Page 21

21

RUBY

The therapist is working with Dad when I go back to the hospital the next morning, getting him to clench and unclench his fist. Dad’s face is screwed up in concentration like his whole life depends on him balling that hand.

I wait for the therapist to leave before I sit on the side of the bed and show him the pile of books I picked up from the library.

His lopsided smile falters. “I’m not sure … I can read them.”

Shit! My stomach churns. Why didn’t I think of that?

“My sight is … not so great in my left eye.” The eye that’s drooping. “Give it time though…”

The neurologist retained by Harry said that he can help my dad get the movement back in his left leg. “I can’t promise that we’ll get you fully mobile, but you’ll be walking with a stick. You got lucky, Mr. Jackson.”

Lucky. That word again. Depends which way you’re looking at it.

At least he’s still upbeat. It’ll take more than a stroke to keep my dad down.

“I think … my dancing days were already over.” Dad doesn’t look at me.

I’ve seen photographs of my dad competing at ballroom dancing when he was a kid. He wore smart black suits and shiny shoes, and his hair was immaculate, the perfect complement to his dance partners in their floaty gowns with their hair scraped back into severe buns. It’s a part of him that existed before I knew him, a part of him that he’ll never get back now, but strangely, whenever I’m with him, I still try to imagine him swishing his partner around a ballroom floor.

“I should learn to dance.”

It’s completely out of the blue. I never wanted to have dance lessons when I was younger—I was always the girl who wanted to be out racing my bike against the boys, climbing trees, and finding the strongest buckeyes. But now… I’ll do anything to put that glint back in my dad’s eyes.

“I could…” His mouth works hard to find the right words, and my heart breaks a little bit more when he concedes defeat.

“Teach me?”

“If I can … remember how…”

“You never forget, Dad. It’s like breathing.” I might be making this up, but I don’t care when I see hope dancing around the corners of his eyes.

We have a long way to go, endless visits to the neurologist and physio sessions to get his mobility back, but if I’ve given him an end goal, something to aim for, then I have to believe that we’ll get there.

“You know I have two left feet though, right?” I knock his elbow softly with mine.

“Never… I’ve seen you … on ice.”

“Damn! You caught me out again.”

We’re doing what we always do, keeping it normal so that we can stop the darkness from creeping in. We’ll do this forever if we must. Whatever it takes to stop the image of Karl Weiss with his mouth turned down at the corners from taking root inside my head. Karl Weiss who can still walk unaided, still work, still dance if he ever wanted to while my dad has to learn to walk all over again.

“Where’s … your mom?”

And there it is, the question I was dreading.

How can I tell him that I don’t know where she is? That I heard her pottering around the house in the night like a thief, her footsteps careful, the house holding its breath in case she created a din. Then, when I woke up this morning, she was gone.

“She went out to run some errands.” Smile, Ruby, act like you mean it. “She’ll be here later.”

His eyes settle on me while still zipping about like a fly caught inside a window. “She … means well. She … loves you, Ruby.”

I could say that if he needs to tell me this, there’s something not quite right.

I don’t need to hear my dad say the words out loud. I know that he loves me; it’s like there’s something inside my heart that gets tugged towards him wherever we are, but there’s an invisible barrier between me and my mom, and I don’t even know how it got there, or who built it in the first place.

She reported me missing to the police.

She told me to go catch an actor, never realizing that I might catch a Weiss instead.

She brings me lip gloss and eyeliner and beauty magazines when all I really want is books.

Everything she does has an ulterior motive that will benefit Celia Jackson, and I often think that she doesn’t know me at all.

“I know.” I force a smile, my eyes drifting to the pile of books I brought in for my dad. “Shall I read to you?”

He settles back against the pillow and flashes me that clumsy lopsided smile. “You’re a … good girl, Ruby.”

I pick up The Piranhas by Harold Robbins—my dad loves his books—and open it at the first page. This feels wrong somehow. Our roles have been reversed too soon. It feels like only yesterday that my dad was reading to me in bed, the comforter pulled up to my chin, my eyes closing to the sound of his voice, and I’m not prepared for this.

Concentrate, Ruby, for fuck’s sake. If he can hold it together, still smile after what he’s been through, the least I can do is read a book to him like I’m enjoying it.

I start reading, consciously injecting some life into my voice. It’s all I can do to stop the words from vanishing beneath a wall of tears, and they slip out of my head the instant they leave my tongue. I almost cry out with relief when the door opens, until I realize that it isn’t the nurse.

