The Book of Ruth (36 page)

I
WROTE
to Aunt Sid at the end of October. I mentioned that I didn’t like the thought of winter coming. I said I guessed I wasn’t a kid any more, because cold didn’t mean fun; cold suggested a ferocious, merciless nature. I told her that we stayed inside for months last year, and Justy couldn’t help being naughty.

Sometimes, everything we stumble upon or see can be taken for a warning, when actually there is nothing to it. Artie and I had a stone come flying through our windshield once on the way to work. I thought to myself, This isn’t a positive omen, and I braced myself for disaster. Nothing happened, not one single thing, although I did get a sliver at lunch. It came out easily. Then there’s the other occasions when a warning comes in loud and clear, and we don’t hear it.

In the autumn mornings before work I let Justy help me with the dishes. It drove May crazy because he got water on the floor and it took me longer to get the job done and then we had to scramble to get to the cleaners. I had a chair for him to stand on so he could play in the rinse water. He had plastic boats he could sink while I washed the oatmeal pot. He was fascinated by water. He watched the drops flow through his fingers and he splashed me. One morning he had a cup he was dipping into the basin and then spilling out, and he got the idea to be a clown. He said, “Look, Mommy,” and then he dumped the water out on his head. There he was standing with water dripping down his face, down his neck, onto the new shirt May had bought for him. He hadn’t bargained for that swamped feeling in his ears.

“That surprised you, didn’t it?” I said, trying not to laugh at him. He was speechless.

May came in right then; of course I held my breath. I knew she was going to be furious. Usually when her one and only grandson is wet and cold she gets agitated. She moves like a pigeon that’s trapped in the attic. I stood frozen, waiting for her to yell at me, but wouldn’t you know it, she started to laugh. She covered her mouth, the way a schoolgirl might. She giggled at Justy as he spluttered, registering shock in slow motion. He did look awfully confused and cute. She kneeled down and gave him a big hug and when he broke into a howl she grabbed her dish towel and rubbed his head vigorously, as if she were performing a life-saving technique on a person who can’t catch his breath.

It was my turn to stare goggle-eyed. Last time I had Justy at the sink with me, and he was all wet, only two days before, she told me I wasn’t fit to take care of a child. She was so mad I thought I saw her little gray curls starting to smoke. She spoke of pneumonia and strep throat resulting from babies playing in dishwater.

“Let’s you and me go upstairs and get some dry clothes on, sweetie face,” May said, and then they were gone.

I walked over to the cemetery in a daze, trying to think about how to predict certain events. There wasn’t any formula, not with May. There is a section in the cemetery under the blue spruce trees that’s devoted to May’s family. I stood by her parents’ stones, and the marker for her little brother who died so young. I tried to imagine the dead people under the earth. There wasn’t a living trace of my ancestors, if you don’t count my own flesh, and the dried grass nourished by their bones. I didn’t hear a thing as I watched the still gravestones, the printing washed away, the dates faded.

Without thinking about it, Ruby and I took care. We were fairly relaxed when May was at work, two days out of the week. The rest of the time we were stick people, moving stiffly and quietly, trying not to get May riled. However, when we went to church we were a family. We put on our best manners. All the neighbors thought we were a miracle of happiness.

In October Ruby and I didn’t celebrate our fourth anniversary, because he was acting sick again with his leg. It was over a year since the pickup had bumped him, but he liked to lie on the couch and have people bring him drinks on a silver tray. When he didn’t want to work, when he wanted me to feel sorry for him, his leg hurt him desperately. I was dead tired of the game.

The day before Halloween Ruby’s Sherry called him up and said that there was an apartment she knew about, cheap. The first floor of a house in Stillwater would be free to rent in December. An old couple lived upstairs with a little gray poodle named Smoky. The price was seventy-five dollars a month, and we would be responsible for mowing the lawn, shoveling the snow, and checking to see that the elderly people hadn’t kicked the bucket in the night. Sherry said they were nice people who didn’t have the strength to keep up the rickety house. She was probably thinking the situation would give Ruby some focus, that shoveling would make him feel like Superman.

I knew right then, when she mentioned the apartment, that I couldn’t take another winter in the same house as May; that fact came clear to me. There was no logic to our fights any more. We were squabbling out of habit. Sherry’s call was perfect timing. I had to think that perhaps somebody was watching out for us after all.

