Ruby Among Us

by Tina Ann Forkner

  After a long moment, I felt his hand on my arm, but I still didn’t budge. When he walked around in front and tipped my chin up with his fingers, I recognized him somehow. He was my father. He’d always been there, in the gardens at La Rosaleda, at my grandfather’s house at Frances-DiCamillo, in the hospital when I wanted to kiss Ruby good-bye, when I’d nearly suffocated from tossing away my inhaler. He’d been posing as my friend all those years, but secretly he was being the only kind of father he’d been allowed to be to me.

  He leaned down and kissed the top of my head.

  I wondered if he would take me into his arms, but he seemed to be tentative, like he thought I might run away if he dared touch me more.

  I wasn’t sure what to do, but I leaned closer to him and pressed my cheek into his chest. That’s when he finally wrapped his arms around me. As the realization hit that his tears were for me, the moisture of my own gathered in the corner of my lips, and if I hadn’t tasted the salt of them in my mouth, I might have believed my imagination was only toying with my heart. And when I felt my father’s tears dampening my cheek, I let my arms reach up, joining him in a long-awaited embrace of more than just flesh and blood.

  It was a moment I never wanted to leave, but after a while he held me out and his eyes scanned mine.

  “I have been waiting for you to know the truth for so long.”

  I clung to him as he pulled me close.

  “You’ve always known, haven’t you?”

  “I knew. No matter what anyone said, I knew it.”

  Matt and I were interrupted by a sound, unmistakably coming from Kitty, floating down to us through the fire escape window.

  We froze, and both our faces mirrored heartrending expressions as the cry turned into weeping.

  35

  We opened the door to the scent of roses, a huge cluster of them in ruby shades arranged in a vase on a wicker coffee table. I picked up a card sitting beside the freshly filled vase that read:

  Kitty Cat,

  Welcome home.

  Blake

  I handed the card to Matt. Blake had been expecting her, and I wasn’t sure how to feel—or how Kitty was feeling.

  Her crumpled figure at the window seemed to be filled with grief, happiness, and something I couldn’t really identify, perhaps regret. She hugged a crumpled quilt to her chest and cried deep sobs into it.

  I walked across a shining oak floor toward her, noticing fresh roses all through the loft. The place was spotless: immaculately cared-for houseplants, a shiny wood floor, a fireplace mantel sprinkled with black-and-white photos—one of Blake sitting on a tractor, one of Kitty in an old-fashioned striped swimsuit at the beach, the one of their wedding day, and one of Ruby at about age four with impossibly curly hair tousled over her shoulders.

  Matt left us and walked into the kitchen area, taking note of more flowers and a small basket of tea next to a teapot that looked ready to be used.

  I sat down tentatively beside Kitty, who handed me the quilt. We spread it in the small space between us.

  “Exquisite,” Matt whispered, returning.

  Exquisite barely covered the handwork of the intricate design. I recognized the house from Frances-DiCamillo, surrounded by layer upon layer of hills, each decorated with winding vines and the tiniest stitching in the shape of grapes and leaves. Above the house was embroidered the date of Kitty’s birth, and below the house were the words WELCOME HOME, DAUGHTER, and in the corner was embroidered I KNEW YOU WOULD COME. MOTHER.

  I tried to hug Kitty, but she turned away, staring out the window. Matt and I left her and walked down the stairs. Hand in hand, we sat on the stoop and talked until she was ready to come down.

  Matt whistled teasingly when nearly two hours later Kitty left the loft and met us on the stoop. She’d pulled her hair back into one of the many scarves I knew she carried in her purse. I stared at a locket hanging from her neck I’d never noticed before; it looked new.

  She dismissed Matt’s whistle with a wave. “Don’t be silly. I’m an old woman.” She saw my eyes fixed on the locket and opened it for us. A miniature picture of Ruby as a child smiled at us, and it was like looking at a reflection of me.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  “Ready to see Frances-DiCamillo?” Matt asked.

