Healing Ruby: A Novel

by Jennifer H. Westall

  I tried to let him go. I really did. I kept thinking to myself that he wasn’t really in that casket; he wasn’t really being swallowed by the earth. He was standing just down the hill somewhere, waiting for me to come to him. That thought was the only thing that kept me from jumping into the grave with him.

  Men began filling the hole. Mother was crying again, and Grandma Kellum helped support her as they walked back down the hill. I stood there and watched the men work, and I watched for Daddy to return. I needed to see him again, just to make sure I hadn’t imagined it. But he didn’t come back, and eventually Henry came over to me and took my hand.

  “Time to go,” he said. When my feet wouldn’t budge, he tugged on my hand again. “Come on, Rubes. Let’s go home.”

  Maybe Henry would believe me. “I saw him.”

  “Who?”

  “I saw Daddy. He was over there by that tree watching us bury his body.”

  He looked over at the tree I’d pointed out. “I don’t see nothing.”

  “He’s gone now.”

  Henry rubbed his chin, looking like he was thinking hard on what I’d just said. “Well, reckon he liked the ceremony?”

  I knew what I’d seen, even if Henry did want to joke about it. Although, it was hard to tell if he was joking or not. All the way home he asked me questions about what I saw—if Daddy looked pleased, what he was wearing, and other nonsense. I finally told him to shut up about it, and he did.

  When we got back home there was a whole pasture full of people in the house, milling around and grazing on food, chewing the cud over memories and gossip. I’d had about enough of the people in our house, even my kin. Grandma Graves got after me as soon as I walked through the door about eating something to keep up my strength. She paraded me around the kitchen and the table, piling food onto a plate; then she shoved me onto the sofa and dropped a fork in my lap.

  “Thanks, Grandma,” I mumbled.

  She hurried back to fussing over Mother and James. I stared at the food, nauseous at the thought of eating. I did manage to get down a few bites, but then I started feeling like I might be sick right there in front of everyone, so I handed my plate off to whoever was sitting beside me, and I made for the outhouse as quick as I could. After my stomach finally calmed, I took a long look at the house and decided I couldn’t go back in there. So I headed toward the woods and the small clearing beside the creek where I sometimes went to read.

  It seemed so strange the birds should be singing. All around me were the sounds of life, and I couldn’t understand why they weren’t mourning. When I stepped out into the clearing, my breath caught in my chest. Daddy was seated a few yards away, his head bent and resting on his arms as they lay across his knees. I took a small step toward him.

  “Daddy?”

  He looked up at me, and I could see then it wasn’t him, and that hurt more than anything else since the moment I knew he was dead.

  “You’re not…who are you?” I asked.

  The man jumped up and dusted off his pants. He was built like Daddy, had the same tall, lean frame, and even the same angular shape to his face. But his eyes were different, a brownish color with flashes of green specks. They weren’t fierce like Daddy’s either, and when he smiled at me, he seemed unable to hold my gaze.

  “You must be Ruby. I’m sorry if I startled you, Sweetie.”

  “You must be from Good Hope.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.” He rubbed his hands together and shifted his weight. “Actually, I’m your uncle. Asa.”

  I stared at him for a long time, long enough for it to be considered rude. A thousand questions went through my mind in a flash, but I couldn’t grab onto any of them at the time. All I could do was ache for Daddy, and wish I’d been right about seeing him.

  “So that was you I saw at the cemetery, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  “I suppose so.”

  “Why were you so far off?”

  He lowered his head and stared down at his hat, like he’d done during the funeral. “Shame, I guess. I don’t think your daddy would’ve wanted me there.”

  “You should come to the house. Does anyone else know you’re here?” I realized I’d have to explain to Henry that it wasn’t Daddy I’d seen at the funeral. I wondered if he’d be disappointed.

  “I don’t know ’bout that. It might be best to have paid my respects and go on my way. No sense in shaking them apples off the tree.”

