Page 6 of The Fadeaway

When Ruby doesn’t speak, Ellen does: “You want to sell the house and I completely understand. I’ve lived here forever nearly rent-free, and it’s time for me to move on and let you settle your mom’s estate.”

In truth, those thoughts had been part of Ruby’s mental meanderings, but she hasn’t made any such decision formally. Sure, this house is probably worth a fair amount of money, but there’s so much more that Ruby needs to know.

“Actually, I have no idea yet,” Ruby finally says, lifting her coffee mug just to feel the warmth against her cold hands. “This is all new to me, and I’m really just getting my ducks in a row. I don’t have any siblings, as you know, so it’s just me trying to figure this out.” She dips her head and pauses before going on. “I understand that you and my mother were close, I just don’t know how close, or how you two maintained a friendship all these years.”

At this, Ellen bursts out laughing. The unexpected mirth jolts Ruby and she looks up from her coffee mug in surprise.

“Sometimes it’s not about maintaining a friendship, Ruby,” Ellen says. She’s looking at Ruby from the other end of a kitchen table that’s covered by a yellow and white tablecloth. “It’sabout a shared past that bonds you together with ties that are unbreakable.”

Ruby decides that being forthright is her best option, given that she’s only spending twenty-four hours in Seattle. “I read some of your letters.”

Not even a flicker of shock registers on Ellen’s face; she appears totally unsurprised. “I wrote many,” she says carefully.

“You did.” Ruby nods, still clutching the mug with both hands. “I loved the one about you two sneaking out to see the Beatles.”

This makes Ellen laugh again, and this time her head tips back and her eyes close. The lines on her face look like etchings from years and decades of joy, and suddenly the woman she’d imagined up here in Seattle, pining away for Patty, becomes someone different, someone happy.

“We were a couple of hooligans, that’s what we were,” Ellen says, swiping at a tear that’s escaped during her laughing fit. “Our mothers never knew about that little escapade. I’m sure you’ve had a few yourself that you never told Patty about.”

“Oh, probably,” Ruby says, smiling nervously. “But my mom and I have always been pretty close.” Her smile fades. “I mean, wewereclose.”

Ellen clucks sympathetically. “Oh, Ruby,” she says. “It’ll take time.”

Ruby gives a nod. “I know. And it’s fresh. She came to Florida and stayed with me until the end.” The words nearly choke her as she says them, trying hard not to remember the frail, pained woman who had taken the place of lively, vivacious, funny Patty.

But even in her pain, there had been humor; Patty hadn’t faded altogether until her very last hours. In fact, there had been a day on Shipwreck Key—maybe two weeks into Patty being there—that Ruby had paused in the middle of the kitchen,copper pot in one hand and dishrag in the other, and listened to the silence.

The house, empty save for her and Patty after Harlow and Athena had left the island again, had fallen into a soothing sort of routine. The women woke up, had coffee, Ruby cared for her mother and got her all the medications that she started her day with, and then they’d sit together at the table and talk about everything under the sun.

Before noon, Ruby would get Patty set up on a couch comfortably, a cup of tea on the coffee table, and all of her stationary sets and pens were set up close by. Patty would write notes to mail to her friends until sleep overwhelmed her, then she’d doze until late afternoon, sleeping right through lunch.

One afternoon, things got terribly quiet much earlier than usual, and Ruby stopped what she was doing, holding that pan in one hand and listening for the sound of Patty picking up and setting down the mug of tea, or dropping a pen and calling for Ruby to help her retrieve it. But that day, there was nothing. The house had gotten so quiet that Ruby could hear the clock on the wall ticking.

Her first urge was to call out for her mother, but instead, she’d set the copper pot on the island, holding the dish towel in hand as she tiptoed into the front room. There, on the couch, Patty’s head had lolled back, and her eyes were closed. Her mouth hung slack. The pen she’d been writing with rested in her right hand, and the paper had slipped off her lap and landed on the rug beneath the coffee table.

“Oh, no,” Ruby had whispered to herself. In fact, the words came out so quietly that she might not have said them aloud at all.

She took cautious steps towards her mother, her heart rate picking up in anxious anticipation.

When Patty didn’t stir, Ruby leaned forward, putting her face as close to her mother’s as she could bear, hoping that she’d feel the exhalation of breath from either Patty’s mouth or nostrils.

Ruby stood there, cheek next to her mother’s mouth.

“I’m not dead yet,” Patty had said in a regular, if somewhat raspy, voice.

Ruby shrieked and jumped back, putting both hands to her chest. “Jesus, Mom!” she’d shouted, feeling her eyes well with tears. “I thought you stopped breathing.”

Patty chuckled and reached out one shaky hand towards her daughter. “I’m sorry, Bibi, I couldn’t resist. You just looked so serious. I had to lighten the mood.”

The tears fell freely down Ruby’s cheeks as she broke into a smile; even she could laugh at the ridiculousness of thinking her mother had died without a final joke or a few words for Ruby.

“Mom,” Ruby had said, pulling the sleeve of her lightweight sweatshirt down over one hand and using it to wipe her eyes and her nose. “Don’t die, okay?”

Patty’s face softened as she watched her adult daughter standing there, vulnerable as a little girl in the face of her mother’s impending demise.

“Bibi, I will hang on as long as I possibly can, if only to give you a few more nuggets of wisdom before I go.”

Ruby had laughed at that too; they both knew that Ruby had enough nuggets of her own wisdom at that point.

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