Casualties (15 page)

Ruth showered and changed. She thought she could eat, but all she could find in the refrigerator was leftover takeout from a ribs place that Neal liked, a chunk of Brie, and some wilted lettuce. She grabbed the cheese, found a bottle of pinot in the wine cooler and some crackers in the cabinets, and brought it all out to the deck. After the first glass of wine, she forgot about the cheese. She closed her eyes and tipped her face toward the weakening sun. The voices of people gathered on the cliffs below to watch the sunset ebbed and fell with each surge of the waves. The sounds flooded her thoughts the way the ocean flooded the rocks cairned along the water's edge. She imagined the water bubbling through the crevices of the rocks and as the waves receded, so did her ability to think about whatever it was that came next. When the phone rang, she didn't get up to answer it, and then it too receded.

A while later, the intercom for the front door sounded. And then she heard Terri's voice. Ruth tried to stand but her thighs quivered; her knees seemed too fragile to support her. She sank back into the chaise. Too much exercise, she thought, distractedly. The
wine probably wasn't helping. Terri had a key. Ruth picked up a cracker and was still chewing it when the deck lights went on and Terri appeared at her side, holding a shopping bag.

“I tried to call, but you didn't answer. So I let myself in. Hope you don't mind.”

Ruth was surprised to find she didn't mind. Terri's frown of concern, her confidence that she would be welcome were reassuring. She remembered the first time she'd met Terri, her blond hair piled on top of her head like a ball of curling ribbon, her eyes too made-up and too blue to be taken seriously, glasses or no glasses, résumé or no résumé. Ruth almost dismissed her before the interview even started. But then Terri took off the glasses and looked Ruth in the eye as if she could read every thought in Ruth's mind. “I'm the oldest of six kids; I raised my youngest sisters when my mom got sick. I've worked since I was fourteen and put myself through school. I'm not afraid of work, and I'm the kind of person who is going to know what you need even when you don't. You are going to need someone like me.”

Ruth searched for that Terri now and saw her. Ten years older, hair shorter and looser, soft around the jaw now and thick through the hips, but still the person who knew what Ruth needed and cared enough to give it. “I'm sorry about before,” she said.

Terri picked up the wine. “Have you eaten anything to go with this?”

Ruth pointed to the plate.

“Never mind. I know the answer,” Terri said. She went back into the kitchen with her bag.

Ruth watched the sky turn from blue to violet as she listened to the clatter of utensils from inside the house. The marine layer had moved back in and blurred the horizon. The sun, a huge scarlet eye, slipped into the haze. Ruth stared unblinking until all that was left was a salmon glow along the horizon and the Pacific had turned the color of wet slate.

“Here,” said Terri. She put down a tray of food she'd picked up from the Italian place Ruth liked near the office. A salad, some bread, a container of pasta e fagioli.

“You should be at home with your husband and your kids,” Ruth told her.

“They know where I am.” Terri held up the bottle and a glass for herself. “You mind?”

“Go ahead. Get yourself a fork, too. I can't finish all this. Don't know if I can eat any of it, to be honest.”

“You shouldn't be alone,” Terri said. “When is Neal coming back?”

“He's not.”

Terri's silence bore down on her.

“Not tonight anyway,” Ruth said. “I told him to go home. He needs a break.” Not entirely true but true enough.

Ruth made herself pick up the bread and begin to chew. She should be ravenous after the afternoon she'd had, but eating was an effort. The bread felt like a sponge in her mouth. She poured more wine and drank. “So, how was your first day with your new boss?”

Terri sighed. “It'll take some getting used to.”

“You're spoiled after working for a jewel like me.”

“Well, the devil you know . . .” Terri flashed a smile over the top of her glass.

Ruth nodded appreciatively and raised her glass in salute. This was easier to take than sympathy. She was sick of sympathy.

The air had cooled; the sun was sinking faster now. Ruth ate a little of the soup. She picked at the salad. If she could just stop time for a little while, she would. The wine, Terri's arrival, and now the silence made the deck a safe place.

“Ruth.”

“Yes?”

Terri hesitated. Ruth looked up from her food to see her friend sitting up straight, her wineglass on the table, the smile gone. Ruth
let go of her fork and started to hold up her hand as if that would stop whatever was coming.

“Look, Ter, I'm glad you are here and I appreciate the food, but—”

Terri spoke over her. “Do you remember the flash drive I gave you that night? The last night you were at work?”

Ruth's hand fell into her lap. “You mean the last time I saw Robbie alive?”

“No! Oh, Ruth, that's not what I was going to say at all. Please . . .”

“That was the day he came to see me. I thought he could wait.” Ruth's voice was loud in her own ears. Her throat burned.

“Please, listen. I didn't mean to—”

“This has been the first time in days that I have not thought of that night.”

Worry furrowed Terri's broad forehead and widened her eyes. She leaned forward, full of urgency. “You were a good mother to Robbie. He was lucky to have you.”

Ruth got up. Her legs felt shaky but she didn't want to sit there anymore. She walked to the rail as Terri's voice followed her.

“Ruth, I'm so sorry. I never wanted to cause you pain. Only I'm not sure when we'll have a chance to talk alone anytime soon and I wanted to . . . I gave you a flash drive with a lot of documents on it, remember?”

Ruth did not even try to recall what Terri was talking about. “No.”

“A couple of days ago Andrea took all the files from me and Sylvia, all the contractor files and all the correspondence. I don't have any of it left.”

“So?”

“It's all on the flash drive I gave you, along with some stuff Andrea doesn't know exists.”

What flash drive? Why would it matter? Ruth turned from the railing.

