Ruby Among Us

by Tina Ann Forkner

  Kitty barely noticed her steps toward Ruby’s bedroom as her daughter guided her into the bed, silently removing her jacket and shoes and pulling the blankets up and around her. Sun filtered through the thin red fabric curtains Kitty had helped hang. But she couldn’t look at them now. She turned into the pillow to shield her eyes.

  Kitty woke up hours later. It was dark inside the room. She turned over and found Ruby, in her old Snoopy pajamas, asleep beside her. The breeze lifted the curtains, and the street noises far below drifted up. A siren somewhere wailed, and she wished again that her daughter didn’t live in the city.

  For a moment Kitty wondered if having Ruby move back to La Rosaleda would be a better idea now that she had reunited with her father. La Rosaleda was a nicer place. Ruby could have a different life, a much better life. But they would never get to see one another.

  Kitty smoothed Ruby’s dark curly hair back from her face. Maybe Ruby would only visit La Rosaleda. Maybe they could start over somewhere else, and Ruby could just visit her father on special occasions. Kitty wondered if she could get Ruby to move with her to Sacramento someday. She’d been thinking about relocating again, and then she could talk to Ruby about going to college. There were some good colleges in Sacramento. Even though Ruby would be a little late starting college, her grades had been high enough that if she wanted to go to the elite private college there, she could probably get in. Blake would certainly have the money to send her. It was a possibility Kitty couldn’t ignore. She knew Blake, and as soon as he saw how hard Ruby had to struggle financially, he would want to help. And if Ruby didn’t want to attend a private school, there were always the state colleges. Sacramento wasn’t as big as San Francisco either, and it might be a nicer place to live.

  Kitty’s heart stirred at the thought of starting over in a place where there were no bad memories. She watched the curtains wave in the breeze and remembered her bedroom in the main house at Frances-DiCamillo. Had Ruby slept there? Had her mother kept the blue-flowered curtains in her room with the eyelet tiebacks?

  She had an image of her mother sitting in one of the blue velvet chairs, staring out the window at the acres of vineyards and chatting as Kitty got ready for her day. The memory brought new tears to her eyes, and she choked them back, not wanting to wake Ruby. Kitty’s mind swept back over the vineyards. Old memories of her parents and a new longing for Blake flooded her consciousness. She closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

  Sleep never did come that night or for many nights after.

  Several days passed before Kitty and Ruby talked about La Rosaleda again. On the weekend Ruby talked Kitty into driving to Point Reyes. Kitty had agreed, hoping the fresh air and the salt smell of the ocean would clear her mind.

  The city grew distant behind them, and Kitty tried to concentrate on enjoying the day with her daughter. She had a feeling that she might see her less and less. La Rosaleda had beckoned, and Ruby would go there. Kitty’s heart lurched again as she thought about Blake.

  When they reached Point Reyes, the views from the huge gray cliffs lifted Kitty’s spirits, freeing her momentarily of her personal incarceration. For a while, she actually felt some of the anxiety being washed away with the rolling waves of the ocean. Only fragments washed back to lodge in her heart, the familiar fragments that had always been with her and would never leave but would instead work themselves into her heart in the areas that couldn’t be flushed clean, even by an ocean.

  Kitty and Ruby walked along a well-worn path high above a stretch of beach inaccessible by land due to jagged rocks below. Kitty enjoyed the view over the bluff as she carefully picked her way along the trail, enjoying the exercise until her muscles demanded that they take a break and Ruby’s lungs screamed to rest as well.

  They looked for a place to sit, and the wind whipped the scent of brine and beach wafting through their hair. Sea gulls and pelicans flew high above the beach but seemed close enough to touch. Kitty felt free this high up—far, far away from her past, from the present. She sat on a large sturdy outcropping of rock, and Ruby sat beside her. Kitty thought about how passersby might have thought they were more like sisters than mother and daughter. But if Kitty needed a sister, Ruby needed a mother more.

