Ruby Among Us

by Tina Ann Forkner

  My heart thundered in my chest as I reached for the inhaler on the coffee table, but Kitty was already handing it to me. I breathed in deep before erupting into a mess of coughs. Kitty leaned over and gave me a small hug.

  There was nothing else she was able to say that hadn’t been said a million times, so she stayed silent and gently rubbed the back of my head until I could breathe normally—the same way Ruby had on her last day when I’d banged my knee on the coffee table. I recalled how she’d kissed my knee, rubbed the pain away, and then rocked me, rubbing the back of my head until I must have fallen asleep.

  How I wished I hadn’t taken that nap. I could never stop thinking about how I’d wasted all that time sleeping when I should have been spending time with Ruby. I was so slow at everything that day, especially at taking her the inhaler.

  Taking a deep breath, I gave the inhaler back to Kitty. I inherited my asthma from Ruby—a bitter and cruel constant reminder of how she’d died. I sometimes thought the inhaler was a curse, maybe a punishment by an angry god that I wished I could throw away but couldn’t live without. Just like Ruby couldn’t.

  Once, a long time ago, I tried to throw out my inhaler. When Kitty wasn’t looking, I’d secretly walked out to the alleyway and quietly dumped every bit of apparatus and the refill cartridge into the garbage can. A neighbor, also taking out his trash, had looked curiously at me as if trying to see what I was up to. I remembered him as being the man who held on to me the day Ruby died.

  I made eye contact with him as I stood beside the garbage can, and he looked straight at me. He didn’t say anything but stared at me with a question in his eyes. And pity, of course. Everyone in the neighborhood would stare at me with pity every time I walked outside. The ones who still lived in the neighborhood knew about Ruby, and they all knew about my inhaler.

  As I held the lid of the trash can up, the man who wouldn’t let me go when the ambulance took Ruby away cocked his head, as if to ask what I was doing. We’d never actually spoken, me and this man, except for the look we shared sometimes when I would walk to the mailbox. We’d share a look that said he knew and that I knew he knew. We weren’t friends, but I couldn’t say we were strangers either.

  On that day when I threw my inhalers away, I’d avoided the question in his eyes and knew he understood I was telling him to stay out of it. Then I simply shut the lid and walked back into the house.

  I regretted all of this later when I had a particularly overpowering asthma attack. I recall I tried to hide out for a while in my room to conceal what was happening until finally I stumbled out to find Kitty. Surprised, she sprang into action but couldn’t find an inhaler anywhere in the house. She’d rushed me to the hospital in a whirl, barely making it before I suffocated. I remember how the white-coated medical personnel met us in the parking lot as Kitty half dragged and half carried my twelve-year-old body toward the emergency room.

  Of course everyone chastised me harshly, and Dr. Larimer grasped me tightly by the shoulders. He had treated Ruby for her asthma too and felt justified to give me a speech every time I did something an asthmatic wasn’t supposed to do, which he said was far too often.

  His hands actually hurt my shoulders that day as he squeezed, but I didn’t care. I liked how the pressure felt. It brought me back to the present.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor.”

  He surprised me then by pulling me close, like I was his family. At first I’d wanted to push him away, but when I felt his strong arms around my back, I was amazed at the firmness of his arms compared to Kitty’s and decided to allow him to hug me. I remember thinking this was what it might feel like to have a dad.

  I felt the need to ease my embarrassment. “Does this mean I’m your favorite patient, Doctor, or do you just feel sorry for me?”

  As he consulted a chart, he winked and said, “You and Miss Kitty are my favorites, but don’t tell anybody. I’m supposed to treat all my patients equally.”

  He then looked in my direction and said sternly, “Don’t ever do something like that again, kid. We need you around.”

  I nodded soberly as he shook a new inhaler at me. “You have to use this, Lucy.”

  His face softened, and I noticed the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes.

  “I know it’s hard because of your mom, but if she were here today, I bet she’d make you use your medicine.” He handed me a sucker then from a drawer and ruffled my hair. “You sure do look like her.”

