Ruby was walking through the door when he shouted, “I gambled it all away. We're ten months in arrears on the mortgage. We got our last notice yesterday. I used Andy's money to try and get it back. Jesus, Ruby, will you say something?”
Ruby slid into the driver's seat of her car. In a trance she got back out, opened the garage door, and climbed back into the car. She drove to the gift store with tears rolling down her cheeks. She parked next to Dixie's beat-up Mustang.
Just like that. One minute she was singing and humming and feeling pleased with herself and her world, happy and contented in the house she'd worked so hard to make a home for her family, and the next minute it was all being ripped away from her. Evicted. They were going to lose the house. There was no money for Andy's college. Gambling. In a million years she would never have thought of her husband throwing away their hard-earned money. This couldn't be happening to her, but it was. Damn, why had she come here to the store? She wouldn't be able to concentrate on the numbers and the time-consuming hours of inventory.
“Like hell,” she muttered, grinding the gears as she backed out of her parking spot.
In her frenzy to get home before Andrew left, she cut the corner too close and plowed over her prize rosebushes. She hardly noticed. She slammed the kitchen door so hard, one of the square panes broke, and glass tinkled about her feet. She crunched it as she marched into the kitchen, shouting her husband's name at the top of her lungs.
“You bastard! You miserable, rotten, stinking bastard. You stole our money. You stole from your own son. Do you have any idea how hard Andy's worked so you wouldn't have to pay all his bills? How could you? What kind of person are you? I've had it with you, Andrew, with all your smutty little affairs, your drinking, your lousy me-first attitude. I want a divorce and I want it now. I'm going to a lawyer. No more! I can't take any more!” she shrieked.
Andrew blanched. The word
divorce
wasn't in his present vocabulary. A divorce wasn't going to help him one bit. His tone of voice was so oily and slick, it surprised him. “Stop talking nonsense, we aren't going to get a divorce, and you know it. Sit down and let's put our heads together and see if we can't get out of this mess. I swear I won't do it again. I learned my lesson. Once I get out from under these bookies, I swear I'll never make another bet. I quit drinking when you hassled me, didn't I? I can quit this, too. Think of something, Ruby. That's what you're good at, coming up with solutions.”
Ruby's voice was icy cold when she responded. “You're wrong, Andrew. I will file for a divorce. You stole from our son. You begrudged the money we spent to send Martha to Rensselaer. You never even congratulated her. I'm surprised you haven't hit her up for a loan. My God, you did, I can see it on your face. What kind of man are you? This is our house, our home, and you gambled it away. If I let you get away with this, if I stay married to you, that makes me no better than my mother. I won't do it, Andrew. Sell your watch. And while you're at it, sell those expensive golf clubs and your membership to the country club. Sell everything you can get your hands on. Your car, too. Ride Andy's bicycle. No more, Andrew!”
“There's no money to pay for a divorce,” Andrew said snidely. “You can't leave, you have no place to go.”
Ruby laughed. And laughed. Andrew cringed at the sound. Ruby continued to laugh.
She told him then. All about the house in Georgetown and the amended tax returns. “So you see, Andrew, I do have a place to go. I can go there anytime. Years ago, just to be on the safe side, I put the deed in Andy's and Martha's names. The house my parents live in is in their names, too. I'm glad I did it. If I hadn't you would have used it somehow against all of us.”
Andrew's face registered horror. “You sneak. You let me bust my ass at that lousy Sears, Roebuck store when you could have made life easier for us. Amended tax returns! I'll goddamn well turn you in to the Internal Revenue Service myself. That's not legal,” he sputtered.
“Yes, it is, it's so legal, it's pathetic. We had enough money, Andrew. With your retired pay from the marines and your salary, plus my part-time job, we had enough. When I was handling the money, I even saved enough to make things a lot easier, and no one did without a thing. I wanted to get a full-time job; I even begged you to let me work for that law firm in town, but you said no. You said you wanted a clean house and dinner on the table. You said you wanted me home. So I did what you said. Now you fault me. You're a louse, Andrew,” Ruby shrieked, her face contorting with rage.
