Part II: Journeys (Chapter 22)
I’m nervous about Ruby Platts,
now Ruby Irwin, coming to the reunion, afraid that the family she has never met
will drive her out of my life forever.
“Sometime this afternoon. She
called from Omaha this morning.” Sal takes a slotted spoon and squishes the
meat against the towel. “Said something about taking the kids to the zoo before
heading up.”
I yawn and glance at the clock
above the sink: only 10:00 a.m. “Maybe I’ll go for a dip, then.” I’m still in
my nightie, having just shuffled through Sal’s living room and tripped over a
dented Tonka Truck, most likely an acquisition from Goodwill.
“Well, good. Ash’s already been
in. Says the water is perfect. Should be. Phil bought an old pump this year and
fixed it up.” She looks me over from head to toe. “You bring a suit this year?”
I feel my face burning hot.
Yes, I have gained weight in
the past year, but I wish Sal wouldn’t be so obvious in her scrutiny.
“Yeah, I brought one,” I say,
with a bit of an edge in my voice.
“No need to snap at me. Just
checking to see if you wanted to borrow Katey’s old suit.”
“I’m quite capable of buying my
own.”
“Well, I never know with you.”
I just can’t believe how
presumptuous she can be. I just want to tell her off, say something mean about
the dog shit all over the back porch, but, instead, I slip into the bedroom
where I throw on my basic black bathing suit and an Orioles’ tee-shirt.
I sling a beach towel over my
shoulder.
When I return, Sheldon is
struggling through the front door with stuff we were too tired to drag in last
night from the Jetta: more bags, pillows, and other travel debris.
I don’t offer to throw on my
clothes to help clean out the car. I get a certain satisfaction watching the
long-suffering Sheldon carry the weight of the world on his shoulders,
especially when he so willingly assumes it and then gets pissed when I refuse
to suffer along beside him.
Instead, I head straight for the
pool and jump in. Icy, shocking almost, at least for that first slice through
the water – my moment of clarity.
I feel light and buoyant in a
forgiving environment – it doesn’t matter what I weigh here.
I love being alone in the pool;
it becomes my personal space and gives me time to think about the reunion and
Ruby’s arrival.
Will she like the family? Will
they like her?
As I swim laps, I recall the first
time I met Ruby as an adult. We had been writing since 1977, ever since Nana
tracked down her address and phone number through a detective agency and
forwarded them to me with orders to “Call your sister and get something going there.”
I’d been afraid that she would
just want to be left alone.
Afraid she would reject me,
just like Mother and Daddy Platts had rejected both of us.
But she didn’t.
She wrote back a long letter, a
tentative piece of prose outlining sketchy details of her growing up years in
Hot Springs, Arkansas. Years later, another letter would come, describing in
specific, vivid detail what I can only imagine: that old psychopath aunt
whipping my baby sister for no reason at all and calling her dirty names. I
still have that letter, a letter that I’ve only read twice, once alone, and
once...
But I can’t think of that right
now; it’s just too hard.
Three years ago, Shel and I
drove to Arkansas to visit her, Raymond, and the kids in the little rock house
they rented. I’ll never forget my first glimpse of the adult Ruby: her thin
silhouette – a stream of smoke coming from her cigarette – framed in the
doorway of the little rock house as we pulled up in her driveway.
I don’t know what I had been expecting exactly; perhaps I was seeking that lost 22-month-old child.
All I know: when baby Ruby left my life, she took something important, something that really should have been saved for my Nicole.