  Kitty listened to Ruby’s shallow gasps and waited for her to use the inhaler. She watched Ruby breathe in the life-giving medicine and rubbed her back affectionately, waiting for it to fill and open her lungs. Ruby’s asthma was a sort of mystery to Kitty. She wasn’t aware of a family history of the disease, but it had struck her daughter hard at an early age.

  Kitty reached over and held her daughter’s hand and stared into the rolling waters, forcing herself not to close her eyes, pushing back images of La Rosaleda. Instead she let her mind be swept away with the swoosh of the waves, but as much as she wanted to avoid talking about La Rosaleda again with Ruby, she knew this was why Ruby had asked her to come along.

  In some ways Kitty ached to find out how Blake really was. What had he been doing over the years? Who was he now? Even though she could never face him, she needed to know. “How is he?” she finally asked.

  “He’s good, Mother.” Ruby’s voice was a little bit annoyed. “Just like I said. Doing really well.”

  The freedom Kitty had felt earlier between her and Ruby turned stilted; the tone of Ruby’s voice hurt her.

  “What’s he doing now?”

  “Running the vineyard.” Ruby paused. “It’s hard to believe, but it’s really your vineyard. That’s what he said. Your inheritance.”

  “It’s not mine anymore. It’s his or yours. Either is fine with me. I don’t care. I don’t deserve it anyway.”

  Ruby shook her head. “You should care. It’s legally yours, and he calls it yours too. Daddy says he’s taking care of it for you until you’re ready to come home.”

  Kitty’s heart swelled. “He said that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he can have it,” Kitty whispered. “It’s his too. He was my husband.”

  “He’s still your husband.”

  “Never mind that. Tell me more. What did you do when you went to visit him?”

  Ruby turned and looked doubtfully at Kitty. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes.” She reached over for Ruby’s hand. “I do want to hear. I’m sorry I’ve made life so difficult for you. I admit I’m worried about this reunion between you and Blake, but over the years I’ve also worried that you would regret not seeing him. I didn’t really want to take you from him. You needed him and he you, but there didn’t seem to be a way that was right. So, yes, I want to hear.”

  Ruby shrugged. “Matt and I were just going to drive by the vineyard on Friday so I could see what it looked like, but when we did, I decided I wanted to get closer.” Ruby closed her eyes. “It’s so beautiful, Mother. The vines were even lovelier than I remembered.”

  “The big house?”

  “The house still looks like the same big white Mexican-style home with large columns and roses all around it. Grandmother Freda’s gardens are still magnificent. Daddy says he keeps them up so they’ll look beautiful if you ever come home. He said Freda wanted that for you. She wanted everything to be just so for your homecoming.”

  Kitty’s chest tightened. “And our house?”

  “Oh, Mother, the cottage is breathtaking. Daddy’s planted these beautiful red rosebushes next to the house, all around it. He planted them the year we left and says they’re Ruby-red roses, for me and for you. They’ve taken over the entire front porch. There’s barely a path to walk along, so we had to enter through the back door. Hardly anyone ever goes in there anymore. He keeps it locked up, except for when it’s cleaned once a month.”

  Kitty was silent.

  “He looks the same, Mother. Just some gray hair is all.”

  Kitty knew it, remembering her accidental meeting with him. “Did he really see me that day I bumped into him in San Francisco? Did he mention it?” Kitty’s heart pounded over the crashi
ng of the waves. Did she want to hear this?

  “What he did say was that you are still beautiful. He wanted to speak to you that day, but since you were with a friend, he figured you’d moved on and wouldn’t want to speak to him.”

  The guilt weighed on Kitty’s heart. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I didn’t know about moving on but that you were not with that man. I told him you aren’t dating. I told him that I knew you missed him every day but that you mostly avoided talking about him. I didn’t say much about your life. I didn’t know how to explain…” Her voice began to trail off. “He seemed uncomfortable talking about it…”

  Kitty felt awful. How else could he feel? She longed to apologize, to tell him he was the only man she had ever loved, who had ever loved her. He was so good and wonderful, and all the other men had been meaningless, just men she’d used to try to hide from her past mistakes. “You didn’t tell him about my coming to your door? How upset I was?”

