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"Mom," Ruby says in a warning tone.
"Oh, hush." Patty jiggles her glass again and rattles her ice cubes as she prepares to tell her tale. "So, ladies. Listen to this: I was working on an appeal for a pretty high profile case in the eighties--I probably shouldn't say which one--"
"Grandma!" Harlow protests. She clearly knows that Patty wants to be egged on and she does not let her down. "Tell us!"
"Okay. I can tell you that it involved La Cosa Nostra," Patty says, beaming from ear-to-ear. "That's a well-known Italian American mafia family. This case had everything: racketeering, extortion, conspiracy, murder--you name it."
"We had a private security guard during that time," Ruby adds, watching her daughters' faces as they sit on the lower step and look up at their grandmother. Patty has always been a raconteur of the highest order, and Harlow and Athena have enjoyed listening to her tell stories their whole lives. Even before they knew what she was talking about, they'd sit near their grandmother and listen raptly as she talked about foreign places, expensive wines, dalliances with powerful men, and myriad other topics that reallyshouldhave been off-limits for little girls.
"You did?" Athena asks.
"He sat outside our house all night, and took me to school every morning. Grandma was worried that because she was prosecuting the mafia she might be putting us in danger."
"I probably was." Patty shrugs. "But it's what I loved doing. Without Ruben around, I knew that raising your mother was all on me," she says to the girls, "and I wanted to do it in style while also living a completely rich and fulfilling work life."
"And you did?" Harlow pipes up.
"Absolutely. I could write a book."
"Why don't you?" Ruby asks.
"Oh, honey," Patty says, draining her vodka tonic. "I wouldn't even know where to start!"
"Start by telling us about this hot judge," Harlow says, nudging her grandma's knee.
Patty laughs. "Okay, doll. So Judge James Bellwether was the most dashing, most respected, most handsome man you ever saw in a black robe. He was overseeing the appeal, and one night he called me into his chambers after we'd recessed for the day."
Harlow is nodding eagerly, watching Patty's face. "Was he single, Grandma? Did he ask you out?"
Patty gives her granddaughter a pitying look. "Sweetheart, the most dashing, most respected, and most handsome ones are rarely ever single, and they don't want to ask you out."
"So what did he want?" Athena frowns.
"He wanted to show me what he wore under his robe," Patty says, watching the girls' expressions morph from anticipation to horror.
"Oh my god, Mom!" Ruby sets her beer on the step and puts her hands over her ears like she can block out the words that she's already heard.
Patty cackles wickedly. "Well, he did. And the pressures of being in court on such a big case can get to a girl. I needed some way to blow off steam, so I let him show me." She shrugs again, but this time with a self-satisfied smirk.
"Go change, ladies," Ruby says to her daughters, pointing at the house. "We're taking Grandma to the Black Pearl for dinner, but only if she promises not to tell us any more graphic stories involving judges whipping out their gavels in chambers."
Patty laughs again and holds out her empty glass to Athena as she walks between them, clutching her towel around her body. "Be a darling and put this in the kitchen for me, sweetheart," Patty says, handing Athena the glass. "Grandma is going to take a skinny dip in the sea before dinner."
As her daughters head into the house to shower and her mother walks down the steps to wander out to the shoreline (there is no doubt in Ruby's mind that her mom will strip down to her birthday suit and take a dip), she lets her head fall into her hands and sits there for a moment, laughing to herself. Her life has changed immeasurably in the past couple of years, and there's a carefree sense of possibility that she hasn't known in decades.
If pressed, Ruby might even admit that she's happy--happier than she's been in years. She's fifty, and she finally feels like herself again.
Ruby stands and picks up the garden hose, turning it back on. She smiles to herself as she finishes watering the pots of flowers.
Molly
The journey continued. From Fiji, Molly stopped briefly in New Zealand and Australia--just long enough to see humans, eat real food, and sleep on dry land for a few nights. She found youth hostels and shared cheap beers with kids taking gap years from college, and she toured museums alongside families wearing sun visors and cameras around their necks. But she'd truly regained her footing in Fiji, and being on the boat was no longer a lonely proposition, but an opportunity to sail on and see what magic she might find at her next destination.
It was early June by the time Molly reached Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa, and she was ready to take it all in. She docked in Antsirana, on the island's northeastern coast, and immediately went in search of a place to rent. Sleeping on the boat was a possibility, but in order to truly be a part of any place she landed, Molly knew that being with other people, interacting, and sharing meals were the only real ways to experience a community.
Before the end of her first day, Molly had located an apartment in the center of the city for six dollars a night, and she'd pretty much exhausted her high school French trying to communicate and bargain with the landlord to rent from him for an undefined amount of time. He'd finally thrown in the few English words he knew and they'd come to an agreement with a handshake and a payment from Molly of forty-two dollars for the first week. To celebrate, she'd gone into the corner market and bought a helping of rice and pork and a bottle of Madagascar wine to have in her apartment. The people of Madagascar spoke Malagasy and French, and finding someone who spoke English was rare, but Molly didn't mind. She was on someone else's turf, and she knew that learning to assimilate was an important part of her journey.
The apartment was on the third floor and looked out at a busy street below. The building across the street felt close enough that her neighbors whose windows faced hers might be able to step out onto their balconies and say hello. Molly stood at her window for several minutes, watching the windows across the street for signs of life, drinking a glass of cool water as she tried to fully process her new situation.
