“I . . .”
“You hate them,” she said, but she kept them on as if to punish herself, and clicked her blinkers, to merge the car into the lane. Then she clicked the blinkers back off, the car staying in park. “Do I look mean with these on? Sorta psychopath?”
I nodded, if reluctantly, since it wasn’t exactly the kind of compliment Ruby was used to hearing.
She gave a grin and said, “Then I’m going in.”
“In where?” With my new dark glasses on, I could barely see the sign across from the candy store for the Village Tavern. It could be that I was used to not-seeing it, used to imagining instead a sinkhole taking over that spot on the sidewalk.
“Yeah,” Ruby said. “In there.”
“But what if she’s, y’know . . . inside?”
“Oh, but she is,” Ruby said. “Don’t you recognize the heap of junk over there?” She waved a hand at the brown hatchback parked at the corner. One taillight was busted in, and I knew how it happened: Ruby’s foot and a single, well-aimed shot of her pointy black boot.
Inside me, something sunk. I’d been back in town for however many days since the bus ride, and I hadn’t run into my mother yet. She hadn’t called; it was possible she still assumed I was in Pennsylvania. All this time, Ruby had been shielding me from her. Now she was yanking off the curtain and shoving me in.
“But—” I started.
I didn’t have to say it. Ruby knew the patterns my thoughts made before the words left my mouth. She knew even before the first syllable. She shook her head and, softly, told me to stay put. Only one of us was going in.
She crossed the street and stepped inside the tavern, out of sight for a few minutes. I don’t know what she told our mother, how she broke the news that I was home, but she must have found some words for it. Maybe she said I was in the car and not coming inside to talk and, ha, how do you like that, woman-who-calls-herself-Sparrow? Ruby must have said something good, though, because when she hopped back into the driver’s seat, she had the most delicious smile on her face, like she’d witnessed a thing of beauty and would remember it forever and always. She didn’t explain it, though—sometimes a perfect memory can be ruined if put to words. Ruby taught me that.
As we drove away, the door to the tavern opened and a person stepped out. A warm, blinking sign for beer illuminated this person in patches, on and then off again, face aglow and then not. This person watching us go for a few seconds. Then this person giving up and heading inside. I felt so detached from this person who happened to be my mother.
Ruby didn’t tell me what she’d said in there. Instead she told a story, as usual.
“Did you know I used to walk around town saying you were my baby?”
“Yeah?” I didn’t stop her; I liked when she told it.