Chapter Eight
Nora tried not to watch her daughter clean the house. It was simply too irritating.
Ruby dusted without moving anything, and she clearly thought a dry rag would do the job. Oh, she’d brought out the industrial-size can of Pledge, but she’d left it sitting on the tile counter in the kitchen. When she started mopping the floor with soapless water, Nora couldn’t help herself.
“Aren’t you going to sweep first?” she asked from her wheelchair, tucked into the open doorway of her bedroom.
Ruby slowly turned around. Her face was flushed—from what exertion, Nora couldn’t imagine. “Excuse me?”
Nora wished she’d kept silent, but now there was nowhere to go except forward. “You need to sweep the floor before you mop . . . and soap in the water is a big help.”
Ruby let go of the mop. The wooden handle clattered to the floor. “You’re criticizing my cleaning technique?”
“I wouldn’t call it a technique. It’s just common sense to—”
“So, I have no common sense, either.”
Nora sighed. “Come on, Ruby. You know better than that. I taught you—”
Ruby was in front of Nora before she could finish the sentence. “You do not want to bring up the things you taught me. Because if I do as I’ve been taught, I’ll walk out that door, climb into the minivan, and drive away. I won’t even bother to wave good-bye.”
Nora’s irritation vanished; regret swooped in to take its place. She sagged like a rag doll in her chair. “I’m sorry.”
Ruby took a step back. “According to Caro, those are your favorite words. Maybe you should think about what it really means to apologize before you bother.” She stomped back to the kitchen sink, grabbed some liquid soap, and squirted a stream into the white plastic bucket.
Then she began mopping again; her strokes were positively vicious.
Nora sat there, watching. The thwop-squish-clack of the mop moving across the floor (streaking clumps of dirt, Nora noticed but obviously didn’t mention) was the only sound in the room.
Finally, Nora wound up the nerve for a different approach. “Maybe I could help?”
Ruby didn’t look at her. “I stripped the bed upstairs. The sheets are piled on the washing machine. You could take care of your bed and start a load of laundry.”
Nora nodded. It took her almost an hour of maneuvering in her chair to strip the sheets off her bed, roll into the cubicle-size laundry room, and start the first load. By the time she finished, she was wheezing like a dying crow.
She rolled back into the kitchen and found that the room was sparkling clean. Ruby had even replaced the horrid plastic flowers on the table with a fragrant bouquet of roses.
“Oh,” Nora said, taking her first decent breath since coming into the house. “It looks beautiful. Just like—”
“Thanks.”
Nora understood that Ruby didn’t want the past mentioned.
It didn’t surprise Nora, that reaction. Ruby had always been an expert at denial.
Even as a child, she’d had the ability to compartmentalize and forget.
She could box up whatever she didn’t want to face and store it away.
It had been this very trait that had allowed her to shut Nora out of her life so completely.
Out of sight for Ruby had always meant out of mind.
Nora decided not to let it be so easy this time. “I thought I’d help you make dinner.”
Ruby turned to look at her. There was a look of genuine horror on her face.
Nora smiled. “You look like John Hurt, just before the alien popped out of his chest. Close your mouth.”
“There’s no food. We—I—have to go shopping.”
“We both know Caroline better than that. In these cupboards, I guarantee you, are the makings for several emergency dinners. Probably labeled as such. All we have to do is look around.”
“You don’t need my help, then. I’ll just run upstairs—”
“Not so fast. I can’t reach everything. We’ll need to work together.”
Ruby looked like she’d just bitten down on a lemon. “I don’t know how to cook.”
Nora wasn’t surprised. “You were never too interested in it.”
“I got interested in it when I was seventeen. Not that you would know this.”
Direct hit. “I could teach you now.”
“Lucky me.”
Nora refused to be hurt by that comment.
She wheeled into the kitchen. With her back to Ruby, she scavenged through the cupboards, finding several cans of tomatoes, a bag of angel-hair pasta, an unopened bottle of olive oil, jars of marinated artichoke hearts and capers, and a container of dried Parmesan cheese.
She pulled out everything she needed and set the supplies beside the stove. Then she waited patiently.
Her patience didn’t last as long as she would have liked. “Ruby?” she said at last.
Ruby walked over to the stove. “Okay, what do you want me to do?”
“See that big frying pan hanging on the rack—no, the bigger one. Yes. Take that and put it on the front burner.”
It hit with a clang.
Nora winced. “Now put about a tablespoon of olive oil in it and turn on the gas.”
