27. Ruby
27
RUBY
I’m in a building that’s like a maze. White walls. White floors. Everything is white, even the doors. I think I must be in the hospital, but there are no signs on the doors or the walls, and I’ve not even seen any staff. No one to show me the way, not that I can remember where I’m going or why I’m here.
“Help!” I call out, my voice swallowed by the whiteness all around me. “Where am I?”
It hurts my eyes, this dazzling whiteness, like I’ve been staring at the sun for too long. Where has all the color gone? I peer down at my clothes, and I realize with a jolt, that I’m wearing a white all-in-one, my legs blending in with my surroundings so that it looks as if I’m hovering in midair.
I turn left and start running. There are no footsteps following me around; I can’t even hear myself breathing. It’s disorienting, the relentless white silence.
At the end of the corridor, I turn left again. The doors are all the same, nameless, closed, silent. It doesn’t matter which way I turn, I’m alone. I stop, holding my side, a sharp stinging pain brewing behind my hip.
“Help!” I cry out again.
Tears flow down my cheeks, but when I raise my fingers to my face, they come away dry. Then lava-hot pain inside my gut sends me crashing sideways into the wall, and I sink to the floor, gasping, clutching my belly as if I can push it back where it came from.
I roll onto my knees, retching onto the floor, only nothing comes out.
I don’t know how long I stay like this, but when it passes, I can hear a voice somewhere in the distance. So faint, I strain to find it above the thump-thump of my heartbeat.
“ It’s okay, Ruby …”
The voice whispers my name, calling to me, showing me the way because now I know what I was searching for. Home.
“Where are you?” I close my eyes, listen harder. “Come back. Don’t leave me.”
“ I’m not going anywhere without you, I promise …”
I follow the whispers, trusting my ears rather than my eyes. Down one empty corridor and then another, clinging to the sound like a lifeline.
I turn a blind corner, and the world turns multicolor again, comes to life, like a color-by-numbers painting slowly being filled in. I close my eyes, squeezing them shut, adjusting to this new reality.
Voices.
Whispers still, but now there’s more than one.
Doctors? I vaguely recall being in a hospital. A bed with cellular covers. Monitors beeping in that steady rhythm the way they do. The sterile tang of antiseptic and bleach and … something else.
What is it? Sickness? Worse?
My dad!
Panic fills my chest making it hard to breathe. I need to find him, I need to get him away from this place before I lose him forever. But there’s no oxygen, and I feel my lungs bursting like when I used to try holding my breath at the bottom of the pool when I was younger, trying to beat an imaginary world record.
Then suddenly, I’m bursting through the water’s surface, mouth open, sucking in deep gulps of air. My heart is pounding as blood starts pumping around my veins again. My head is reeling.
I don’t move, waiting for my brain cells to settle, trying to get my bearings with my eyes closed. Starting with my toes, I wriggle them, noting that they’re bare. My legs are covered by a sheet. I’m warm. I tap my fingers and feel a scratchy blanket beneath them.
Wait. Sharp pain in the back of my hand. Something is stuck in it; I can feel it moving against my skin when I flex my fingers.
“ You know I can’t …” A woman’s voice, clearer now, closer. A whisper. She’s trying not to wake me up.
“What’s changed?” A man speaks now. “I don’t understand.”
Pause.
“You know what’s changed. It’s just not the right time.”
“It never will be, will it?” The man is speaking in low tones, but I can still hear the despair like an undercurrent running through his words.
The pain is coming back. “ Oh no, please no, not now .”
I’m afraid that I’m going to lose them, that they’ll get swept away on the tidal wave of agony wracking my stomach. I’m afraid that, when it’s done, I’ll open my eyes and I’ll be alone in the white maze again, that I’ll never find my way out.
It leaves me panting and utterly drained, my heartbeat fluttering like a baby bird. I listen to the silence ringing in my ears and fresh tears spill from my eyes. I’ve lost them. I’ve lost them, and they didn’t even know that I was here.
“ I never planned for it to happen this way .”
They’re back.
I open my eyes and wait for them to adjust to the muted colors surrounding me. It’s dark. There’s a soft glow coming from somewhere overhead allowing me to see the room in twilight tones and eerie shadows.
Beep… Beep… Beep…
It’s a hospital room. I’m here with Harry and Ronnie; we’re snowed in, and Ronnie bought a pack of cards, and he keeps cheating.
I glance towards the bed to see if Harry is awake, but instead, I find two people talking in front of the window, heads together, their backs to me. I swallow, clear my throat, try to get their attention.
“Where’s Harry?” I need to know where they’ve taken him, only they don’t look around, and when I try to reach them, I realize that I’m in the bed.
Not Harry.
