Ruby Among Us

by Tina Ann Forkner

  “Lucy would love living here,” Ruby said.

  “She would.”

  “But I could never abandon Kitty.”

  Matt squeezed Ruby’s hand. She smiled, and he was amazed that she still looked at him that way even after all he had put her through. Are we destined for the same life of separation Ruby’s parents led? He felt a sudden rush of heaviness.

  She must have sensed it, because she pulled away.

  Matt stopped in the vines and pulled Ruby toward him, a quick embrace. They stood together for a moment, looking at the sweeping valley around them. It wasn’t a happy, romantic moment. He had messed up everything.

  Ruby’s sudden tears jolted him. He pulled her tighter, and both of them slowly sank to their knees. Her breath came in soft gasps as a breeze rustled through the grape leaves. She struggled to find the inhaler in her pocket, and he helped her put it to her lips and breathe in just as when he’d found her in labor.

  Blake had encouraged him then: “Go for me. Go for us.” Matt had gone for them but for himself too, and he had breathed with Ruby, worried about her asthma and the baby. He recalled the moment Lucy was born, crying and safe in her mother’s arms as Ruby had been in her own mother’s. There had been no earthquake then, as on the eve of Ruby’s birth. All had been happy for a moment until the earth around them shook in different ways that were far more complicated than the falling balcony in La Rosaleda so many years before.

  What have I done to Ruby? he thought. How is it I’ve fallen into this trap of my stepfather’s making? He had never loved Leah for even one moment, and before he knew it he was engaged to her.

  Leah. It had all started when he and Ruby had been reunited in San Francisco and before Ruby was pregnant with Lucy. The days had all run into each other, and while they hadn’t proclaimed their love openly or to others, it was obvious…except to Matt’s mother and stepfather. They had other plans to fix him up with their friends’ daughter, Leah, a student at Berkeley and a sweet person.

  “She’s very pretty,” his mother had said.

  “She’s beautiful, Mother, but she’s not as pretty as Ruby.”

  “Ruby is a friend.”

  Matt hadn’t answered.

  “And she’s Episcopalian. Not the same church as ours, but she is a believer at least.”

  “Mother, she doesn’t like church. I don’t think she believes what her parents do or even what we do for that matter.”

  “Your stepfather doesn’t believe what I do, and does that matter?”

  “It doesn’t make things easy on you, Mother.”

  “No, but it’s easier than it was before.”

  And the conversations had gone on like this, Matt believing he had made himself clear to his mother about Leah, and his mother going along with his stepfather to get Matt and Leah together.

  Ruby had grown tired of it all early on, and she’d begun to hang out with George Fields, a man in his thirties who somehow convinced her that his so-called bohemian lifestyle was adventurous. Matt thought Ruby was just trying to make him mad and could see very well that George wasn’t bohemian at all, but a lazy washout of a man who had no self-respect, let alone respect for a young woman like Ruby.

  Ruby ended up pregnant.

  She had lashed out angrily at Matt and claimed the baby was George’s. She’d then demanded that Matt stay away from her.

  When Matt ignored her wishes, showing up at her San Francisco apartment, Ruby had thrown herself in his arms and begged him to help her.

  With her father’s promise to help her pay for moving and for medical expenses, Ruby moved in with Kitty. At first Kitty protested Blake’s money, but in the end Kitty silently accepted Ruby’s choice to use Blake’s assistance, even though somehow she managed to completely avoid Blake through the entire ordeal.

  Matt’s plan was to work through things with his parents and Leah before sharing his long-term plans with Ruby. Since she was in such a transition with the baby on the way, it would have been a bad time to talk to her about his parents’ latest meddling escapade.

  A ring. A simple but expensive ring had been placed under the tree at Christmastime. Matt, who was passing out the gifts, found it wrapped in iridescent pearl wrapping paper, buried under the gifts, with Leah’s name on it. With blood rushing to his head, he recognized the box and started to tuck it into the pocket of his slacks, but Leah had already spotted her name on it. She’d shrieked with joy as she grabbed the box and ripped it open. The solitaire sparkled bright among the Christmas lights, its beauty thankfully pulling gazes toward it instead of Matt’s glowering face.

