I looked down. At some point on the ride home, without noticing I was doing it, I had folded my own two hands together in my lap, one holding the other, my thumb gently moving across the back of my hand.
I looked at them for a long moment. Then I looked over at Oscar, at his hand on his knee, inches away. I didn’t reach for it. And I knew he wouldn’t reach for mine.
Chapter 4
Oscar
Islept like a man who had done a good night's work, because I had.
The Jubilee always left me like that, wrung out in the best way, the way a long day on a job site used to leave me when I was doing whatever work I could get. I came downstairs a little after eight with that pleasant ache still in me, expecting to find Ruby at the counter with her tea and the crossword she pretended she could do in pen. The kitchen was empty. So was the den.
I found her on the back porch.
She was sitting in one of the chairs facing the yard, her back to the door, a mug going cold on the table beside her. She had a sweater on over what she had slept in, and her hair was loose, and for a second I just looked at her, the set of her shoulders, the way she held herself very still. She didn’t hear me, or if she did she decided not to turn.
"Morning," I said, stepping out. The boards were cold through my socks. "I was surprised you weren’t in bed still when I woke up."
"Couldn't sleep," she said. She didn't turn around.
"You eat anything?"
"No."
"Okay." The air had a bite to it that the afternoon would burn off. "I'm going to make myself something."
I made eggs. Three of them, scrambled the way I like, with the toast going while I worked the pan. I sat down at the kitchen table with the plate and a coffee and the good feeling of having a Sunday with nothing to do. I was two bites in when I heard the porch door open, and then Ruby was standing at the end of the table, looking at me.
I looked back at her. "What?"
"What about me?"
I put the fork down. I genuinely did not understand the question for a second. I followed her eyes to the plate and then it landed. "Oh. I didn't think." I slid the plate a few inches toward the empty chair across from me. "Here, take some, there's plenty?—"
"No." She said it quietly, and that was somehow worse than if she had raised her voice. "That's the problem. I would have made breakfast for both of us. I would’ve never thought to only make it for just me. But you came in here and made yourself eggs knowing full well that I hadn’t eaten. It never once crossed your mind that I might be hungry too."
"I asked. You said you didn’t want anything."
"No, you asked if I'd eaten and I told you I hadn’t. I didn’t say I didn’t want to."
I sat there with my eggs cooling in front of me, trying to understand what she was angry about. I was pretty sure it wasn’t about eggs, but what else could it be about? "Ruby, if you're hungry, eat. I can share. I'm not going to fight about a plate of?—"
"It's not about the food."
"Then what is it about?"
She crossed her arms. "Just forget about it."
"No, I'm asking. You've been—" I chose my words carefully, the way you choose your footing on a wet beam. "You've been inyour own world lately. More and more. And I figured you wanted space. I know Jeremy going to college is a big change for you, so I've been giving you space.”
"There's a difference between giving someone space and not being interested."
"That's not fair."
"I know plenty about what’s not fair,” she said.
"I work fourteen-hour days so you can sit on that porch in a house we built. I don't think anybody could say I'm not interested in this family."
"Oh, you work? You? Like I didn’t--. Like I don’t-- Like everything--.” Her eyes flashed wildly with anger. “What about Ocean City?”
