Ruby tried to convince my dad. She tried in all the ways she was used to trying: her eyes staring him down until no light could escape and there was nowhere else to look but straight at her.
She tried with misdirection and misleading topics of conversation, with the subterfuge no one ever saw coming until days later, when they went searching for their wallet and thought they remembered it opening wide for one quick moment in Ruby’s hand. She tried talking low; she tried talking loud. She tried being sweet; she tried being mean. Behind the closed door, where I couldn’t see, I know she tried.
I waited outside his home office with my stepmom. She wasn’t anyone special—if Ruby and I ever happened upon her in conversation, we avoided calling her by name.
She had two children who, since we had the same father, carried half my blood in their veins, just like Ruby did, the exact same amount, though I didn’t feel connected to them in any real way.
They were like any two people I might pass in the halls at school. One boy, one girl. You see them and wave. Maybe you have on the same color sweater and you’re like, “Hey, look. We’re wearing the same color sweater.” But there’s nothing else to be said beyond that, so you each keep moving. You know you’d barely give it a thought if you never saw them again.
This is how I know blood is meaningless; family connections are a lot like old gum—you don’t have to keep chewing. You can always spit it out and stick it under the table. You can walk away.
Ruby was my sister, but she was so much more than that. She loved me. She loved me more than anyone else in the whole entire world loved me. More than Mom, more than Dad. More than friends. More than any guy ever had, because no guy had. No matter how far apart we’d been these past two years, there was no question she did.
My stepmom cleared her throat. She did things like that, she had to, or else I’d forget she was there. “Are you sure you want to go away with this Ruby?” she said.
“Ruby is my sister,” I said. “She practically raised me.”
“Well, this is the first time I’ve ever seen her.”
I didn’t feel like explaining how Ruby never left the state of New York, let alone the confines of our wooded county. Mostly she stayed in our town, where everyone knew her, where all you had to do was say her name and anyone in hearing distance would snap to attention, wondering if she’d been sighted around the corner and was coming this way.
Not just the boys but the girls, too. Did Ruby like this song? Then everyone had to hear it. Had Ruby worn this jacket? Then everyone wanted to slip arms into its sleeves.
Back at home, I got used to people knowing about Ruby, peppering me with questions about her, saying how this one time they talked to Ruby about really old French movies and did she say anything about it, do you think she likes Godard? How Ruby pumped their gas last Tuesday; how Ruby bummed their smokes, but they didn’t mind; how years and years ago Ruby saw them play live at the old Rhinecliff hotel, and how, after the show, they let her bang away at their drums.
Pennsylvania was a strange state. No one knew who Ruby was.
“It’s odd that she didn’t visit all this time and now here she is,” my stepmom said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess. But that’s Ruby.”
“We invited her for Christmas and she didn’t come.”
“She doesn’t like Christmas. She says it’s too obvious. Plus she hates all the red together with the green.”
“Besides the fact that she never calls . . .”
“Ruby has this thing with her ear. Telephones make it buzz. I don’t mind if she texts instead of calls. I know all about her ear.”
Defending her came naturally. Usually no one asked such questions about Ruby, but I guess I had some answers lying in wait in case they did.
My stepmom, though, wouldn’t let it go. “All of a sudden she drives out here, without warning, lands on our doorstep, wearing . . . I’m sorry, but was that a nightie? Did she even bother to get dressed this morning? And then she marches in to tell your father she’s taking you with her. Just like that?”