Winter Loon(74)

I tried to imagine this Ruby as the woman in the picture she’d busted against the dining room wall. I didn’t know what to say. She sighed and sighed, shriveling like a leaky balloon.

“Lord, I am tired!” said Ruby. “Life is too goddamned long.” I guess it was some kind of grief that made her come clean about all of it, like she had to purge her shame, confess in the face of death, even if it wasn’t her own. “If God’s real, he’ll send this one to hell, I think.”

“Ruby, I don’t think this is the place for that kind of talk,” I said.

“Why not? Maybe this is exactly the place. Maybe God’s listening in, trying to decide. I’ll witness to him. Here’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking Gip always liked little girls, scrawny girls, like me, like your mother. Maybe even that Rook girl, though she’s awfully chubby. I think he got what was coming to him in this life. Any fairness at all and he’ll get the brimstone, too.”

“You said yourself you don’t know any of that for certain.”

“I know enough. Anyway, he goes to hell I hope I’m not going there with him. The devil scares me. And I’d like to see my baby again.”

She blinked like the lights had come up in the theater. The couple in the corner was staring at us now, no longer able to hide their prying eyes. “What are you looking at?” she said, returning to her old self. “And where is that nurse? I don’t have all night.”

She patted the arms of her chair like that was that, then leaned into Gip. “You left me with nothing. You hear?” she said. “I got nothing left. Then again, maybe I never had nothing at all.” She stood, pushed back the chair, and did something I had never seen her do. She pecked my grandfather’s forehead with her thin lips.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “You can’t just leave him here. Where are you going?”

“I’ll fill out them papers and wait for you in the lobby.”

“Ruby!”

“You do this for me, Wes. Don’t let them take none of his organs, neither. Devil wants all of him. And get them to wipe that crust off his lips.”

I spun around the room like I was trying to pin a tail on a paper donkey, then threw up my arms in surrender. “Unbelievable.”

The couple whispered to each other again. “What?” I said, daring them to pass judgment.

The young man spoke. “Are you okay? Is there something we . . .” He looked at his wife, then back at me.

“No, I’m sorry. It’s fine,” I said. “It’s always like this.” What else could I do? I sat back down next to the hospital bed and the weary machines.



THE NURSE CAME IN AND drew the curtain around his bed. She told me Ruby said I’d stay while the machines were unplugged and that I was to come fetch her if Gip stayed alive anyway. I glanced at the nurse, then rested my hand on my grandfather’s, wishing I didn’t feel like such a fraud. She turned off the switches one by one and the respirator sank down. Machines whined from beyond the curtain, but in that space, there was no sound. Then a god-awful exhale seeped out Gip’s mouth. I expect it was his fetid soul escaping on his dying breath. I shuddered, then burst into tears. It was the dying that got me, not the dead.



I FOUND RUBY SITTING IN the lobby, holding a cup of coffee. And next to her was Jolene. The breath fell out of me. I dropped my head and walked to her.

“Thought you might need me. So I waited here. Ruby came out and sat down next to me. Hasn’t said a word. What’s going on?” She reached up and wiped my eye with her thumb.

I shook my head. “I’ll tell you about it later. Can you take us home?”

“Sure,” she said.

Ruby stood. “So?” she asked, substituting one word for what could have been an entire conversation.

I shrugged.

“Alright, then,” she said.

“Why couldn’t you wait with me, Ruby? You could have stayed with him. You could have stayed with me.”

“Wouldn’t have done any good. Lord, I need a cigarette. I want to go home. Take me home.”



BLUE LIGHTS FROM TELEVISION SETS flashed in front room windows as we drove by house after house of life going on. Gip’s dying didn’t matter to them any more than it mattered to me. Main Street was dark save for the neon bar lights flashing at Barney’s Taproom. Jukebox music poured out as we drove past. Gip would not work that bar again. His money would never again be lost at the backroom poker table.

The house was dark when we pulled up. We all got out. I opened the door for Ruby and offered my hand. “I don’t need help. I’m perfectly capable,” she said, pushing past me.

“I’m sorry, Ruby,” Jolene said. “For your loss.”

Ruby was halfway up the walk. She stopped and came back to where we were standing. For a second, I was afraid of what she might say or do and thought to herd Jolene behind me, to protect her with my body.

She looked at each of us, then the two of us, judging us separately and together. She returned her gaze to just Jolene. “You’re a pretty thing, aren’t you? You tell your aunt and uncle I thank them.” Then she turned and walked into the house, leaving me and Jolene too stunned to say anything.

“It’s getting late. You ought to go home.” I pulled her close to me, wrapping my arms around her waist. A light came on in the living room.