  Then his heart had sunk further at the sight of his mother smiling sweetly down at him. Leah jumped up and gave Matt a bear hug that felt heavier than it should have from such a little woman.

  “Yes! I will. Of course, I will. I love you so much!”

  Later, Matt and his mother, Charlotte, had a hushed but heated argument in her bedroom.

  “Oh, I didn’t know you were going to pop the question at Christmas. When I saw the little gift on your dresser alongside the other one for Leah, I went ahead and put them under the tree. I hope you don’t mind that I put her name on it for you.”

  “Only the bigger gift was for Leah,” Matt said tightly under his breath.

  “The cashmere scarf? Is that all you were going to give your girlfriend for Christmas? But the ring…?”

  Charlotte fell silent, and tears pooled in her eyes as the realization set in that she’d done something that disappointed her son very much.

  Matt dropped his arms and softened when he saw that his mother had made a mistake, a big one to be sure, but a mistake nonetheless.

  “What am I going to do, Mother? That ring was for Ruby. Didn’t you notice that the paper was white, not holiday?”

  She shook her head no and wiped away tears.

  “I want to marry Ruby, but I was going to wait until the baby is born and we had time to work out some details. Things haven’t exactly been very good between us lately, but we just need some time to sort things out.”

  “I’m sorry, so sorry. I didn’t know. I saw the box, and you and Leah have seemed so happy, I just thought…” Charlotte sat down slowly on the bed. She stared out the window in silence for a while before asking, “Would marrying Leah be such a bad thing? Ruby has her father to help her now.”

  Feeling defeated, Matt walked out, mumbled something about going to work on a project, and Leah, confused but still happy, was left sitting with his stepfather and her parents in the kitchen.

  They were happily chatting over coffee, planning his life, as he drove away.

  He had to sweep all the trouble into the back of his mind when the baby was born. His chest had filled with overwhelming happiness when he’d taken the baby from her and stood at the window, cooing and talking to the small sleeping infant in his arms.

  “Maria Lucero DiCamillo. My Lucy.” Matt had leaned down and kissed Ruby on the cheek then.

  “You’re a tired mommy. Why don’t you take a nap, and I’ll hold Lucy for a little while. I promise I’ll be careful.”

  But when Ruby was home and dealing with her emotions and a failed attempt to nurse her baby herself, Matt knew there was no going back.

  “Your parents obviously have plans for you, and they aren’t with me!” Ruby yelled. “They haven’t even come to see my baby, not even your mother!”

  “Ruby,” Matt had implored. “You don’t mean the things you’re saying. I love you, and when things settle down around here, I want to be part of your life.”

  She’d paused for several minutes and Matt thought she was considering his offer, but then she began to cry and shout at him again. “Matt Larimer, you are such a wimp! Why do you have to work so hard to get out of your silly entanglement with Leah? Don’t act like I don’t know. Why can’t you just tell her you don’t love her! Just tell your parents no! Just do what you know is right!”

  “I’m trying, Ruby, but it’s not as easy as you thi
nk. Can’t you understand that?”

  “No. No, I can’t. Why is it me who has to wait around for you to make choices while you’re going to fancy parties and balls with Little Miss Society Girl because you can’t stand up to your parents? What about your mother? Why doesn’t she stand up for you?” Her face had softened, but her eyes were still red, the anger pushing its way out at him.

  “I don’t know, Ruby!” Matt’s voice rose. He bit his lip for a second before shouting, “Sometimes I think you’re just like your mother. Maybe you want to be alone and bitter!”

  His words died down when he saw the look on Ruby’s face. She was staring past him toward the door, her face white. Before he even turned around, he knew that Kitty had come back from her walk with the baby. He felt like he’d just been hit with a wrecking ball. He hadn’t meant for Kitty to overhear his words.

  He held his head down. “I’m sorry, Mrs. DiCamillo.”

