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Later that night she'd put Athena to bed, cooked herself an easy quesadilla on the grill, and tossed a salad. She poured a glass of white wine and took everything out to the porch where the open window to her bedroom would allow her to hear Athena should she start to cry.
Ruby sat down on the narrow porch, settled in to eat, and watched Patty's neighbors as they wandered up and down the street, doing California things in the hazy purple twilight. Several kids rode their bikes around in slow, lazy circles, calling out to one another. A woman stood on her front lawn sipping a glass of red wine as she readjusted her sprinkler, the water catching the last rays of light and making a rainbow against the evening sky. A man pushed a baby in a stroller while a pre-teen girl rollerbladed alongside them.
Everything about the scene felt more peaceful and less claustrophobic than being in Washington D.C., and as she nibbled at her quesadilla, pulling on a long string of cheese as she bit into it, Ruby smiled to herself. It wasn't that she'd made a huge difference in her life circumstance by coming to Santa Barbara, but more that she'd given herself a moment to breathe. By taking Athena and stepping back from Jack for a moment, she'd given them both a chance to re-set. For a second she considered calling Jack to see how he was, but in the end shejust drank her white wine, happily ate her quesadilla and green salad, and watched as evening descended on the west coast.
May 27, 2000
I have shared my displeasure with Ruby about taking the baby across country, but ultimately, I had to let her do it. She's been there now for over a week, and it's killing me. Little did I know just how much I'd miss the feeling of coming home to my wife and child, and I can already tell that things will have to be different when she comes back (if she comes back? There are still moments I'm unsure, and she hasn't been very forthcoming or available to discuss it). I realize now that I wasn't pulling any weight in the area of baby-care, and I'm willing to do more--she just needs to tell me specifically what. I feel that this has to be a universal misunderstanding with new parents, does it not? Women want men to take up fifty percent of the childcare, but with so much of the feeding and rocking done by mothers, which fifty percent are we supposed to do? All the bathing? All the soothing? Every diaper change during the hours we're at home? It's rather unclear, though telling Ruby this will only lead to her telling me in a fit of rage that she feels I should already know this.
So much of becoming a parent is meant to be intuitive, and yet--as men--our intuition for such things is a bit muted, I'm afraid. I feel strongly, viscerally, that my duty is to love, protect, and provide (I felt these things from the moment I first held Athena--maybe even before she was born), but as for the nuts and bolts of things, I am less clear. Do I stock the closet with lotions and diapers? Do I do the laundry and put it all away while Ruby naps? Now I'm sounding sarcastic andfacetious, and I'm truly not trying to. I simply do not have the answers.
The last time I spoke to Ruby, which was two nights ago, she told me that Athena was sleeping peacefully and that she and her mother had gone out for drinks with someone called Albert. What does that even mean? That Patty is setting my wife up with another man? I feel like I should fly out there and set things right, but I also know Ruby well enough to know that this won't sit well with her. If she tells me she needs space to breathe and think, then I need to give that to her.
But this has been hard--hard on my sense of self as a man, and hard on our marriage--and I feel helpless. I want to get this right. No part of me felt that by leaving the house each day to work and to reach for the future we've been dreaming of together that I was in some way jeopardizing my wife's sanity or happiness. And yet here we are. Here I am. In this house alone, with my wife and baby three thousand miles away, having drinks with a man named Albert.
"I did not know about this," Dexter says, still listening raptly as he lays on the towel next to Ruby. "It's not public knowledge, correct?"
Ruby shakes her head, lips pressed together in a line. "It's not something I'm proud of. I packed up and took Athena away from Jack. I separated a man and his baby so I could bury my toes in the sand and get a solid night of sleep while my mother pitched in."
"I know I'm not a parent, so maybe my words are weightless here, but it doesn't really seem that bad, what you did. And it all worked out in the end, right?"
"I could have stayed in D.C.," Ruby admits, casting her eyes out at the water. "I should have stayed. I'm sure I would have made my way to the doctor eventually, though staying with my mom made it happen faster. She insisted that I go, and it made all the difference in the world."
"So, in the end, didn't you accomplish the same thing by removing yourself from the situation for a month? I mean, I assume you did, as history shows that you and Jack were a unit for decades. You raised not one but two children together, and I've never heard a word about this time. It's a blip on the radar, Ruby."
"Not for me. It felt selfish but necessary. I felt that I was taking back some sliver of independence that I needed and deserved. When I went back home to D.C., I went with a sense of personal strength that I didn't have when I left."
"It sounds like you also went with the knowledge that you didn't want to raise a baby alone."
Ruby nods. "That's true. Seeing my mom live as a single parent and date widely wasn't something that I wanted to do." She spreads her palms to the sky. "It just wasn't, so I took her advice and decided that I was the only person who could say how I felt and how I reacted to things."
"So? What happened? You went, you got sun, you slept a bit, you saw a doctor--what happened after that? How did you find your way home?"
Ruby smiles at this turn of phrase. "I didn't find my way home. Home came to find me."
From: Jack Hudson
To: Ruby Hudson
June 1, 2000 5:13pm
Ruby--
I feel that an email is a rather impersonal way to contact you, but I also feel that time is of the essence, so my preferred method of a handwritten letter would be impractical. It is, however, unfortunate to see my words typed out this way, but I will make do.
I miss you terribly--both you and Athena. I feel strongly that it was right to do as you asked and to watch you go, but I desperately want you to return. Do you have any idea what it's like to work all day and to come home to a silent house that's filled with the belongings of your wife and child? To step into a nursery that's set up to house a newborn, but instead is nothing but a white crib with a silent mobile hanging above it? I stood there today in the light of the evening, watching the dust motes settle as the sun disappeared. The rocking chair sat still in the corner; no sounds of a happy, gurgling baby came from the changing table; no sweet sound of a mother talking to her child filled the room. I closed the door and left it.
The kitchen was dark and cold, and from it, all I could manage was a simple sandwich, which I ate while watching ESPN on the couch. None of it was right.
However, all of this will be worth it if, in the end, I find that you have found a measure of peace, happiness, or that bit of yourself that you felt had gone missing. I want nothing more than for the wife I love to return home with the zeal for life and the joy that I have always known her to have. I almost hesitate to ask, but do you think this will be possible? After a short time apart, can you sense even the rumblings of a return to your former self?
Missing you terribly--
Jack
From: Ruby Hudson
To: Jack Hudson