  “Uncle Asa, what happened between you and Daddy?”

  “Oh, that’s a story for another time. Today should be a day to honor him.”

  I stepped close to him and took his hand, not sure why. But it was a comfort I hadn’t expected. “Then come with me to the house. We’ll do it together.”

  He looked at our hands like he was amazed, and he squeezed mine tighter as he smiled. His smile was different from Daddy’s, more guarded maybe. Like it was a strange sensation to him.

  “You just might be right,” he said.

  I led him slowly through the woods, ducking under branches and stepping over thorns. We didn’t say anything, but he never dropped my hand, and I couldn’t bear to let go of his. I’d found some kind of connection to Daddy I couldn’t explain, and I was terrified of letting go of it. As we came out of the woods and faced the house, Uncle Asa stopped walking. He stared at the house and breathed kind of heavy for a minute. I didn’t want to scare him off, so I waited beside him, still hanging onto him. Then he finally started forward again and walked up the front steps and through the front door.

  It took a few moments, but as people noticed us, they stopped talking to each other and started staring at us. The quiet spread through the whole house. I tugged on Uncle Asa’s hand and took him into the kitchen where the quiet was spreading just as fast. I finally let go of his hand, grabbed him a plate and started tossing food onto it. A few ladies nearby mumbled among themselves, and that seemed to spread as quickly as the silence had.

  I turned back to Uncle Asa to hand him the plate. He reached for it, but then Grandma Graves appeared out of nowhere and grabbed his shoulders.

  “Asa!” If there happened to be anyone in the county who hadn’t yet figured out that Uncle Asa was in our home, they for sure knew it then. “I’m so glad you made it, honey.” Grandma Graves pulled his shoulders down till he wrapped his arms around her. “I told you it’d be all right.”

  He straightened and glanced around, a sheepish blush creeping into his face. Then he froze, and I followed his gaze over to Mother across the room. She froze too, and I can’t say she looked one bit pleased. Her eyes were opened wide, and she held a plate of untouched food in her hands. As the mumbling spread and people started talking again, Mother put down her plate and walked around to the bedroom without so much as one word for Uncle Asa, where she closed the door behind her.

  Mother came out of the bedroom after an hour or so, during which time I’d caught some interesting tidbits of conversations floating around the room. Apparently, Uncle Asa had “some nerve” showing up at our house after “what he’d tried to pull” with Daddy. It was also surprising my mother hadn’t “up and slapped the daylights out of him” right then and there. But she was much too “classy to cause a scandal.” My grandmother had “always had a soft spot for the scoundrel,” and it was “such a shame that a fine man like Abner Graves had had to move his family away from their home just to get some peace.” I tried to learn more, but every time I got close enough to hear much, people seemed to close their mouths up tight.

  All of it was intriguing enough to distract me from my heartache, and I watched how Mother moved around the house speaking to folks. She kept her distance from Asa, managing to stay completely on the opposite side of the house from him without ever seeming to even glance his way. But Asa’s gaze rarely left her. He watched her with curiosity and wonder in his eyes, and every now and then he’d glance at me and drop his head. But it wouldn’t be long before he was watching her again.

  When the crowd of peopl
e finally started to dwindle, I wondered if Mother would eventually speak to Asa. Although a few kind souls had politely smiled and spoken to him, the only person who really seemed to care for his presence was Grandma Graves, who barely left his side. I went to the kitchen where Mother was tidying up.

  “Can I help with anything?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Let’s not worry over it today.” She came over to me and wrapped me in her arms. “How are you doing?”

  I let myself rest there against her long enough for the ache in my chest to start burning. “I’m okay right now. How about you?”

  “Okay, for now. You seen your brothers?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Why don’t you go find them. They’ll need to eat before I put the rest of this food away.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I pulled away and started to leave. But then I paused. “Mother?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why haven’t you said anything to Uncle Asa?”

  “Well, I’m sure I said something.”

