Page 31 of The Holiday

Ruby stood abruptly, slamming both hands on the table.

“Since Dexter carved the turkey in the kitchen,” she said, “we already found the wishbone.” Ruby stood, marched into the kitchen, and returned through the swinging door holding it in one hand. “Mark,” she said to the man (though, again, he shall remain nameless, thus I am using “Mark” as a pseudonym), “come and break the wishbone with me.”

He stood, looking dubious and yet seemingly unconcerned. “Cool,” he said, reaching for one side of it. “Haven’t done this since I was a kid.”

In one easy tug, the wishbone snapped and Ruby was holding the bigger piece triumphantly.

“Wonderful,” she said. “Now I get to make a wish.”

Of course we all expected she’d make a wish in her head, the same way one does when blowing out birthday candles, but that wouldn’t have been Ruby’s style.

“I wish that Mark would pack his bags and get out of this house immediately, so that we can all truly enjoy Thanksgiving.”

“Mom,” Athena said, clearly still hoping that something would happen to make the ugliness vanish from the middle of our holiday dinner. “I think Harlow and Mark?—“

“Nope,” Ruby said firmly. “I won. I made my wish. And since I paid for this house, I get to say who stays here, and guess what? Mark—you’re out.”

Mark looked around the table at each of our faces, mouth agape. I was willing to stand by Ruby no matter what she wanted, and truth be told, Mark had worn out his welcome with me long before. I’d just wanted to be respectful of my stepdaughter and of her relationship.

“Harlow—“ Mark looked at her.

“You should probably go,” she said, looking up at him with a fork in one hand and a knife in the other. “My mom hates you, and if she doesn’t like you, it’s never going to work out between us.”

“But it’s Thanksgiving,” he whined. “You can’t kick me out. I don’t think the ferry is even running today.”

“It’s not,” Ruby said with a satisfied smile. “But I already called ahead, and there’s a bar you can drink in tonight, then you can catch the first ferry in the morning.”

“Harlow, can we just talk about this?” Mark turned to his girlfriend.

“Harlow is a grown woman,” Ruby said. “If she wants to go with you, she can. But I’m not going to sit here and rage-eat my turkey while I listen to you disrespect my child. There is no way I’m letting some guy whose parents clearly never told him ‘no’ talk down to my daughter. It’s not happening.”

We all sat there, gobsmacked. Ruby was the sweetest, kindest, most thoughtful and patient person I’d ever known. She was not given to fits of anger or irrationality—ever. So this outburst was not something I could ignore: she had clearly reached her limit, and her limit was someone hurting her child.

“Now go. Please. My gravy is getting cold.”

And so we sat there while Mark tossed his napkin on the table, swore under his breath, and went upstairs to pack his duffel bag. I drove him to the bar that was open all night on Thanksgiving, and while I was gone, the women reheated everything so that we could have a warm turkey dinner when I got back.

Harlow and Mark broke up, we never saw him again, but none of us ever forgot the Thanksgiving that Ruby put her foot down and kicked a man out into the rainy night with no turkey for being an ass to her daughter.

In fact, the wishbone became our own little family joke—I bought her a dainty, solid gold wishbone on a chain for Christmas that year that she wore around her neck with great pride for the rest of her life, and after her death, Harlow and Athena went together and got small wishbones tattooed on the inside of their wrists to remind themselves that if you want negativity out of your life, all you have to do is kick it out. So I guess more than a family joke, it became a reminder for us that even the most tender of us can be tough sometimes, and for me, it was a reminder that every mother has that kind of thunder inside of her when it comes to protecting her children.

* * *

As I wrote about Ruby being a mother, I sat on the porch of our home on Shipwreck Key, watching the water. Watching the way the waves rolled endlessly onto shore, as they’d always done, as they would always do. It was September, there was a storm, and I did not care.

Fueled by a bottle of pinot grigio and a need to get my words on paper, I typed furiously. Ruby tossing the rolls on the table; Ruby and the wishbone; the rented house on Nantucket. I wrote it all for the readers who didn’t have the chance to know her, but then Athena came out of the house and sat next to me and my fingers stopped typing.

“Do you remember when she told me she didn’t care if I liked women more than men?” Athena laughed, reaching for the bottle of wine and tipping a bit into her own glass.

We faced the water together.

“She truly wouldn’t have cared,” I assured her, not sure where the conversation was going.

“I didn’t date for a while after a bad experience I had in my early twenties.” Athena, who was at that point forty-two, looked into the bottom of her wine glass as she recalled the bad experience which she kept tucked inside of her, and which I refused to try to unearth, no matter how much the journalist in me wanted to ask questions. “But she only said that because I wasn’t going gaga over some guy and talking weddings and babies like I should have been.”

“Who says you should have been?”

“Right?” Athena looked straight at me, wine glass in hand. “I mean, you’ve lived a fairly unconventional life, haven’t you?”

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