Page 47 of Witness 8

‘Mom has a year left. Maybe two,’ said Ruby with a heavy sigh.

Alison gave Ruby a hug, said, ‘I’m so sorry. I knew she was sick, but I didn’t know it was that bad. Oh, God, I feel terrible. I’m so consumed with John and the case . . . and my stupid necklace. It’s silly. I’m sorry.’

She had not brought up the necklace again. But on a few occasions she’d seen Alison pulling out the contents of drawers in her bedroom, lifting the cushions on the couch in thelounge and even emptying the bathroom cabinet. Ruby had said nothing.

Now, Ruby stood in the hallway of the Jackson home, waiting for Tomas to finish brushing his teeth before she took him to school.

She stood by the kitchen door.

Facing the front door.

Her back to the painting of the red priest.

She heard buzzing.

At first, she tried to ignore it. Like a fly dive-bombing around her head.

As the buzzing grew louder, she tuned in to its sound. It was no longer a buzzing sound.

It was a voice. A fast, hissing whisper.

Looking over her shoulder, she could see John was in his study, beside the lounge. Alison was in the kitchen preparing some fruit for Tomas’s lunch box.

Neither of them were whispering.

John had kept himself busy. Working all hours. But then all of that had stopped.

Last week, John had opened a letter from the hospital, read it, let it fall from his fingers and then quietly walked out of the kitchen. Even before Ruby reached down to retrieve it, she knew what it said. The way John moved out of the room, unsteady on his feet, like he’d just been hit on the head with a shovel . . .

‘The management, in consultation with trustees, have concluded that in the interests of the patients and the hospital, you should be placed on suspension . . .’

There was a tension in this house. The place was quiet. Yet a low pulse filled her ears whenever she set foot through the door. It wasn’t real. More of a feeling that her mind manifested into noise. Or maybe it was just the sound of her own heart beating. It reminded her, in a way, of being young and listening to theclink clinkof ice tumbling into her father’s bourbon glass. A signal for the fear to begin. Josef managed a property portfolio inherited from his father. This empire provided their income, but his gambling was out of control. When he lost big, he sold a property and doubled his bets, trying to get even. But he always lost. And when he lost – he drank. Even now, all of these years later, whenever Ruby heard the tinkle of ice in a crystal glass, it set her teeth clamping together, a flash of heat at her neck and pressure in her head. She knew as a young girl, when she heard that noise, that within a few short hours, her mother would be cowering somewhere in the house – hiding from him. And then the banging and the breaking of glass.

And then the screaming.

And then quiet.

Like a hurricane passing over the house. And the next day, the hurricane would have no memory of the devastation it had caused. Her mother would sweep up the broken glass early, before he woke. Upturned tables righted. Pictures put back on the wall. The floor mopped clean. The swelling on her mother’s face brought down with ibuprofen and more ice. The looming bruises hidden beneath layers of make-up.

Ruby had heard some of the neighbors, women, in hushed conversation, when they thought she wasn’t listening, gossiping about her mother – calling her common, and not their kind of people because of the amount of make-up her mother wore. They didn’t know she was hiding her husband’s sin. They blamed her. Said that only whores wore their make-up that way.

Her mother’s silence was so loud it roared inside Ruby’s head. And when her father left them with his debt, the banks came and all their possessions were loaded onto trucks, and the neighbors had stood and watched. Ruby felt the heat of shame that day. An inferno in her mind that still burned with the very thought of it.

Now, standing in the hallway, watching John typing on his laptop, another sound began layering over the clicking of his keyboard.

The whispers . . .

The letterbox in the front door flapped open and mail landed on the welcome mat. Alison came quickly from the kitchen, and John met her in the hallway. These days, the mail brought all kinds of bad news into this house. John’s suspension letter. Legal bills. Letters from the bank about extending their credit and demands for down payment from the construction firm Alison had hired to do a remodel on their brownstone interior. And of course there was worse.

Hate mail. Death threats.

Alison got to the mail first. Flicked through the pile of letters and stopped when she reached a white envelope. It was addressed to John. Handwritten.

He took it from her, tore open the envelope and read the letter. He said nothing, gave it to Alison to read.

‘What is it?’ she asked, a slight tremble in her voice.

Ruby moved into the kitchen to give them some privacy. She didn’t wait to be asked. From the kitchen Ruby hollered upstairs, ‘Tomas, come on, munchkin. We have to get going or you’ll be late for school.’