  “No, I was watching. You haven’t spoken one word to him.” She didn’t look at me, just kept moving dishes around in a way that didn’t seem to accomplish much. “What did he do that was so bad?”

  “Never you mind about Asa.” She finally stopped and looked at me. “You go on and find your brothers, and I’m sure Asa’ll be out of here before you know it.”

  I found Henry down by the creek, his nice second-hand suit all dirty. When I told him I hadn’t seen Daddy at the funeral, he frowned and kept throwing rocks in the creek, but once I explained that it had actually been Asa, he jumped up and took off for the house. I ran to catch up with him as he got to the edge of the yard.

  “Wait a minute, Henry.” I said. “Do you know about all this? Why is the whole world up in arms over a man showing up at his own brother’s funeral?”

  Henry didn’t slow down. “I don’t know exactly what happened. I’s just two when we moved. But it was something bad. I know Daddy almost come after me like a mad dog the one time I asked about it.”

  We made it to the door inside the dog run where Henry finally stopped, maybe thinking twice about busting into the house. He turned around and bent over close to my face. “What did he look like?”

  “Almost just like Daddy, except his eyes. Guess that’s why I thought it was Daddy at the cemetery.”

  He straightened and looked out over the yard. I had no idea what was going on in his head, but before I could ask, he’d already turned back to the door and pushed it open. I followed him into the living room, but it was empty. Only a few solitary chairs remained. Then voices drifted around the corner from the kitchen, so we followed them.

  Mother stood in the middle of the room, her arms folded across her chest. She looked stiff, resolved to stand against anything. Asa had his hat in his hands again, and his face was lined with exhaustion. Neither of them seemed to notice me or Henry come into the room.

  “You don’t owe us anything,” Mother said. “Abner made it clear a long time ago that we were moving on, and we did. So don’t worry yourself over any obligation to us.”

  “Lizzy, listen—”

  “Elizabeth, please.” I’d never heard anyone but Daddy call her Lizzy.

  Asa dropped his head and sighed before looking back up at her. “Elizabeth, I don’t want to impose on your hospitality. But I would like to stick around and help out in any way I can. I’ll work the garden, mend the fencing, tend the animals, whatever y’all need. I’m sure it’s been hard to keep this place running by yourself.”

  “I haven’t done it by myself. James has done a lot. Henry too. We’ve made do, and we’ll be just fine on our own.”

  This time he didn’t drop his gaze, and I guess she figured she wasn’t going to change his mind. She finally threw up her hands and started mumbling about how nothing ever changes. “Best I can do is offer you the sofa. Your mother and mine have the bedroom.”

  “Thank you. I’d be happy for it.”

  I couldn’t stand there in silence any longer. I was about to bust open from the inside if someone didn’t explain to me exactly what was going on and what had happened between Mother, Daddy, and Asa all those years ago.

  “So how long can you stay?” I asked.

  I guess it was the first time he’d noticed me and Henry cause he jumped and his eyes widened. Then he looked back at Mother like a lost mutt hoping for a few scraps before he was chased off. “I reckon as long as your momma’ll have me, and as long as I’m doing something useful.”

  Mother’s cheeks turned pink. “Look, Ruby, your Uncle Asa is a very busy man, I’m sure. He must have a life to get back to, and we don’t want to inconvenience him.” She grabbed the water pail by the door and headed out so fast I barely caught her last words.

  Asa let out a long sigh and put his hat back on his head. He glanced over at Henry like he was waiting for orders.

  “What do you do for a living?” Henry asked.

  “This and that. Nowadays, I pretty much work with my hands, farming, picking, fixing up houses.”

  “Good,” Henry said. “We could use another couple of hands around here.”

  That night as I lay in bed next to Mother, I couldn’t quiet all the swirling thoughts in my head. I guess she couldn’t either cause sometime during the night I could feel her shaking with quiet sobs. I rolled onto my side and slipped my arm around her. She didn’t turn to me, but she took my hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. Across the room, James and Henry snored their nightly song.