Me.
“Thirteen years I’ve been waiting.” The man’s voice is gruff. He isn’t happy. I recognize it, but I can’t remember where from. “Thirteen fucking years. How much longer do you think I can wait?”
“Keep your voice down. I don’t want to wake Ruby up.”
Mom? I stare at her, waiting for her to turn around and notice that I’m awake. She half-turns, enough for me to see her profile, but she only has eyes for the man.
“It isn’t going to work this time.” The man shoots a glance my way, and my breath hitches in my throat. Even though his face is shadowed, I know who he is.
Karl Weiss.
“What are you talking about?” Mom looks around at me too, but she must not see that my eyes are open, because she turns her attention straight back to Karl.
“You can’t keep stringing me along with your fake promises. I’m done waiting around, Celia.”
“Please, Karl. Just give me a little longer.”
I don’t know what they’re talking about. I can barely even keep my eyes open, but the memory of the restaurant comes flooding back, and I think I know what they’re doing. They’re plotting to keep me and Harry apart.
“Ha!” Karl scoffs. “I can still remember the first time you said that. What a fucking idiot I was to believe you.”
“No, I meant every word.” Mom reaches for his hands, but he snatches them away. “I still do. You know how I feel, Karl, I just never thought… Well, I just never thought it would be so hard with Graham, you know, after the stroke.”
Karl rubs his chin with his hand, the scritch-scratch of his stubble rising above the gentle beeping of the monitor. “So, what, you think it’ll be easier this time around?”
“No!” Mom shakes her head. “No, but once I’ve persuaded Ruby to call off this wedding, she’ll be free to look after him. I’ll tell him then. No looking back.”
“What will you tell him?” The question slices the air and sends my pulse racing again.
“Everything. I’ll tell him everything.”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe it’s ever going to happen. You don’t have the fucking balls. I thought you did back then, but now…” Karl shakes his head. “Now, I’m not so sure.”
“I’ve already got the ball rolling, haven’t I?”
“Have you?”
Karl stares straight at me, his dark eyes like bullets, and I close mine quickly, pretending to be asleep. Please don’t let him think I’m awake, I repeat inside my head like a mantra. Please don’t let him think I’m awake . My heart is racing, and it’s hard to control my breathing, but something is telling me they mustn’t know that I can hear them.
I need time to process what I’ve overheard. None of it makes sense. Even seeing Karl and my mom in my hospital room makes no sense, and I realize with a heady sigh of relief that I must be hallucinating. The white corridors. The whispers. The maze. It’s all just a nightmare prompted by the meds they’re pumping into me through the IV in my hand.
I’ll laugh about this in the morning. I’ll tell Harry, and he’ll tease me about all the books I read. “See what happens when you live in fantasy worlds?” I can already hear him chuckling over it.
“What do you think this is then?” My mom snaps.
“I don’t know, Celia. You forget that while I’ve been on my own waiting for you, you’ve been playing happy family.”
“I couldn’t leave Ruby. She needed me. It wouldn’t have been fair.”
“What about me then? Did you care about me at all?”
My breathing is growing shallow again, and I open my eyes. Blink three times. Bring the room back into focus.
They’re still there, still standing in front of the window, still speaking in private hushed tones as if no one else exists in the world. I’m not imagining it. This is real, and the jolt of shock as I piece together what I’ve heard so far, pierces my chest and pins me to the bed.
“I can’t believe you’re even asking me this. What more can I do to prove it to you?”
“Leave him.” A bark more than a growl. “Leave him and be with me like we planned all those years ago. If you love me, you’ll do it.”
Love? They’re talking about love, but it’s all out of context. Karl Weiss and my mom. The word doesn’t even belong in the same sentence with their names, and no matter how I twist the conversation around in my fuzzy head, I can’t seem to make it fit.
“Are you giving me an ultimatum?” Mom’s voice is cold.
Karl shrugs. “Sure, why not? I’ll give you until Graham is discharged to tell him and then, if you still haven’t found the balls, you let me go.”
A sound like a sob escapes my mom’s mouth. “I’ll tell him.”
“No, promise me, Celia. You tell him or you let me go and then you’ll never hear from me again.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Karl.”
“It does.” Karl’s voice is gentle now. “It just does. I can’t spend the rest of my life waiting for you.”
He goes to walk away, but my mom grabs his hand, holding onto him for as long as possible. “I need you to promise me something too,” she says, and Karl nods. “Ruby must never know that I married the wrong man. She must never find out that you’re the man I love.”
“She won’t hear it from me.”
“Thank you.” This time, Mom stands on tiptoes and kisses Karl’s cheek. “Because she’ll never forgive me if she finds out that Graham had his first stroke because of me.”