  The thought of me looking like Ruby made me smile. I glanced at Kitty, who was watching the interaction from her chair. I think she agreed because the corners of her eyes looked moist.

  Did I really look like Ruby? I felt proud as I thought of my curly brownish-blond hair, always in the way. Ruby’s was the same but darker, and I wondered if she liked hers or if she ever wanted to cut and straighten it like I’d thought of doing.

  Kitty seemed lost in thought when the doctor reached over and offered a hand to help her out of the chair. I recall how he put an arm around her and pulled her as close to his side as she would allow.

  “Thank you, Matt.” She used the sort of tone as if he were a son. “You’re such a great doctor. It’s good you’re here helping so many people.”

  “Thank you.” He looked at me. “Don’t give Miss Kitty a hard time, you hear?”

  I nodded my consent as I opened the sucker.

  “Deal.”

  When we’d returned home, we found a bag on our front porch that, when Kitty opened it, revealed the inhalers and refills I’d thrown in the trash. Kitty had looked confused, but as she huffed at me and walked into the house, I turned to spot the neighbor man across the road sitting in his rocking chair.

  He nodded at me. I flashed him a sheepish smile and, as I turned away, the hint of a wave.

  I caught the slight wave of his hand out of the corner of my eye, and after that our interaction went from a look to a wave. We didn’t really need more than that. We’d already shared the most important moment of my life so far. That was all we needed.

  To tell the truth, I was embarrassed, and when I saw Kitty crying that night, I understood what I’d done. She’d been terrified she would lose another daughter, the same as before.

  Looking at Kitty now, sitting beside me in the old, blue velvet chair, I started to think maybe she needed to revisit Ruby’s memories for her own benefit, not just mine. Then again, how could I know what Kitty needed? Maybe it wasn’t my business… but wasn’t it? It was my history, not just hers.

  I had a father, even if Kitty refused to talk about him. I had a grandfather whom she rarely mentioned and, when she did, never in any detail. Who was Ruby really, besides the collage of pictures and broken memory? Maybe the key lay with Kitty. Who was Kitty before I knew her?

  4

  How about in the Union?” A young woman from one of my courses suggested heading to the student building for lunch together. I still hadn’t figured out why she was inviting me, even as I mumbled an acceptance. I suppose it could have been because of the day I’d embarrassed myself by having an asthma attack. I couldn’t remember what brought it on that day, but I’d been trying to ignore it. Eventually I’d fumbled through my backpack looking for my inhaler as the teacher and other students glared.

  Only Susannah, sitting at the desk beside me, had leaned in to help.

  “Do you have asthma?”

  Yes, I’d nodded, knowing I had the eyes of a wild woman as I dug through my pack, trying to pretend the other people and the hawk-eyed instructor weren’t there.

  Susannah dumped the contents of my backpack in search for what she must have known was an inhaler. I tried to mask my gasps for air, but the desperation grew as we saw the inhaler at the same time. We both reached for it, sending it skidding across the floor and at the feet of a man about the same age as Susannah, early-to midtwenties. He scooped up the inhaler and hurried over to me, not bothering to hold it out but putting it straight to my mouth. As I’d sucked in the medicated air tha
t would clear my lungs, I felt Susannah’s warm hand on my arm and the pressure of the man’s hand on the back of my neck, his fingers gently propping up my head. Humiliating, I thought.

  This is how the three of us first met, Susannah, Max, and me. Later there would be Susannah’s husband, but at the time I didn’t know she was married or that he was not. In fact, I was hardly able to think about either question as I gulped air.

  The teacher’s gaze fell to her shoes as she said softly, “Lucy, you may be excused for today.”

  I felt my face redden as Susannah packed my backpack; the young man even gathered my notebooks and placed them inside.

  “Are you okay?” he’d asked gently, staring intently into my eyes, his green and deep.

  I nodded, my eyes wide not only from the asthma attack, but also from the sudden closeup view of this man’s face. I’d seen him before and had noticed instantly how handsome he was, the easy way he would walk to the front row desks and sit down each week, his long legs stretching before him. I’d never imagined seeing his face so near.