  “Ready to see Blake. And ready to see the roses he planted for all his girls.” She winked at me, and I felt a swell in my throat.

  “Would you like to get something to eat first?” Matt offered. “Maybe take a few minutes to collect yourself?” I noticed his effort to keep a straight face, and I covered my own mouth with my hand.

  She chided him. “Matt Larimer, I’ve been collecting myself for more than thirty years. I think I’ve had long enough.”

  During the short drive, I tried to prepare Kitty about the chain and sign, careful not to let on about rumors that Blake had somehow murdered Ruby—but Matt filled in those details.

  I politely said nothing, musing at how he was falling into the whole parent thing quite easily with me.

  Kitty scoffed, “My husband no more murdered my daughter than you did, Lucy.”

  I was caught off guard and didn’t respond to her. She twisted around in her seat and jabbed her finger toward my face.

  “You didn’t kill your mother, so stop thinking it’s your fault. Ask your doctor, or I guess I mean your father… whichever one you’ll believe the most.”

  I said nothing. How was it that Kitty could pick my brain so easily, as if I knew nothing? And how was it that she was so often right?

  “It’s true,” Matt said softly. “It wasn’t your fault, Lucy. Ruby’s air passages had been closing up more often than normal for several weeks.” He stopped, struggling, and took a deep breath.

  I breathed in with him.

  “I’d seen her in my office twice the week before, and we’d been discussing a change in treatment. Maybe a stronger medicine. Maybe wearing a face mask when she gardened. Maybe weekly treatments at the hospital. We never got to try them.”

  I wasn’t responsible for Ruby’s death. How many times would I need to tell myself that before my mind really accepted that it wasn’t my fault? I leaned back and closed my eyes, feeling the familiar place in my chest tighten from the power of this idea and reached into my pocket for my own inhaler.

  I stared out the window at the grapes we passed and the tangle of vines. I wasn’t surprised when I heard Kitty’s sharp intake of breath. We had turned the bend to see the Frances-DiCamillo estate, but at the entrance I had to gasp too. The KEEP OUT sign was gone, and the gate was swung wide open. How could that be?

  Matt stopped the car in front of the gate and said nothing.

  “Did you call ahead or something?”

  He nodded. “Yes, but Blake already knew. Some friends from town saw you and Max at breakfast this morning.”

  I didn’t respond. I wasn’t sure if I should have felt thankful or betrayed.

  “It really wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” Matt said. “He’s been preparing for this since the day Kitty left.”

  Kitty struggled for the door handle. “I want to walk.”

  Matt put the van in park. and we jumped out at the same time, both rushing around to open Kitty’s door.

  “I only need one of you to help,” she fussed. “Matt, go turn off your car.”

  “Shouldn’t I move it out of the entrance?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t think we want company. Leave it where it is, blocking the gate.”

  Matt smiled as he shut and locked the door. We both tried to hold Kitty’s elbow for the long walk down the driveway, but she shrugged us away.

  “I’m not that old,” she said. “It’s bad enough that I have this stupid cane. I don’t want him to think I’m an invalid, and I’ve walked this driveway so many times you wouldn’t believe it.”

  I patted Matt’s arm. He must see Ruby everywhere, I thought. I did.

  “Ruby is among us.” It was as if Matt had read my
thoughts.

  “I remember walking to the gate with her.” I smiled at the new memory. “It was something we did sometimes in the morning. To the gate and back…”

  “I feel her in these hills,” Matt said. “We used to walk them, me and your mother. She loved the vines.”

  I remembered walking them with Ruby too. “She’s in them, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” he said, slowing his pace. “Even though she’s gone, her life makes a difference for us every day.” He paused, looking out over the vineyard hills. “I used to think her time here had been so senseless, so short. She smiled on us for a while, and then her death was so fast.”

  “How could you think that?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I just had so many regrets about my time with her that I forgot about her smile.”

