Ruby
Shit. Half past three when I got to the house. Lucky that I remembered the code. And then dark as fuck all. Never been in the place, and I had to find the empty bedroom without waking anyone up. The open door was a clue, wasn’t it? Looked like they’d left me the master suite. Bed stand light on in there. No mint on the pillow, drat, but someone had thoughtfully turned the covers down, and I fell in. Ah, but when they all got up I was sure to have some explaining to do, wasn’t I? Too knackered to think about that, so I slept.
~~~
When I woke up, two of them—Zan and Margo—stood at the foot of the bed. Zan already dressed in yoga pants and a skin-tight top. Not an ounce of fat on that one. Bloody unnatural at her age. Hell, at any age. Margo wearing baggy print pajamas, designs on them looked like little scissors. Her eyes were puffy. From sleep? Or had she been crying? What could be wrong in her perfect world? I could smell breakfast preparations somewhere in the direction of where I assumed the kitchen would be, and I hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday.
“We were worried,” Zan said.
“I’m sorry. I truly am. But what’d’ya think of the house, you two? Posh, right?”
“It is, Ruby, great job,” Margo said, “We love it, but you’re avoiding the question.”
“What happened?” Zan said. “Spill it, shiksa”
“I’d fancy a cuppa tea, first, ladies, please.” I begged. “In the kitchen? Let me put something on, too, won’t you? I slept in my knickers, and my mascara has run. I look like a raccoon.”
They left. I cleaned up a bit and got into leggings and a comfy flannel shirt. Covered everything that needed covering.
The kitchen was a scene of convivial bliss. Olivia was making omelets. Spanish, I would’ve bet. She looked born to the task. Margo had gone back to chopping veggies, Zan to grating a block of cheese. Curiosity must have been killing them, but they were being polite. It was dear—truly, it was. And I was gathering my thoughts.
“Hola, Ruby,” Olivia said, walking over to hug me. “I am sorry. Your message—I missed it. So silly.” She was wearing a silk robe I remembered from decades-ago sleepovers. It had parrots on it. Very Olivia.
“No, I’m sorry, darling. Bloody inconsiderate, wasn’t I? Didn’t mean to be.”
I got a genuine smile from sweet Olivia, but then I knew she wouldn’t be brassed off. Not her. Olivia forgave everyone everything. Wish I had some of that. Finally, on my second cup and trying not to talk with my mouth full of the most divine Spanish omelet—give her credit, the woman could cook—I did my best to explain. “I found out an old flame lived here.”
“How? When?” Margo asked.
“Google is how, and a few weeks ago is when.”
“Lives here? As in on Kiawah Island? In this house?” Zan asked. The other two gaped, wide-eyed and silent.
“Not here, here. Are you dim? In Charleston. His family was from there. These omelets are the bees knees, girls. Nice work. Muy bien, Olivia you’re the best. I’d love more toast.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Margo said. “What’s the scoop on this old flame?”
“He moved back up here when we he left U of M. after one semester.”
“Because of you?” Margo asked.
“No. Yes. Maybe. Blimey, I don’t know. He was my first love—and my first hate. We met at a fraternity party in our freshman years at University, and were drawn to one another like … well, phew, I was barmy for him. Or, you could argue, barmy in general, but he … well it was torrid. Shagged all the time. Couldn’t get enough of each other. But volatile, too. He brought out the worst in me, I think.”
“I thought I did that,” Margo said.
“Only when you dither on about Ron’s mid-life crisis keeping you home.”
“We will discuss that later,” Olivia said. She sounded serious, and I figured there must be a story there. She handed me a slice of buttered sour dough toast. “First we must hear about … what is this man’s name, Ruby?”
“Joe. His name is Joe.” Margo had met him, but she didn’t mention it, so I didn’t remind her. I got up and poured more hot water over my tea bag. “Anyone for more of anything?”
“Go on, Meschugena,” Zan said. I noticed her plate was empty. Had she eaten? “You haven’t seen this man for thirty years? Haven’t talked to him, emailed him, texted him, seen him from afar? Nothing? And suddenly on the eve of your supposed betrothal to this hunky sailor, you decide … what, exactly?”
“Alan isn’t a bloody sailor. You do know that, don’t you? And, you’ve got a piece of tomato on your chin.”