Ruby opened the oil and poured in at least a half cup.
Nora could practically feel her hips expanding, but she bit back a comment as she reached for the can opener. She was proud of herself for saying simply, “The measuring spoons are in the top drawer, to your left.” Then she opened the canned tomatoes. “Here, add these. And turn the flame to low.”
When Ruby had done that, Nora went on. “Cut up the marinated artichoke hearts and add them. Maybe a half cup of that canned chicken broth would be good, too.”
Ruby went to the counter, turned her back to Nora, and began chopping.
“Ow. Shit!”
Nora spun the wheelchair toward her daughter. “Are you okay?”
Ruby stepped back. Blood was dripping in a steady red stream from her index finger; it plopped onto the tile counter.
Nora yanked a clean towel off the oven door. “Come here, honey. Get on your knees in front of me. Keep your hand up.”
Ruby dropped to her knees. She seemed unable to look away from her finger. Her face was pale.
Nora gently took hold of her daughter’s hand.
Seeing that blood—her child’s—made Nora’s own hand throb.
Just like old times; Nora had always experienced a phantom pain whenever one of her kids was hurt.
She carefully coiled the towel around the wound, and without thinking, wrapped her own hands around Ruby’s.
When she looked up, Nora saw the emotion on Ruby’s face, and knew that her daughter remembered this simple routine. The only thing missing was a kiss to make it all better. She saw the longing flash through Ruby’s eyes. It was only there for an instant, but Nora had waited so long to see it . . .
Ruby yanked her hand back. “It’s just a cut, for God’s sake. We don’t have to go looking for my finger on the floor or anything.”
That gap yawned between them again, and Nora wondered suddenly if she’d imagined the longing in her daughter’s eyes. If she’d seen only what she wanted so desperately to see.
Her voice was shaky when she said, “Put the artichoke hearts and two tablespoons of capers into the sauce.” She turned quickly to the spice drawer, yanking it open.
But when she stared down into the drawer, all she saw was Ruby’s face as it had been for that one second, that instant that had somehow been both then and now.
Nora grabbed the herbs she needed and wheeled back around, adding them to the sauce. “Put a big pot of water on to boil, won’t you?”
For the next thirty minutes, Ruby did as she was told without uttering a word. She was vigilant in her refusal to make eye contact.
But finally, the meal was ready, and they were seated across from each other at the round wooden kitchen table. Ruby picked up her fork and rammed it into the pasta, twirling it.
“Don’t you want to say grace?” Nora asked.
Ruby looked up. “No.”
“But we—”
“There is no we. Dinnertime prayers are one of those family traditions that went the way of our family. God and I have an understanding. When He stopped listening, I stopped talking.”
Nora sighed. “Oh, Ruby . . .”
“Don’t give me that wounded-deer look.” Ruby turned her attention back to the plate and started eating. “This is good.”
“Thanks.” Nora closed her eyes. “Thank you, God,” she said softly, her voice barely loud enough for Ruby to hear. “For this food . . . and this time that Ruby and I have together.”
Ruby kept eating.
Nora tried to eat, but the silence tore at her nerves. It was hard enough to be estranged from your child when thousands of miles separated you . . . but estrangement at the same table was brutal.
One personal thing.
Leo’s advice came back to her. It had seemed easy enough when she was on the phone with her doctor; now, sitting beneath this cone of silence, it felt like a herculean undertaking.
She was still trolling for an icebreaker when Ruby said, “Excuse me,” got up from the table, and went across the kitchen. She started filling the sink with water.
Nora hadn’t realized that eating was a timed event. Fortunately, she kept this observation to herself. She cleared the table, stacked the dishes on the counter at Ruby’s elbow. In an unnerving silence, Ruby washed and Nora dried. When they were finished, Nora wheeled herself into the living room.
She mentally prepared for round two.
Ruby swept past her—practically running—and headed for the stairs.
Nora had to think fast. “Why don’t you make us a fire? June nights are always chilly.”
Ruby stumbled to a halt. Without answering, she went to the hearth and knelt down to build a fire.
She did it exactly as she’d been taught by Grandpa Bridge.
“I guess some things you never forget,” Nora said.
Ruby sat back on her heels and held her hands out toward the fire. It was a full minute before she turned to Nora and said, “Except how it feels to have a mother.”
Nora sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s not fair. I was with you every day until . . .”
“Until the day you weren’t.”
Nora clasped her hands together and slid them between her legs. She didn’t want Ruby to see how badly she was trembling. “You and Caroline were my whole world.”