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The first time she’d seen Ruby.
“I just remember it was really cold,” she said to Ruby. “And we were... We were rehearsing for the Christmas play. And I was in the choir. So we were dressed as angels. I think I had a white sheet on. And I don’t have a clue why I remember that. But I remember trying to squeeze the baggy white sleeves into my coat before we left. And I felt like I couldn’t move my arms right. But Mom wasn’t there. It was Lydia and Marianne bundling me up. So they didn’t do a good job. Then we walked outside and it was cold. I could see my breath. And I remember the bridge. The boards were squeaky. And I thought it was scary. Because it was like walking into a mouth. And I didn’t like it. I guess it’s not really a memory from that night. It’s just how I felt about the bridge. And you were there. In a little blanket.”
Ruby was staring at her now, not so immune now. Wanting the story now.
“Who picked me up?” Ruby asked.
Dahlia frowned. “I don’t remember. I remember that when you did get picked up, something fell out of the blanket. It was your necklace. The silver bells.”
Ruby nodded.
“I picked them up,” Dahlia said.
And right then she could feel it between her fingertips. Cold from the air outside. So cold. It was a miracle that Ruby had survived. Dahlia had been out there with a coat, and she could remember. She could remember how cold it was, and Ruby had been just a tiny thing, wrapped in a blanket.
“I put them in my coat pocket,” Dahlia said. “And... I remember being home. And I remember police.” She shook her head. “That’s really all. I was just...in preschool. I can remember making a turkey with my hand, but I can’t totally remember all that. You’re my sister. That’s what it was. From that day forward. I mean... There were discussions. I remember being upset, because Mom said she didn’t know if we could keep you. Because someone might be looking for you. I remember praying that whoever it was didn’t find you, because they didn’t deserve you. They left you. I didn’t want you to go away. I felt like we found you and you were ours. So we should get to keep you.”
Ruby was uncharacteristically silent, and she noticed that there were tears in her eyes. “I didn’t know that.”
“I guess I never told you.”
She had wanted Ruby so desperately, so very badly. A baby, because then she wasn’t the baby anymore, and it made her feel older and more important.
And after the honeymoon phase she had started to resent her sometimes. Because she was loud and red-faced and noisy. Because Dahlia didn’t get all the attention that she used to. And she could also remember telling her mother that she wished that they would send her back. She could remember saying that she was tired of Ruby and she hoped whoever was looking for her found her. At that point she’d been a terrible two-year-old to Dahlia’s emotional six. And her mother had told her they’d adopted Ruby, and she was part of her family. Just the same as they were. And they could no more send Ruby back than they could send Marianne or Lydia away.
She didn’t tell Ruby that part. Because always, always at the end of one of those fits she felt terrible guilt. And then fear. Fear that that vague hope had made its way out to the universe and someone would come for Ruby. Come and take her away. It was like that always. A seesaw of guilt and resentment. The adjustment period wasn’t smooth.
“I never asked,” Ruby said.
Dahlia looked at Ruby, hard. “Why not?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I... Dahlia, I know I’m not a secret princess. I know that... I do know that there’s something half-empty there. I just...don’t see how it would help me to know that. I’ve always preferred to just focus on the fact that I’m here for a reason, saved for a reason and...it makes me brave. It gives me a purpose and I don’t know what this is going to do for me.”
Ruby was sincere. Always. “Well, maybe it’s not about what it would do for you. I mean, Ruby, history is your thing. What does history do for the people that have passed on? Nothing. It’s about what we can all learn from it, right? It’s about...the way it touches us in the present. You and I both believe, so deeply, in that.”
“Caitlin too, though? I worry about Dana...”
“I would never do anything to hurt Dana,” Dahlia said. “You know that. But it would feel wrong to leave either of you out of these kinds of...retrospectives.”
“Hmm.”
“Do you object to being the subject of a retrospective?”
Ruby scrunched her nose. “I guess not. I trust you, Dee. I know you aren’t going to write anything that bothers me.”
Dahlia wasn’t sure about that, though, since it was clear a great many of the truths Dahlia saw in her sister’s past did hurt her.
Maybe Ruby floated so none of it touched her.
So her feet never hit the ground and she never had to feel it.
And Dahlia wasn’t looking to write a puff piece. She wanted to write something new, something that hadn’t been written yet about Ruby McKee.
About Pear Blossom.
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll bring back all the Ruby papers tomorrow from the office.”
“I have a scrapbook. Of me. I think I’ve seen everything there is to see.”
