RUTH
“Where are you going?” I ask my brother-in-law. I see the splotches of red on his neck and know he’s had some liquor.
“I’m going to get Eden,” he snaps.
“Do you really think you should be driving?” He stops at the front door and glares at me, and I know I’ve gone too far. But I can’t help myself. “Be careful.” I try for sincerity, but my words sound like a warning.
“You too, Ruth.”
He turns and walks out, slamming the door behind him. I close my eyes and breathe deeply.
I know why my sister married Sam, with his movie-star good looks and easy charm. High school quarterback and homecoming king and wunderkind architect. He wasn’t like the other boys she dated, the losers and dropouts and potheads that mooched money off her and pushed themselves between her legs because she let them. Samuel Davenport was solid and successful and kind and attentive and so damned reliable. He always showed up. But I don’t trust him. He is still a man, and men are incapable of maintaining any of their good qualities for very long. I should know.
There’s something going on with him, something I can’t define. Yes, he’s grieving. We all are, for goodness’ sake, but there’s something holding his attention that might be attached to his grief or parallel to it. I don’t know.
What I do know is that he’s being completely unreasonable about the counseling issue. How could he not want to explore every possibility of healing his family? The desire to keep everything private is so typically male. It makes me furious that he is unwilling to do everything in his power to help Rachel. I’ve seen how he looks at her, the mixture of compassion and disgust. I can’t blame him for that, though. I must look at her the same way. Her grief has swallowed her and spit out someone who looks like my sister but who is unrecognizable in every other way.
“Is he gone?” she asks, her voice a whisper.
“Yes.”
She raises her head. Beneath the fragrance of the shampoo and the soap I used to scrub her, I can still smell the faint odor of vomit and despair. She looks directly at me, but there is no warmth in her gaze.
“You heard my husband, Ruth. Give me a pill.” Her countless tears have forged tracks down her cheeks. Her expression is haunted; the blue of her eyes has paled. I can’t bear to look at her, this woman who used to be beautiful and vibrant and alive. I keep my gaze steady so that she won’t know how hard it is for me to look at her.
“Don’t you want to be here for Eden?” I ask as calmly as I can manage.
“I was here for Jonah,” she says, then she mumbles something I can’t make out, even though I’m only inches from her.
“Eden needs you, Rachel. You can’t ignore that.”
“Silly Ruth. Silly, stern, serious Ruth. Socially inept Ruth. Celibate Ruth. No, celibate starts with a C, doesn’t it?”
Her words are like a punch to my gut. Because they are true. Not silly, no. I have never been silly. But stern and serious and socially inept. Those are true. And celibate, yes. I haven’t been sexually active since my husband left me eighteen months ago.
“Sad Ruth. Sad, single, submissive, superior, schoolmarm Ruth.”
She is taking sick delight in her alliteration. I feel nauseated. “You’re being unkind, Rachel.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, but she doesn’t sound sorry. She sounds like a teenager, the teenager she was a hundred years ago. Sorry, Ruth, I didn’t mean to ruin your sweater. Sorry, Ruth, I didn’t mean to steal your boyfriend. Sorry, Ruth, but not really sorry.
She stands up suddenly and hurls the teacup across the room. It smacks against the wall and shatters, the remaining tea and scant tea leaves raining down on the carpet I vacuumed moments ago.
I jump to my feet and tension courses through my system, causing all of my muscles to contract. I suck in a breath and blow it out between my clenched teeth, willing myself to relax. Tension triggers my fibromyalgia. And, of course, I’m out of my medication. The effects of last night’s dosage are starting to wear off—I can already feel the tenderness in my joints and the pull of fatigue and the way the muscles of my shoulder blades are starting to ache. Those muscles are always the first. I don’t know why. But soon the pain will spread in both directions, up to the base of my skull and all the way down to my toes, and I won’t be able to function, let alone take care of anyone else. I should have gone home for my refill when I went out for groceries, but I would have been gone twice as long. God knows what kind of shape Rachel might have been in if I hadn’t come when I did.
When Sam gets back with Eden, I’m going to have to excuse myself and go home. But right now, I’ve got another mess to clean up.
“Well done, Rachel.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the bottle of pills, twist off the cap, and shake one out onto my palm. “Here.”
She snatches the pill from my hand and puts it into her mouth, swallows it dry.
“You need to drink some water,” I tell her, but she is already moving away from me toward the stairs. “Drink some water before you lie down.”
“I will,” she says, then turns to face me. Her expression is bleak. “I’m sorry,” she says, and this time the apology sounds sincere. “I’m going to be better, okay, Ruth? Just not today. I just can’t today. I just need some time.”
A month has passed since the funeral. Thirty-six days since the accident. I wonder how much time my sister needs to get better. I wonder if she will ever get better.
“I know you do,” I tell her and watch as she slowly climbs the stairs, one hand clutching the railing to steady herself, the other cradling the monkey.
I cross to the far side of the living room and kneel down on the carpet, my knees in full protest. As I carefully pick up the pieces of the teacup, I think of how a split-second impact can shatter everything.
TWELVE
SHADOW
Little Male is sitting next to me on my bed. I have three beds. One is here in the food-smelling room, the room I like best because every now and then one of my humans drops something on the floor that tastes better than my food. Which is good, because sometimes my humans forget to feed me for a whole day, and if I didn’t get the dropped things I wouldn’t eat.
One bed is outside on the hard ground next to the house. It’s old and smells like dirt and another dog, the before-me dog, and I can tell by his smell that I would have liked him even though his smell is old and tired.
One bed is in the room with the couch that I didn’t chew because it tasted funny after my mistress sprayed something on it. Dark Female is in that room now, so I wouldn’t go in there, even if Little Male were not sitting with me.