually, Jason had addition and subtraction worksheets in his hand and almost always a drawing or two. Sometimes, Mike’s heart nearly broke in two at the sight of Jason alone in the midst of dozens of kids streaming down the walk.

  But today, Mike stood outside the classroom and watched as Jason stooped to glance at the aquarium before he gave Mrs. Cermak a wave goodbye. She looked up and pointed to Mike and said something to Jason before coming out to the hallway.

  “He’ll be fine for a few minutes,” Mrs. Cermak said, clearly amused. “If I’d known how much the kids would become attached to those fish, I’d have set up an aquarium long ago.”

  Mike’s gaze landed on Jason, who was using his index finger to follow the movements of a blue-and-green fish as it darted back and forth. “Anything I should be aware of?” Mike asked, taking his gaze off Jason.