  “It wasn’t mine to tell,” Ruby said softly. “It’s for you to tell him, Mother. You can apologize and tell him how you still need him.” She paused, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “He will forgive you. He misses you so much. Please go home. I’ll take you. We can go together.”

  “Oh no, Ruby. I can’t ever see him again.”

  “Why?”

  “So much has changed, dear. Too much. I’ve done so many bad things.”

  Ruby stared deep into her mother’s brown eyes. “But mostly a lot of people have done bad things to you.”

  “But I’ve made terrible choices that allowed those things to happen.”

  Ruby didn’t protest.

  How could she? Kitty thought. Poor Ruby had been the victim of many of Kitty’s bad decisions.

  “He wants to see you.”

  Kitty covered her mouth with one hand. She struggled for a long moment before saying, “I can’t. I’m tarnished, completely soiled as a wife, Ruby. I could never go back to him this way.”

  “Mother, he knows.”

  Kitty shook her head. She knew he really didn’t.

  “Mother, I think Daddy thinks you had an affair with Matt’s dad.”

  “Is that what he told you?”

  “No, Matt thinks it’s what Daddy had heard.”

  Ruby had to strain to hear Kitty’s voice above the wind whipping up the rocks from the shore. “You know it’s more complicated than that. Things happened so fast. I hardly had time to think. When I found out about the pregnancy, I knew your father would be brokenhearted. That’s when I had the abortion.”

  Kitty couldn’t stop the tears. She wondered what her daughter thought of her. Too many terrible things had already been exposed. “Blake misunderstood some things when he heard me talking to Mike in the vineyard. He reacted in anger, which was unusual for Blake. I guess I don’t blame him. What else was he to think? I guess he acted how any husband would have.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t Daddy’s baby?”

  “Because, dear, I’d been sick with the flu, and it had taken a long time before I felt up to… well, you know.” Kitty was surprised that she was shy to talk about being intimate with Blake after the kind of life she had lived, but this was her husband, or had been. And this was her daughter she was talking to.

  Ruby nodded. “I rang the doorbell, and when he first opened the door, he thought I was you.”

  Kitty looked astonished.

  “Yes. But then he said my name very quietly. And he started to cry.”

  Kitty reached over. “It’s okay,” she told Ruby. “You don’t have to explain. I forgive you for going back, but…I can’t. He is better off without me.”

  “No, he isn’t!” Ruby wiped at her eyes. “Why don’t you tell me why you won’t go?”

  “I’ve told you enough!”

  “But it’s okay now. You can go back.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking, Ruby.”

  “What if he asks to see you?”

  “Tell him no. Tell him I’m not in love with him. Tell him I’ve moved on. Anything. I had sex with Mike Larimer, for God’s sake, child! How can I love Blake?”

  “But it’s not true! I know you love him. You said so!”

  Kitty sat up straight. “It’s true,” she said with all the conviction she could muster.

  She stood up and turned back down the trail.

  Ruby soon followed and stormed ahead of her to the car; they rode home in silence.

  Kitty hated to lie to her daughter about how she really felt, but she had to stay away from Blake. She wasn’t the same woman he had known. Her choices could only hurt him even more if she went back and told him everything.

  RUBY KNEW THIS BREATHLESSNESS

  Lucy

  22

  The clock on the wall struck twelve times, and I was reminded of the bell at Frances-DiCamillo, which Kitty described as echoing across the fields like a church bell. I looked over at her slumped and tired form. She looked exhausted.

  I, on the other hand, was wide awake.

  “So will you ever go back to La Rosaleda?” I asked, hoping she might answer differently.

  Kitty frowned and glanced around the room, desolate eyes eventually resting on mine. “Things have changed too much.”

  “Yes, they have,” I protested. “You’re different now. You’ve been living a good life. He might still be waiting for you. He might be able to forgive you.”

  “It’s not only about forgiveness. It’s about acceptance.”

