Chapter Eleven #2
“It is farther away. That’s the thing about drugs.
When you use them, everything you want in life is farther away.
” Nora had turned to her. “How cool is it to do something that anyone with a match can do? Cool is becoming an astronaut . . . or a comedian . . . or a scientist who cures cancer. Lopez Island is exactly what you think it is—a tiny blip on a map. But the world is out there, Ruby, even if you haven’t seen it.
Don’t throw your chances away. We don’t get as many of them as we need.
Right now you can go anywhere, be anyone, do anything.
You can become so damned famous that they’ll have a parade for you when you come home for your high-school reunion .
. . or you can keep screwing up and failing your classes and you can snip away the ends of your choices until finally you end up with that crowd who hangs out at Zeke’s Diner, smoking cigarettes and talking about high-school football games that ended twenty years ago.
” She had stood up and brushed off her dress, then looked down at Ruby.
“It’s your choice. Your life. I’m your mother, not your warden. ”
Ruby remembered that she’d been shaking as she’d stood up. That’s how deeply her mother’s words had reached. Very softly, she’d said, “I love you, Mom.”
That was Ruby’s last specific memory of saying those words to her mother . . .
She turned her attention back to the columns. She noticed that this last set was paper-clipped together. The very first sentence pulled her in.
Dear Nora:
Do you ever feel so alone in the world that everything normal looks out of focus? It’s as if you’re the only black-and-white human being in a technicolor city.
I have married the wrong woman. I knew it when the day came to walk down the aisle. I knew when I lifted the veil and looked down into her eyes. But sometimes you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, and you pray that love will grow.
When it doesn’t, a piece of you dies, and day by day, it keeps dying until finally you realize there’s nothing of you left.
You tell yourself that only your child matters—the reason you got married in the first place—and you can almost believe it. When you hold your baby in your arms, you finally learn what true love really is.
And yet still you wonder, even as you’re holding your daughter’s hand or brushing her hair or reading her a bedtime story . . . you wonder if it can really be enough.
I don’t know what to do. My wife and I have drifted so terribly far apart. . . . Please, can you help me?
Lost and Lonely.
Dear Lost and Lonely:
My heart goes out to you. I think all of us know how it feels to be lonely, especially within the supposedly warm circle of a family.
I can tell that you’re an honorable man, and you obviously know that breaking up a family is the kind of act that irrevocably destroys lives. Believe me, the loneliness you feel within your family is a pale shadow of the torment you’ll feel if you walk away.
I pray that if you look hard enough, you will unearth some remnant of the love you once felt for your wife, and that with care, a seed of that emotion can grow again.
Seek counseling; talk to professionals and to each other.
Take a vacation together. Touch, and not only sexually.
Little touches along the way can mean a lot.
Get involved in activities—community events, church events, that kind of thing.
Go see a marriage counselor. You don’t want to end a marriage and break your children’s hearts until and unless there is no possible chance for reconciliation.
Trust me on this.
Nora.
The last item was a handwritten letter; there was no column attached to it. Obviously, it had been submitted for publication and rejected. Yet Nora had saved it.
Dear Nora:
My daughter—my precious baby girl—was killed by a drunk driver this year. I understand tragedy now; its taste, its texture . . . the imprint it leaves on you.
I find that I can’t talk to people anymore, not even my wife, who needs me more than ever.
I see her, sitting on the end of the bed, her hair unwashed, her eyes rimmed in red, and I can’t reach out to her, can’t offer comfort.
If left alone, I’m certain I could go through the rest of my life without ever speaking again.
I want to gather my belongings, put them in a shopping cart, and disappear into the faceless crowd of vagrants in Pioneer Square.
But I haven’t the strength even for that.
So I sit in my house, seeing the endless reminders of what I once had .
. . and I ask myself why I bother to breathe at all . . .
Lost and Lonely.
Across the top of that letter, someone had written: FedEx the attached letter to this man’s return address immediately. Paper-clipped to the letter was a photocopy of a handwritten note.
Dear Lost and Lonely:
I will not waste time with the pretty words we wrap around grief. You are in danger; you are not so far gone that you don’t know this. I am going to do what I have never done before—what I imagine I’ll never do again.
