10. Ruby
Ruby sleeps. She sleeps and sleeps and sleeps, and when she finally wakes up, it’s late on Christmas Eve, and daylight is waning.
“Dex?” She sits up in her bed, feeling the room spin. “Athena? Harlow?”
The house is not quiet, but the upstairs is; she can hear faint music and voices from downstairs.
“Can anyone hear me?” Ruby croaks. She tries to swing her feet around and put them on the floor, but this results in the world shifting beneath her, so Ruby falls back on her pillows and reaches for her phone on the nightstand.
“You’re up,” Dexter says, responding almost immediately to the text she sends. He walks into her room, turning on a lamp as he does. “How are you?”
Ruby runs a hand over her hot face and tries to look at Dexter through what feels like swollen eyes. “I’m not good,” she says. “What’s going on?”
Dexter pulls her curtains open so that she can see outside. “It’s snowing,” he says.
Ruby can’t help herself this time—she sits up, propping her upper body up on the mound of pillows behind her. “No way,” she says. “Snow? On Shipwreck Key?” Sunday had told her that snow was in the forecast, but there was no part of her that believed it would actually happen. “And I’m sick,” she adds, putting one hand to her raw throat.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on you,” Dexter says, sitting on the foot of her bed and watching her with concern. “Seems like the flu, but one of the guys I talked to last night at the cocktail party in the bookstore is a doctor, so I’ll run down to the dock and find him if you get any worse.”
Ruby chuckles at the image of Dexter rousing a bunch of wealthy retirees on their yachts on Christmas Eve in a panic just to find a doctor who will come to her house and tell her to drink lots of fluids and take it easy.
“No need for that,” Ruby says, sniffling. “I’ve had the flu plenty of times in my life. I’ll get through it.” Her eyes drift to the snow that’s falling outside her bedroom window, and she watches in wonder as it sticks to the fronds of a palm tree on the beach. The sight of it is so bizarre that her brain almost won’t accept it. “What are you guys doing?”
“Sunday and Banks are over. We’re having chips and dip, and Harlow is mixing cocktails. They’re headed over to Sunday’s house soon so that they can have dinner with her family, but we thought we’d entertain a little and make things feel as festive as we can.”
A rush of guilt washes over Ruby. “I’m sorry,” she says, reaching in Dexter’s direction. “I had such big plans for this holiday, and then I went and got sick and ruined everything.”
“You didn’t ruin anything, Rubes,” he assures her. “People get sick. It happens.”
Ruby nods, but she’s still feeling terrible about the fact that she’s not in the kitchen, peeling potatoes or pulling a juicy turkey from the oven to serve with homemade cheese biscuits and green bean casserole. Instead, she’s stuck in bed craving ice water and Advil.
It reminds her of the Christmas she and Jack had gotten food poisoning in Italy. They”d been invited to stay as guests of Italy”s prime minister, whose grandkids were roughly the same age as Harlow and Athena at the time. The kids had all gotten on famously, thanks to the fact that the PM”s grandchildren spoke English fluently, and Ruby had greatly enjoyed their home in the Ayas Valley, which is gorgeous in the winter. There had been days spent skiing, evenings before a roaring fire with the best wine she”d ever tasted, and more meals of pasta, bread, and delicious, flaky desserts than Ruby could handle.
In fact, one of those very meals had felled both Jack and Ruby, and they”d woken around two o”clock in the morning on Christmas Eve with their stomachs rumbling ominously. They both raced for their shared bathroom, and in an act of generosity and chivalry, Jack had given it to Ruby and removed himself to another bathroom down the hall.
By nine o”clock the next morning the girls were both awake and begging for another day in the snow (neither of them had indulged in the clam linguine the night before, giving Ruby a fair idea of what the culinary culprit might have been), but Jack and Ruby were both pale, sweaty, and spent.
”Darling?” The prime minister”s wife was knocking on the door to their suite. ”Are you alright? Your girls said you weren”t feeling well?”
Ruby had rolled over, squinting at the bright sunlight that made her pounding head feel as if it might explode. It was Christmas Eve; she was letting her children down.