  “Matt Larimer, I think you should leave.”

  Kitty seemed to be making the choice for Ruby, just as she had since the day she took her away. Ruby was ensnared, and maybe the only way she could break free from the tangled bits and pieces was to break free from him too.

  “I miss you,” Ruby breathed into the phone. “I miss my friend.”

  That’s all he had needed to hear, and if all he ever had was Ruby’s friendship, then it’s what he would take.

  They didn’t talk about what had happened or what would eventually happen. For a while they met at Martha’s for coffee and visited for hours. Kitty knew, but Ruby didn’t listen to her when she complained.

  “I promise we aren’t trying to blindside you, Mother. We know you don’t want Blake anymore,” Ruby had said.

  “That’s not what I said,” Kitty had protested.

  “Mother, it isn’t about you. For a change this is about me, okay? This is about my friendship with someone other than my mother. Am I allowed that?”

  Everything was moving slowly, but Matt vowed to be patient, and the dragging time actually gave him more opportunity to deal with his stepdad and mom in a better way.

  He’d planned in detail the moment he would break things off permanently with Leah, but it was between the invitation and his arrival in La Rosaleda that Leah had sprung the news on him. It was awful, devastating news that he would never from that moment forward understand the reason for. Life had foiled him.

  So as he comforted Ruby in the vines, his world was blanketed with confusion. Her cries began to quiet, but they still racked her body heavily.

  A car horn sounded from the direction of the main house, and he knew that Blake was calling them back for the snack they’d promised Lucy. Matt knew he was short on time and pulled Ruby up to her feet. He looked into her eyes.

  “I love you, Ruby. Tell me what to do. Tell me to leave her and I will.”

  “How can you? She’s pregnant!”

  “Not with my child,” he reminded her.

  She said nothing. He turned her chin toward him.

  “You do believe me, don’t you? It’s not my child.”

  “That is a very unbelievable story,” she said.

  But it was true. He’d never been intimate with Leah beyond kissing good-bye. She couldn’t trap him by telling him that the baby was his because it was impossible. She hadn’t even tried, but instead, in a fit of tears, she’d confessed to him the baby belonged to some guy she’d met at a fraternity party at Berkeley. She was ashamed to tell her parents that a stranger was the father of her baby.

  He watched Ruby’s face now for some indication of how she felt. She seemed to struggle with what she was about to say. He wasn’t sure if he could believe her when she said, “I don’t see how you have a choice. She is alone. Her parents would probably disown her or pressure her to get an abortion, which she doesn’t want to do.”

  She paused as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Maybe you should just be responsible and help her. She has you trapped either way. Don’t you see it’s a trap?”

  He swallowed, trying to keep his own tears at bay. He couldn’t cry in front of her again. What kind of man was he? And why had she said that? Surely it wasn’t what she felt. He wanted her to tell him to leave Leah, to be brave and do what was in his heart!

  “Why would I be obligated to raise another man’s child?”

  “Why would you be obligated to me to raise another man’s child, Matt?”

  Matt stepped back a pace. It had been a long time since she’d said aloud that Lucy belonged to someone other than him.

  “If that’s true, about another man being her father, I don’t care. What about you? I want to be responsible for you and for Lucy. It’s you and Lucy I want, Ruby. Please, Ruby. Tell me what to do. I want to know if you want me. I’ve been praying every day, and I’m just so confused about how to get out of this thing with Leah the right way, but I want a life with you if you’ll have me.”

  “I don’t believe the baby isn’t yours.”

  Matt’s jaw dropped. He managed a deep breath. “It’s not my child. I’ve never even been with her.”

  “How am I supposed to believe that? You were with me, weren’t you? Isn’t that how men are? Sleeping with all the different girls they can?”

  “I don’t want to be with anyone else. I want to do the right thing.” He tried to pull Ruby close, but she pushed him away.

  “I’ve learned my lesson. Men use you, and then they walk away.”

  “Let me ask you: were you really ever with George?”