“Whatever. Answer the question.” She wiped her face. She looked younger than she had the last time I saw her. I wondered what work she’d had done. At least Botox was involved, surely. Wonky, that one was.
“Reasonable or not, I decided that I had to see Joe. I had … unfinished business with him. I’d been furious and felt, I don’t know, wronged, I guess, misunderstood? I made some poor choices because of those feelings. I didn’t want to blame him anymore—just needed to clear it up.”
“That is commendable, Ruby,” Olivia said. And she meant it.
“I’ve been working on forgiveness recently, haven’t I, and I read that forgiveness actually helps the person doing the forgiving more than it helps the person being forgiven—gives them peace. I wanted that. I also read that wrongdoing usually comes from a place of pain rather than malice, and I wanted to confirm that he was hurting rather than to find out he was just a tosser. Was I that bad a judge of character back then? Am I still? In other words, I needed some elucidation before I married Alan. And, I’ll admit, it helped that you three would be here to prop me up in case—”
“Why did you break up?” Margo asked. She was making more coffee and unwrapping some sweet rolls.
This part would be tougher. “I was pregnant, and then I wasn’t.”
They were all quiet. This was a room full of women who would fervently support any woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. We had all discussed this. Even the Catholic Cuban in our midst would, reluctantly, support the idea of ‘my body, my choice’. But they needed a moment.
Olivia started to ask, “Did you—”
“I had a miscarriage. But when I told him, he didn’t believe me. He thought I’d had an abortion—called me a liar, didn’t he? Said it was rubbish—probably not in those exact words.”
Margo was confused. “Why did he think that?”
“Oh, I’m not saying I wouldn’t’ve, mind you, because I definitely would’ve. I was nineteen. Had the address of the clinic, even. Ready to make an appointment. I couldn’t become a mother. Couldn’t even take care of myself, could I? But I woke up and it’d just happened. And I was relieved. A tad conflicted, sure. A little sad, hormonal as hell, crying, then laughing. Relieved. And I thought he would be, too.” I finished my last bite. “He wasn’t.”
“So, what happened?” Margo asked. She passed me the sweet rolls.
“He left. Never said good-bye. Not a word. To anyone. Cleared out and left.”
“What did you do?” She was dunking her pastry in her coffee.
“I was beside myself, furious, off my trolley. Hated ‘im. So, I got even. I fucked around—a lot. Shagged every bloke who had a stiffy. Wasn’t batting on a full wicket, was I? Put myself in dangerous situations, had some scary things happen. Stayed shitfaced. Got preggers for real and had an abortion for sure that time. Parents made me take a semester off to try to figure out whether I was going to pull it together or not.”
“I remember that,” Margo said. “I had no idea…”
“So I got a job. After a year of selling fast food, wanted no more of that. Cured me. Then I buckled down, graduated, did an internship. Dealt with fucking sexist pigs. Started my career, cutthroat job, clawed my way in, became a success.” I took a bite of the cinnamon roll and drank the last of my tea and stood up. “Then I married Walter. We had careers. Didn’t want babies, did we? Then we had a baby, Reggie. Didn’t want her to grow up without a sibling, did we? So here comes another. Calliope.”
The pain that stabbed through me at the mention of her name nearly brought me to my knees. I bent over and could hear their expressions of concern, but I held up my hand to stop anyone from hugging me, couldn’t have that.. I stood back up, took a ragged breath. I took my plate to the sink and stood there in a fog. My throat hurt as if I’d been screaming, and I noticed my hands were shaking. Upchucking my breakfast wasn’t out of the question.
“Ruby?” Margo said.
I turned and faced them. “And then she died, ladies. Remember?’ My throat closed up. “Callie died. And I—I was gutted. Thought it was my punishment. For not wanting the first one—Joe’s—and for terminating the next one. Had no idea who planted that seed. Thought God—or Joe—found a way to get even with me.”
I leaned against the cabinet, not wanting to go on, not wanting to fuck up their weekend, Zan’s birthday, but unable to stop now. “I might’ve deserved what happened to me, but that sweet baby, so loved, so beautiful and happy.” I rubbed my face with my shirt. A sob caught in my throat. “There she was, crawling all over the place. Smile that melted everybody’s heart. Chubby little folds in her legs and arms. Pullin’ herself up on the furniture, so proud of herself. How could she be gone?”