Still, it isn’t easy to make changes, even for the better. There’s something stubborn in me that doesn’t want to budge. If I thought too hard about moving, my skin went prickly. I had never lived in the city before. I had to wonder what it would be like, not to be able to walk out and see the constellations so clearly, or smell the fresh-mown hay, or see nothing but darkness on the horizon. I wasn’t positive I was going to like living next to hundreds of people on the same street. And I wondered how Ruby and I would be, just ourselves—we hadn’t ever been on our own and I couldn’t predict if our personalities would change, if I’d become a carbon copy of May hounding him for spilling his milk and tossing Justy I had lived in the same place my entire life. I didn’t know if I could wash in a bathroom where you didn’t need a hammer to turn on the hot water.

We were up in our bedroom after we found out about the apartment, lying on our bed with a candle burning beside us. Ruby lit candles sometimes, so he could pretend we were glamorous lovers straight from television. He had his radio playing softly so he could hum along.

“Let’s you and me get that apartment,” I said right out to Ruby. “We are going to go nuts living in this house one more minute, you know that?”

He grinned at me and picked his nose. “Baby,” he said, “maybe them old people have a lawn mower, you know, the kind that looks like a puny tractor?” Ruby made a sound like he was a car revving up. He got out of bed and started putt-putting around the room.

“We’ll have to be so careful with our money,” I said—I called out louder so he could hear me. “You’ll have to work at Trim ’N Tidy regularly.” I didn’t mention that he was going to have to quit spending money on dope. “But picture you and me and Justy, I could cook you suppers . . .”

I thought to myself, Finally we’ll be like other people. All the cute couples we had seen at our childbirth classes came to mind. I couldn’t stand the time we’d wasted bickering with May. Our mistakes seemed obvious all of a sudden, the solution clear.

Ruby came to me on his pretend mower. He came up to the edge of the bed, and he said what I was thinking. He said, “She’s gonna croak when she finds out”—he stuck his tongue out like he was a goner.

“She ain’t gonna croak, Ruby. She might act like it, but we can see her every day. Stillwater isn’t far.”

It was the first time we had mentioned May in months. She wasn’t our favorite topic. He parked the mower by the closet and climbed into bed. He had to laugh as he wrestled my shirt off and then kissed my chest and neck. I let him do what he wanted. I was imagining our new kitchen with cereal bowls stacked neatly in the cupboards and teacups set on the table, in case company dropped by.

When I told Daisy our plans on the phone the next day she said, “It’s about time. If I was you I’d be on the mental ward by now. I can’t imagine me and Bill living with my old ma.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I hope you send Justy to me and lock yourselves in that apartment for a week, not see one single soul. That’s what me and Bill did up at the Dells for our honeymoon. We didn’t hardly leave our motel.”

“We ain’t exactly millionaires, Daisy,” I sassed at her. “We’re going to have to work, you know.”

That night, when we were sitting at the table eating supper I looked at Ruby to get my courage up. I stared solemnly into his eyes and at his chewing mouth. Then I put my spoon down and cleared my throat. “Well, Ma,” I said, “looks like at the end of December Ruby and me have a chance to move to our own apartment.”

She said I should wipe Justy’s mouth, that there was applesauce on his cheeks. I knew every word she was and wasn’t going to say to me in this situation. She didn’t have any new tricks stashed away for surprises this time.

“Ma. Did you hear what I said?”

She looked over at me, as if she had just come out of a dream, and she said, “You ain’t going nowhere.” She got up and cleared the plates. I wasn’t even finished with my meat loaf yet.

“December thirty-first,” Ruby said, and then he went into the living room and turned up the television.

I sat following the scratches on the table, examining them thoroughly with my fingertips. I didn’t notice May until she stuck the rag in front of me, meaning, Wipe the table. When I tuned into her she was saying, “How am I going to take care of the chickens and the house? Look at these hands.”

I had only seen those hands half a million times. I didn’t have to look at them to know their shape.

“I’ll have to sell the house,” she said. “I’m telling you, you ain’t gonna get a single cent from the sale.”

