Page 5 of The Fadeaway

Ruby shrugs again. "I mean, I don'tcareobviously. Like, I don't care in the sense that it changes anything about how I feel about my mother, I just wish she would have told me."

"What makes you think she should have told you? Do you tell Harlow and Athena everything about your love life?"

"There's not much to tell," Ruby says, sounding incredulous. "I've dated a few men, I was married to their father for decades, and now I have one--maybe, it's kind of unclear at the moment--boyfriend, so...what's to tell?"

Sunday tips her head and shoots Ruby a look that travels across the thousands of miles between them. "Okay, let me be clear: do you tell them about the hot sex life you have with a man who is closer to their age than he is to yours?"

"Oh, god! No!" Ruby says, shaking her head emphatically and waving her fork around. "No way. And I wouldn't have wanted to know that about my mom either, but I would like to think she could have told me anything. I would’ve listened without judgment."

"There's no such thing."

"No such thing as what?"

"A lack of judgment. We all do it. We judge everything--it's human nature. Now," Sunday says, pointing a finger in the air like she's about to make a strong point, "it's what we do with that judgment that counts. Do we hold it against someone, or do we just file it away as information we now know about them? Ibelieve, Ruby, knowing you as I do, that you would have simply taken in that knowledge and moved on. That's how you are. But can you see Patty's fear that you might have held it against her?"

Ruby thinks about this, and she understands that there are fears that mothers hold in their hearts--fears that they'll do something to shame or disappoint their children. So yes, she can understand. She nods. "Okay, I can see it. Maybe." She looks away from Sunday as she picks at her food.

"So what are you going to do with this information now?"

Ruby inhales slowly and then releases it. "Well, this woman--Ellen is her name--is still renting the condo my mom owns in Seattle and it's now a part of her estate, so I guess I need to talk to Ellen. Decide what to do with the property and how it will affect someone who my mother clearly loved."

"Okay, that makes sense." Sunday sets the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and picks up her wine instead. "Are you going to call her?"

Ruby gives a single shake of her head. "No," she says, deciding on the spot what she'll do. She looks directly at Sunday and she can feel herself bolstered by the determination to figure this out and do whatever it is her mom would have wanted her to do. "I'll get a flight to Seattle and go there myself. I think it's time that Ellen and I finally meet."

Ruby

Seattle is cold. It's gray. It's rainy. It's everything that Ruby has always believed it to be, though she's visited the city on numerous occasions and during every season. As a young girl, she and her mother made the trip at least twice a year to visit Patty's parents, Eugene and Margaret, both die-hard Seattleites with a love of clean air, strong coffee, and the outdoors.

Before leaving Santa Barbara, Ruby made an appointment with Patty's accountant, but before getting even more embroiled in her mother's finances she needs to find out more about this property in Seattle.

"This is it, ma'am," the Uber driver says, pulling up in front of a beautiful duplex and idling at the curb. As he does, the windshield wipers streak the light rain across the glass, and jazz music hums quietly from the speakers.

Ruby looks out the window of the backseat at the house in the Montlake neighborhood of the city; it’s within spitting distance of the University of Washington, and most of the houses look like the type that you see in movies set in Seattle: picturesque with peaked roofs, front porches, emerald green lawns, and moneyed exteriors.

Ruby glances at the address on her phone screen one more time and then back at the house, which is decidedlynota condo.

"Thank you," she says, sliding out of the car and putting the sole of one leather boot on the cold, wet pavement. Rain immediately starts to speckle the shoulders of her coat.

The door closes with a heavy thump and the driver leaves her there, standing at the foot of a short driveway as she looks up at the house. One street over, traffic rushes by on a busy street, but this home is tucked into a protected enclave of expensive homes, hugged by tall trees and lined with parked cars, basketball hoops, and all the trappings of the upper middle class.

“Ruby.” A woman opens the front door. She stands there, arms wrapped around her body as she watches Ruby walk up the driveway and to the house. “Welcome.”

“Ellen?” Ruby pauses for one brief moment to confirm, though she knows this must be the woman who had written her mother that letter—that one and so many others, all lined up in the boxes in Patty’s office. Ruby had read most of them, more and more certain with every missive that she’d stumbled onto the great love affair of her mother’s life. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

Ruby is prepared to offer a hand, but Ellen steps out onto the porch and throws her arms open wide. “I can’t believe you’re here,” Ellen says in a hoarse whisper, pulling her close for a hug. “Your mom…I’m so sorry, honey.”

They stand there like that for a moment. Ellen smells like clean, powdery perfume, and the open house behind her beckons with the scent of freshly brewed coffee.

Finally, Ellen releases her and wipes the tears from her own eyes. She takes Ruby’s hand, and leads her inside.

They quickly dispense with Ruby’s coat, purse, and boots, and end up in the middle of a warm kitchen with many windows and a collection of copper pots that hang over an island.

Ellen pours them each a cup of coffee and brings cream from the refrigerator as Ruby looks around.

“Sit, sit,” Ellen says, waving at the table. Ruby sits. “I know why you’re here.”

Ruby doesn’t even know why she’s here. She accepts the coffee and waits for Ellen to join her. When she does, Ruby taps a nail against the side of her ceramic mug, trying to formulate her thoughts. No matter how much time she spent on the airplane imagining this moment and this conversation, she still couldn’t have truly envisioned herself asking a strange woman to tell her the circumstances of her love affair with Patty.

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