“B.D.,” Winnie had told her, “you were strong and funny and full of ideas about things to do with your life. You left Josh, didn’t you? And you became a fucking milliner, which is not like the most common profession in the world. You didn’t marry that guy who wanted to marry you so bad. What was his name? Chris? You didn’t like that he said Feb-u-ary instead of February and li-berry instead of library. You were a person who had her limits. You raised a cat by yourself, for Christ’s sake.”
B.D., Olivia thought as she added another dead skunk to her list, she would not be on this road at all. She would not have let a pregnant teenager into her home. The kid was probably a professional thief. Or worse. If Olivia could call anyone right now and ask advice, she’d call David; he’d always given her good advice. He’d made lists, pro and con. He’d made graphs and time lines. He’d used logic. They used to kid that each of them operated from the opposite side of their brain, so that together they had one good functioning brain. Now here she was, stuck with just her half.
Olivia turned at the rotary that would bring her to the road that led to Ruby’s parents’ house. She needed to figure out what to say to them. What did she want, anyway? To save the girl? To save herself? Before David, Olivia had tried to save everything—Narragansett Bay, the Platte River, manatees and the great northern wolf. But saving babies and bad girls was different from saving bodies of water or endangered animals.
At this very moment, that girl was asleep in her house. Poking around. Robbing her, maybe. Forget B.D., Olivia thought. She had to decide what she wanted with Ruby.
Strawberry Field Lane sat in the middle of a development filled with streets named after fruit, not Beatles songs. Olivia would have preferred driving down Penny Lane or Day Tripper Boulevard. But here she was, navigating Pumpkin Patch Road and Apple Orchard Court, a crumpled street map on her lap. It was very hot. Rivulets of sweat trickled down her arms and back. All the houses looked alike: small and square, slightly run-down despite the cheerful street names.
Janice lived across the highway, in a newer part of town, one that was struggling to keep some of its rural flavor. Here, there were few trees, only parched patches of lawns and some cheap plastic swimming pools decorated with garish Barneys and Simbas. It was noisy from cars getting on and off the interstate somewhere behind the houses.
At last, Olivia reached Strawberry Field Lane. Number fifteen was painted the color of rust. On the front door hung a scarecrow dressed like Uncle Sam. A dog paced the length of a chain-link fence in the backyard. It was one of those dogs that eat children, a Rottweiler or Doberman. Olivia sat sweating in her car across the street, watching the house, the dog, trying to figure out what the hell she was doing there. Finally, she unstuck her legs from the seat and walked to the front door of number fifteen, where, up-close, Uncle Sam looked like a hanged man. She could hear the drone of a television inside, the laughter of a studio audience.
Olivia knocked.
The woman who answered looked remarkably like Ruby, younger than Olivia. An older sister maybe, dressed in a nurse’s uniform with a name tag that read DENISE. She didn’t open the door very wide, just enough to get a good view of Olivia. The smell of fried food hit Olivia and made her swoon.
“We don’t want anything,” Denise said in a tired voice. “And we don’t want to give anything.”
“No!” Olivia said too loudly and too fast. She was afraid the woman would close the door and that would be that.
“What? Lost cat? Dead dog?” Her voice told Olivia she had heard it all.
“I wanted to talk to someone about Ruby?” Olivia said.
The woman glanced over her shoulder, and Olivia followed her backward stare. Two pajamaed boys watched television. The room was small and square, like the house itself, the blinds drawn, the room cluttered with plaid furniture and some sort of oversized reclining chair and tables stacked with magazines and newspapers. Before Olivia could take more in, the woman was outside, too, the door firmly shut behind her.
“I don’t want to wake up Bobby,” she said. “If he knows I’m even talking about her, he’ll go nuts.” She took a big preparatory breath. “She okay?”
Olivia nodded.
The woman sighed, relieved. Out here in the bright light, Olivia saw that she was older. Her face was ruddy, full of tired lines caked with makeup. Her eyes were a pretty shade of blue, but flat, and the bright blue lines she’d penciled in beneath them gave her a clownish appearance. There were thick clumps of mascara on her lashes, and her hair was overpermed, overcolored. Olivia took in all of this. She tried to imagine the girl here, moving about the tiny house with her big belly and her dreamy eyes.
“I work the eleven to seven today,” Denise was saying. She pointed at the Timex on her plump wrist.
Olivia nodded again. The woman did not want to waste time. Neither did Olivia.
“You’re her mother?” she asked.
“I hate to say yes, because who knows what trouble she’s in now. But yes.”