Ruby Among Us

by Tina Ann Forkner

  I didn’t build the confidence to ask Kitty to go on the picnic with Max until the next day. I’d been sitting in our garden having my usual morning routine for about an hour, watching the hummingbirds, dreaming about what the rest of Kitty’s story would yield. Would she divulge some seed that would prompt me to remember Ruby? Part of me wanted to run off to La Rosaleda and find Kitty’s family—my family. But part of me also feared they wouldn’t want to see me. Maybe like the children Susannah told me about who didn’t want their biological parents to ever find them.

  There was something else I wanted to ask Kitty about her story. It was now obvious to me that Kitty’s story wasn’t hers alone, but also mine and Ruby’s. The stories were one, interconnected…like the vines Kitty sewed into her quilts.

  The quilts. Of course. Kitty’s quilts were about La Rosaleda.

  I watched the sunrise over the neighborhood behind our house, and just when I thought I might go in and make my own cup of tea, Kitty wandered out in an orange-and-yellow Hawaiian-print kimono. I smiled at my grandmother’s style, which was simply anything she found beautiful, and that usually leaned toward loud, large prints. Again I was reminded that she seemed so different than the newlywed Kitty who had lived in La Rosaleda.

  “I love that robe.”

  “Oh, silly Lucy, you’ve seen this a thousand times.”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t sure if I’d ever told you how I love the rich fabric. Where did you get it?”

  “Well, you may not believe it, but from Dr. Larimer many years ago.”

  “No! My doctor? Our family doctor, here in Sacramento? The one who writes me prescriptions for inhalers? Are you kidding me?”

  Kitty nodded. “No, I’m not.”

  “Wait a minute… Dr. Larimer’s name is Matthew, isn’t it? Then, is he…?” I was afraid to ask, but it made sense. It was just too weird, but I’d always wondered why Dr. Larimer was so nice to us.

  “Matthew is the son of Mike Larimer from La Rosaleda. The one who rode in the ambulance with Blake and me on the day Ruby was born.”

  “You’ve kept in contact with the Larimers?”

  Kitty scoffed. “I can keep in touch with whomever I want.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I just meant if you hadn’t told me—”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Have you kept in contact with others at La Rosaleda?”

  “No, definitely no. And I don’t keep in touch with the Larimers either, only Matt.”

  I reached out and touched her hand. “Was Blake somehow unkind to you? Is that why you won’t go back?”

  She cocked her head sideways and stared at the bees buzzing along the marigolds, seeming to consider whether he was or not.

  “No, at least not exactly. Really I was the one unkind to him.”

  I didn’t try to hide my confusion. “Why all the secrets?”

  “What did you say?”

  “Why have you kept so many secrets from me?”

  “I’m sorry, Lucy, but these are not things I like to dig up. It was hard to leave it all behind. I did mean to tell you where I really came from. Someday.”

  “The quilts with the grapes and vines and the Mexican-style houses—those are about La Rosaleda?” I muttered in embarrassment that I had never put it together before this day—me, a lover of the arts, a humanities major! I knew her quilts were dubbed “signature” by many people, but I’d never fully appreciated that they were also an artistic expression of herself. How blind I’d been to my own grandmother’s art. I began to feel like I didn’t really know as much about Kitty as I imagined.

  “Yes, the stories in those quilts are about me—about us actually.”

  Us? If these are my stories too, why didn’t I know them? What could have gone so wrong that Kitty would keep so much from me? In the silence I could hear the bat of hummingbird wings in time to the beating of my heart. Would Kitty ever know how much I needed to understand the past?

  “Lucy,” Kitty said finally. “Nothing is a secret.”

  I watched anxiety shadow her usually sharp, bright eyes and wondered if that was the truth.

  “At first, you were grieving Ruby and just a little girl, not really of an age to understand. If you didn’t ask about Ruby’s past out loud, what makes you think you would have listened to me talk about my own?”

  “But that’s what grandmothers do, isn’t it? Pass on stories about the past?”