  She began to cry. “I can’t do this. It’s too hard. Love shouldn’t be so hard.”

  “Maybe it is. Maybe that’s why people give up on it so easily. Maybe it’s something we have to fight for.”

  “I’m tired of fighting.” He could see that Ruby wanted to run away. Instead she walked. Helplessly, he watched her heading back toward the big house, her figure growing smaller, eventually disappearing between the vines.

  Defeated. Matt thought about how he’d been so wrong. He had waited for everything to work out perfectly, to let Leah go compassionately, to allow Ruby to express her desires for the future, to preserve his mom’s happiness—and all for nothing. He should have spoken up for the woman who was waiting for him the whole time.

  SOME RENEW THEIR SMILE

  Lucy

  27

  Matt set down his coffee cup. He talked about when he held Sam in the delivery room, thoughts of me and Ruby filling his mind, and then how he pressed them back as he smiled down at the baby he would adopt in his heart even though he would never need to do so on paper.

  Matt said he often reflected on Ruby’s words in the vineyard: I don’t see how you have a choice. He had never understood completely. He never believed that I wasn’t his, only that Ruby was taking away his privilege to be my father because of what he had done, what he deserved.

  Except for the happiness brought by Sam, Matt talked about being tortured with memories of Ruby every day. If not for Sam, he said, he would’ve picked up and left Leah, throwing himself on Ruby’s doorstep, begging her to take him back, but he never did. Sam deserved more. He would always do right by Sam. If only he could do right by Leah someday too. But what he had wanted most, he said, his face serious, was to do right by me, by Ruby’s daughter.

  I stared at Dr. Larimer across the table. Should I really call him Matt? Or… Father? I searched his face for recollection. Recognition.

  He gazed back, intent, perhaps searching for the same thing. I wondered if he saw anything in my face that said I was his. I studied his features, noting that his nose was similar to mine, which could explain the more European look I had compared to Kitty. But then again, maybe it was just my imagination.

  “Am I…?” I paused. I didn’t trust this moment. I’d been waiting forever to meet my father but had expected some time to prepare for it, to come on my own terms. I always thought it would be the result of research, and I could choose whether or not to initiate contact. Now here I was, and the moment
was so simple, so anti-climactic. Everything seemed so obvious. I should have guessed it a long time ago. Still…

  “Are you my father?”

  As the words left my lips I felt like a giant impostor.

  His eyes met mine with compassion and perhaps something that looked like parental longing. Maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part. He searched my face a long time, and when he did speak, he seemed to weigh his words before he said them.

  “I think so.”

  “You think so?”

  “I hope so.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. I couldn’t really jump up and give him a daughterly hug with an I think so. “Ruby never told you?” I asked.

  “She never confirmed you were his.”

  I was silent a long while.

  “Is there a way to find out?”

  “Maybe,” Matt said. “I know where George Fields is.”

  My heart jumped… but more in dread than anticipation.

  “He owns a record store in San Francisco and has made quite a name for himself in the music industry. If you were into rock music, you’d probably recognize his store. You could visit it, I guess, tell him who you are, and see if he can confirm his relationship with Ruby.”

  I frowned. Hey, Mr. Fields. Did you have sexual relations with my mother? I shook my head and said with raised brows, “Talk about uncomfortable.”

  “Yeah,” Matt said, “especially if he’s not really your father.”

  “I hope he isn’t.”

  Matt nodded. I had a feeling he had lots more he wanted to say about George Fields. Matt cleared his throat. “Are you sure you want to dig into all this?”

  “I have to.”

  “Then you could come to the hospital and submit to a blood test.”

  “Not very sentimental, is it?” I asked. “Sounds like a really bad soap opera.”

  “Are there any good soaps?” he teased. “I’ve always hated the way they portray doctors as slime balls.”

  He finally smiled a crooked grin, and I realized he felt awkward and nervous too. I watched as he clicked his spoon over and over on his mug. It was hard to believe that this man was the same family doctor who’d always known what to do and say. I wished I could do something to bridge the gap.