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Up on the sand, Ruby is sitting on the towel and looking out at the water as Dexter approaches.
“Hey." He ducks under the umbrella and sits down next to her. "How are things? What did I miss?"
Ruby turns to look at him. "Did I ever tell you that I took Athena to Santa Barbara for a month when she was a baby? It was either that, or leave Jack for good. I was losing my mind."
Dexter knows better than to say anything that will put her off the story, so he settles in, leaning back on his elbows, and watches her face while he waits for more.
"It was a turning point for me," Ruby goes on, tapping the journal that's resting next to her thigh. "I hadn't thought about it for years, but reading Jack's entry about it just brought everything back to the surface."
"You stayed with your mother, I presume?"
Ruby nods eagerly. "I did. And my time there permanently altered my mindset about life. Do you mind if I tell you about it?"
"I'm all ears," Dexter says, rolling onto one side so that he's facing Ruby and giving her his full attention. "Tell me everything."
"What did you do when Dad died?" Ruby asked her mother as they clipped herbs from her garden together.
Athena was sleeping in a bouncy seat in the shade that morning, and after only a week in California, Ruby's east coast pallor had nearly vanished.
"I freaked out for as long as I could afford to, and then I pulled myself together and got on with it."
"Is it really that easy?" Ruby asked, looking at the way her mother, then just in her mid-fifties, moved around the garden with ease, crouching, standing, reaching, plucking. In Ruby's mind, mid-fifties was bumping right up against elderly, so she admired her mom's fluidity and flexibility as if it were something to marvel over.
"No," Patty admitted. "It's not. But I think in any situation, we do what we have to do." She glanced at Ruby. "As with anything, my love, the only thing we get to control in life is how we respond to things. So in that situation, I let myself respond with panic, and then I realized that I had an eleven-year-old daughter watching my every move. A little girl who needed a mother to step up to the plate and walk her through the loss of her father."
She wasn't wrong: Ruby had looked to her for guidance on how to act, feel, and behave. Her mother's initial bereavement had made sense to her, and Ruby had climbed into bed with Patty, curling up together for days as they cried and talked about Ruben Dallarosa. They'd laughed, sobbed, and slept like that, and then one day Patty had gotten up, opened the curtains, stripped the bed, and started a pot of coffee. She made a list, told Ruby she was going to pass the bar exam and put her law degree to use, and then she did. The rest was history.
"So you're telling me that I'm overreacting here. That having a baby is nothing like losing a husband, and that I need to get on with it?" Ruby could feel her mood sour slightly as she intuited her mother's disapproval of how she was acting.
Patty set down her small shovel and looked at Ruby. "Not at all. A major life change is a major life change. I'm just telling you that you'll need to get out of bed here at some point, metaphorically speaking. Wash the sheets, make a pot of coffee, write a list." Patty winked at her, and Ruby knew she wasalluding to that time after her father died when Patty herself had done all those things.
It made Ruby feel better, knowing that her mother understood she was going through something internal, some struggle, but it made her feel worse to know that she was acting as though she couldn't cope with life's biggest blessing--a gorgeous, healthy baby--when her mother had so valiantly coped with one of life's biggest losses.
But it was Ruby's visit with Dr. Angelo that truly set her on the right path. It was after a particularly tough day--the odd rainy day in sunny Santa Barbara--when Patty had found her daughter sobbing in the bathtub, fully clothed and covered with a pile of towels.
"Up," Patty had said, standing over her grown daughter. "Out." She offered Ruby a hand and got her out of the tub. Athena was sleeping in the next room, and the only sound was of the rain spattering against the glass of the bathroom window. "What's happening here?"
Ruby's sobs shook her body as she stood before her mother, hair bedraggled, shirt wrinkled. "What if I let her down?" she'd pleaded, holding onto her mother's elbows. "What if I never pull it together the way you did, Mom? What if Athena only ever sees me as this weak, pitiful woman who runs loads of laundry and drives her to ballet practice?"
"There's nothing wrong with either of those things," Patty assured her. "Laundry always needs to be done, and dropping a child off at an enrichment activity is very important too." Her words and tone were both patient and kind.
"But what if Idie, Mom? What if I get cancer? Or get into a car accident? Who will look after Athena?"
"Her father will," Patty said simply, not bothering to argue with Ruby that neither of those things would happen.
"But will he?" she said back, her voice sounding strained. "What if he remarries and his new wife doesn't love Athena like I do? What if she grows up rootless and aimless because she doesn't have a mother? Maybe I should have thought of all this before having a baby," Ruby said, putting one foot back into the tub like she meant to get back in.
"Uh, uh, uh," Patty said, waving her back out of the tub. "Get some shoes and a coat. We'll take Athena out of her bed at the last minute. I'm calling Dr. Angelo, and you're going in this afternoon."
"But, Mom--"
Patty had already reached the door of the bathroom and she spun around, hand on the knob, eyes flashing. "There are no 'buts' here, young lady. Get your coat. Get your shoes. Brush your hair if you want. This is happening now."
Ruby could hear her mother in the next room, her words muffled as she called the doctor's office and made the arrangements.
True to her word, Patty made the appointment happen and she carefully scooped Athena from her Pack 'n Play right before they left, transferring the sleeping infant into her car seat without waking her.
Dr. Angelo was a gentle man in his fifties with a thick salt-and-pepper mustache that made him look like an airline pilot. He smiled at Ruby as he walked into the examination room and washed his hands.
