Chapter 33 Ruby
Ruby
‘I don’t get it,’ said Jack.
‘Get what?’
‘Why you’re an alcoholic?’
‘There doesn’t have to be a reason.’
‘There’s nearly always a reason but you had every opportunity, every privilege.’
‘My parents divorced,’ I said.
‘Yes, you told me that – fairly amicably, you said.’
‘Did I say that? Maybe it wasn’t that amicable.’
He sat up straighter, lifting Lucy over his shoulder so that she was facing away from us, as if to give us privacy.
‘Did you witness some domestic violence? Or were you on the receiving end?’
I halted, not sure what I should say. ‘No, nothing to do with that. The divorce wasn’t bad. But I moved here to Dublin with Mom while my sister stayed in Boston, long before they divorced.’
He turned his head to one side, cradling Lucy’s head in his hand. ‘But why?’
‘Genetics, I guess. My mom’s brother is a recovering alcoholic too.’
‘Yeah, but everyone has a story. Did your parents love your sister more than you?’
This was way too close to the bone.
‘There was an incident,’ I said and paused.
I did not want to tell Jack this lie. He was becoming important to me.
He waited, saying nothing. ‘I was sexually assaulted by my sister’s boyfriend, is that enough for you?
’ I stood up and took Lucy back from him, strapping her into the stroller beside our bed. She started to wail.
‘I … I’m sorry. I had no right to pry. Ruby, I’m sorry.’
‘You wouldn’t let it go, like a dog with a bone. There was no need to be so intrusive.’
‘I’m sorry.’
I had my jacket on and my baby kitbag over my shoulder.
I left Jack to pay the bill and walked out.
Tears filled my eyes. Why did I lie to Jack?
I walked away and took the long route home, hoping that he wouldn’t follow me.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I knew it was him.
I wasn’t going to answer it. When I eventually got home, there were two missed calls from Jack and five from Mom.
I called Mom to learn that Grandma had died a matter of hours earlier.
Fresh tears blurred my vision. I asked my neighbour Helen to look after Lucy while I drove to the hospital to be with Mom.
Poor Grandma had had a sudden stroke after lunch in the care home.
It was severe, Mom said, she couldn’t have survived.
Now she was being taken to the hospital morgue.
Mom was inconsolable but I was strangely okay.
It didn’t occur to me to have a drink. I was too busy.
I had to step up and call Uncle Dennis in Australia.
I called Erin in New York and Dad in Boston.
He was, I think, genuinely sad to hear the news.
‘I’ll come,’ he said, ‘your mother will need support at a time like this, and you too.’ He coughed. ‘Besides, I’d like to meet my granddaughter.’
I was pleased. He had been begging me to come to Boston – ‘Kathy wants to meet you, and I’d love to see your baby’ – but I made excuses every time, and it was never convenient for him to come to Dublin either. I had a mental block about Boston. I didn’t want to bump into anyone from my past.
For a few days, despite the sadness of the circumstances, it felt like my whole family was pulling together for the first time since before the incident.
Mom was desperately upset. I was too but I was being the adult, talking to the undertaker and to Grandma’s parish priest, selecting music, choosing clothes for Grandma to wear in the coffin.
I deferred my grief until later. There was a lot to be done, and Mom was too upset to do much.
It would be a full nine days before we could hold the funeral.
My uncle was managing the mining company he worked for in the middle of nowhere, a five-hour drive from Perth, and had trouble getting someone in to replace him while he came home for his mother’s funeral.
I organized for Dad and my uncle, when they arrived, to stay in a hotel nearby and Erin stayed with Mom first and then a few nights with me.
Lucy did not cover herself in glory the first time she met Dad over at Mom’s place.
She had an ear infection and was red-faced, screaming, writhing and generally inconsolable, but Dad made all the right noises about how cute she was.
We went for a walk with Lucy in the stroller and she eventually cried herself to sleep.
‘I wonder if I made a terrible mistake, putting you through a court case at such a young age, and then letting you and your mother go like that …’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I should have tried harder to keep the family together. And the court case, having to relive the … the happenings of that day. But that boy had to be punished. You understand that, right?’
Could I tell Dad the truth? I didn’t have to tell him that Mom knew. I let the silence grow until he said, ‘There might have been other ways of dealing with Milo Kelly.’ He spat the name.
‘Like what?’ I whispered.
‘I wanted to kill him at the time, but my faith wouldn’t let me. I called the police, but I never asked you what you wanted and I’m sorry about that. I think the whole experience of the trial, when you were so young, I think that might be the root of your, you know … problems.’
