9.

“HOW’S THE PEPSI?” Ruby asks over the rim of her glass, eyebrows raised

“It’s fine.”

“Should we order some pretzels, or do you think that would be pushing my luck?”

“Nan!” Lisa smiles.

“So, finally, a smile.”

“Sorry. I’m preoccupied and not very good company. Now that I’ve told someone about my situation, it seems more real than ever. I can’t ignore it anymore. I have to make a decision.”

“Well, you don’t have to make it right this minute, do you? Let’s weigh the pros and cons. Shall we?”

“It would be easier if you could just tell me the right thing to do.” Lisa’s voice is edged with exasperation.

“Oh, I can’t tell you that, honey. Only you can know the right thing to do. I can try to give you some advice, but really, advice is something you ask for when you already know the answer, but wish you didn’t!”

“Maybe that’s why I haven’t asked.”

“Maybe.” Ruby nods, preoccupied. “Maybe…” she repeats, her voice trailing off, her mind pulled by an irrevocable force into the past.

“MAYBE THE RIGHT THING to do is to do nothing.” Daniel Kenny’s eyes are flat as he turns from his daughter.

“I can’t just do nothing, Dad.” She shakes her head in defiance. This is not what she wants to hear.

“You have responsibilities, Ruby. You are a mother and a wife!” Daniel says almost dismissively.

“I’m more than a mother and a wife.” Ruby’s voice breaks with frustration.

“SO?” LISA NUDGES HER GRANDMOTHER gently, bringing her back to the present.

“So, what?” Ruby answers, unsure who is speaking.

“Do you have any advice, Nan?”

“Do I have any advice.” Ruby repeats. Her eyes dart around the bar car as she attempts to recall the present moment.

“Yes,” Lisa says slowly, aware of Ruby’s struggle, the force of her effort to regain equilibrium. Like a drowning victim grasping a buoy, Ruby grapples for something concrete.

“You were going to give me some advice.”

“Some advice on what, honey?”

“Nan,” Lisa continues patiently, aware of her own need. “I was telling you about my present situation. About me being pregnant and…”

“And you aren’t sure what to do, are you?”

“Yes, exactly. And I was wondering if you had any advice, if you could, I don’t know, maybe give me your opinion, your thoughts?” Lisa places her head in her hands and draws them along the sides of her face. She turns to Ruby, a tired smile on her face.

“Oh, yes.” Ruby takes Lisa’s hand and pats it with a sigh. “You need some advice.”

“Yes, I need some good advice.” Lisa says with relief.

Ruby laughs. “Oh, I know, old people are supposed to have good advice. But really, what is good advice?” She looks out the window. “It’s just someone else’s opinion of your situation. Those opinions are always coloured by our own perceptions of ourselves….” Turning back to Lisa and smiling, Ruby continues, her voice and her mind strengthening with the focus the present moment is demanding. “I suppose at my age I do have some experience with situations. Damn, my whole adult life has been a situation. And I guess what you’re asking me to do is evaluate my situations, my life, and glean some insight that may help you with your. Is that right?”

“I guess. At this point, anything would be helpful.”

“You know, honey, I don’t know how helpful I can be. All I can tell you is that you can never live without regret. I think a life without regret is a life not lived, because life is about making choices. If you choose one thing, it means you don’t choose the other and it can leave you wondering, “what if?” It can leave you with regrets. But if you live a life of ‘what ifs’, you will drive yourself crazy. You have to make your own decision, and when you make it, follow it and don’t regret it. Don’t divide your energy, don’t divide your thoughts. Make your decision and don’t look back. Whatever decision you make, it will be the right one for you. It always is. Besides, I find that retrospect gets far too shaded by rationale most of the time and it becomes impossible to tell the difference between what really happened and what you remember.”

Lisa shakes her head. “That’s a bit jaded, don’t you think? Especially for you, Nan.”

“Well, I think that at my age, I’m past lying. I don’t mean hurtful, conscious lies—I mean the lies we tell ourselves in order to keep up the façade. Who we think we are is often so removed from who we are that the twain shall never meet.” Ruby shakes her head before continuing. “Can we make them meet? Should they meet? Ha!” She looks directly into Lisa’s eyes. “And who do we become if they do meet? Stripping away all our rationalizing, all the stories we tell ourselves, our last line of defence. When we find ourselves standing in the harsh light of truth, whom do we see? What are we left with? Maybe all we are left with is some good advice?”

“Well, for my sake, I hope so.” Lisa laughs.

“I wonder if it’s worth it? I wonder if we really can end up being honest with ourselves?” Ruby picks up her drink, watches the light playing through the ice.

I never became the soprano I wanted to be. There was a passion in me, but not to the exclusion of everything else. Not like the passion of the genius living only for her art. Was it because I was a woman, biologically and socially hampered? Was it because the art was not all consuming and left room for love? For it is true, I loved Leland with a passion, a passion that still burns.

“Who would I have been without Leland?”

“Who would you have been without Leland? Is that what you just said?” Lisa, confused by the new direction but interested, gently urges her grandmother. “Nan?”

“When I was eighteen, LeLiberté was so excited with my developing soprano voice that he encouraged my training and set out a three-year course of study. His plan was for me to work toward a scholarship in music at McGill and eventually perform on the world stage. They seem like highfalutin aspirations now, don’t they? And I can hardly reconcile the young hopeful girl I was with who I am today. Even the photos of those days look like they’re of someone else’s life. Who was I? Who am I? And who do I become in the telling?”