I surprised myself by the sound of my voice mumbling, “The whole world is not set on doing you wrong, Ma. You’re doing battle with yourself.” I didn’t look up to see where the thought had come from, or if she was stunned. I said, louder now, “We’re moving at the end of December, so don’t be startled when we’re gone.”

I walked out. I didn’t want to hear her popping the lids off of all her pill bottles. Naturally we never said another word about the move after that.

A few days after we broke the news to May, when Ruby and I were getting up in the morning, Ruby said, “Baby, I’m feeling so sensational lately. I know I got perfect health, if you don’t count my leg.”

I sure had the notion we were turning over a new leaf.

Sometimes I have to pity May a little, because her Matt went off and she’s got nothing, only Justy and her job at Trim ’N Tidy and me. Plus God and her trip to heaven. All that doesn’t stack up to much. There is no one who loves her except Justy, and he doesn’t actually love her. He’s only used to her.

The day I’m working toward wasn’t so very long ago. I’m about to tell how it went so everyone will know. I’d like to think it won’t happen again. Once is enough for the whole earth. It shouldn’t recur and if I tell about the day, step by step, people can understand certain warning signs. Then nothing like it will take place again, not ever. I imagine, when I’m sitting here, that I’m ringing a bell, and someone will hear, but to tell the truth, I also know that it isn’t very often that people change their ways. Still, I have to ring the bell, keep it sounding.

I figured that we could hold out until Christmas. It was a miscalculation, the largest I ever made. I was going to work so hard at being friendly. I figured we’d stay until Christmas because I felt sorry for May, decorating a scruffy tree she hauled in from the woods, with the balls she has in the attic—the ones with half the paint worn off. The picture of her hanging the angel, all by herself, made that old lump come into my throat. It was a task we always did together. I’d hand the floss doll up to May while she kneeled on the highest rung of the stepladder. Sometimes life gets so pitiful it’s tempting to lie down and play dead. But I knew if we tried we’d have a nice Christmas together. I’d make a special effort; I’d tell Ruby not to buy Justy any dangerous toys, and then after the celebration my boys and I would start the new year out in our own home. There was a part of me that didn’t know if I could make the move. It was a high squeaky voice that mocked me. I always put my hands to my ears; I didn’t want to hear the voice that said “You’ve never lived on your own, you aren’t smart enough.” I talked back. I said “I’ve got enough intelligence, and May will only be ten minutes away. It’s not like we’re going to China. If I need to walk up to the plateau, Ruby can drive me over. We won’t be so far from nature.” And there that voice was saying, “You can’t do anything right. You make scalloped onions out of tulip bulbs.”

I told myself that with Justy May was bound to be over at our place every day. We’d still need her to baby-sit. I had the feeling we could be like girlfriends. I’d cook her supper while Ruby mowed her lawn. I pictured May and me trading recipes over the phone.

The third Sunday in November, right around the time shaggy-haired Charles Manson came up for parole and Prince Charles celebrated his thirtieth birthday with his 350 favorite dates—May loved that man, even though he was unemployed, because he still lived with his mother—we woke up to the sun streaming in our windows, the kind of winter sunlight that doesn’t have one speck of gold in it. I had a secret for Ruby, a secret I had been waiting for the right moment to tell him.

“Hey, Ruby,” I said. “Guess what?” I petted his sleepy head on the pillow. He opened his eyes, stared at the sunshine as if he was about to say, What the hell is that glittery stuff on the floor? Sometimes his expressions made him look like he didn’t know there was a world outside of the riddles in his head. He stretched; he didn’t have anything on, and his chest hair stuck out from the covers.

“You and me have a present for Justy,” I whispered to him.

“Oh, yeah?” he said, yawning.

I turned over to him and kissed him. “You think Justy’s going to like being a big brother?”

Ruby’s eyes flared up to an enormous size for a second. He didn’t say a word because the news was so serious. He was glad though, I could tell. He stared at the ceiling without moving while I started talking about our times together when Justy was small and we sat on the couch counting his ten toes. I nudged him, reminding him how we thought it was such a miracle that he came with all ten. My breasts were so tender and heavy I figured I was already almost three months pregnant. It was Ruby’s fault for not using the balloons to cover himself up. I felt sleepy and slow half the time, as if I didn’t have a brain, and some foods, fried eggs for example, made my stomach take nose dives.