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“Three months. ”
"What?
“Time wasnt real there. In those days, in that place, they were still doing electric shock therapy. We all lined up at eight forty-five in the morning for medications. After a week, Id forgotten most of the outside world. It was Dr. Allbright who saved me. He came every day and talked to me . . . just talked until I could breathe again. I worked so hard to get better, so I could come home. But when I Idid . . . ”
“Oh, God,” Ruby said softly. “That was the day. ”
Nora felt tears sting her eyes and it surprised her She thought shed spent all her tears for that day long ago. “Its not your fault,” she said, and she meant it
"But Dad should have let you come home After what hed done to you-“
“I didnt ask Rand to take me back,” Nora answered. “I was too screwed up to take care of my children, and I knew it. I didnt want my marriage back I wanted . . . me. Its a horrible thing to say, a horrible thing to have done. But its the only truth I can give you. ” She longed to reach out, to take her daughter into her arms, but she was afraid. They were moving toward each other now, stepping over the hurts that had accumulated like boulders on the road between them. “The world is full of regrets and times where you think if only. We have to move past that. Your dad was angry and arrogant. I was frightened and fragile. You were heartbroken. And on that one day, we came together, and we hurt each other Mistakes,” she said. Just ordinary human mistakes. But I want you to know this, Ruby, and its the only part that matters. I never stopped loving you or thinking about you. I never stopped missing you. "
Ruby stared at her a long time. Then, softly, she said, “I believe you. ”
And Nora knew the healing had finally begun.
Chapter Nineteen
Ruby retreated to her bedroom.
Id wake up, lying on the kitchen floor, with huge chunks of my day gone. I dont know if you can understand that kind of depression.
Mom must have been so afraid, so alone . . .
Ruby knew how it felt. It was the worst, she knew, in the middle of a long, dark night, when ,the man you lived with was in bed beside you. If he smelled of another womans perfume, that hand-span between you could feel like the North Atlantic.
She opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out her legal pad. Shed learned that it calmed her to write down her thoughts, and God knew she needed to relax.
She sat down on the bed and drew her knees up, angling the pad agains
t her thighs, and began to write.
Id always believed that the truth of a person was easily spotted, a line drawn in dark ink on white paper. Now, I wonder. Maybe the truth of who we are lies hidden in all those shades of gray that everyone talks about
My mother was in a mental institution. This is her newest revelation. One of them, anyway; in truth, there have been too many to count.
Tonight, Mom painted a portrait of our family, and through her eyes I saw people Id never imagined-a drunken, unfaithful husband and a depressed, overwhelmingly unhappy wife.
How is it that I saw none of this? Are children so sublimely oblivious to their own world?
She was right to hide this truth from me. Even now, I wish I didnt know it.
Sometimes, knowing where we come from hurts more than we can stand.
The phone rang.
Ruby was startled by the sound. Tossing the pad aside, she leaned over and answered. “Hello?”
“Ruby?"
It was Carolines voice, soft and thready. Ruby immediately felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “Whats wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing. Cant a girl just call her little sister?”
Ruby leaned back against the headboard. Caro sounded better now; still, that feeling of wrongness lingered. “Of course. You just sounded . . . ”
“What?"
