Part II: Journeys (Chapter 10)
Westbound on the Ohio Turnpike over the Maumee River
After my Daddy
Platts and Mother split up, I
would never see him again; Shel, you know how important that phone call was,
just before his heart attack.
I’m glad we had that last
conversation because I’ve never stopped loving him.
I forgave him long ago.
Next to Pappa, he was my
prince, treated me like his own child, never made me feel like a stepchild.
That last day – I was just
seven – the mood was gloomy: Nana, Pappa, Daddy, and Mother sat around the gray
Formica kitchen table, the only thing not yet packed up.
Ruby climbed over a pile of
suitcases, laughing and carrying on, too young to understand the gloom.
Mother was crying.
“You know it’s for the best,
Rose,” Daddy said. “God knows we tried to make this thing work.”
“The girls will be well-cared
for,” Nana said. “We’ll make sure of that. Maybe if you get help –”
“I don’t have a problem!”
“You know, honey, it’s the
drinking that tore us apart. I wanted so much for us to be a family –”
“Just shut the fuck up! I’m
getting the hell out of here!”
I wouldn’t see her again for
three years.
Ruby and I burst into tears.
I was really scared, Shel.
I knew something important in
my life was about to happen; I would have very little say about what that might
be. And I didn’t fully understand the game plan. I thought Ruby and I were
going to Sioux City together.
Daddy shook his head. “I still
love her, but the drinking and the other men –” Daddy looked at me. “The other
problem just got to be too much for me. I’m tired.”
“Well, that’s that, then,”
Pappa said, getting up and rubbing his hands together. He put his hand on
Daddy’s shoulder. “You did your best, Dean. Thanks.”
Then Nana hugged him. “Take
care of Ruby.”
Take care of Ruby?
“Ruby’s going with us, isn’t
she, Pappa?”
All three adults looked away
from me.
“She is! I just know she is!”
Finally, Daddy said, “I’m
sorry, honey, but she’s going to Arkansas.”
I picked up my suitcase, the
one with Suzette, my favorite doll, and stood by the door. “Then I’m going to
Arkansas, too.”
Nana came over and put her arm
around me. “You have to go to Sioux City with us.”
“I want my baby sister.” Tears hot
on my cheeks.
Ruby cried louder. “Sammy!
Sammy!”
“You can visit her,” Pappa
said.
“We’ll drive down to Arkansas
next year,” Nana said.
“I’ll write, princess.”
You can’t take my baby
sister away!
But Daddy swooped up a kicking
and screaming Ruby, and said, “We’d better go.” He grabbed a suitcase. My
sister grew stiff in his arms. “The movers’ll get the rest.”
And then they left, just like
that. I could hear Ruby screaming, “Sammy! Sammy! Sammy! Saaammyyyyy. –” all
the way down the hall and into the street, becoming fainter and fainter.
Then nothing.
I can’t believe it took 30 years to get back together.