by Cathy Kelly
I’m worried about Ruby, from Vonnie.
It’s our job not to let the girls get caught up in our battle, from Ryan.
Honey, you need to get out there and find a new life, a new man, from her mother. It’s not good for anyone when you stay at home feeling sorry for yourself …
And she’d ignored it all, too enmeshed in her own pain to see anyone else’s. The sensation of holding physical proof of her daughter’s problems, and the scorn of Ruby’s seventeen-year-old best friend, had achieved what nobody else had.
Jennifer sat down heavily on the floor. She wanted to cry, but there was no time for that now. Besides, she’d cried enough. Selfish crying. She wanted to scream at herself over her selfishness, but she had spent enough time on herself and too little on her daughters.
‘It’s going to be OK, girls,’ she said firmly, finding strength from somewhere. ‘Andi, thank you. Ruby, my love …’ She put her head close to her daughter’s, noticing for the first time the purple shadows underneath Ruby’s dark eyes. ‘It’s going to be fine. I am sorry, so sorry. I’ll make it better, I promise. No more fighting. New start. But let’s get you to the doctor first.’
She pulled her phone from her pocket and rang their local doctor for an appointment. Then she texted Caroline to say a crisis had occurred and she’d have to skip the walk.
Can I help? Caroline texted back instantly.
The guilt Jennifer was trying so hard to bury galloped back. Caroline had three kids, and a husband undergoing cancer treatment, yet she was prepared to be there for Jennifer if she should need her.
Not just guilt, but shame too. Jennifer’s cheeks burned. When difficult things happened, some people stepped up to the plate; she’d whined and moaned and made everyone’s life difficult. Oh, the shame.
No thanks. Will talk later.
‘Tea and toast helps, honey,’ said Jennifer, holding both Ruby’s hands tightly.
Ruby opened her eyes and smiled a little. ‘That would be nice, Mum,’ she said.
‘How about you, Andi? I’m going to phone the school and explain what’s happening here.’
Andi’s eyes rounded.
‘Really explain,’ Jennifer said. ‘And I guess you should call me Jennifer.’
Once the girls were installed in the kitchen with the small TV on, and tea and toast in front of them, Jennifer began to make her second round of phone calls. There would be no shirking, she told herself: the truth had to be faced.
Ryan didn’t answer at first. Unsurprising, Jennifer thought, given the sort of abuse she usually heaped upon him. She texted instead.
Ryan, this is urgent. Ruby’s here, she’s not well. Can you call?
He phoned in seconds: ‘What’s wrong with her?’
Jennifer paused. All the raging arguments they’d had raced in front of her eyes. The names she’d called him, the emotional blackmail she’d used. He’d told her it wasn’t good for the girls, but she’d been so determined to hurt him that she hadn’t cared. What sort of a mother was she?
She took a deep breath: one who was determined to change.
‘It’s all my fault, Ryan,’ she began.
Finally, she made the easiest phone call, the one to the person who wouldn’t judge her: ‘Mum?’
‘Jen?’ said Lulu. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Oh, Mum, I’ve messed everything up so badly. Could you come around now?’
Vonnie had been working on the accounts for about twenty minutes before she realised that her head just wasn’t in the right place. You needed to be calm and focused to do accounts – not anxious and feeling as if something bad was going to happen. She put the books aside, went into the kitchen, donned an apron, washed her hands and sat down beside Lorraine, who was painstakingly making sprays of white and lemon-yellow orchids.
Orchids were Lorraine’s speciality. She’d been in since seven thirty and was already halfway through the order for the Maguire/Reynolds cake. ‘It’s going to be absolutely beautiful,’ Vonnie said, admiring the younger woman’s work. ‘You really are an artist. And thank you, by the way, for doing the sunflowers in Shelby’s room this weekend. She is so thrilled.’
‘She’s a darling kid,’ Lorraine said, eyes still on the sugarcraft. ‘She and Shane get on really well, don’t they?’
‘Yes, they do,’ Vonnie said, relieved that someone else could see it too and she wasn’t just imagining it. That was the thing about trying to blend families: you spent so long agonising about whether it was working or not that you no longer trusted your own eyes.