  “I’ll go outside with her,” said Susannah.

  He said something to her I couldn’t understand and patted my arm before he returned to his seat.

  I avoided him at every turn after that, embarrassed about the situation, but Susannah and I had continued to talk some after each class. We didn’t know each other well, but I enjoyed our hellos and good-byes. It was almost like having a friend; until then my friends had been my instructors. Or worked at the museum with Kitty. They were quite a bit older than me, to say the least, and didn’t really understand why some things made me giggle, cry, or hide.

  “Sure—eleven thirty?”

  “Perfect.” She slung her backpack over her shoulder.

  Susannah leaned over and squeezed my shoulder. The touch surprised and warmed me.

  I thought I’d never had a real friend, and the realization nearly crushed me. It took a moment to get my bearings before looking up at Susannah.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow!” she said brightly.

  I watched her ponytail bounce away and remembered all the times Kitty had told me I wouldn’t have liked public school. I wondered, though, would I have made friends like Susannah?

  Hiding the warmth rising in my cheeks, I turned to leave the classroom that day only to be ploughed into by a fairly good-sized backpack. Not a particularly petite person but still less than five foot eight, I bounced heavily off the obstruction and fell straight to the floor. The blood rushed to my face, and I felt incredibly embarrassed for someone else to have witnessed my natural klutziness.

  “I’m sorry!” said the guy from class.

  It was him. Of course I recognized him immediately. I’d been secretly admiring him all semester, even if I’d avoided him of late.

  I accepted his offered hand and stood.

  “Oh,” I said quietly. “It’s okay, I’m not exactly full of grace.”

  “Sure you are.” He picked up my backpack and handed it to me.

  Able to concentrate more than on the day I’d made a fool of myself with the inhaler, I noticed how deep green his eyes really were. His dark brown hair was combed over to the side but a bit unruly. He gave me a wide, crooked smile, and I suddenly felt paralyzed. Even though my complexion was more olive, I could feel myself blushing. I hoped he didn’t notice my adolescent response.

  I accepted the bag. “Thank you.”

  “For what, knocking you over? You should be perturbed and walk out of here in a huff.”

  I stared up at him, perplexed, but he wasn’t chuckling.

  “I would if you did that to me.” He smiled. “And I really am sorry, Miss…”

  “DiCamillo,” I said, happy at the moment that Kitty had decided to give Ruby her beautiful surname instead of whatever Ruby’s father’s had been. For a second I thought about the strangeness of it. I really wished I knew what my paternal ancestors’ names were, but at that moment DiCamillo was a good name to have.

  As I expected, he said, “DiCamillo is a great last name.”

  “My full name,” I said proudly, “is Maria Lucero DiCamillo, but you can call me Lucy.”

  “Wow,” he said, seemingly amused at that point about how proud I actually was of my name.

  Embarrassed, I lowered my chin. Now there was this uncomfortable silence similar to what I remembered reading about in some novel, where nobody says anything and you stand there feeling stupid.

  “Well, Maria Lucero Lucy DiCamillo,” he said, bowing slightly, “it’s a pleasure to bump into you—this time it’s more pleasant, right? How about I buy you lunch?”

  My eyes widened, and I stammered but couldn’t get any sound to come out. I’d never been asked to lunch by a man. In fact, I didn’t know if I’d ever said more than a few words to any young man. I just wasn’t used to men at all. Having been homeschooled, I’d always spent afternoons working on schoolwork at the museum or library and all my free evenings with Kitty. I found men completely foreign and avoided them just as Kitty seemed to do.

  Apparently mistaking my confusion for disinterest, he quickly apologized. “I’m sorry. You don’t even know me, and I’m already asking you to lunch. Maybe another time.” He smiled tentatively as if he suddenly wasn’t too sure of himself either.

  His uncertainty gave me confidence. “Maybe another time, Mr.…”

  Now it was his turn. He bowed. “Maxwell Crawford Sheffield.”

  I smiled. His name was a mouthful too.

  “Call me Max,” he said and with that walked away.