  Kitty was quiet several minutes more. “Yes, but not when the granddaughter is already filled with pain. I didn’t feel like my stories would help you out of your own anguish. I thought only remembering your mother in your own way could do that.” She shook her head, resigned to something. “I haven’t done everything right in my life, but with you I tried to do it better. I’ve sheltered you too much, too long. I hoped I could make your pain go away by filling your life with beautiful things like music and art. I didn’t have time or energy to go back and revisit my own sorrow. My troubles began before your mother was ever born. These things have little to do with you and Ruby.”

  “Sorrow?” I couldn’t believe what I heard. “How could your past not have anything to do with me and Ruby?”

  Kitty looked away, and I knew she was finished with the conversation. “I’m not going to talk about it anymore, not today. I realize now that maybe I need to tell you some more about my life in order for you to really understand Ruby’s, but you have to be willing to take a little at a time.”

  I wanted to protest in frustration, but Kitty was already making her way back into the house. If I were younger, I would pout. Now…

  My date with Max forgotten, I sighed in exasperation over the top of my teacup. Kitty had always given me only what she felt I needed and only at the rate she could give. The hummingbirds drew my attention again. They were working so hard to find the sweetness, flitting from flower to flower. How like Kitty, I realized, and her words echoed in my mind. I didn’t have time or energy to go back and revisit my own sorrow.

  I wouldn’t know until later, but Kitty knew I struggled to understand.

  “I have to give my story to you a few squares at a time,” she said. “Like I do on the quilts I sew. It’s so much easier to tell my stories in those quilts. You don’t look closely enough at my quilts, Lucy. You think you need to get all of the information direct from my lips. And maybe you do, but I wish you would think of my quilts and notice that it takes a long, long time to finish one of them.”

  BUILDING A HOUSE IN THE VINES

  Kitty

  9

  Our little apartment became much busier after the earthquake, Lucy,” Kitty said. “But it was definitely a house of love. Your mommy—Ruby—grew and was the delight of the La Rosaleda locals every time her blondish-brown curls bounced through a doorway.”

  Ruby was two when Blake mentioned to Kitty he might like to build a house on her parents’ land, the land that would be theirs and Ruby’s someday.

  “It won’t be as big as the main house,” he explained hopefully. “But I would still make it beautiful, and you’d be close to your mother.”

  “But what about the loft?”

  “We’ll find a way to keep it. Maybe your parents will help, just for a while.”

  Kitty thought of her mother. Even with weekly visits, she did miss her and could also use a hand with Ruby, who was getting rambunctious at her age.

  As he spoke, Kitty sat in front of him on the kitchen counter, where he’d lifted her for a welcome home kiss.

  Maybe it would be nice to be home again. She hugged him with all four limbs to show how much she loved the idea. “Okay!”

  “Really? But I know how much you like town.”

  She looked at him, stocky, tall, muscular from working. His ash blond hair was combed over to the side, and she loved the way he cocked his head when waiting for an answer.

  “Yes, silly. I’m sure!”

  “Hot dog!” In one swoop he grabbed and spun her. Then he set her down gently an
d kissed her mouth. “I love you, Kitty Cat.” His voice was a warm whisper against her cheek.

  “Oh, really? How much?”

  He kissed her forehead.

  “Only that much?” Her eyes dared him.

  He kissed her chin.

  “Is that all?”

  He leaned closer, kissing her neck, his hands sliding up her arms.

  “Is that how much you love your wife?” she beckoned. He smiled, and she let out a soft sigh and wondered if they would ever get tired of their game. She hoped not, but then she didn’t know yet how wicked life could be.

  HE MUST BE A FINE BOY

  Lucy

  10

  The morning of my date, I found Kitty in her usual chair on the back porch. I decided if I wanted her to meet Max and go with us to the park, I’d better warn her now.

  “Kitty—” I stammered. “I, uh—”

  “What is it, dear?”

  “Well, um, would you like to meet my friend Max?”

  “Who is Max?”

  I could feel my face turning red. “A guy in my class, a really nice guy who’s invited you and me to lunch.”

