A Soft Place to Land: A Novel

by Susan Rebecca White

  Ruthie heard a light tapping on the door frame. She looked up and there was her sister, back from wherever she’d been. Julia walked into the room and closed the door behind her. “We need to talk,” Julia said.

  When she sat beside Ruthie on the bed—after pushing her books out of the way—Ruthie was overwhelmed by the smell of cigarette smoke. Though Julia hadn’t told anyone where she was going for dinner, Ruthie guessed that she had been with Jake Robinson. Jake smoked Marlboro Reds, a habit Ruthie had declared disgusting, though Julia justified it by saying, “Hey, if you’re going to smoke, you might as well go full throttle.”

  “You want me to come with you to California, right? And not just for the summer?”

  Ruthie looked quizzically at her sister. Did Julia even have to ask?

  “Of course,” she said.

  “I think we’re going to be able to do it, then. Mimi convinced me this afternoon. I wasn’t sure if she and Robert would really be up for having the two of us move in with her, but I don’t think she was bullshitting when she said she’d take me if she could.”

  “Yeah, but she also knows that you have to go with your dad, because—you know—he’s still alive and he loves you.”

  He was still alive. Ruthie’s parents were not. How long before that knowledge would seem real to her? Before it would seem normal to think of them as dead?

  Never, Ruthie hoped. She hoped the knowledge of their death would always seem wrong.

  “Look, Dad loves me, I’m not doubting that, but what you said last night was right. I haven’t been a part of his life for fourteen years. And I can guaran-damn-tee you that Peggy is not thrilled about me moving in with her.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Ruthie, feeling protective of her sister. “She kept hugging you at the funeral. Throwing her arms around you, telling you not to forget that you are loved.”

  Ruthie said those words in Peggy’s accent, deeply southern and concerned.

  “Peggy loves her some drama,” said Julia. “Did you see her clutch that cross she wears around her neck when they got to the part in the will about me living with them? That was a clutch of martyrdom, my friend, not a clutch of joy.”

  Peggy had grabbed for her cross when it was announced that Julia was to come live with them, which had seemed unnecessarily dramatic to Ruthie, considering that everyone in the room was already pretty sure of what the will would reveal.

  “Your dad loves you. He’s always sending you those bowls.”

  Matt and his son, Sam, had a workshop out back, and for the past few years Matt had been carving bowls out of single pieces of wood and then shining them to a high gloss. He had sent Julia four so far, gorgeous things that nearly rivaled the Philip Moulthrop bowl Phil had bought Naomi for their tenth anniversary.

  “This afternoon I realized what I have to do in order to convince Dad to let me live with you in San Francisco. I have to make him understand that he’s making a noble sacrifice by letting me go, by letting us stay together. Make him feel like the true mother in the story about King Solomon and the baby. Remember that one? How two moms were fighting over a baby, each saying it was hers? And Solomon said to cut the baby in half because he knew the real mom would relinquish the baby before she would let that happen to it? Well, pretend you and I are Siamese twins or something, and King Solomon just decreed that we must be cut in half, so that Mimi gets one half and Dad gets the other. But Dad can cry out, ‘No! Let her go as long as she can go whole!’ And by doing that he’ll show how much he really loves me.”

  “But the real mom ended up getting the whole baby. That was the point of the story. Once she proved her love she got him.”

  Attending Coventry had made both of the girls well versed in the Bible.

  Julia waved away Ruthie’s logic. “You’re being too technical. You’ve got to think about the spirit of the example, not the actual outcome. Anyway, I wrote Dad a letter. I realized I needed to say it in a letter and not over the phone, because if I try to explain it with Dad on the line I’ll just get all flustered and go off point. So I went to Café Intermezzo after you and I talked to Mimi. Just sat out on the back patio drinking coffee and smoking while I wrote. And I have to say, Ruthie, the letter is fucking brilliant. My most persuasive work so far. I don’t say a word in it about not wanting to live in Virginia, or not wanting to live with them. I just convince them that you and me staying together is best. Anyway, here it is. See what you think.”