  “But that’s why you can’t forget her,” I said.

  He smiled. “Yes, that’s why. She left an imprint on my life. And here you are.”

  My father, Matt, was right. Ruby was among us.

  “She has come back to me just since I’ve come back to La Rosaleda,” I said.

  “My Lucy,” Kitty said, turning back to us. “Ruby has always been with you, even when you couldn’t remember.” Kitty tapped her chest. “She was in here all along.” She tapped her temple. “You were focusing too much on up here, trying to figure it all out for yourself.”

  I looked at Kitty, her smile intense despite the nervousness I knew filled her about encountering Blake again. Her eyes were bright, and in them I saw my mother. The likeness between the two was so similar, and I knew Ruby would have looked like Kitty as she aged. I ached to collect my paints and fill in my portraits of both of them but, most intensely, of myself.

  I looked at the house before me, and I wanted to paint all three of us, standing on the porch together.

  I watched as Kitty turned and walked more deliberately toward the house.

  I could tell by her limp that she was starting to get tired, and we were only halfway down the driveway. But she wouldn’t accept help.

  “I have to go to him on my own,” she said. “You can’t do it for me.”

  We got closer, and Kitty started walking faster.

  “I see him,” she said. “He’s waiting for me!”

  She quickened her pace, digging her cane into the ground more strongly with each step. I watched her and she seemed so young, even with her limp. Her favorite red dress, woven with white roses, flowed loosely around her knees; the red made her sparkling brown eyes and hair, streaked with silver now, seem richer.

  Suddenly I caught the slightest movement on the porch from within the shadows of one of the columns.

  Grandfather.

  “Blake!” Kitty cried.

  Blake Birkirt sat up straight, looking around as if just roused from a nap in his white rocking chair all these years. His eyes fixed on Kitty, and he froze for an instant, then stood slowly and leaned on the banister next to him. I saw the recognition flash across his face as he rushed down the porch steps. His beloved Kitty waved a handkerchief and called his name. She looked as she had so long ago, beautiful in that red dress that reminded him of when they were younger. Only now Kitty leaned on a cane. Compassion washed over Blake, and he made his way down the stairs to meet her so she wouldn’t have to walk another step alone.

  Later he would tell us how he had almost given up after so many years. But today his friend Carlos from the café had handed him back hope when he called after meeting a girl in his diner. The girl was named Maria, and she looked just like Ruby.

  When Blake saw Max and me staring through the gate of La Rosaleda, he knew, but it was Matt’s phone call that confirmed it. Kitty was on her way back.

  Kitty stopped walking when she saw him coming toward her. She threw aside her cane and held her hands out to him. Blake swept his wife up and swung her in circles.

  I knew Matt and I had faded into the background, but it didn’t even matter. I was holding my father’s hand, and my family was complete. I could wait.

  Only those who have experienced a reunion of some kind, a forgiveness, a redemption, can picture the visage of relief, pain, youth, age, sadness, and joy unleashed all at once. It was a reawakening, a gulp of life, new life, like the breeze sweeping through the valley across Frances-DiCamillo in the spring, rippling the vines as if to renew the promise of treasured fruits previously thought lost.

  Blake had led Kitty slowly to the Rose House, and they disappeared behind the canopy of red petals and blooms, thorny stems, and leaves. It was there that Kitty confessed her biggest secret to Blake.

  When Blake’s face clouded, Kitty saw his grief. It matched her own, and she felt that all her fears had been realized. Her dreams withered around her. She had lost her dignity, her mother and father, Ruby, and now she would lose him too. She should have listened to her own voice, which had whispered warnings despite her longing to go home.

  She turned to leave through the canopy of roses she had just entered; they were so misleadingly fragrant around her. She had tried and had feared the worst, but Lucy’s optimism, as bright as the roses twining around her, had buoyed her spirits to hope.

  Her reunion was marred more with thorns than wrapped with the rich velvety blooms behind her. She knew she hadn’t deserved any sort of welcome, but she hadn’t expected it would end like this.

