Ruby asked Doug to drive them home. He tried to keep the pleased look off his face, being graced with the privilege of driving Ruby’s beloved Westie, but she caught it. Smiled back at him. “Wow. What a day.”
“Do you want to go now? To see her?”
“No. I need to regroup. Annie says she wants to give her a little notice anyway. She’s in good health, but the shock of seeing her long-lost child might be hard on the heart. So, tomorrow.”
“Will your sister, Annie, be there?”
“I thought she would, but believe it or not, she’s a second-grade teacher; school day tomorrow.”
“I’d take it off. If you wanted me there.”
Ruby puts her hand over his. “Thank you, but I think this first meeting needs to be just us.”
The Hitchhiker settles herself into a curl on Ruby’s lap, puzzled but pleased to have Ruby in that seat instead of in the lap-forbidden driver’s seat. She makes the most of it, letting Ruby know that she likes the new relative they found. “Me too, little dog, me too.”
The yellow of the little Hobbit house is warm in the fall sunshine, more butter than lemon. Details of the decorative gingerbread trim, picked out in bright white, reveal curlicues and animal faces hidden within its pattern. The maple trees that front the yard are at the peak of their colors, even though most other foliage has faded by now. Red, gold, orange. Ruby pulls her rumbling Westfalia into the driveway of the house she has so often admired. She remembers the expression: heart beating like a trip hammer, but this is the first time she understands what that means.
The Hitchhiker is staring at her. Brown orbs reflecting her own face back to her. Ruby slides a moist palm across the dog’s domed head. Waits for the connection to kick in. She is not disappointed. “What you have been hunting for is here.”
In her mind’s eye she detects all the things that this little dog considers good: the heft of a marrow bone, the scent of meat, the feel of a soft cushion against which she can tuck herself. The satisfaction of catching a mouse even if it is actually a stuffed toy. But, most of all, Ruby detects the calming of a gentle hand stroking her back as she is now doing to the dog. She is calming now. Her heart rate is slowing. You cannot really die of getting your most fervent desire.
Last night, when she called Sabine to tell her the news, Sabine had cried. Cried in happiness, Ruby knew, pleased to tears that Ruby had finally gotten the central mystery of her life resolved. A thought comes to mind, as strong as any psychic vibe: They are now four generations. Her mother, Ruby and Annie, Sabine, and now Molly.
The dog pulls away from Ruby’s hands. Stands on the passenger seat to give herself a good shake. “Go. Now.”
The woman who opens the door before Ruby can even reach for the bell is as Ruby has seen her in her dreams; as if the faceless ephemeral spirit has become corporeal. She is an older version of the rest of them, at least in height and eye color and faded-to-gray strawberry blond hair loosely knotted. No longer faceless, she is so very like Sabine or Annie or Molly down to the same little freckle decorating the corner of her mouth as it does Ruby’s.
“Hello, Pearl.”
“Hello, Ruby.”
Far from being a mystic apparition from an imagined past, this woman is very much a creature of now. No fortune-teller’s mother here, simply a woman whose own most intense desire has been fulfilled. Ruby looks into her mother’s eyes and sees her own longing fulfilled.
While the Hitchhiker watches from the open van window, the two women, mother and daughter, step into each other’s arms.
What I know is this: when human beings grow up, they do not leave behind their littermates or progenitors. It is a curious thing, this attachment they have based on the content of their blood. That my Ruby had not had her own mama close by is apparently unusual. Now that they have reunited, they are often in company with each other. I like Pearl’s little house. It has enough of a yard, especially way out back, much more than Doug’s little yard, or Boy’s. We all go for long walks. The humans keep up a steady patter of talk while I follow along or precede them so that I can make their way safe from vermin. Bunnies!
If I understood the concept of time, I would tell you how long it has been since that morning when Ruby pulled our van up to Pearl’s house. But I can only say that the seasons have gone from cool to cold to rainy to warm to hot. We have observed the weird day when children get treats by simply knocking on doors, the really nice feast people enjoy that accords even pups like me a nice dinner not involving kibble. Then the day when even the adult humans get excited about shredding paper and tossing it so that I had mouthfuls of it to shake and rend. Right now the air is redolent of fertile dirt, which is fun to bury things in, although neither Pearl nor Doug approve when I choose to bury things in their gardens.
We live with Doug now. An arrangement I am mostly all right with, although I do sometimes long for the days when it was just Ruby and me. But, well, she’s so much easier to read these days. The mystery that had kept her moving has gone away. She still jumps into the van and we go spend a day or two as we once did, meeting people and their pets, talking and solving problems. But we don’t stay away. I can trust Ruby to bring us back to our territory. And that’s what I know.