‘I do worry about everyone getting on,’ she said, sighing.
‘Really?’ said Lorraine, pretending to sound shocked. ‘Gosh, there’s a surprise. I never would have thought—’
‘Oh stop,’ Vonnie said. ‘Just because you’re young, free and single, madam. One day you might understand what it’s like to have …’ She paused.
To have what? she thought. To fall in love with a wonderful man and have to deal with the rage of that wonderful man’s former wife? She wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I sincerely hope that you don’t have to go through what I have. If life is full of lessons, then I want to put away my schoolbooks. But thanks for the sunflowers – much appreciated, honey. Now, I’m supposed to be doing accounts, but my mind just won’t settle. What else do we need to do? Something practical might help.’
‘Somebody has to do the peonies for next weekend.’
The peonies were wonderful to look at, but making them was a whole other story. They took so long. There were endless petals to be shaped and fluted.
‘Point taken,’ said Vonnie. ‘I’ll start on the peonies. That’s exactly what I need: slow, painstaking work where you have to build up every petal.’
‘A metaphor for life,’ said Lorraine naughtily.
‘Yes,’ said Vonnie wryly.
She was just getting organised when her mobile rang. She always kept it with her in case there was a problem with Shane in school, and she slipped it out of her pocket now and looked. It was Ryan.
‘Morning, love,’ she said, a feeling of heightened anxiety rising inside her without her quite knowing why. Ryan knew she was at work and he rarely rang her at this time.
‘Vonnie – I’ve just had a phone call from Jennifer.’ The note of panic in his voice confirmed all her worst fears.
‘What’s wrong, has something happened to the girls?’
‘Not Shelby, Ruby.’ Ryan sounded devastated, all his usual cheery confidence gone. ‘Andi brought her home and says she hasn’t been eating. She wanted one of us to notice so we’d do something about it …’ He sounded as if he could barely breathe. ‘It’s early stages, a cry for help, but still …’
‘Take deep breaths, darling,’ Vonnie commanded, ‘deep, deep breaths. And Jennifer rang you?’
‘That’s the incredible thing: she says it’s her fault, really means it, if we can take that at face value. But she’s got Ruby an appointment with the doctor for this afternoon. I have to go.’
‘The doctor will know what to do. Just remember that: we love her and she will be taken care of.’
‘But what if it’s really serious?’ Ryan said.
Vonnie closed her eyes and said a quick prayer. Strange, she thought she’d never pray again after Joe’s death, and now here she was asking for help from above. Fingering her wedding ring, she realised she had a new family now.
‘We’ll take care of her,’ she repeated.
‘I love you, Vonnie,’ said Ryan. ‘I love you so much.’
‘I love you too.’
‘Thank you,’ he mumbled, and was gone.
She was left staring at the phone, all thoughts of peonies forgotten.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ said Lorraine.
‘Oh God!’ Vonnie sank into a chair and buried her head in her hands. ‘I saw this coming, but I didn’t do anything about it because I wasn’t sure.’
‘What?’
Even the words made Vonnie shudder. But surely it had to be early stages. She would have known, wouldn’t she?
‘I’ve been watching her and worrying, but I didn’t do anything because I wasn’t sure. I was so busy trying to tread carefully because she’s my stepdaughter rather than my daughter; I didn’t want to step on Jennifer’s toes, even though I know she’s been so caught up in herself that she hasn’t been emotionally there for Ruby. So I stood back and did nothing – and now look what’s happened. The poor, poor girl …’
Lorraine looked over at Inge and made a tea-drinking gesture. Then she found a tissue and handed it to Vonnie.
‘I’m going to ring Maura, ask her to come in.’ In Lorraine’s opinion, Aunt Maura always knew the answer to every problem.
‘I have to get home,’ said Vonnie. ‘I should wait there for Ryan—’
‘Then I’ll let her know she can find you there.’
Vonnie was about to protest, but she was in desperate need of Maura’s soothing presence and gentle wisdom. How would they ever get through this? Somehow she had failed Ruby terribly. If this was what Ryan and her living together had caused, how could they possibly make Poppy Lane work?