  36

  Kitty reached for the banister to guide herself down the porch steps, and Blake put his hand over hers. She stared down at it, roughened and worn, and saw the lost years in every line and callus mapped across his skin. She didn’t want to lose more.

  She stood still, unsure of the possibility that his presence behind her spoke, uncertain if she could trust him. She had taken Ruby from him, taken his life in so many ways, and she knew deeply that she didn’t deserve to be at La Rosaleda—or with him—anymore. Now maybe he knew it too.

  “How could you have carried that ache with you all these years, Kitty? Have you forgotten about grace?” Blake’s hand wrapped around her waist, and his breath touched her cheek. She felt young again, ready to receive what she’d so longed for on the dreadful day he’d found her arguing with Mike in the vines.

  “For a long time,” she replied, “I did.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  Then Blake’s deep voice, stronger than before, said, “I could never blame you for something someone did to hurt you. I am so sorry, Kitty, so sorry I didn’t believe you when you said it wasn’t like I thought. I should have known. I did try to find you, knowing there had to be another explanation, but, well… I wanted to tell you I was sorry. I am sorry, Kitty, for not protecting you.”

  In that moment she realized she had been angry at him all those years. She’d needed to hear him say he was sorry, not only for not protecting her, but for not being on her side. Now that he’d said it, all she could think about were their choices—how he’d been as much a victim as she and how their choices had unfairly decided things for Ruby. Through desperate choices, everyone had in some way become prisoners to the past.

  One terrible act had shaped her family’s estrangement; Kitty would give anything to go back and change it. A sob escaped her throat.

  “No,” she whispered in reply. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry for leaving and not allowing time to run its course. I should have trusted you and told you the truth then.”

  “Has it run its course?” he asked quietly.

  Kitty turned slowly to face Blake. His eyes were the same as before, more tired, but they still held a light. She desperately wanted to have that light illuminate her life again.

  So when he pulled her into his arms, she knew she wouldn’t sacrifice another day. “I love you,” she whispered.

  “I would like to say the same,” he said. “But love all by itself doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

  When Blake and Kitty stepped from the house of roses, it wa
s my turn to embrace my grandfather, and I felt suddenly shy and unsure. Kitty stood with her arm through Matt’s, and they both smiled encouragement at me.

  I could tell Kitty wanted to rush over and save me from my insecurities, but instead she gripped Matt tighter… or was it that he was gripping her firmly, holding her back so I could do it alone?

  Was I all he’d hoped for? Would he be proud of me? This must have been how Kitty felt too.

  “Lucy girl,” my grandfather said, holding me at arm’s reach. He stared into my eyes, making me feel like he was searching for something recognizable in my soul.

  What was he looking for? I watched the corner of his mouth twitch and was amazed as he blinked away tears too. My soul reached out to him.

  He embraced me then. “My Lucy, you’re finally home.”

  We walked to the great house and through corridors that twisted and turned until we stood in the bell tower.

  “The bell house,” Kitty announced.

  “This bell has not rung since the day you left.” Blake nodded to Matt and then to a long rope hanging from above.

  Matt clasped the rope and pulled as the clang of the bell filled the room and echoed out over the hills. Ruby’s hills.

  Even then I imagined that folks from miles around stopped picking in the fields, memories of Frances-DiCamillo rich in their minds. Maybe people stepped onto their porches and remembered the wedding between Blake and his beloved Kitty. Those in La Rosaleda might have remembered the night the bell rang during and after an earthquake when a baby named Ruby was born.

  Matt pulled the rope now with a force I wasn’t sure was from joy or grief. Perhaps both. I leaned forward to help him and was surprised by the tug upward of the rope, by the sound now resonating through the tower and echoing across the vineyard. The weight of it was heavy, and I don’t think I could have rung it myself, save for the help of my father and the presence of my grandparents—and the knowledge of another who was ever present with me.