Winter Loon(62)

“It’s eight in the morning,” Ruby said.

“And it’s my day off. I’ll do as I please.” He pushed past me and out the door.

Ruby wadded up the stomped paper and shoved it in the trash. “You heard him. We got to figure something out.”

“I got school, Ruby.”

She sat down at the kitchen table. Invisible strings seemed to pull her body up, but her head lolled around. “You have to stay with me.”

It was my mother’s face aged, her voice weakened. Those same words again, off the ice. Life on repeat. I wouldn’t be dragged down. “My mother said that to me, the night she died,” I said. Ruby got up and walked into the living room. “Where are you going? I’m saying this whether you like it or not.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, her voice weak and pale.

She was sitting on the sofa, staring at the front window. I sat down next to her and looked at it, too. One more time, I thought. I will try one more time.

“Ruby, what you said about Gip, what he did. Makes me think about a lot of things. Makes me think about her that night. She and my dad arguing. When she fell through, she kept saying something like ‘He’s coming.’ I thought she was talking about my dad.” Ruby covered her ears, shaking her head back and forth like a little girl. I tried to imagine what Troy would do, how he would be gentle. I touched her arm and she flinched like I’d scorched her. “Ruby. What if it wasn’t my dad but hers? Maybe that’s why she called for you before she went under.”

“I tried! That was cruel what you said to me yesterday. About not helping her. I might could have done better. So could have you. You let her go, too, you know.”

The air in the room felt colder by degrees. I sat back against the couch in surrender. Ruby got up, took a thin sweater off a chair, and wiggled into it. “May as well turn up the heat,” she mumbled, twisting the thermostat knob. “See this picture?” She snatched the crooked one off the wall. “He’s the one brought me up to this godforsaken place. I never wanted to come here. It’s cold.” She held the picture close to her face, staring down her nose at it, like she was examining the details under a magnifying glass. “He made me old.” She stilled her body a second more, then flung the picture like a hatchet. The glass shattered against the wall, the metal frame hit the floor. Ruby dropped into Gip’s recliner.

“Let me get something to clean that up,” I said.

“You can leave it right where it is for all I care.”

I got the trash can and dropped the shards of glass and twisted metal on top of the classified ads. The picture was punctured. I set it on the shelf. “I’ll leave this right here.”

“You think you know everything. You think you got it all figured out. You couldn’t save her any better than I could. Nobody can save no one don’t want to be saved, and that’s for sure. Now get out. I’m done talking.”



I WAITED ON THE STOOP of the little house behind the market until school was out. I stood when I heard the rumble of the Impala’s engine as it rounded the corner. The front fender on the passenger side looked like it had been opened up by a dull can opener. Lester got out of the car, cocked his head. “What now, Ballot?”

I’d seen too much sick and tired, that weariness that pulled at the edges of Ruby’s eyes, wheezed out of Gip in his labored exhales. I’d seen it in my mother, the way she stared out windows like the world on the other side was against her. And I felt it in me, begging me to weigh myself down, stone by stone, and sink.

“I’m a lousy friend.”

“Fucking right you are.”

“I’ll help you with the car.”

“No shit. So, you believe me? About Jolene? ”

“Yeah, I believe you.” I offered my hand to Lester. “So, we’re good?”

He pushed it away. “No, Ballot. We’re not good.” He snuffed, hocked. We both watched the glob of spit hit the pavement, then Lester slugged me in the stomach, doubling me over. “Okay, now we’re good.” He slapped my back and bent over to smile at me as I grimaced. “See you around.”

I knew I had it coming and it felt honest for a change. I coughed to get my breath back, checked to make sure I wasn’t hacking up blood. Hands on my knees still, I caught Lester as he was heading into the house. “Hey. How about you and me take a road trip?”





CHAPTER 19

I SPENT THAT night on the couch in Lester’s living room, wrapped in an afghan and an old felt blanket. Come morning, we headed over to the Hightowers’. I knew I’d have to talk to Jolene before we left, plus the cold was coming in fast along with ice and maybe snow the farther north we got. We would need tire chains for the Impala.

“That car okay to drive?” Troy asked.

“Simple assault,” Lester said. “Not homicide.”

“I’ll need to look for those chains. Road trip, huh? Where you boys headed?”

I glanced at Lester, thinking how glad I was not to be making this trip by myself. “Lester and me”—I knew saying it would make it true—“we’re going up to Bright Lake. Got a ration of shit yesterday from Ruby. Looks like they’re losing the house, by the way. Bank’s selling it. Anyway, after, you know, the water lily stuff—”