11. Ruby
“Some secrets are meant to be kept,” Ellen says now, talking to Ruby on the telephone.
Ruby has called Ellen in Seattle from Jekyll Island, where she’s gone back to her hotel room, showered, and is sitting on the balcony wrapped in a white terry cloth robe with the phone in her hand. It was clear from the first words of this conversation that Ellen has been expecting Ruby’s call.
“But we shared everything,” Ruby protests. She has her bare feet up on the railing, and she’s looking out at the green expanse of lawn and trees that surround the resort. “There’s nothing that my mother could have told me that would have made me not love her.”
“That’s not it, honey,” Ellen says. “Some things are not meant to be shared. Your mother found a method to deal with her own sadness and loss, and for her, this was the way to do it.”
“By burying it?” Ruby asks disbelievingly. “Didn’t her parents encourage her to talk? To process?”
Ellen snorts. “Ruby, love, this was fifty years ago. No. Your mother had given birth to a daughter outside the bonds of marriage. She’d gotten pregnant at nineteen by a boy who’d gone to Vietnam. She moved across country to have the baby and stayed there for two years. There was so much hurt and disapproval coursing through that family…just take a moment to unpack all of that.”
“But my grandparents were wonderful people,” Ruby says.
“Of course. They were kind-hearted and loving parents, but they were also a product of their time. Never underestimate the pressures of expectation, Ruby. People expected their young daughters not to get pregnant, not to be drinking and driving with their friends and getting into serious car accidents, and not to move across country and wait for a soldier boyfriend to return from war—a man who wasn’t even her husband, I might add. There was a lot of scandal surrounding your mother at that time.”
“But people love a scandal.”
“Ah, ah, ah—people love a scandal when it’s not their own. You should know that best of all.”
Ruby falls silent as she watches three men in plaid shorts park a golf cart and get out of it on the gravel drive below her. They’re talking and laughing as they head into the bar that’s located on the ground floor.
“You’re right. I’m being shortsighted here. My grandparents would have had plenty to take issue with at that point, and if my mother came home, it would have been easier not to talk about any of it.”
“It always is.”
“So what did she do next? She was, what—twenty-one?”
“She was.” Ellen pauses. “She enrolled in college almost immediately and got an English degree, which is how she met Ruben.”
“My dad,” Ruby says, feeling her heart clench at the mention of her beloved father’s name. “They met in college.”
“They did indeed. And Ruben didn’t really want to become a lawyer, but it was what his family expected of him, so he was there, doing his best to get through it. But meeting your mother sidetracked him a bit, and he decided to let her be the one to pass the bar, while he started an insurance company in Pismo Beach.”
“Only she had me instead, and stayed at home with me until my dad died.”
“Your mother was a wonder,” Ellen says, sounding wistful. “She was the classiest broad I ever knew.”
This makes Ruby laugh. “A classy broad. Isn’t that the truth.”
Patty had always been the one to bring a touch of elegance to daily life. In their house, the napkins were ironed, the cakes made from scratch, and no one ever wanted for anything, because Patty made it her job—her privilege—to see to the happiness of her little family. She’d grown flowers in her garden and cut fresh ones to place in glass vases. She remembered everyone’s birthday, sent cards and handwritten notes for every occasion, and cooked full dinners from the cookbooks she’d gotten as wedding gifts. Whenever Ruby had asked why she didn’t have a brother or sister, Patty would smile at her and reach out to brush her daughter’s hair from her face. “Because you were exactly what I needed,” she’d say.
“I feel like she lied to me my whole life,” Ruby says to Ellen. “Like she had this thing she could have told me, and that it was an important piece of my life too.”
“But it wasn’t.” Neither of them says anything for a long time until Ellen speaks again. “It was an important piece of her life, and the only way she could move forward was to keep it in the past. Every person has the right to choose what they do and don’t share, even with the people closest to them.”
Ruby knows she’s right. “I can respect that.”
“I think you have to.”
“So why does my mother own this house now if the Hubermans sent her home? And what ever happened to Bradley? I’ve never heard a word about these people, so I don’t know anything.”
Ellen sighs on the other end of the line. “Bradley didn’t make it home from Vietnam,” Ellen says softly. “That was another thing that messed with your mother. He knew he had a daughter but never got to meet her, and then he was killed in action. I think all of that was hard enough for Patty, but imagine how it was for the Hubermans. Bradley was their only child. When they died in their sixties—both of cancer—they left the house and all of its contents to your mom. She’d gone back to visit them several times, and they considered her their next of kin.”
Ruby is stunned by this onslaught of information. Bradley had died in Vietnam? The Hubermans lost both their only child and only grandchild? As a grown woman, Ruby found this not just tragic, but unthinkable.
“God,” she says in a whisper. “I can’t even imagine.”
“Her relationship with the Hubermans was a sad one,” Ellen says. “She loved them and felt grateful to them, but whenever she went to Jekyll Island to visit them, they spent the whole time reminiscing, crying, and talking about people who were gone. Patty said they aged quickly after Bradley’s death.”