With every ounce of energy she had, she pulled on a robe and stumbled to the door of the bedroom, opening it a crack and clocking the horrified look on the face of the prime minister”s wife.
”Oh!” she”d said, taking a step back. ”Ruby, I...”
”We”re sick,” Ruby said unnecessarily, putting a hand to her own forehead. ”Jack and I must have eaten something...”
”Please go back to bed. I”ll take care of the children. We have enough gifts for everyone.”
It had taken no convincing for Ruby to fall back under the covers, and she and Jack slept through Christmas, alternating trips to the bathroom with hours of fitful sleep.
It has always been one of her biggest regrets, missing that Christmas in Italy when her girls were still teenagers, and Ruby hates that she’s missing it again now.
Dexter must be able to see this on her face, as he stands up and starts to gather blankets and pillows.
“I hope you’re not offended if we keep our distance, but we’ve made you a little nest in the corner of the living room so you can be down there. If you want to just sleep then that’s fine, but we don’t want you to be up here while we’re all downstairs having fun.”
In short order, Dexter makes a bed for Ruby on the couch closest to the window in the living room, helps her downstairs, and gets her settled in and tucked into a blanket cocoon with a glass of ice water on the table nearby. She watches as Harlow and Athena bustle around the kitchen together, listening as they laugh and talk about people they both know.
“We need to get over to my place,” Sunday says from the doorway as she slips her arms into a warm coat. “My girls are cooking there, just like yours are running the show here.” She nods at Harlow and Athena. “But they’ve got to handle Peter and a baby while they do it, so I’m guessing they need me.”
Ruby almost laughs at the notion that Peter Bond is as much of a baby as Owen, but Sunday isn’t wrong: the man is—and has always been—a handful.
“I hope everything goes well there,” Ruby says, reaching a shaky hand out for her ice water.
“Me too. Merry Christmas, babe.” Sunday blows her a kiss and waves from across the room as Banks opens the front door for her. Outside, snow is falling and gathering in drifts, though it isn’t sticking to the ground in a substantial way. “Bye everyone!” Sunday calls out. The girls shout their goodbyes from the kitchen, and Dexter waves as Sunday and Banks step out into the cold.
It’s so beautiful and unexpected to see snow, and so nice to be in the living room where all the action is, that Ruby sits there for a moment just enjoying it all. This is Christmas. Not gifts, not packed airports, not piles of food that never gets eaten, but this right here: her girls making her a pot of soup; her best friend walking out into the Florida snow with Ruby’s Secret Service agent on her arm, heading home to have dinner with her gay ex-husband and her two adopted daughters and her grandson as she considers adopting another child of her own.
It’s all so perfect and wonderful that Ruby feels knocked over by a wave of emotion.
She can’t help it: she starts to cry, silent tears streaming down her cheeks as she turns her attention to Dexter. He’s so sweet, so loving—he’s been maybe the most unexpected thing to happen in her life in years.
“Hey, hey,” Dexter says softly, setting down the bowl of soup in his hands and coming to her. “What’s up?”
Ruby gives a shake of her head as she swipes at her own hot tears. “I’m just happy,” she croaks through her scratchy throat.
Dexter laughs. “You’re sick as a dog, Rubes. And you’re happy?”
Ruby forces herself off the couch as she sniffles and pushes her hair off her face. “I absolutely am,” she says. “I have all of you.”
In the end, she will always think of this as one of her most favorite Christmases ever. Not the ones she spent in the grand, sumptuously decorated White House; not her childhood holidays where the magic of Santa still felt real; not even the ones where her girls were little and hopped up on candy canes and cookies while they waited for the sound of reindeer hooves. This Christmas here is her favorite, and she knows she’ll never forget the feeling of Dexter bringing her soup, of everyone gathered there in the living room with White Christmas playing on the big television screen, and her tall tree decked out in lights and baubles in the corner. It’s all so magical.
Ruby drifts back to sleep as snow falls outside her window and Rosemary Clooney sings to Bing Crosby on the screen. She might be as sick as she’s been in years, but she’s happier than she can remember being in forever.