“You should just see yourself, Ruby, right now this very minute. So what if I did something wrong. You're my wife, you should be thinking of ways to help me instead of threatening me. You act as if I killed somebody. You just admitted you own property, so you can sell it and everything will be just fine. You're overreacting,” he said virtuously. “I can't believe you'd really pay out money for a divorce, money I could use to pay off these sharks, instead of helping me. God help you, you are your father's daughter. Don't think for a minute that I'll forgive you for not telling me about those houses. I won't.” His voice was pious-sounding now. He even looked shamed . . . for her.
She wondered if it would do any good to defend her position concerning the properties. Would he even understand that for so many years he threw it up to her that she was stupid, a hick from the sticks, and that she had tried to prove her own worth? Was it worth mentioning that she secured the properties before she married? What difference did it make now? She had a tidy little nest egg, thanks to her astute management. She could bring the mortgage up-to-date. She had many options, she realized, and if she did exercise those options, Andrew would walk away without a backward glance and show no remorse while she buckled under. Not this time, she fumed. She had plans for the nest egg, plans to go into business with Dixie. If she told Andrew about her plans, he would belittle her, say it was all a pipe dream and she'd never make a go of it.
“I know that. And you know something else, Andrew? I don't really care. I still want a divorce.”
“On what grounds?” Andrew snorted.
“I don't love you. You don't love me. That's grounds enough.”
“Not in a court of law.” He wondered if his words were true. “This is half my house, you can't make me leave, and besides, I have no place to go and no money. I suppose you're going to take back the bills and give me an allowance.” He sneered to make sure she knew what he thought of that idea. “Now, how soon can you come up with the money?”
Ruby turned her back on her husband and walked to the bathroom. She slammed and locked the door. She sat down on the edge of the tub and dropped her head into her hands. She'd said it out loud. She'd actually told her husband she didn't love him. Damn him.
Ruby cried, then. For the would-haves, the could-haves, the should-haves. She was splashing cold water on her face when she heard the kitchen door open and close. She leaned closer to the mirror over the sink. Surely the creature staring back at her wasn't herself. She turned and sat back down on the edge of the tub; her feet scuffed the pearl-gray carpet alongside the claw feet.
How long, she wondered, was she going to sit here like a ninny? She should be angry, and she was to a point, but what she was feeling more than anything was shame and guilt. Shame that once again she hadn't seen the signs, or, if she had, she'd subconsciously chosen to ignore them because her life was on an even keel, and she hadn't wanted to disturb it. She should have known, suspected, the day Andrew said he was taking over the bills. Instead, she relinquished the annoying job, gladly, as a matter of fact, because it freed some of her time.
Ruby blew her nose in a piece of toilet paper. She flushed the toilet just to hear sound in the quiet house. She straightened her shoulders, put one foot in front of the other, and walked out to the kitchen. There was no sign that Andrew had been home. She closed her eyes, hoping it was all a bad dream.
She was making coffee when the phone rang. She reached for it automatically and burst into tears when she heard Dixie's concerned voice.
“I'll be right there,” Dixie said. “Put on coffee, and don't think about anything until I get there. Shift into neutral, Ruby, and we'll work it out together.”
Ruby cried harder.
Why was it, Ruby wondered when Dixie was done soothing and crooning to her and patting her on the shoulder, that only a woman, a mother, had the right words, the right touch to make things bearable? Dixie's plump arms were a haven, her soft voice so peaceful-sounding. Ruby hiccoughed as she sipped the strong coffee.