  She thrust a folded letter at Ruthie, which Ruthie opened and began to read:

  April 7, 1993

  Dear Dad,

  I know you are not used to receiving letters from me. I’m thinking the only one I ever sent you, besides holiday cards, was when I was a little girl, soon after Mom and I had moved to Atlanta. Just “I love you” written unevenly on a sheet of white paper in crayon, along with a stack of pictures I had drawn at school. I remember Mom bundling them all together and sending them to you in Virden, saying, “Won’t your father be pleased to get all of this beautiful art.”

  You telephoned as soon as you received the letter, told me how you had taped the pictures to your bedroom wall, how you planned to look at them every night before you went to bed and each morning after you woke. How having those pictures was a little like having me there.

  “This is really sad,” said Ruthie, looking up from her sister’s words.

  “It’s good isn’t it?” asked Julia, her voice animated, excited.

  Ruthie imagined Matt alone in his house in Virden, peeking into his daughter’s old bedroom with its permanently made bed and empty closet. How lonely Matt must have been after Naomi took Julia and moved to Atlanta! Ruthie wondered, how come she never thought about this before? She had always viewed her parents’ story through their eyes, the eyes of the victors; she had always thought it wonderfully romantic, fated. A happy ending to a difficult beginning.

  But there were others involved who would not view her parents’ rekindled romance as beautiful and inspiring.

  Matt, for one. And Beatrice, Phil’s first wife . . .

  Ruthie returned to the letter.

  Oh, Dad. It makes me so sad to think of us back then. I missed you so much when Mom and I first moved to Atlanta. I cried every night at bedtime because you weren’t there to read to me and help me say my prayers.

  I still remember what it was like living in Virden when you and Mom were married. I still remember the feel of riding high above everyone on your shoulders, when we would walk to the park. I remember feeling so safe being carried by you.

  For the first time it occurred to Ruthie that Julia was not exactly a winner in this story, either.

  I can only imagine how you ached for me—for us, when Mom left and took me with her. I suppose I’m better able to imagine how you felt losing Mom now that she is gone from my life, too.

  Mom and Phil sure bounced our lives around.

  But you found Peggy! And you had Sam! Sam, who came into your life only a year after Ruthie came into mine. Sam and Ruthie helped heal things, didn’t they?

  I’ve had friends ask if I resented Ruthie when she was born—always assuming that I did. After all, I had been an only child with an intact family, and then quite suddenly my parents were divorced and here was a new sister. And not only a new sister, the child of my new stepfather. (And I grew to love Phil, I did, but I hope you know he never, ever took the place of you.) It’s funny. Maybe I should have resented Ruthie, but I never did. She was—is—the most important person in my life. Maybe I shouldn’t say that, Dad, but I’m trying to be truthful here. It’s not that I love Ruthie most; it’s just that Ruthie is the one who needs me most.

  “You don’t love me the most?” asked Ruthie, outwardly indignant though inwardly moved by Julia’s declared devotion.

  “Of course I love you most. But that’s not the point of the letter, spaz. The point is we need to engender sympathy for you from Dad. We need him to see you as someone who needs my protection and guidance
.”

  “Your guidance about what? What kind of cigarettes to smoke?” Ruthie teased.

  Julia slapped her sister on the thigh, hard.

  “Ow!”

  “Keep reading!” Julia ordered.

  Ruthie rolled her eyes but obeyed.

  Ruthie and I have been so connected from the very beginning. When she was just a tiny, fussy baby—

  “I was not fussy,” said Ruthie.

  “Read!” said Julia.

  I could make her stop crying by talking to her through the slats in her crib. As she got older, more often than not it was me she came running to any time she was upset. I was sort of like a little mother to her. When she was a toddler and would act up at dinner, banging the bottom of her knife against the table, or shaking salt all over her food until it was covered in a sheet of white, Phil would sometimes send her away until she could “behave properly.” And Ruthie, who hated nothing more than to be singled out, to be in trouble, would flee from the kitchen, wailing.