  I stared after him. He was wearing Dockers, and his polo shirt, wrinkled at the bottom, looked just untucked. He was quite a bit taller than I was, broad shouldered, and I had to admit that I liked what I saw, which caused me to turn even redder. Kitty would love that he looks a lot like Harry Connick Jr., I mused.

  One thing I was pretty sure of was that Kitty wouldn’t even meet him. He’d only asked me to lunch, and I’d turned him down without even saying a word. That was all.

  I headed home, happy we didn’t live too far away and wishing I’d accepted Max’s lunch offer. I suddenly felt even more stupid. Obviously I had no idea how to talk to men. Was there a right way? I had no idea, but I did know my face was still warm and pink. I rubbed one side of it, admitting to myself that I rather enjoyed the tingling feeling in my chest and the sound of my heart pounding in my ears. The best part was, my inhaler was safely stowed away in my backpack unneeded, so there was no way I could blame Ruby’s asthma on my shortness of breath.

  No, this was something different, something Emily Dickinson knew about even in the midst of all her grief-themed poems. She might never have ventured out of her house after she graduated from school, but she must have experienced such feelings before she decided to become a recluse. I decided she must have had a Maxwell in her life.

  Like grief, this feeling was universal, and I found myself wishing once again that I could ask Ruby about it. Ruby would have given me some enlightenment—don’t mothers explain all these feelings to their daughters?

  Suddenly I wanted to know more about Max, more about men, more of my mother’s love life. Again I thought about the photograph hidden in my drawer. I wanted Kitty to tell me why I didn’t have a father, an uncle, or a grandfather. Was my father really a snake? Were all men horrible? Wasn’t there one father out there who was good and decent? One man worth a date?

  Maybe I’d been reading too many Jane Austen books, but after my recent crash with Maxwell Crawford Sheffield, I could no longer deny the existence of men or keep from pondering what I was supposed to do with their presence. I found myself dreaming that Max would truly ask me to lunch again, but even as I thought it, I decided he wouldn’t. I was probably too young. He had to be at least twenty-three or twenty-four. At least, that’s how old he looked.

  I was barely nineteen, and as I thought about it, Kitty probably wouldn’t like him for his age. Or simply because he was a man. I figured she would probably tell
me not to trust him and then remind me of how men hurt women like me and her. And they in fact had, or they would be here for me during my college years, right?

  The logic of Kitty’s possible arguments aside, as I pictured Max’s green eyes twinkling down at me, he certainly didn’t seem that bad.

  As I walked into the house a few minutes later, I nearly knocked Kitty off her cane.

  “Oh! I’m sorry!” I reached out to steady her.

  “What’s the rush, dear?”

  “Nothing,” I said, trying to brush off any concerns she might have had. “I’m just more of a klutz than usual today.”

  She patted my arm. “Come sit with me in the kitchen and have some tea. I want to hear about your day.”

  I smiled and gave her a quick hug, reminded of how lucky I was to have her. I’d never lacked love from Kitty in my life. Love for me overflowed, even if in the form of overprotection.

  I’d been at the university for almost four years, but since I was so young Kitty made sure I only went to and from class. I really hadn’t minded up until now. I didn’t want to worry her any more than necessary, so as much as I wanted to, I didn’t dare mention Max.

  “Let’s have tea, dear.”

  She handed over my favorite rose-patterned cup. “Kitty, when did my mother go on her first date?”

  Kitty hesitated, stirring sugar into her tea and taking a very slow sip. When she set the teacup down, she looked up at me. “Too young, that’s for certain.”

  “Younger than I am?”

  “Oh my. Much, much younger. She was about fourteen.”

  “You let her date at fourteen?” I was shocked.

  “I did—and it was a mistake. I wish I hadn’t. I suppose I was trying to be the opposite of my parents. They didn’t let me date until I was almost out of school, and I ended up pregnant.”

  I was silent, thinking about Ruby, but Kitty read my mind.

  “And I tried not to smother Ruby, but by the time she was out on her own, she ended up pregnant and unmarried anyway.”