“Listen to me, Ruby. I just got fired. You did, too. Mrs. Harris said nothing was more important than her inventory. I told her what she could do with it. You're important, I'm important. You told me that so many times these past few years, it's burned into my brain. You were entitled to cry and you've done that, so let's get down to business here. We're jobless, and that means we're going to have to forge ahead with our idea. You are not, I repeat, you are not a failure where Andrew is concerned. My God, Ruby, no one could have done more. You've kept this family together. You are not like your mother. You have to believe that or you're lost. Your circumstances are totally different. And you were right in keeping your real estate dealings secret. If Andrew had known about your tax returns and the properties, he probably would have used that money, too. Gambling is a disease, Ruby. It's not your fault. And there are things you can do if you are prepared to do them. It's not as if you have no choices.”
“But . . .”
“There are no buts. I don't think it gets much worse than this, so that means you've hit bottom. There's nowhere to go but up, unless you want to wallow in your own misery.”
“It's this awful guilt.” Ruby whimpered.
Dixie's voice grew stern. “I want you to think about something. What if you didn't have the houses in Georgetown, what if you didn't have the house in Florida, what if you didn't have the money from the ring? What if ... you really were going to lose this house, what if you really couldn't pay the bills, what if there was no food in your refrigerator? Did you forget about that time you were in Hawaii with Martha when things got so fouled up? What if Andy really couldn't go back to school in the fall? None of that is going to happen because you can make it right. You make it right, you cut your losses, and go forward. Without Andrew. You have the guts, Ruby, use them. How's that for a pep talk?” she said cheerily. “Hugo is going to have a fit when he finds out I got fired. What the heck, it will just go to prove that I'm as worthless as he says I am. You know what? I don't care anymore. Do you think we're screwed up, Ruby?” She giggled.
“About as screwed up as you can get.” Ruby sniffed. “God, what would I do without you, Dixie?”
“Does that mean I'm up there with your old friend Nola?”
Ruby's eyes popped open. “Up there with her! For God's sake, Dix, you are so far ahead of Nola, she's . . . what brought that up?”
“I was always jealous of your friendship with her. I thought I could never measure up. I wanted to be your best friend.”
Ruby hugged Dixie. “You are my best friend. Nola was ... Nola. All these years she never bothered to ... it only takes a few minutes to scratch off a note or a few dollars to make a phone call. I don't know what her reasons are. I did my best to try and keep in touch by staying in contact with Mrs. Quantrell. Nola isn't the person you are, Dixie. As far as friends go, I couldn't ask for a more wonderful one. I truly treasure our friendship. I thought you knew that. The day you wrote me all those years ago was one of the happiest days of my life.”
It was Dixie's turn to burst into tears, which she did, with gusto.
“Now that's all behind us. Let's get on with my problem,” Ruby said briskly.
Dixie rummaged in Ruby's sink drawer for paper and pencils.
“I have a sort of running tally in my head, so we can compute within a few hundred dollars. We have enough to go on.”
It was four o'clock when Dixie leaned back in her chair and bit into a glossy red apple. “I have to hand it to you, Ruby, I don't know if I could have been as generous as you were with your sisters. Or your parents.”
“They were debts of honor,” Ruby mumbled. “The ring was given to me, but my grandmother didn't know how valuable it really was. I truly believe if she knew, she would have wanted me to share it with my sisters. She meant to make my early years a little easier, but I did it on my own. I had to share.”
“With Amber getting the lion's share. I wish you'd show me the justice in that,” Dixie snorted.
Ruby shrugged. “It's expensive to raise kids. Amber has eleven. Nangi's salary goes only so far. Opal has a house that's hers. My grandmother had a saying: When you get you give, otherwise it will never mean anything. If there's one thing I'm proud of, it's that I paid back the debt to my father and provided a home for them in their last years. If you don't understand, don't worry about it. I don't understand it, either.”
Dixie laughed. “It's like the seasons of your life, right? What are we in now?”
Ruby propped her chin in her cupped hands. Her eyes were serious. “The down side of summer. Any day now it will be autumn. That's when you're settled into your marriage, the kids are grown, and you go back to work to provide for the winter of your life. Big things can happen in the autumn.”
“You could be right,” she grinned devilishly. “You might have a chance at the man of your dreams.”