Speak to Me of Home

Chapter One

Palisades, New York

2023

Afterward, Ruth will say she knew the moment the phone rang, even before she picked it up. She will say there was something calamitous in the sound. No one ever calls the house line anymore.

It is 8:14 P.M. on a Tuesday evening in June and in truth, despite Ruth’s eventual perception to the contrary, she feels no ominous pang when the ringer asserts its shrill voice into the room. What she feels is annoyed that she forgot to unplug the phone before her shoot. She always tries to make these videos in one take, because if she has to scrap the first effort and start again, a rehearsed note sometimes creeps in. Despite having a career that requires her to maintain a constant presence online, Ruth isn’t a person who’s particularly good at pretending. So when the phone rings, the video captures her irritation in the form of a wince before Ruth slips from the stool. She doesn’t stop to hit pause on the camera, so the video captures all of it: Ruth, barefoot in her jeans and linen tunic, padding across the slate floor, retreating into the background of the frame. She answers the phone, which is an antique, wall-mounted contraption with a mother-of-pearl face that Ruth selected mostly for its contribution to the decor, and because her daughter, Daisy, has convinced her that old, impractical things can sometimes be more fun than their convenient modern counterparts. The phone does look beautiful on the wall, but is ill-suited to conducting actual conversations.

From this distance, it’s easier to discern how small Ruth is, how slender her shoulders. She is in profile as she lifts the earpiece, on tiptoe with her neck craned as she speaks into the mounted cone mouthpiece on the front of the phone.

“Hello?”

Just as she loops the cord around her finger there’s a shift in her body. She flings one hand out to steady herself against the counter and submits to an unflattering curl of her posture. The room around her still appears just as she designed it to appear, the first iteration of the aesthetic that accidentally made her famous (or at least fame-ish , as her kids insist): high ceilings, exposed beams, enormous tropical vegetation in earthenware jugs. You can tell just by looking at this room in pictures that it smells like lemon cupcakes and sandalwood, maybe a trace of mint. But within the careful diorama, Ruth is just a small woman in a large room receiving terrible news.

“Wait, oh my God,” she says into the phone, leaning her forehead against the outstretched arm on the counter. “No, no,” she says, but whoever’s on the phone can’t hear because she’s too far away from the ridiculous mouthpiece. “No, I don’t know.” She stands up again and makes an effort to throw her voice toward the phone. “I’m her mother! Yes, of course. What do you mean, her medical history? Oh my God, wait. How…”

Her forehead leaves a dark smear of foundation on the unbleached sleeve of her tunic. She stands up straight and uses the flat of her hand to smack herself over the heart.

“Yes, she has insurance. Of course, yes. The card should be in her wallet. What?”

Ruth curls into an even tighter knot while she clutches the phone.

“I will, yes,” she says. “Of course.”

She makes an effort to uncoil herself, propping a hand on her hip and tipping her head back to gaze through the skylight above. Darkening blue. A rind of moon. She tries to speak again but finds the effort trapped in her throat. She pushes past it.

“I need to take down your number and call you back,” she croaks, opening a nearby drawer.

She fishes out a pen but can’t find paper. She uncaps the pen with her teeth and writes on her hand.

“Okay,” she says. “Yes, okay.”

After she replaces the earpiece into its cradle, Ruth makes a sound that’s foreign to her own ears. It is a mammal sound and it comes from the crypts of her lungs. Then she cries softly in a huddle for a few moments before remembering the camera. The instant of remembering is visible: the alertness drops into the frame and stands her up. Ruth tries to shake clean air into her body, pushes her shoulders away from her sternum, and strides across the room. But some things she cannot hide, and the mascara turns to mud beneath her eyes.

Outside, there is a tumult in the trees, a wind so sharp it startles a few summer leaves from their too-dry branches. It whips away and south and south, to where her daughter is.

The sweep and tumble of Ruth’s mind goes with it.