It’s my mom.

Her gaze glides around the room, barely noticing the open novel on my lap. “You didn’t wait for me.” Her glare is accusing.

She doesn’t want to do this now, I think. Not in front of Dad.

“I didn’t know when you’d be back.”

Her eyelids flicker—she knows she’s been caught out—quickly replaced by her usual expression. “I went for bagels.”

“Bagels?”

Really, that’s what she’s going with? She could at least have come up with a plausible excuse.

She slides a brown paper bag onto the mobile tray, and I get a waft of herby cream cheese and smoked salmon. “Your favorite.” She kisses my dad, cheek-to-cheek, and takes my usual spot on the side of the bed. “From the little corner bakery near City Hall.”

Dad’s face turns pink and blotchy, his mouth twitching as he struggles to express his gratitude. “The-the bakery?”

“Uh-huh. The food here is shit. I thought it would bring back memories of early morning breakfasts when Ruby was a baby.”

He looks at me, his eyes wet and full. “Best bagels in town…”

Mom opens the bag and shifts a bagel closer to his good arm. Smug. It’s like a game of chess, the first one to catch the king unguarded, wins. Only she has forgotten one very important rule: it takes two to play chess, and I’m not getting sucked into her little game, whatever it is. She didn’t leave home at silly o’clock to pick up bagels.

I’m not having this conversation in front of my dad though.

Closing the book softly, I stand up and look away as he struggles to get the food between his lips.

“Where are you going?” Mom narrows her eyes at me.

“To call Harry.” I don’t wait around for her to object.

I use the payphone in the hospital foyer to call the number of the hotel just outside of Diablo Lake that Harry was checking into.

He sounds distracted when he picks up, like he’s rearranging the furniture in the room. “How’s your dad?”

“He’s eating bagels.” I don’t want to talk about anything else.

But Harry must understand. “Are you okay, Ruby? Do you want me to come to Chicago?”

“I’m fine.” I’ve managed to hold the tears at bay so far, but one look at Harry and I’ll melt into a sloppy puddle. “Did you find your sister?”

I hear the deep inhale. “No, whoever the lead thinks they saw, she moved on a couple of days ago. There’s been another potential sighting in Washington, but I’m not sure I’ll even bother checking it out.”

“You must, Harry.” Even though the phone has given his voice a tinny edge, I’m getting tiny shivers of excitement running up and down my spine. “You can’t ignore it.”

“I’d rather be with you.”

My pulse quickens. “Go to Washington. I’ll still be here.” Pause. I can hear rustling from the other end of the line. “Are you packing?”

“Ruby, I’ve got to go.” There’s a bluntness to his tone that I haven’t heard before, and the excitement of hearing his voice is replaced by something cold and slimy.

“What’s wrong, Harry? What’s happen?—”

“It’s nothing. I’ll call you when I get to Washington.” The line goes dead, leaving the buzz of the dialing tone in my ear.

I’m still thinking about Harry when I get back to my dad’s room. It’s nothing . That’s what people say when there’s a whole load of something going on, and they don’t want anyone else involved. I know he’s trying to protect me, but there’s only so many secrets a relationship can handle.

My dad has barely nibbled the edge of the bagel. His eyes are closed, his lips slack, saliva creating a slick trail down his chin. I wipe it with a towel while my mom wraps the bagels back up. Dad doesn’t move, and I stare at his chest waiting for the rise and fall of his breaths to still my skipping heart.

Mom grabs her purse and heads to the door.

“Where are you going?” She just got here.

“I have to run some errands.” Mom-speak for she’s going to get her hair done or get a manicure or there’s a new dress she spotted in a boutique in the mall. “I’ll have to take some time off when your dad comes home, and the cupboards won’t stock themselves.”

“I’ll come with you.”

She furrows her brow. “Funny, I thought you were going out of your way to avoid me.”

She has a point, but I’m not going to admit it. “I’ve been worried about Dad.” I grab my coat off the back of the chair and follow her to the door. The sooner we have this discussion the better.

“I’m perfectly capable of running errands alone, you know.” She stands in front of the door like she might bolt the instant I look away.

She’ll never buy it if I say that I want to spend some time with her, so instead, I shrug. “I need stuff too.”

Her gaze lingers on my dad who looks peaceful in slumber. I wish I knew what she was thinking, but she paints on this tough exterior like battle armor every morning, and the only person who gets to see her without it is my dad.

