AllFreeNovel
Share Us
At last, she was home. The yellow clapboard house, built in the late twenties, sat wedged between two huge willow trees. The original house-a squat, broken down log cabin with a moss-furred roof could still be seen amid the tumbling blackberry brambles at the edge of the property.
She parked alongside her dads battered Ford truck, got out of the car; and stood there, looking around. It was exactly as she remembered. She walked down the gravel path, past the now empty rabbit hutches shed built with her dad, toward the back porch. The yard was still a riot of runaway weeds and untended flowers. Shasta daisies grew in huge, hip-high mounds, drawing every bee on the place. A tattered screen door hung slanted, a set of screws missing.
She paused on the porch, steeling herself for the sight of her dads new family, walking as they did across the floorboards of his old one.
She knew shed be entering another womans house . . . a woman she barely knew, who was less than ten years older than Ruby herself . . . seeing a baby brother for the first time. A baby who had no idea that his father had started over in his life, had left his other children stranded in the gray hinterlands of a broken family.
Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door and waited. When there was no answer; she eased the screen door open and stepped into the kitchen.
The changes were everywhere.
Frilly pink gingham curtains. Lacy white cloths. Walls papered in a creamy white pattern with cabbage roses twining on prickly vines.
If shed needed evidence that Dad had gone on with his life (and she hadnt), it was right here. Their old life had been painted over.
“Dad?” she said, not surprised to find that her voice was weak. She stepped past the table-the chairs had been painted a vibrant green-and poked her head into the living room.
He was there, kneeling in front of the small black woodstove, loading logs into the fire. When he looked up and saw her; his eyes widened in surprise, then a great smile swept across his lined face. “I dont believe it. . . . Youre here. ” He clanged the stoves door shut and got to his feet.
Moving toward her, he started to hold his arms out, then he paused, uncertain. At the last minute, he pulled her into an awkward hug. "Caroline told me you were home. I wondered if youd come to see me.
She clung to him, fighting a sudden urge to cry. He smelled of wood smoke and varnish and salt air.
“Of course Id come,” she said shakily, drawing back. Although both of them knew it was a half-truth, a wished-for belief. She hadnt even called him, and the realization of her own selfishness tasted black and bitter.
He touched her cheek. His rough, callused skin reminded her of hours spent sanding boat decks at the marina, a girl and her dad, huddled together in the dying red sunlight, saying nothing that mattered. “I missed you,” he said.
“I missed you, too. ” It was true. She had missed him, every day and all the time. Now, standing here, seeing in his eyes how much he loved her, she wished shed been more forgiving when he remarried, more accepting of his new life.
It was the sort of thought that winged through Rubys mind all the time, regrets, hoped-for improvements; in the end, she never changed. She said what ever popped into her head and hurt whoever hurt her first. She couldnt seem to help it.
She collected grudges and heartaches the way shed once collected Barbies, never sharing, never abandoning. Her dad, in the end, had hurt Ruby deeply; it was the sort of thing she had no idea how to over come. It was always between them, a sliver embedded just below the skin.
She glanced uneasily up the stairs, wondering whereMarilyn was. “I dont want to intrude-”
“Marilyn took Ethan off island for a doctors appointment. He grinned. ”And dont even pretend you arent happy about that. "
She smiled sheepishly. “Well . . . I wanted to see the kid. My brother,” she added, when she saw the way he was looking at her. She winced, wishing shed said it right the first time.
“Dont worry about it. ” But he turned away quickly and headed back into the living room. She knew shed hurt his feelings. He
sat down on the threadbare floral sofa, cocked one leg over his knee. “Hows it going between you and your mom?”
She flopped down onto the big overstuffed chair near the fire. “Picture Laverne and Shirley on crack. ”
“I dont see any visible bruising. I have to admit, I was shocked when Caro told me youd volunteered to take care of Nora. Shocked and proud. ”
Ruby ached suddenly for what had been lost between them, and the hell of it was, they hadnt fought or argued. When hed found Marilyn, hed simply drifted away from his daughters. Hed stopped calling as much.
“I meant to come visit you this week,” he said, giving her that you-know-how-it-is smile of his. The one that always reminded you that he had other things-other people-on his mind.
She refused to be stung by his laid-back attitude. “So, how is the fishing this season?”
Something passed through his eyes, so quickly it would have been easy to overlook. But Ruby saw it. “Dad? What is it? Whats wrong?”
“Last summer was terrible. I might . . . have to sell off another chunk of land. ”
“Oh, Dad . . . ” Ruby remembered the last time theyd had this talk. It had been the year after her mother left, when her father hadnt fished all season.