  “Go on,” Mom would say to me, in that resigned, tired voice she adopted when dealing with difficult children. And I would run to find Ruthie. Usually she was flung on the sofa in the living room, a mess of shame and tears. I would rub her back. I would gently tease her out of crying.

  “Whatever you do, don’t smile,” I would say. “Don’t smile. Do not! I’m warning you.”

  Eventually she would smile.

  As she grew older we became even closer, because now we could play together. Summers were an endless series of games: trying to make perfume by simmering rose petals in water—

  “Oh my gosh, do you remember the time we dumped all of Mom’s Chanel No. 5 into the sink so we could use the empty bottle for our rosewater perfume?” Ruthie asked.

  “We? You did that, Ruthie. You were the one who poured out the perfume, and I was the one who got in trouble. I wasn’t given my allowance for two months. Two months!”

  “We both got in trouble,” said Ruthie.

  She didn’t remind Julia that she, who at that time did not yet receive an allowance, had been spanked. Even though her mother’s spankings were more symbolic than painful, it shamed Ruthie deeply to admit to having ever received one. It shamed her deeply to be punished.

  “Why aren’t you reading?” asked Julia.

  Mom and Phil were so occupied with each other that we became each other’s world.

  Just like you and Peggy and Sam have created your own world. Of course I’m a part of that world, Dad, I always will be, but the three of you have lived together for Sam’s entire life without me, save for a few weeks every summer, a few days over the holidays.

  I think it’s going to be difficult—for Sam and Peggy especially—for me to come live with y’all this late in the game. I think it might disrupt the world y’all have created.

  Oh, Dad. I hope I’m not hurting your feelings. The last thing I want to do is to hurt your feelings. I love you, and I need you. You are the only father I have—the only parent I have. But please hear me when I say that instead of living with you and Peggy, I think it would be better for everyone—Ruthie especially—if I were to live with her in San Francisco at Mimi and Robert’s house.

  Aunt Mimi says she is willing to have me, if you are willing to let me go.

  I know this is different than what Mom and Phil’s will stated, but maybe we need to apply some of the wisdom of Solomon here and realize that the deepest expression of your love would be to stop the splitting of Ruthie and me. We wouldn’t be going against their wishes, not really. You would still have custody, still be my legal guardian. Still be my dad. I would just live with them. It would be as if I were at boarding school. And I could come and visit every summer, just like always, and spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with you, too.

  (I could even send you drawings, like I did that time when I was little, and you could hang them on your wall. To have a part of me always near . . . )

  I cannot imagine being separated from Ruthie. I cannot imagine what that is going to do to her. I am the only immediate family she has left. And she doesn’t know Mimi and Robert at all. How is she expected to go all the way to California by herself and be their only daughter? After losing both of her parents. Imagine that, Dad. Becoming an orphan at thirteen, and then being separated from your only sister.

  “Gosh, you make me sound pathetic.”

  “It’s called creating pathos, Ruthie. And it’s absolutely essential for us to do so if we want my father on our side.”

  “I’m an orphan.” Ruthie’s face scrunched up, the way an infant’s does, just before he is going to howl. She started crying, loudly, overwhelmed by the loneliness the letter had brought forth.

  Julia put her arm around her sister, let her head fall into her lap as Ruthie cried and cried and cried. It was such a hard cry that it was over in a few minutes. For that moment at least, she had simply cried herself dry, and now she remained in Julia’s lap, her face red and tearstained.

  “Let me finish reading it to you,” said Julia.

  She read in her loud, clear voice, enunciating every syllable as she had learned to do onstage.

  “‘I don’t know how to make sense of all of this loss, Dad; I really don’t. But for me to come live in Virden, without Ruthie, would be a loss that doesn’t have to happen.

  “‘Please, Dad. I love you. Please. Please, please love me enough to let me go to California with my sister who needs me.

  “‘Your daughter, Julia.’”

  Ruthie remained buried in her sister’s lap. Julia was right. The letter was brilliant.

  “I don’t see how he can say no to this,” Ruthie said. But Julia did not hear her, because Ruthie’s voice was muffled by her leg.

  “What?”

