Part IV: Spin – The Mermaid Dress: #2 (Chapter 68)

“I know I’m a pest,” I said to Ruby as I changed her diaper, “but you’re just an old boo-tail.”

Ruby kicked her legs and laughed as I sprinkled powder on her red bottom.

I could never figure out why Ruby was such a happy baby when I was always so unhappy. At least I wasn’t stuck alone in our room all day while Mother and Daddy Platts slept.

Someday, baby, I’ll take you away from here, and we’ll hitch a train to Sioux City, like old bums.

Ruby screeched and laughed again as I poked the last pin into the diaper. No clean rubber pants. They were all piled into a corner, smelling like pee, so I left them off.

“Now, don’t boo in your pants ‘til Mama leaves,” I said. “Then you can boo all you want.”

Ruby giggled and kissed my cheek. She saw how things were.

I picked her up and held her close. The diaper drooped, but at least it didn’t fall off this time.

What would I do without you?

“Now you gotta go back to bed.” I gave her a crumbly Lorna Doone from my pants pocket. “Here, eat this. I’ll feed you when Mama leaves.”

“Bye, bye,” Ruby said, gnawing on the cookie.

Ruby was a pretty baby, curly strawberry blonde hair, a wide Howdy-Doody smile with pearly teeth, and twinkly blue eyes (later to turn green) like Daddy Platts’. She was the one person in this family I could count on; she was always happy to see me and never changed moods, unless for good reasons: hunger, messy diaper, bedtime.

And she never asked for a beer.

I took her everywhere, even Mormon Bible School, and I would’ve taken her to regular school had it been allowed. Every day, she crossed the street with me to the high school where we played, underneath the giant pine trees, among the needles and cones blanketing the ground, and she was with me when I stole Red Hot Jawbreakers from Weinstein’s Market.

We’d even gotten run over by a truck together.

Ruby was smart, catching on quickly to Hide-and-Seek and the other games I had taught her; no teacher would ever tell our mother that my baby sister was retarded.

I’d make sure of that.

I’ll never leave you.

How was I to know that, in a few months, Ruby would be taken away, and I would not see her again for 30 years?