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Its not like I hate her for no reason, or even for a stupid, petty reason. Shes earned my contempt. To explain, I have to open the door to my mothers and my life, and welcome you in as friends.
The story of us starts eleven years ago, in a place few of you have ever seen: the San Juan Islands up in Washington State. I grew up in a small farmhouse on a patch of land that had been homesteaded by my great-grandfather. The island. . the to . . . . my house . . . they all belong on Hallmark cards. I went to school with the same kids for thirteen years; the only crime I can recall happened in 1979, when Jimmy Smithson broke into the local pharmacy, ripped open all the condom packages, and wrote “Peggy Jean likes sex” in Dial soap on the front window.
And then there was my family.
My dad was-is-a commercial fisherman who repairs boat engines in the winter months to make ends meet. He was born and raised on Lopez Island; he is as fixed in that place as one of the ancient trees that line the main road.
Although my mother was born off-island, she was a local by the time I came along. She volunteered for every town charity event and was a fixture around school.
In other words, we were a perfect family in a quiet little town where nothing ever happened. In all my growing-up years, I never heard my parents argue.
Then, in the summer before my seventeenth birthday, everything changed.
My mother left us. Walked out the door, got into her car and drove away. She didnt call or write all that summer, she just . . . vanished.
I cant remember now how long I waited for her to return, but I know that somewhere along the way, in the pool of a thousand tears, she became my Mother, and then, finally, Nora. My mom was gone. I accepted the fact that whatever she wanted out of life, it wasnt me.
I could describe what it was like, the waiting, but I wont. Not even for the money. The worst of it was my father. For my last two years of high school,
I watched him . . . disintegrate. He drank, he sat in his darkened bedroom, he wept.
And so, when Cache came to me, asking for my story, I said yes. Hell yes.
I figured it was time that America knew who they were listening to, who was giving them moral advice.
Like the rest of you, I heard her message stream over the airwaves: Commit to your family and make it work. Be honest. Hold fast to the vows you made before God.
This from a woman who walked out on her marriage and abandoned her children, and –
“Ruby!”
She tossed down the pen and paper and went to the doorway, poking her head out. “Yeah?”
“Can you breathe okay, with all this dust?” Ruby rolled her eyes. As always, her mother was as subtle as an exclamation mark. “I see you found enough air in your lungs to scream at me,” she muttered, hurrying downstairs.
As she passed her mothers bedroom, she heard a sneeze.
Ruby smiled; she couldnt help it.
In the kitchen, she knelt in front of the cabinet beneath the sink and opened the doors. Everything she needed to clean the house, and in quantities large enough to clean any house, stood in four straight rows. When she realized that the supplies were organized in alphabetical order, she burst out laughing.
“Poor Caro,” she whispered, realizing how badly her sister wanted everything to be tidy. “You were definitely born into the wrong family. ”
Then, as tired as she was, she started to clean.
Chapter Eight
Nora tried not to watch her daughter clean the house.
It was simply too irritating.
Ruby dusted without moving anything, and she clearly thought a dry rag would do the job. Oh, shed brought out the industrial-size can of Pledge, but shed left it sitting on the tile counter in the kitchen. When she started mopping the floor with soapless water, Nora couldnt help herself.
“Arent you going to sweep first?” she asked from her wheelchair, tucked into the open doorway of her bedroom.
Ruby slowly turned around. Her face was flushed-from what exertion, Nora couldnt imagine. “Excuse me?”
Nora wished shed kept silent, but now there was nowhere to go except forward. “You need to sweep the floor before you mop . . . and soap in the water is a big help. ”