  Ruthie sat up, gingerly, the way you do after a round of throwing up, when you seem to be emptied out yet you’re not sure the vomiting is over.

  “I said, ‘I don’t see how he can say no to this.’”

  Julia nodded slowly, like an ancient sage. “Behold the power of my pen.”

  Chapter Four

  Ruthie awoke to the panicky cry of her aunt: “Girls! You overslept. Get up! Get UP!”

  As if in cahoots with Mimi, the alarm clock started beeping. Julia, without opening her eyes, lifted herself up enough to smash down the snooze button. “Five more minutes,” she mumbled, her head collapsing against her pillow.

  Mimi started shaking Julia’s arm. “Come on, sweetie, wake up! You are so late.”

  Ruthie, still drowsy, sat up. “What time is it?”

  “Seven twenty-one,” said Mimi.

  Ruthie whacked at her sister, whose body was hidden by the covers. “Oh my gosh. Julia, get up!”

  Ruthie had been planning on taking a shower. Julia had been planning on finishing her math homework. Instead they dressed as quickly as possible, smeared their tongues with Crest, and grabbed breakfast on their way out the door—a silvery package of Pop-Tarts for Ruthie, a cup of coffee for Julia.

  Once in the car, Julia sped down Wymberly Way. They were just so late. They were late so often. Julia probably wouldn’t have cared, but another late meant a major detention. They came to the intersection of Wymberly Way and Habersham Road, where there was a stop sign. Julia slowed to a rolling stop, glanced over her right shoulder to make sure no one was coming, then turned left and revved the engine.

  “So when are you going to tell Mimi?” Ruthie asked, trying not to look at the speedometer.

  “Tell Mimi what?”

  “What you wrote in the letter you sent your dad.”

  “Why would I say anything to Mimi before I hear from Dad?”

  Julia balanced a paper cup that was half-full of coffee between her legs. As she drove, the coffee sloshed against its sides. Ruthie recognized the cup as one from the Cherokee Club. Cherokee was the most “new money” of the good Atlanta country clubs, as opposed to Capital City, or the Piedmont Driving Club. Phil hadn’t cared. Cherokee’s grounds were beautiful, its
food was good, and it was near their house.

  Phil used to exercise at Cherokee’s gym three mornings a week, and would always grab a cup of coffee from the hospitality bar on his way out. When he returned home he would rinse out the cup that the coffee came in and save it for a second, or third or fourth, use. Phil hated to waste.

  “Because you need to get your story straight with her. It’s been almost two weeks since you sent that letter, and your dad is going to call soon. What if he talks to Mimi before you do? I mean, in the letter you told him that Mimi said you could live with her if your dad was okay with it. But she didn’t actually say that. She said if something happened to your dad you could live with her.”

  Julia shrugged. Made a left onto West Wesley. From there it was almost a straight shot to Coventry, just one more turn onto Chapel Lane. Julia was flying. A major detention would mean she’d have to go to school on Saturday and pick up any trash that was strewn about campus.

  Ruthie eyed the speedometer. They were going nearly 60 miles an hour.

  “Spaz, you have to trust me on this,” Julia said, attempting to make eye contact with Ruthie, which made Ruthie even more nervous.

  (Again and again Naomi had told the story about the two brothers who were killed in a car accident because one kept making eye contact with the other while he drove. And Ruthie and Julia would always say, “The brothers died. How could anyone have known what the driver was doing before the wreck?” And Naomi would tell the girls that they hadn’t died immediately. That the brother who was driving had lived long enough to whisper a warning to the doctor at the hospital.)

  “There’s an art to what I’m doing—it’s called the art of negotiation. I can’t say anything specific to Mimi until I hear back from my dad. That way I can tailor my argument to her based on his response to me.”

  “You sound like a lawyer,” said Ruthie. “Like Dad—my dad. You’re driving like him, too. Can you please slow down?”

  In response Julia pressed on the accelerator.

  “Julia!” cried Ruthie, alarmed. “Stop!”

  “Chill,” said Julia. “Jesus. I know this road like I once knew Dmitri’s dick.”