  “Mother?” I whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “Are we going to make it? Without Daddy, I mean.”

  “Yes, Ruby. God will provide for us. Somehow.”

  I couldn’t admit it out loud, but I wasn’t so sure about that. How could I be sure about anything? I’d been sure God would heal Daddy, but he didn’t. Maybe I didn’t know the first thing about faith.

  “Mother?”

  “Yes, Ruby.”

  “What did Asa do to you and Daddy?” She didn’t say anything, which was beginning to frustrate me. I tried again. “He doesn’t seem like a bad man.”

  “He isn’t a bad man. He was once a very good man. A man that could move people like I’d never seen.” Then she finally turned and faced me, and I could see in the small flickering of the fire that her eyes were dead serious. “All the same, you stay away from Asa. He’s bad news, and trouble is never far behind him.”

  After Mother turned back over, I stared at the ceiling and thought about what she’d said. I was already lying and sneaking around. I hated to heap more sin on my head, but what she wanted was just impossible. Asa was my only connection to Daddy, and I was determined to keep it.

  Chapter Six

  I went back to school a couple of days later, mostly cause I had nothing else to do once my grandmothers went back home. Only two weeks remained in the school year, and I probably could’ve stayed home, but I needed to get back to something familiar, something that belonged to only me and wouldn’t remind me of Daddy. I thought going back to school would be relief, but it was strange instead. Oh, everyone was nice and accommodating, either hugging me or passing me sympathetic smiles from across the room. But what I wanted was for them to treat me exactly the same as they had before, and yet, when class started and the world around me moved on as if nothing had happened, I felt out of place. Miss Riley went right on with our history lesson, telling us of all the trials and hardships faced by the Cherokee and other Indians from around northern Alabama as our progress collided with their homeland.

  I could hear her speaking, even imagine the proud, high cheekbones and the dark piercing eyes of the Cherokee. My Grandma Kellum was half Cherokee, which my mother said explained the wild hair that ran through her brothers. It was only after I was older that I figured out she was speaking figuratively. I tried to stay focused on the lesson, tried to reconcile the stories of the Cherokee I’d heard for years from Mother, but my mind kept wande
ring. I’d think about her brothers, how they’d strode into our living room with such a force as I’d never seen, how the whole room had changed as soon as they’d entered. But that would lead to thoughts of the funeral, of Asa, and of course thoughts of Daddy. I found myself staring out the window at the dogwood petals floating down like snow, and suddenly Miss Riley’s voice came to me from just beside my shoulder.

  “Ruby,” she said quietly.

  I jumped and turned to her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Everyone’s left for recess. Why don’t you go out and get some fresh air?”

  I looked around the room, and indeed it was empty. Warmth rose up through my neck and face. “I’m sorry, Miss Riley. I can’t seem to pay attention today.”

  She smiled down at me with soft eyes that never accused. “I understand, dear. Frankly I was surprised you came back to school. You know, you’re grades are just fine. You’ll be passed on to ninth grade, even if you’re unable to finish out the year.”

  I grabbed my lunch pail from beside me and stood. “Thank you, but I’d really rather finish.”

  “Well, if you need any help I’m here. Do your best, but don’t fret over any of it. Take care of yourself and your family as best you can.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And here.” She pulled out a small book and handed it to me, Selected Poems of Robert Frost. “I thought you might like this.”

  “Thank you so much,” I managed to squeak out as she hugged me.

  I tucked the book under my arm and headed out the door. I went straight for my spot by the creek, where Mary was already seated with her lunch pail. She was the only person I’d actually been glad to see. She didn’t say anything, just smiled up at me and gave the grass a pat beside her. I dropped down and started on my biscuit and honey, but it didn’t taste as good as it had before. I set about half of it aside.

  “How’s Matthew doing?” I asked.

  “About the same. He’s a little weaker every day it seems.”