When Ruby saw her father, she burst into tears and ran into his arms. He started crying too, holding her tightly. ‘I am so sorry, my darling, so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I couldn’t, I didn’t want to hurt you – it wasn’t meant to hurt anyone, it was just meant to …’ Ruby’s voice trailed off. She couldn’t say what it was meant to do. It sounded stupid now.
‘Do you make yourself sick, honey?’ he asked. ‘Or not eat at all?’
‘No, none of that. Well, I haven’t been eating much …’ She didn’t know how to explain it all. She’d only wanted to be noticed.
Jennifer stood to one side, looking very unlike herself. She hadn’t been crying, but it was clear to Ryan that she was about to.
‘It’s my fault,’ she whispered. ‘I did this.’ Seeing Ryan made it all worse. They’d created this beautiful girl together, and she’d nearly destroyed it all.
But Ryan didn’t scream at her or shout that she would never have custody of their daughters again. Instead he looked at her with what actually seemed to be sympathy.
‘We all played a part,’ he said. ‘Now we have to make it better.’
He held an arm out, and Jennifer found herself hugged into the circle of her former husband and their beloved daughter. This was family: not the way she’d wanted it, certainly, but life had moved on and if Ruby would get over this, Jennifer knew she’d need to move on too.
Maura and Vonnie sat in the kitchen in Poppy Lane.
‘No tea,’ said Vonnie. ‘I couldn’t bear it. The number of times we’ve had tea when something dreadful was going on, as a sort of displacement activity. I think I hate tea now.’
‘No tea,’ agreed Maura. ‘It gives you something to do with your hands, that’s all.’
‘I have a ton of peonies to make,’ Vonnie said absently, looking at her left hand and the finger where she and Ryan had discussed the possibility of placing an engagement ring.
But not now. How could they do this now? Jennifer would go into orbit – and what would that do to Ruby?
Maura watched her splaying out her long, slender fingers.
‘I don’t often do advice,’ she said. ‘You know that, Vonnie. Advice can backfire, and I love you too much to destroy our relationship.’
‘But …’ began Vonnie mirthlessly.
‘But,’ agreed Maura. ‘Don’t back away now. Ryan loves you and you love him. What’s more, Shane loves him. And I have every reason to believe that Ruby and Shelby love you.’
‘What if that’s not enough?’ said Vonnie, tears and anger mixing.
‘It is,’ said Maura. ‘Life is messy and painful, Vonnie. Heaven knows, you’ve had enough experience of that. I won’t let you sacrifice yourself on the altar of Jennifer Morrison’s anger. Ryan left her, and I can understand how that would hurt desperately, but she can’t wallow in it if it means hurting everyone around her. She has to face reality. She’s pushed her daughter too far. Ruby comes first. You won’t do those girls any favours by leaving Ryan now.’
‘I don’t want to leave Ryan,’ said Vonnie.
‘Right then. Jennifer needs to go off and get a job. No wonder she’s going doolally, on her own in that big house day after day. I’d go mad if I had nothing to do but think that nobody loved me. Must be hell if you’re overemotional like Jennifer.’
‘I’ve thought of all that myself,’ said Vonnie. ‘But how am I supposed to get this miraculous event to happen?’
‘Tell Ryan to stop trying to please all the people all the time,’ Maura said bluntly. ‘Either Jennifer sorts herself out or they have to go back to court to discuss custody. Ruby can’t be put at risk any more. All this tiptoeing around for fear of upsetting Jennifer has to come to an end.’
Vonnie nodded. ‘It won’t be easy,’ she said.
Maura snorted. ‘Since when has anything worthwhile been easy?’
Ruby didn’t know what her mother, Granny Lulu and Dad talked about before they left for the doctor’s office, but it was serious.
Still, Mum and Dad weren’t fighting, which was a miracle in itself – they were actually talking but there was no yelling.
Andi and Ruby had moved up to Ruby’s bedroom and were lying on the bed chatting when Granny Lulu came in. She sat on the edge of the bed and sighed.
