Under the Table(58)

“I said leave Tristan out of this!” Zoey’s guilt exploded out of her in a shout.

“You don’t get to control this fight, Zoe, like you try to control everything and everyone else!”

“Control you? Don’t make me laugh. I wish! I’ve spent the majority of my life cleaning up after all your messes!”

“Oh yeah? Well, if I’m the one who is so messed up, why are you the one who’s homeless after picking all your shit up off the highway?”

The shouting stopped. Zoey’s anger deflated and she wilted back onto the couch and dashed at the tears that suddenly threatened to roll down her cheeks. She wasn’t just homeless, she also felt terribly alone. So much for Phyllis’s theory.

“I didn’t do what I did to hurt you, Zoe,” Ruth said quietly, sitting down next to her. “But you know what I think? I think you get so involved with everyone else’s life to avoid taking a risk with your own.”

“Oh my gosh, you won the fight, isn’t that enough? You have to kick me when I’m down?” Zoey jokingly sniffed.

Ruth wrapped a comforting arm around Zoey’s shoulders. “I’m just trying to clear the air. Explain my motives. That is what you came here for, right?”

Zoey nodded weakly, not trusting herself to speak for fear of bawling.

“I never understood why you stuck with Derek as long as you did. I hated him. He’s such a dog. I never told you, but he hit on me before you two got married. Who does that?”

“Believe it or not, I’m not the least bit surprised,” Zoey said. She had never voiced her suspicions on that subject to Ruth. But Derek’s wandering eye was common knowledge. If this was Ruth’s idea of clean air, Zoey was going to need a gas mask.

“Everyone in town knew what a jerk he had turned into. But if he was your choice, that makes him family and I have to support you. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Who am I to judge how two people navigate their relationship? I just tried to keep my distance from him and kept the lines of communication open with him to help you. And yes, it was me that gave Derek your cell phone number.”

“You lied to me.” Zoey wept.

“I did. And I’m sorry about that. But you kept harping about him pressuring you to start a family. I kept thinking, That’s just a smoke screen. If you’re so hell-bent on proving your point about your body being yours, then don’t get pregnant. It really is as simple as that. There are only about a dozen ways to prevent pregnancy that don’t require the man’s participation. But it’s not enough for you to just take control of your own life, you have to have some approval or recognition from other people in order to do it. I took all your waffling and excuses to mean that deep down you still cared for Derek.”

“You’re probably right,” Zoey was forced to admit. “Not about my feelings for Derek, about the smoke screen. I wanted so much for him to be the person I initially fell in love with. Mom and Dad stuck together, grew together.”

“It takes two people, working full-time at it, to make a relationship work. And Dad wasn’t a hound dog. But their marriage isn’t really our business, is it? You had finally come into your own with the cooking thing. You were seeing some real success. But every time you leaped forward, there was Derek, on the phone, making you take two steps back. I would’ve given anything for you to show Derek the door, so I made that judgment call. You needed to be pushed to decide, instead of hiding here.”

“You did the exact same thing you accuse me of, you do realize that?”

“I do. That makes the score meddling Ruth one, Zoey a hundred.”

“Well played,” Zoey said. “Only your score is two. You also got Derek to drive up here.”

“True. But I was sure once you saw that you were able to feel desirable again, it would give you the strength to finally show Derek the door. And I had no idea Derek was going to go full throttle in his attempt to make a good impression. He really should’ve been an actor. What an asshat.”

They sat together in silence, Ruth’s arm still across Zoey’s shoulder. It was the first time that Zoey could recall feeling like the little sister. Overwhelmed, Zoey put her face in her hands and let the tears flow until they were little more than shuddering sobs. Her sister was the only person who she ever let see her cry. Ruth waited until Zoey was all cried out before speaking again.

“You changed a lot after Tristan entered the picture. You started being much more fun after meeting him. You two are way more alike, starting with being ethical, to a fault. At the very least, he got you to venture out of this apartment for something other than work.”

Zoey picked her head up, not sure if her sister was just trying to lighten up the mood and get her to stop crying.

“Ugh. Tristan. I’m afraid I blew that one right out of the water.”

“I was hoping that’s where you’d been all this time. Hiding out at his place.”

“No. I went to Detroit with a trucker named Phyllis.”

Zoey had finally achieved the impossible. She had managed to shock her sister.

“Stop it,” Ruth said, her eyebrows high in disbelief.

“No, it’s true. She scraped me up off the highway. My guardian angel drives eighteen wheels and carries a loaded gun.”

“I’m so disappointed. I wanted desperately to believe after you didn’t come back here that it was because you guys had patched things up.”