We don’t speak until we’re outside. The streets are still wet from last night’s frost, and car tires swish past, occasionally sending a ripple of water across the sidewalk.

There’s no point pussyfooting around her, so I just come out with it. “Mom, what happened between Dad and Karl Weiss?”

Her eyes dart towards me without reaching my face, and she sidesteps around a man trying to offer her a leaflet. “I’m not dragging this up again now, Ruby,” she says when our steps fall into sync again.

“When then? I need to know, so that I can fix it.”

“Fix it?” Her voice rises a notch. “This isn’t something you can patch up with a spot of glue and some sticky tape. Don’t you think your father has suffered enough?”

It’s a low blow that catches me straight in the gut, winding me momentarily. But if Harry and I are going to stand a chance of making this work, I can’t leave it. “I want to resolve it for his sake. It was a long while ago. Why can’t we all move on? Maybe Harry was meant to come into my life for a reason.”

“Ha! Don’t you dare pretend that you’re doing this for your father. There’s only one person you’re thinking of, and that’s Ruby Jackson.”

I could bite. I could remind her that she was only thinking of herself when she tried to set me up with Alessandro Russo. But that’s not going to achieve anything, and there’s too much at stake here for us to start hurling insults at one another like teenagers.

“Please, Mom. I only want to understand what happened. You and Dad never speak about it, and it shouldn’t be this taboo subject that everyone is too scared to mention.”

“There’s a reason for that, Ruby, and he’s lying in a hospital bed again.” She stands on the curb, waiting for the traffic signals to change.

“Fine.” I stand next to her. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll ask Karl Weiss to give me his version of events.”

Her cheeks grow hot and pink despite the icy chill in the air. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.” After this reaction, I’m even more determined to find out what happened. She should know by now that I can never refuse a challenge like this.

The pedestrian light turns green, the signal to walk beeping above our heads, but we don’t move. People crossing in the opposite direction skirt around us, huffing because we’re blocking the sidewalk. The light turns red again, and still, I’m waiting for my mom to speak to me.

“Go right ahead, Ruby. Good luck with getting him to tell you the truth.” She carries on walking and doesn’t wait for me to follow.

I walk around the city, the conversation with my mom churning around inside my head. It’s obvious that she isn’t going to tell me, but I don’t understand why, unless she’s trying to protect my dad. Did he do something to Karl Weiss that caused him to retaliate? It’s hard to connect my dad to that kind of ruthless businessman, but perhaps the first stroke changed him, softened him around the edges, made him the man I’ve always looked up to. Perhaps it took the stress of losing his company to make him realize what was important.

It would explain Karl’s reaction when he discovered who I was.

Lizzie warned me that his bark was worse than his bite though. I’d caught him unawares. Perhaps now that he’s had time to calm down and think about it, he’ll be willing to talk.

I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to invite Karl Weiss and my mom to dinner with me and Harry, and the four of us are going to resolve this like mature adults.

I go home and call Lizzie before my mom comes home. She gives me Karl’s number and, heart thumping, I tap it into the phone before I can talk myself out of it.

“Karl Weiss.” He still sounds like a thick-necked dog wearing a studded collar.

My heart lurches. What if Lizzie is wrong and his bite is way worse than his bark?

“Mr. Weiss, this is Ruby Jackson. We met in Harry’s office a couple of days ago.”

Silence.

“I wanted to invite you to dinner with me, my mom, and Harry when he’s back.”

“Back?”

Shit! He doesn’t know that Harry is trying to find his sister.

My cheeks grow inflamed, and I’m so glad that he can’t see me. “I’ll get Harry to arrange the flights. I think it will be good for us to all sit down over dinner and clear the air.”

I can hear him breathing, but he’s milking the grumpy father-in-law role.

“I’d really like it if we could all get along. I’m going to marry your son, Mr. Weiss.”

Silence.

I shouldn’t have called him. Will he blame Harry for putting me up to this? Right now, I think that anything is possible.

Finally, he says, “I can’t stop him from marrying you, but don’t expect me to pretend I’m happy about it.”

“Even for Harry’s sake?”

“He’s old enough to make his own mistakes.”

“I’m not a mistake, Mr. Weiss.” Anger is burning inside my chest and looking for a way to escape. My mom is stubborn, but this man is an asshole, and I can’t believe he’s Harry’s dad.

“That’s what they all say.” Then he hangs up.