I didn’t want to cry. Stepped away from the counter and started to go to the loo, but Margo stopped me. Put her arms around me, handed me a fistful of tissues. Tears had threatened, but the sight of tissues stopped ‘em.
Margo stepped back but kept one arm around me.
I took a deep breath, then another, kept talking. “I couldn’t stop thinking about her trying to draw—trying to draw air into her lungs and inhaling water, choking, wondering where Mommy was, why Mommy didn’t save her—”
I couldn’t look at their faces. Knew what I would see. Pity. Didn’t want them feeling sorry for me. How could they not? Didn’t think I could go on. And then I went on. “I might as well have died with her. Wanted to. Tried to, in fact. Half-hearted, wasn’t it? But I had Regina—Reggie. Knew I couldn’t let her down, too. But ultimately, I did let her down, didn’t I?” The tears never came, but I blew my nose.
Margo, tears running down her cheeks, squeezed my waist. “You didn’t—”
“No, I did, Margo. I know I did.” I handed her my fistful of unused tissues. “Let her father down, too. No good to anybody, was I? Lived in a gray cloud. Medication only dulled the fury I felt. Didn’t make the pain go away. But then nothing could, could it? But I persevered, worked hard, stayed busy. ‘Talk to someone’, people said. So I did. ‘It’ll take time, she said’. Brilliant. Dead from the neck up, that one was.”
“So, Ruby, it is true then that you believed it would help you to see Joe?” Olivia said. “To see this old love of yours who abandoned you?”
“Oh, Olivia, I’m daft. Didn’t you know that? Mad as a bag of ferrets. Because, in my feeble mind, the retribution started with the first pregnancy, with Joe leaving. There’s no logic to it. So, why, you can ask. It’s a lovely question, and I can’t say. I needed to see him, confront him. I wanted to understand why he did it. Did I deserve to be punished? Or was he an arsehole? Or was he suffering? I hoped it would help with the forgiveness thing. Give me some peace. What d’you think, girls? Ain’t this an effing brilliant way to start holiday? Happy Birthday, Zan.”
Margo
When Ruby’s baby drowned, I knew she needed me, but I’d been living in my own child-centered drama—fighting the boys’ birth mother who was trying to stop the adoption. She’d left them at five months and two years in a motel room, and the baby’s screams were what alarmed the maid. We’d fostered them for a year, and we knew we wanted to adopt them, but it almost didn’t happen. It was a terrifying time. My story had a happy ending, though, while Ruby’s did not. I can be singularly focused, and by the time the adoption was final, I came up for air and realized I hadn’t been there for her through the worse time in her life. You can’t make up for something like that.
“I was a crap friend back then, Ruby.” I spoke softly as we stood hip-to-hip at the kitchen counter. “I’ve always known it.”
“You did the best you could, Margo. I know that. You and Ron were beside yourselves that the court was gonna return those wee ones to the skanky mom. I remember that there she was, from prison, no less, claiming she’d been saved by the Lord and wanted a chance to be a mother. It was a rough time. For you, as well as me. Please try not to live with all that regret. It’s deadly.” She took our plates from the counter and loaded them into the sink. “I never blamed you. I never blamed anyone but myself—well my mum, but still.”
“Well, thanks for letting me off the hook …”
“Just tellin’ the truth, love. But I’m gonna puddle right here if I don’t use the loo.”
As Ruby left, I could hear Zan talking on the phone, not to her husband, but to her pet sitter asking how her dogs were. While they were both gone, Olivia and I loaded the dishwasher together.
“Poor Ruby,” Olivia said. “How does someone survive losing a child?”
I couldn’t imagine either. Olivia rinsed and handed me the dishes to place into the racks. We were both in our own thoughts, but she began to hum a familiar tune. When she saw that I recognized it, she started singing, “I’m Gonna Love You Forever,” and I was glad I remembered the words to the Randy Travis song. We sang softly together and smiled at the lines about how old men sit and talk about the weather while old women sit and talk about old men. So simple in its honesty.
“Do you sing at all anymore, Olivia?” I asked.
“I sing in my church choir, that is all.”
“Well, you always had the best voice of all of us, and you still sound great.”
“You are too kind, Margo, but thank you. I love it—singing. It chases away sadness.”