“Understandable.” Ruby stands up and paces the length of her balcony at the Jekyll Island Club Resort. She wraps an arm around her waist to hold her robe closed, wishing she’d ordered room service and that she had a drink in hand. With a sigh, she leans against the balcony railing. “So now I have this house that’s essentially a mausoleum, and I have no personal ties to any of it. I mean, there are photos and films of my—“ the words catch in Ruby’s throat here, “—sister, and of my mother, but I’m not even sure what to do with them.”
“Box them up, hon,” Ellen says pragmatically. “Ship them back to your place. Keep them until you’re ready for more research. Trust me: this is your first stop and you’re going to overwhelm yourself if you read every letter, look at every photo, and sit through every inch of film.”
“You’re right about that. I’ve been here for just over twenty-four hours, and I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime in a day. I could get into bed now and stay there all night.”
Ellen laughs softly. “Sadness can feel traumatic like that, and there’s no way that house isn’t full of sadness.”
“Okay,” Ruby says decisively. “I hear what you’re saying, and I think you’re right. I’ll send it all home and put the house on the market. I don’t think I’ll ever want to use the house for weekend escapes, or turn it into an Airbnb or anything.”
“Good thinking.”
An idea comes to Ruby then and it’s crystal clear. She actually feels a tingle of electricity run the length of both arms as she realizes what she’ll do. “And then I’ll take the proceeds from the sale of the house and split them evenly between the Texas Children’s Hospital, which is the best pediatric cardiology hospital in the country, and another for Vietnam veterans. I’ve worked with plenty of charities over the years, so I’m sure I can find a good one.”
“Wow.” Ellen goes silent for a minute. “That’s very generous of you, Ruby.”
Ruby doesn’t think so. “Not really. This house isn’t mine and it doesn’t belong in my family anymore. All of the people involved in this story are gone now, and it’s time for some young family to buy this house at the beach and turn it into a home. And as for the money, it will go exactly where it’s supposed to go.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Just be here if I have any more questions. Would you be willing to answer them? I don’t know when I’ll go through the rest of the pictures and home movies, but I’m sure there will be something I don’t understand that you might.”
“Of course. I’m always right here. All you have to do is call.”
“Thanks, Ellen. Oh, and one more thing—do you know if my sister is buried here on the island?”
“She is. There’s a cemetery on the island, and I think you’ll find Trixie there right next to her father and her grandparents.”
“Thank you,” Ruby says. “Thank you for being my mother’s friend and confidante all these years.”
Ellen gives a laugh that sounds like it’s laced with tears. “Oh, Ruby, honey. The pleasure was all mine.”
Banks stands under a banyan tree with his hands clasped respectfully behind him. He wears sunglasses and long pants, and he looks stoic. Ruby turns away from him and scans the gravestones that run the length of the tree-shaded cemetery. The grounds are well-kept. After asking a few questions of the office that oversees the cemetery, Ruby has discovered that Trixie, Bradley, Evelyn, and Jacob Huberman all share a family plot beneath a tree draped in Spanish moss. The breeze blows through the trees overhead as she scans the names, and in the distance, there is the sound of the ocean and the tinkle of wind chimes that someone has hung in a nearby tree.
Finally, a tiny headstone: Trixie Michelle, Beloved Baby Girl. Next to it is a larger one with both Evelyn and Jacob’s birth and death dates, and to the right, a small plaque with Bradley’s name and a short poem about a fallen soldier.
Ruby kneels there at the family plot, putting a small bunch of flowers on each gravestone. This is the least she can do—to pay respects to the people who meant something to her mother. In a parallel universe, perhaps this would have been her mother’s life: living on Jekyll Island, raising Trixie and perhaps other children with Bradley when he returned home. She might have become a local fixture here, lived all her years on an island as a wife and mother, and been buried in this plot as well. Ruby might never have been born.
But there’s only so much capacity for this kind of thought, so Ruby lets it go, brushing her fingertips across the raised letters of her sister’s name. A sister she’ll never know; a person who will always be—for Ruby—a thought and not a reality. Trixie is a piece of the puzzle that made up Patty’s life, and Patty’s entire life is one piece of the puzzle that makes up Ruby’s, so in this way, they are all connected. But Patty’s great losses are hazy and distant for Ruby, and all she can do is honor them. So she stands, bows her head in silent prayer for these people she never knew, and then walks over to where Banks is standing.
“Ready?” he asks her gently.
“Ready,” Ruby says with a firm nod.
The sunlight spills through the branches of the trees, dappling their heads and shoulders with light as they walk through the cemetery. Ruby slips her arm through Banks’s and looks up at him, his cheekbones are sharp and his eyes are covered by his dark glasses. “Thanks for coming with me, Banks.”
“Ma’am,” he says with a firm nod. It’s his way of saying both “It’s my job, and it’s my honor,” and Ruby knows this.
They walk on in amiable silence. The sound of wind chimes follows them.