  “He’s trying to go the old-fashioned route, is he?”

  Kitty always put me on the defense when it came to men. “I don’t think he’s trying any route.”

  Kitty looked at me. “If you believe that, Lucy, then I guess my overprotective ways have made you naive.”

  My cell phone rang, and Susannah, on the other end of the line, told me quickly, breathless, that her mother, Mary, had breast cancer.

  Kitty watched my frown as I clipped the phone shut. “Bad news?”

  “Yes.” I told her the news. “And she already has a mastectomy scheduled for next week.”

  “Oh.” Kitty was sympathetic. “How horrible.”

  “It seems really fast, doesn’t it?”

  Kitty frowned. “Yes, they do move quickly when they know it’s breast cancer.”

  I felt terrible for Susannah, knowing how close she was to her mother—and how it felt not to have one.

  Kitty shook her head. “It’s so hard being a woman. I’d like to meet Susannah and Mary sometime.” Her frown deepened. “When it’s appropriate,” she added.

  Kitty stood and walked into the house.

  Pushing aside concern for Susannah and nervousness about the date with Max, I followed Kitty to the kitchen and reached for her elbow to help her into a chair.

  “Really, Lucy,” she chided. “I’m not that old. You don’t have to help.”

  “I know you aren’t, and I know I don’t. I just like an excuse to hold your elbow.”

  Kitty smiled at that. “So are we going somewhere special for lunch?”

  “Actually we’re having a picnic. Really, it’s a date sort of.”

  “Sort of a date? For both of us? I thought we were just going to meet him at the park.”

  “Yes. No! Well, yes,” I answered. “It’s complicated.”

  “Men always are.”

  Kitty’s sudden humor about men surprised me, and I laughed. Sobering, I took a deep breath. “This nice guy I told you about—Max, well I mean Maxwell Sheffield—invited you and me to have lunch in the park.”

  Kitty tapped her cane steadily on the floor. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. When I couldn’t take the silence any longer, I blurted, “He looks like Harry Connick Jr.”

  “Now, you know that if he looks like Harry, he must be a fine boy!” Kitty laughed and I joined her, relieved.

  But she was serious when she added, “Lucy, I do want to meet your Max, but you need to be careful about men. I’m glad you were smart enough to let me meet him.”

  “It wasn’t my idea,” I said quickly. “It was Max’s—he’s sort of old-fashioned.”

  Kitty raised her eyebrows. “I guess we’ll see. Speaking of manners, how about I bring Mantecadas?”

  “Mmm!” My mouth watered at the thought of the crumbly almond cookies Kitty said her own mother had taught her to make. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “Of course, I don’t mind. You know I love to bake.”

  “No, I mean the dating… or possibly dating Max.”

  Kitty was quiet.

  “That’s just possibly, not for sure,” I said.

  Kitty took a deep breath. “Of course, I care. I’m scared to death to let you date any man.”

  I felt my heart sink.

  “But if you’re going to date someone, I want to know the fellow.”

  My heart swelled with the anticipation of seeing Max again. Kitty’s permission meant everything to me; I couldn’t contain a huge smile as I helped get the cookie ingredients and worked myself into a frenzy thinking about what to wear and how much time I had to get ready. Would Kitty have enough time to make the cookies? I glanced at my watch. We still had two and a half hours.

  In my bedroom I stared at myself in the mirror, an act that Kitty always said was vain. My long, curly brown hair was a constant mess of tangles; my brown eyes seemed dull; my skin lackluster. I couldn’t imagine what Max would see in me, so I looked for just the right outfit. I settled on a light yellow sundress and gave second thought to many of the hats, shoes, and outfits on the rack that had belonged to Ruby or Kitty. This closet is like having my own vintage clothing store. I took advantage of it. I grabbed a small-brimmed straw hat adorned with a sunflower, grabbed some strappy sandals, and hurried to the kitchen only to be met with the aroma of Kitty’s Mantecadas. I reached for one and was surprised when she didn’t slap my hand away.