“I wanted to remind you about it, in case—”

“In case what?”

“You might want to use it.”

Terri was standing now, sucking on her lower lip the way she did when she was nervous.

“What are you talking about?” Ruth asked. “What's on there that I could possibly want to use?”

“E-mails. Memos. Other documents. They show that Gordon and Sylvia messed up when it came to the insurance and the claims. They knew what they were doing. They knew lots of stuff.”

Ruth went still. The deepening shadows on the deck seemed to breathe now with something even darker than the pain of remembering her last moments with Robbie. “You think I should blackmail them into giving me my job back?” The idea flared into life as if Terri had struck a match. Then it fizzled. She knew Gordon. If he had screwed up, he'd also probably found a way to cover his tracks. He'd win. He had Don; she didn't. Not anymore. She started to thank Terri for having her back, but when she glanced up her friend looked at her the way someone might look if they'd opened a drawer and found a mouse.

“I never thought of blackmail,” Terri said.

Through the fading light, Ruth saw Terri try a smile that failed before it got started. She wished they could go back to sitting on the deck with their glasses of wine, to be together in that small space where feeling was absent for a while. Instead, she asked a question that could only lead to more trouble. “Educate me, Ter. What exactly were you thinking?”

“I was thinking of the people,” Terri said. She paused, as if she expected Ruth to understand, to lift the burden of explanation from her. Ruth waited.

“The ones out on the steps of the office the other day, the contractors who are hurt, the mothers, and the wives. They need help, and they're not going to get it from Andrea or Gordon Olson or the insurance companies.”

The implications of Terri's explanation began to sink in. Terri
must have seen all those e-mails those people had written to Ruth. She saw everything that came into Ruth's inbox.
Please. He may have died here, but he was killed there.
The woman's plea reached down through Ruth's grief and anger to compassion she'd forgotten she had. There was nothing she could do, she'd told herself that morning, but now here was Terri looking at her with eyes full of concern, giving her the means to fight not for herself but for someone else.

“You want me to threaten Don Ryland and Gordon Olson, tell them they better pay up or I'll go public with whatever's on that flash drive?” Ruth said, not quite believing it, hoping that Terri would somehow take all of this back.

“I'm just saying you have it. They need it. You could give it to them.” Terri's brow unfurrowed. She looked at Ruth, still concerned, but also trusting, expectant.

The distance between them, just a few feet of deck, seemed to widen even though neither of them had moved an inch. Ruth saw all the ways that this could and likely would fail. Terri, she was sure, might only see that Ruth was afraid to try.

What did she expect Ruth to do? Didn't she understand that even if Ruth gave everything on that drive to the lawyers, offered herself up as some kind of whistleblower, the contractors could still lose? Lots of years and lots of lawyers later they could still lose. Ruth tried to imagine what would remain for any of the contractors, for her, after all that. She saw more loss, more loss than she could begin to think about right now. And that gave rise to a sudden and fierce resentment.

“Why not you? You take it, you be the hero.”

Terri's shoulders sagged. She looked at her shoes. “My husband just got laid off. I put my résumé out but it's going to take a while. I can't lose my job right now.” Her voice was subdued, embarrassed.

“And I have nothing to lose, right?” Ruth said. “Nothing more, anyway. That's what you're thinking?”

Terri flinched. She didn't look up. “I guess I didn't think. I'm
sorry.” She reached for the purse she'd put down when she arrived. “I'd better go.”

No, don't go
, Ruth wanted to say. Her anger turned to the panic she'd felt earlier in the day.

“Terri,” Ruth said.
Stay with me. Stay just a little longer.

“Yes?” Terri responded quickly, almost eagerly, like a woman expecting good news. Her purse dangled from her wrist, half open. In that moment Ruth thought of her grandmother, the only person in the world besides her brother and, apparently, Terri who believed that Ruth was better than she was.

Thank you for trying.

“Thank you for the food.”

Terri looked back down at her purse. She zipped it up and slung the strap over her shoulder. “No problem.” She said it in the same flat, efficient way she'd said it so often at the office. Ruth could still see her friend, but the shadows of the evening stood between them.

“I'll call you tomorrow,” Terri said. “I'll call the mortuary too.” She turned to go.

“You don't have to do that.”

“No problem, Ruth,” Terri said over her shoulder, not looking at Ruth. “I want to do it. I told you that.”

She watched Terri go from the deck, through the kitchen and then disappear down the stairs. A few seconds later, she heard the front door open and bang shut. Then Ruth looked down for the bottle of wine. Empty. Didn't matter. She knew where there was more.

—

Ruth woke up on the floor of the guest room. Pain radiated from her temples to the base of her skull and her mouth was dry. Her legs were frozen in a fetal curl. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Fragments of a dream tried to chase her into consciousness. Hands. Her mother's red nails flashing from the truck window as Ruth ran after her. Robbie's hands shaking in hers, then not moving at all.

She pushed herself up and saw through the blinds that the sky outside had already lightened. Another day was about to begin. The thought brought her to her feet; she couldn't endure another day like yesterday.

Something soft tripped her when she tried to take a step. Robbie's old stuffed rabbit. She scooped it up, then grabbed the closet door for balance. The mirror on the door startled her into stillness. Over the silk tank top and shorts she'd put on the night before, she wore Robbie's faded denim jacket, the one he'd begged for when he was twelve and would never let her give away. She cradled the toy rabbit, a crumple of plush and bare patches, its remaining ear drooping over the crook of her arm. Her eyes stared back at her, puffy and shadowed but also with an expectant look, as though waiting for the answer to a question.