  “If he is as great as he sounds, I know he would accept you!”

  “Maybe things have changed for your generation. But when I was your age, there were things that no one could be expected to forgive. Some things are that bad.”

  “Kitty, I know that what you have told me is not unforgivable.”

  Kitty smiled, a sad smile. “My Lucy, what would I do without you?”

  “You’d make it, but I wouldn’t without you.” I hugged her gently. “You look beat. You’d better go to sleep.”

  “Aren’t you going to bed?”

  “I think I’ll stay up and watch something.”

  Kitty frowned. She no longer followed the news, and she hated television. She thought it was a bad influence and preferred that I read a book any day rather than watch.

  “Just the gardening channel,” I promised her.

  She nodded.

  “Go to bed soon.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Good night.”

  I left her room and settled on the couch. I clicked on the channel, but instead of concentrating on the television, I thumbed through the album. Studying the pictures of my grandfather caused the lost space in my chest to open up anew.

  It had been the same when I thought of Ruby—a feeling I wished could be filled up with something else. In the photo I was looking at Blake, my grandfather, smiling that special smile that must be reserved just for grandparents. Ruby too looked happy in the picture. Her smile looked like a laugh, as if he’d just said something funny that made her happy.

  I thought of her then, as Kitty had described her. She had been like me. Not as quiet of course, but she had longed for something that had been taken away from her. She’d longed for her father and for La Rosaleda. It had in some ways been the same for her even though she’d never truly forgotten like I had. She’d never forgotten the vines, the house, her family, or her friend. She’d known what had been lost to her, and she went back to get it.

  I looked into the photo at the image of me, very small, with her, and even if I couldn’t remember it, I imagined I could feel their skin on mine. I could imagine smelling the earth and vines around me, perhaps the aroma of cooking streaming from the house. I could smell the roses growing up over the cottage and hear the creak of the front porch as I walked across to get to my mother. And I heard the bell gong, and its echo resonated so far that they could hear it in town, the announcement that the Frances-DiCamillo family was almost whole.

  I l
eaned forward then and placed the album opened on the coffee table. If at some point in time communication with La Rosaleda was reopened to us, then how had Kitty managed to stay away from Blake? Wouldn’t he have insisted on seeing her? Wouldn’t she have gone? I was amazed that her fear was so strong that she would let it intrude on her obvious love for Blake. I had read stories about people whose bad memories were so heavy around them they became hardened and sad, but in those stories the characters were usually given over to their hardness. I didn’t think Kitty was there yet, although she was close.

  The romantic in me wanted to believe there had to be something more, some other reason that had kept them apart, and that if I could figure it out, I could bring everyone back together. Except for Ruby—but even then her memory would be with us all, and we could talk openly about her, and I could be in the places where she and I had been. I wondered what had happened to communication after Ruby died. Kitty must have let Blake know about his own daughter’s death, but what about me?

  Was my grandfather at Ruby’s funeral? I wanted to know what Kitty had done to keep him away. Instinctively I knew it had to have been her doing to keep him out of my life. The idea angered me, and I struggled with my love for Kitty and a new frustration at her. How had she kept everyone away from me?

  Feeling a little bit out of breath, I reached over to the coffee table and picked up my inhaler. With deep breaths I imagined what it had been like to be Ruby. She knew this—this breathlessness I lived with. Of course, I thought. Matt Larimer, Ruby’s friend. He hadn’t been kept away from me, although he must have honored Kitty and her desire to keep secrets from me for some reason. I needed to talk to him, and he had already opened those doors.

  Why now, I wondered, had he brought up the past and his connection to Ruby for me? He had sensed my curiosity. He knew it was time now. Had he been waiting to tell me all these years? I remembered all our doctor’s appointments, his gentle way and his kindness. It hadn’t been just because he was a doctor. It had been more.

  He knew about me. He and Kitty had remained friends, and he kept secrets for her, but maybe he wanted to tell me those secrets now. I felt a peace within that there was this one person I had who might help me with going back, with learning more. After all he had been the one to help Ruby go back.