  She did stare at me though, eyes wide.

  “What?” I said, putting down the cookie.

  “Oh, honey.” She put her hands on each side of my face. “You are so beautiful. You look so much like your mother in that hat.” Big tears came to her eyes as I hugged her neck. “Lucy. My Lucy. You are as beautiful as your name.”

  I pulled away, shaking my head, and rolled my eyes.

  “Now don’t do that. You’re too old for getting your eyes stuck up in their sockets.”

  She let me go and handed back my half-eaten cookie. “I have kept you too close, dear. I didn’t realize you’d turned into such a remarkable woman.”

  “I’m hardly…remarkable…Kitty,” I said between bites of the Mantecada.

  “You are.”

  “Well,” I said, “I guess I am daughter of Ruby and granddaughter of Kitty. I can’t be too bad, can I?”

  “Exactly right!” proclaimed Kitty as she began to clean up the kitchen.

  “Kitty?” I couldn’t resist taking advantage of the mood. “Who was Ruby’s first boyfriend?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Larimer. When they were just little kids, Ruby called Matt her boyfriend. That was before…”

  “My father came along?” I interrupted.

  “Before a lot of things.”

  I sat down at the table and looked at Kitty. “Tell me,” I whispered. “Tell me about it, please, Kitty.”

  She glanced at the clock. “Your date will be here in an hour.”

  “I don’t care.”

  She sighed. “Well, as they say, there’s no time like the present, right?”

  My chest tightened with excitement. I wanted to know everything I could about Ruby.

  I was surprised that Kitty seemed a little nervous, or maybe just sad. I wasn’t sure. I could tell that as much as she’d always wanted me to know about my mother, visiting her memories was painful.

  “She believed in God.”

  “What?”

  “God. You know I’m not big on God stuff, but Ruby was. Shortly before her death, she’d gone God crazy.”

  “God crazy?”

  “That’s what I called it. I still feel so bad; it’s one of the things we argued about in the end.”

  This was something from my past, a thread I wanted to follow, a thread that always seemed hanging there at the edge of everyday things. Part
of me wanted to know about God, but Kitty had left faith behind, along with her family. I hoped he was real. If not, then Kitty’s anger was displaced. Mine too. Who could we blame? A part of me needed someone to blame, but another part needed someone bigger to hold on to—someone even stronger than Kitty had always been to me.

  I didn’t want to drag Kitty through pain, but I needed to know the truths about my life.

  “What is it, Kitty? Was Ruby part of a religious cult or something? What do you mean ‘God crazy’?”

  Kitty sighed, tracing the wood grain across the table. “She found God even though he had never been there for us. She defied me.”

  “Was she some sort of zealot?” I felt the bile rise in my throat knowing that Ruby relying on anyone but Kitty would have offended.

  Kitty shook her head. “No, not Ruby. Now that I reflect on it, she was simply peaceful. She wanted me to be also.”

  “You are peaceful, Kitty.” But as I saw the creases at her eyes deepen, I knew she wasn’t, not really.

  Kitty shook her head, as if confronting a big mistake. “Maybe, my Lucy, I was jealous of your mother.”

  “But she was your daughter. You said you were best friends.”

  “Yes, I did say that, but Ruby, with her joy, was the better friend to a mother who wronged her.”

  LOST IN SAN FRANCISCO

  Kitty

  11

  The day was beautiful, and the wind off of the San Francisco Bay was slight. “You are my best friend, Mommy,” Ruby told Kitty, holding her hand as they waited to get an ice-cream cone at Fisherman’s Wharf. Kitty had taken the day off from her waitress job to take Ruby sightseeing at the wharf.

  “What flavor, kid?”

  Ruby giggled when they got their ice creams, both pistachio, and bounced off to see the seals.

  Ruby squealed and pointed at a big seal as it rolled itself off and splashed into the bay. When a baby poked its head up from the shiny pile of seals, Ruby screeched such a loud scream of delight that a few observers put a hand up to rub their ears.

  “Oh!” she said, suddenly whispering. “A baby.”