You will come and talk to me. I will not take no for an answer. Your letter mentioned Pioneer Square; I see that your return address is in Laurelhurst.
My secretary at the newspaper will be expecting your call tomorrow and she will set up an appointment. Please, please, do not disappoint me. I know how life can wound even the strongest heart, and sometimes all it takes to save us is the touch of a single stranger’s hand.
Reach out for me . . . I’ll be there.
It was signed Nora.
Ruby’s hands were trembling. No wonder these readers loved her mother. She carefully put the columns and letters back in the manila folder and left the whole package on the kitchen table for her mother to find, then she went upstairs.
She hadn’t even realized that she was going to call Caroline until she’d picked up the phone. But it made sense. Ruby felt unsteady . . . and Caroline had always been her solid ground.
Caro answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
Ruby couldn’t help noticing how tired her sister sounded. “Hey, sis. You sound like you need a nap.”
Caroline laughed. “I always need a nap. Of course, what I do that makes me so darned tired is a complete mystery.”
“What do you do all day?”
“Only a single woman would ask that question of a mother. So, what’s going on up there? How are you and Mom doing?”
“She’s not who I thought she was,” Ruby admitted softly.
“How could she be? You haven’t spoken to her since Moonlighting was on television.”
“I know, I know . . . but it’s more than that. Like, did you know she was seeing a shrink when she was married to Dad . . . or that she took Valium in nineteen eighty-five?”
“Wow,” Caroline said. “I wonder if her doctor told her to leave Dad?”
“Why would he do that?”
Caroline laughed softly. “That’s what they do, Ruby. They tell unhappy women to find happiness. If I had a buck for every time my therapist told me to leave Jere, I’d live on Hunt’s Point.”
“You see a shrink, too?”
“Come on, Ruby. It’s like getting a manicure. Good grooming for the mind.”
“But I thought you and Mr. Quarterback had a perfect life.”
“We have our problems, just like anyone else, but I’d rather talk about—aah! Darn it, Jenny! That’s not okay. I gotta run, Ruby. Your niece just poured a cup of grape juice on her brother’s head.”
Before Ruby could answer, Caroline hung up.
Everything was ready.
Dean knocked on Eric’s door, heard the muffled “Come in,” and went inside.
Eric was sitting up in bed, reading a dog-eared paperback copy of Richard Bach’s book Illusions. When he saw Dean, he smiled. “Hey, bro. It’s almost dinnertime. Where have you been?” He reached for the cup on his bedside tray. His thin fingers trembled; he groaned tiredly and gave up.
Dean hurried to the bed and grabbed the cup, carefully placing it in Eric’s quavering hand. He guided the straw to his brother’s mouth.
Eric sipped slowly, swallowed. Dean helped him replace the cup on the tray, then Eric turned his head, let it settle into the pile of pillows. “Thanks, I was dying of thirst.” He grinned. “No mention of death was intentional.”
Dean wanted to smile; honestly, he did. But all he could think about was his big brother, up here all alone, thirsty and too weak to reach for his glass of water.
He crossed his arms and stared out the window.
He didn’t dare make eye contact with Eric.
He needed just a minute to collect himself.
“I’ve been working on something,” he said.
“A surprise?”
Dean looked down at his brother then and saw a glimpse of the old Eric—the young Eric—and his throat tightened even more. It was all he could do to nod. Slowly, he lowered the metal bed rail. When it clanged into place, he said, “Are you up for a little trip?”
“Are you kidding? I’m so sick of this bed I could cry. Hell, I do cry . . . all the time.”
Dean leaned forward, scooped his brother into his arms and lifted him up from the bed.
God, he weighed nothing at all.
It was like holding a fragile child; only it was his brother. His strong, outspoken big brother, who’d once led the island football team in touchdown passes . . .
Dean shut the memories off. If he remembered who Eric used to be—now, while this frail, hollowed man was in his arms—he would stumble and fall.
He carried his brother downstairs and through the house, past Lottie in the kitchen, who waved, her eyes overbright . . . across the manicured green lawn and down the bank to the beach. On the slanted, wooden dock, he’d already set up an oversize Adirondack chair and piled pillows onto it.
“The Wind Lass,” Eric said softly.
Dean carefully placed his brother into the chair, then tucked the cashmere blanket tightly around his thin body.