Ruby pushed me aside. “Give me space in here, woman. Let an expert load those dishes. It’s the least I can do. Didn’t bring any snacks, no wine, no nothing. Why do you all put up with me, anyway?”
Zan had come back and was sitting at the counter. She seemed distracted.
“You found this amazing place, Ruby,” Olivia said. “You organized everything. If not for you—””
“Okay, watch out. I’ll get a fucking big head. Besides it was me being a selfish bitch. I needed this.”
“So, Ruby,” I said. “What happened with Joe, then? You did find him, right?”
Ruby smiled. It was a sad smile, but a smile, nevertheless. “I did. We talked. Well, I talked, mostly.”
“All night?” I asked.
“Pretty much. I told him …. well, everything—about that time, anyway, and beyond. He said he believed me, but that even if I had done what he thought I did, he had no right to … anyway, he was sorry he’d been such a coward back then. Youth and Catholic guilt—sorry, Olivia—played a part, and he hadn’t been the sort to stick around and try to explain himself. Not then, anyway, and I’m guessing not much now either.”
“I remember Joe as cute, in a square-jawed, full head of black hair kind of way. How did he look, Ruby?
“I thought you might’ve remembered him. He’s kept himself up. Aside from graying hair, he hasn’t aged much. No paunch at all. But here’s the amazing thing, Margo, he’s just a middle-aged guy, kinda taciturn, no surprise there. A dad, you know? Conventional—not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Voted for Trump. Sorta sorry he did, but ‘not willing to turn the country over to socialists’. He’s nobody I could relate to. Still rather handsome, but boring.” She looked up, closed the dishwasher door, and shrugged. “Ain’t that a kick in the nuts?”
I didn’t know if Ruby remembered or not, but the four of us had gone out once, and Ron had mentioned that Joe was a handsome guy. I didn’t think that was odd then? Your boyfriend notices the good looking guy? Wake up, Margo.
We settled on the porch to talk some more. It was breezy, so we moved the Adirondack chairs into the sun. I was on my third cup of coffee and had made as many trips to the bathroom.
Ruby went on to tell us Joe had taken over his dad’s construction business and built it up. He had gotten married and had two girls. “Funny thing is, well not actually funny, not for those girls, but his wife left him without warning. Left one day, no note, nothing. Said he knew how I felt when he bailed on me. Well, not exactly, but he got an idea. He raised his girls on his own. They were three and five when their mother left, and they’re all grown up now. He’s a grandfather, even.”
“Did you…?”
“No shagging, Margo,” she said, “but we kissed. He always was a smashing kisser.”
We were yawning, in spite of the coffee. “A walk on the beach might be good for us. It would wake me up, anyway.” I needed to fill Ruby in on what she’d missed last night, and the rest of them didn’t need a repeat. After hearing her, I was acutely aware that nobody died in my story, and in a story where nobody dies, everything else should be endurable. Could it be I was adjusting to my new reality?
As we walked, Olivia and Zan ahead of us, we linked arms and I told her about Ron. I noticed it had gotten easier to talk about.
“Oh, blimey, Margo, I’m sorry,” she said. It was as if she was sorry I had a splinter in my finger.
“But … you’re not horrified, not shocked, gobsmacked, as you would say?”
She brushed the hair out of her face. “Oh, pet, I guess not. Ron always seemed a little light in the loafers to me. A bit of a pouf. But lovable. Genuinely kind. And, well, you never exactly raved about your sex life, did you? Even when I told you more than I should have about my close encounters, especially about that bloke I shagged in the lady’s loo at that cocktail lounge. It was right after my divorce was final, remember? Not batting with a full wicket, was I?”
“No you weren’t, but it was a bad time for you. However, that was more information than I wanted.”
“See? We didn’t talk about that stuff. Well, you didn’t. I figured you two had worked it out. Who was I to …”
I nudged her in the side. “You could have said something.”
“And if I was wrong? It would’ve been a balls up then, wouldn’t it? You’da been insulted and embarrassed and felt like you had to defend Ron, or worse yet, tell him what I said. Our friendship was too important to risk driving a blooming wedge between you, me, and your sweet husband, wasn’t it now?”
She had a point. The knot in my stomach expanded. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Margo, love, I can’t help with that. You’re a smart girl. You’ll figure it out, won’t you?
Pat Ponders Life 