‘You mean my alcoholism and cocaine addiction?’
He winced. ‘Yes. What would you have wanted to happen?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I mean, what would you have wanted us to do about the … assault?’ He found it as hard to say as I did.
‘I didn’t want anything to happen.’
He shook his head, confused. ‘You would have liked him to get away with it?’
‘Maybe.’
He stopped in his tracks and turned to face me.
I couldn’t meet his eyes. For the rest of his stay, Dad was perfectly polite and civil, throwing money at me ‘for Lucy’.
We never discussed it, or anything even vaguely personal, again.
He couldn’t have suspected, and the DNA evidence was undeniable.
I don’t know what he thought, but I hadn’t eased his guilt. I’d made him feel worse.
Erin was more beautiful than ever. She had cut her long blonde hair and grown out the bangs, and it suited her. After the first few nights in Mom’s place, she came to my house. ‘I guess you’ll own this house now, right?’ she said.
‘Really? I haven’t thought about it.’ It hadn’t occurred to me.
‘I don’t mind; Dad has a fund for both of us. You might have to buy out Uncle Dennis, but I’m sure Dad will help with that.’
‘Do you ever think about how rich we are?’ I asked Erin.
‘Sure, we got everything we wanted,’ she replied in a flat tone.
‘Erin, are you okay? You seem a little off.’
‘Please, don’t you start. Saima is constantly checking up on me.’
Saima had been Erin’s best friend in school. ‘You and Saima are still friendly? That’s good. Did she move to New York?’
‘No, but I see her every time I go home for a weekend. She’s married with two kids. Are you not still in contact with anyone from Boston?’
I shook my head. ‘All my friends are Irish. Tell me about Saima.’
‘I don’t think she’s happy. She was desperate to have a sexual relationship. She married Binto so she could have one.’
‘You don’t still believe in that virginity oath, do you?’
‘No. Besides, I’m well over twenty-one. I’ve been dating on and off for years, but I’ve given up now.’
‘Oh no, why?’
‘Fabian. He cheated, a few months after he moved in with me. I threw him out last week. You can’t trust any of them.’ Her voice wobbled.
We stared at each other before I turned away to put the kettle on. ‘I’m sorry, Erin, I had no idea. That sucks.’ I hadn’t known she had a boyfriend.
‘Would you like some tea or coffee?’ I asked. ‘I’ve got a proper Italian coffee pot. We have Dunkin’s in Ireland now, you know? Better than Starbucks, right? But we have that too. We’re in a boom, apparently.’
Happy to change the subject, Erin marvelled at the number of cranes she had spotted on the Dublin skyline when flying into the city.
‘You certainly are. There are buildings going up everywhere. There was a whole feature about it in The New York Times.’ We laughed at how Mom had always insisted that Ireland was not a third-world country despite what Dad said, and now it seemed very much to be a first-world country.
Hotels and housing developments and factories were being launched every other day.
I wanted to hear about her life in New York City.
She said it was tough and expensive. She had only seen Broadway shows a few times.
I tentatively asked for news from Boston.
Erin said she went home once a month. She’d met my friend Laquanda in Faneuil Hall with her boyfriend, who was a six-foot-seven basketball player.
He was playing in reserve for the Boston Celtics.
I was happy to hear that. I asked about our old neighbour Mr Delancy and his cactus collection, but he had died a year previously.
She said home didn’t feel much like home since Dad had married Kathy.
‘What’s she like?’
‘Looks like Mom, but ten years younger. Dad tries to keep up with her. I doubt that he ever intended to move to Ireland, not even for retirement. Mom should have known that. But haven’t you noticed how tired he looks?’
I had noticed, but assumed he was fighting jet-lag.
‘He can’t keep up with her,’ Erin said. ‘She wants to go bowling every Friday.’
‘Wow, even we hated bowling.’
We laughed and the relief of the laughter made us both a little hysterical. And then our laughter fizzled away to nothing.
More sombre now, she said, ‘We had a blessed childhood, didn’t we?’
‘I guess so.’
I didn’t say what I was thinking, that she was smart and beautiful. I was the ugly duckling. I’d never felt blessed.
‘Milo wants me to visit him in Whiteshore.’ The sentence was lobbed into the conversation like a hand grenade.
‘What?’
‘I know, I was shocked.’
‘But how did he ask you?’
‘Margie tracked me down at work. She’s angry.’
I couldn’t help the redness flushing my cheeks. My heart was pounding. I couldn’t speak.