‘You should have told me, Ruby,’ she said. ‘You know what your mother’s like – she’s always been tricky, but she loves you. Still, it’ll all be different now. None of that feeling sorry for herself any more. I think your parents should sell The Close. Let you girls and your mother move somewhere closer to your dad and Vonnie.’
Ruby blinked. She’d never heard her granny so much as mention Vonnie’s name before.
Granny Lulu caught the look. ‘I’ve heard she’s a lovely woman,’ she said, startling Ruby even more. ‘I have to say sorry, love. It’s my fault too. I should have seen what was happening.’
Behind Granny Lulu’s blue glasses, her eyes were tearing up.
‘I came to say your mum’s getting upset downstairs – no, not a row,’ she added, seeing Ruby’s anxious face. ‘But she’s got some stuff to say to you. Andi and I can stay here and chat.’
Andi glanced at her friend for confirmation. Ruby nodded.
‘Just one thing.’ Granny Lulu grabbed Ruby’s hand. ‘Are you anorexic? Is that what you’ve been aiming for, because it’s a disease, pet, and once it gets you, it doesn’t like letting go.’
Ruby had never seen her grandmother look so distressed.
‘No, Gran, I’m not anorexic. Andi showed me some anorexic sites yesterday.’ She couldn’t hide the shudder that ran through her. ‘I don’t want to be like that, honestly.’
‘Really? Well, you’d lie if you were anyway,’ Granny Lulu said with a sigh.
‘I’m not,’ Ruby said fervently. ‘I promise.’
Her grandmother made the sign of the cross and muttered a small prayer. When she was finished, she held out her arms for a hug.
‘If I ever catch you messing around with this type of thing again, I’ll murder you, you monkey,’ she said, in her normal voice.
‘I won’t, Gran,’ said Ruby, relaxing into the embrace.
Downstairs, there was no sign of Dad, but Mum was sitting on the chair in the hall beside the phone, and she’d clearly been crying.
‘Oh, Ruby,’ she sobbed. ‘I am so sorry.’
She hugged her daughter, then tried to hold her at arm’s length as if to see how thin she’d become. ‘How did I not notice? It will be different from now on, I promise,’ she added fiercely. ‘You and Shelby come first. And Vonnie cares for you, I know she does.’
Ruby was still for a moment. Had her mot
her just said Vonnie’s name without hissing? Things really were going to be different, and she was going to grab this with both hands.
‘She does, Mum,’ she said finally. ‘She’s a nice woman and she does worry about me, I can tell. I don’t want to have to choose between her and Dad and you. I don’t want to.’
Her mother held her even tighter. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Ruby. Can you forgive me? Because we need to get you well again, and that’s going to take you and me working together. No skipping meals, no yogurts for lunch; proper food.’
Ruby leaned into her mother. It felt lovely, all these hugs, like a normal family again after so long.
‘And you’ll meet Vonnie, become friends?’ she added, determined to cover all bases.
Jennifer closed her eyes and wished she’d never made that deranged visit to Vonnie’s cake shop. But at least it had done something: it had shown her that Ryan’s new partner cared about their daughters, had seen what Jennifer herself was too blind to see. She’d always be grateful to Vonnie for that.
‘You bet,’ she whispered into the cloud of her daughter’s hair. ‘I’d like to meet her.’ Again, she said to herself. ‘We may be a strange sort of family, but we’re still family, and if this is going to work, we’ve got to give it everything we’ve got.’
To her astonishment, Ruby laughed.
‘What’s so funny? Don’t you believe me?’
‘I do, Mum. It’s just Vonnie’s not going to believe what you’re like when you’re giving something all you’ve got.’
Twenty
To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage. LAO TZU
Birdie heard the front door slam. Howard had left as usual by six fifty. He would go and swim twenty lengths in the health club pool, as he did every morning, and be in work by eight.
Once, Birdie had got up with him. Now, he brought her tea before he left, and let Thumper back upstairs to heave himself up for a morning snooze on a bed superior to his own, snuggled up at Birdie’s side.
He had always been full of energy, her husband. Liked to get in early to steal a march on the world, as he put it.