Things We Do in the Dark(110)

But with time, she can remember it less.

A plume of smoke catches her eye, and she spots a man barbecuing on his fourth-floor balcony. Barbecue grills used to be forbidden, but maybe they allow them now. He flips his burgers while chatting on his cell phone, and she realizes it’s Mr. Malinowski, the building superintendent who used to live on the first floor. Is he still the super?

The glass doors to the lobby open, and she watches as a woman wearing colorful nursing scrubs holds the door open for an elderly woman with a walker. She recognizes Mrs. Finch immediately; her old neighbor from down the hall must be in her eighties now. Her housedress is stained and hangs off her bony frame, her white hair so thin that the pink of her scalp shows through. In the end, the woman had done the right thing when she finally called the police, even though the years that followed were hard.

Paris gets back into the car. As she and Drew drive away, she mentally says goodbye to the girl who lived in Willow Park, the one who survived her mother. All the memories here are painful, but they belong to a life that’s no longer hers.

And over time, she will remember it less.





CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN


Maple Sound looks so different in the daylight, serene and pretty, a picturesque small town someone might want to settle down in if they wanted to escape the city.

Ruby must loathe it here.

They make the long drive up the hill toward Tita Flora’s place, and Drew cuts the engine when they reach the top. They sit in silence for a moment, staring across the pond at the exterior of the two-story house that she lived in for five long years. It was too dark to see much of anything when she was last here, but now, in the late-afternoon sun, she can see the effort that’s been made to keep it up. The siding has been painted white to match the porch, and the flowers along the front of the house are in full bloom. Tita Flora is retired now, and with Tito Micky gone, she must have a lot of free time to maintain the place. It looks better than it ever did.

There’s a shape moving in the kitchen window. She doesn’t need to see a face to know who it belongs to. She would know that silhouette anywhere.

“How long, do you think?” Drew asks, breaking the silence inside the car.

“An hour,” she says. “Which is fifty-five minutes longer than I’d prefer to be here.”

“Do you have the cashier’s check?”

She pats her pocket.

“I still can’t believe you actually went to the bank.” He shakes his head. “Want me to come in with you?”

“No, I need to do this alone.” She gives his hand a squeeze and opens the passenger door. There’s no way to predict what Ruby will say, and however this meeting goes, there are things she will never want Drew to hear. Ever. “I’ll be okay.”

“I’ll be waiting right here,” Drew calls out before she can shut the door. “Don’t, you know, kill each other.”

“Can’t make that promise.” She sees the alarmed look on her friend’s face and rolls her eyes. “Drew, I’m kidding.”

“With you two, it’s not funny.”

She shuts the car door and stares at the house for a few seconds more. Slowly, she walks toward it, passing the pond, which for now is silent. She heads up the porch steps, but before she can lift her hand to knock, the door opens.

After twenty-five years, she is now standing face-to-face with her mother.

They stare at each other from two feet apart on opposite sides of the doorway. Neither woman offers to shake hands or hug.

The first thing she notices is that Ruby’s signature long, lustrous black hair has been chopped to her shoulders, its natural shine dulled due to age and cheap hair dye. There’s a slight papery texture to her skin, highlighting angles in her cheekbones that never used to be there. Though her mother is still a couple of inches taller than Paris, she seems to have shrunk. She’s wearing loose jeans and a yellow T-shirt, and there are new slippers on her feet.

“You look like me when I was your age,” Ruby finally says. There’s a tinge of jealousy in her voice. It’s as good a compliment as she can offer.

“And you look like Lola Celia now,” Paris says.

There’s a long pause. Paris makes no attempt to enter the house. For all she cares, they can do this on the porch.

Ruby opens the door wider. “Come on in.”

Paris steps inside, and as if on cue, the frogs by the pond begin to croak.



* * *



The house is cleaner and quieter than it ever used to be.

“Where is everyone?” Paris asks, even though she already knows the answer.

“Your lola is in Cebu,” Ruby says. “She left right before I arrived, but she’ll be back in a month. And your Tita Flora went to Toronto for the weekend.”

“And you didn’t want to go with her to the city?”

“She’s staying with friends. I wasn’t invited.” Ruby takes a seat at the kitchen table and gestures for her to do the same. “Is that Drew I saw in the car outside? When he asked if I was available today, I assumed he was coming to interview me for his podcast, which is going to be all about me. He didn’t mention he’d be bringing you.”

“There is no podcast about you,” Paris says. “I asked him to kill it.”