“Time to tidy up affairs,” she’d said with forced sympathy.
The Realtor wore suits she bought from the Victoria’s Secret catalog and heels so high, they made Olivia feel off balance. Her nails, sharp and painted colors like coral or bright pink, drummed across everything she touched—the steering wheel of her Miata, papers that needed signing, her desktop. Olivia thought she could hear them drumming even now. She thanked her for the number and called the lawyer. The smell of bacon frying wrapped itself around her while she listened to the phone ringing in her ear.
“This is Ellen,” the lawyer said when she answered. “What can I do for you?”
Olivia had to speak above the breakfast noises to explain the situation. The old man at the grill—Big Ed himself? she wondered—listened and frowned.
“Well,” Ellen said, “in Rhode Island, a minor can consent to a private adoption if the father doesn’t object.”
What was it that Ruby’s mother had said? That Ben had taken off already? He wasn’t likely to object, Olivia thought. But still, she wanted assurance.
“Since ’95,” Ellen explained, “a father can assert rights and go to family court to acknowledge and prove paternity, or he can do it in writing if the mother doesn’t object. But he can also give up rights the same way.”
“It sounds so easy,” Olivia said.
“Private adoption is the way to go,” Ellen told her. “It is easy. Come to the office and get all the papers signed and you’re on your way.”
“On my way,” Olivia repeated. “Good.”
Big Ed scowled at her when she hung up. But Olivia didn’t mind. In fact, she sat at the counter and ate a Hungry Man’s Breakfast: three eggs, bacon, sausage, and three buttermilk pancakes. She paid and overtipped, then stepped outside into the bright summer day, moving toward home.
Of course, there was a moment of panic when Olivia imagined that Ruby was gone. Or that she was still up in the room where Olivia had left her, maybe dead or comatose. But in fact, Ruby was standing in the kitchen, eating Spaghetti-Os from the can, studying Olivia’s wall with great interest.
“I like it,” Ruby said when Olivia came in. She didn’t look at Olivia, just kept eating and staring.
“It’s just a crazy thing,” Olivia said, wanting to distract Ruby from the wall where the truth hung—David’s obituary was there, the newspaper story, all of it.
“That’s why I like it. I decapitated all my Barbies, you know, and then I stuck their heads in empty tuna fish cans, in plaster of paris.”
Olivia waited for an explanation, but none came.
“Where have you been?” Ruby asked, turning now to face her.
“Errands,” Olivia said.
“Like the post office and stuff?”
Olivia shrugged.
“I just got up,” Ruby said proudly.
Olivia decided that Ruby needed nutritious food, from all four food groups. “I was thinking we could go out to lunch. Are you still hungry?”
“Always,” Ruby said, grinning. “I eat tons and tons of food.”
“Good,” Olivia said. A baby needs protein at this point, she thought, for brain cells. Despite her Hungry Man’s Breakfast, Olivia’s own stomach felt empty and needy.
Ruby said, “You want to see something cool? If I drink a glass of real cold water fast, then lie down flat, the baby will kick like crazy.”
Before Olivia could respond—she wasn’t ready for the baby to kick!—Ruby guzzled a glass of water and dropped to the floor.
“Come here,” she ordered Olivia.
Olivia hesitated. Come here and what? she thought. She tasted bacon and syrup in the back of her throat. Sour.
“Quick!” Ruby shouted.
Olivia found herself scrambling to her knees beside the girl, suddenly eager for the baby’s response. She let Ruby guide her hand to somewhere on her big belly.
“There,” Ruby whispered, awed. “Feel?”
Olivia nodded, unable to say anything. All she could think about was what she was feeling.
Life.
Ruby watched houses. She walked with great purpose, sometimes making marks in a little notebook as she went. The houses did not seem to be in any special order. For a few days, she sat across the street from a plain bungalow in a development named Eastward Look. The house had aluminum siding, fake white brick along the lower third, a mailbox shaped like a lighthouse, and a profusion of marigolds growing in fat circles across the yard.