Lisa, trying to follow the thread of Ruby’s thoughts, answers tentatively, “Maybe you find meaning? Maybe, truth?” Then she adds hopefully, “Maybe you become someone who can give good advice?” Lisa laughs, breaking the tension. She is watching Ruby carefully, unsure if her grandmother is even aware of her presence.

“Maybe you’re right, honey! Maybe all this looking back can bring some meaning, and meaning always brings its own sense of satisfaction, doesn’t it? And maybe I can end up giving you some good advice along the way! What’s that thing you said—an unexamined life is a life not worth living? Well my life was worth living, let me tell you!” Ruby lifts her glass to her lips and drinks in deeply, appreciating the bite of the liquor, the sweetness of the tonic, savouring the moment. When she continues speaking, after wiping at the corners of her mouth, there is conviction in her voice, the timber of the storyteller, the actor.

“Should you marry your young man? Should you have this baby? Is that what you want, what you need, or is it just the next logical step in your life? Do you love him, and to what extent, and will that love last? Will it grow? The love grew between Jack and myself, although it was different from the love I experienced with Leland, and the love I felt for John. I’m not sure if what I felt for John was love at all. When I met John Grace I had just turned eighteen and I was still studying vocal with LeLiberté. He thought I had a talent; I was unsure but willing to believe him….”

“RUBY, MY PET.” LeLiberté’s voice, is deep and rich, his accent lyrical. “That is enough for today. For Wednesday, I want you to think about the importance of the jaw. Remember to drop it and allow the note to form from the diaphragm.” He indicates his abdomen with his hand and then lifts it easily to his face and out toward Ruby.

“Yes, I will, Laylay. I promise to run through my scales every morning.” Ruby gathers her sheet music as the late daylight from Rue St. Catherine falls in rays across the wooden floors, slanting up and along the piano legs, illuminating dust particles. The street noises that float lazily up to the second floor window signal the coming evening.

“Good, good. This too is important,” says LeLiberté, almost absent-mindedly at first, and then with sudden presence. “Ruby, do you have a moment before you rush off to your bridge party or dance or whatever keeps you so busy these days?”

“Yes, of course!” Ruby laughs. “I always have time for you. You and opera are my only true loves!” Her smile is radiant in its conviction.

“You know, I would like you to continue studying with me. I see a future for you, my pet. You may attain that which so many can only dream of: an operatic career!”

“Oh, yes. It is my dream.” Ruby’s pulse races at the idea, her face flushing with pleasure.

“I would like to bring someone in to hear you. He is an old friend; we studied together in Europe, and I hold his opinion in the highest regard. Hopefully he will hear your potential, as I do.”

Ruby clasps her hands like a little girl as LeLiberté continues. “Have you spoken to your parents about McGill?”

Ruby hesitates. LeLiberté is planning for another year of study with him before she is admitted to McGill University, but the cost is becoming a burden to her parents and the money she makes at Moore’s Music is minimal at best. The plan is exiting and inspiring, but how feasible? Her parents are well off, but not rich, and university is expensive, almost inconceivably so.

“Well, my pet?” LeLiberté looks over the top of his glasses, his eyebrows raised inquiringly.

Ruby shakes her head. “No, I haven’t spoken to them yet.”

“Well, you must. We should be, how do they say, setting these wheels in locomotion. You may be able to receive a scholarship of some kind, but you must speak to your parents and begin looking into this.”

“I will. I promise.” Ruby picks up her sweater and purse, and turns toward LeLiberté with genuine affection. “I must run now,” she says, and kisses him quickly on a cheek in desperate need of a shave. “See you Wednesday, Laylay!”

“Yes, Wednesday!” he calls after her, then shakes his head and turns to Peter, the accompanist, who is still seated at the piano. “Youth, it is wasted on the young, is it not?”

“Yeah, it always is.” Peter nods. “Do we have time for an espresso before the next lesson, Maestro?”

LeLiberté checks his watch. “Yes, a wonderful idea. Let me get my chapeau!”

RUBY DOESN’T SPEAK to her parents about McGill. She continues to work and to sing—in the church choir, at concerts as a solo soprano, and with LeLiberté—but university seems like too daunting a financial burden. Ruby is the apple of her father’s eye, the oldest and only surviving daughter. There is only Ruby and her younger brother Edward, and their lives have been comfortable and privileged in many ways. Until recently, Ruby hadn’t thought much about money. Her parents were always well off, with a large home in Outremont, a summer home in Maine and occasional trips to the continent. Her father was a successful accountant. The depression did not seem to affect them, at least not that Ruby can remember. There was never any scarcity in their home, never any want, and, except for May’s death, no sadness. Ruby can hardly remember Jamie, who died as an infant, but May’s death is present in her mind as the saddest of memories. Any time her thoughts light upon those days—the dying, the wake, the funeral—she can see only her father, his hands, competent and gentle as he cuts a ringlet from May’s hair and presses it into their family bible, smiling at Ruby, his only remaining daughter, his little jewel. This part of the memory is too painful: the sad smile on her father’s face, the resignation and the love, coming together in a look of defeat. He looks so unlike himself, the man in the memory, that he slowly becomes someone else, her brave unshakable father, changing so imperceptibly that years later, it is hard to credit his eventual fragility to this moment.

This summer, Daniel and Jeanie are in Maine with Edward. Ruby loves spending the summers in Maine, but this year she has her job and her many concerts, and it is getting harder to leave her friends. Montreal in summer is a bustling, exciting place; it holds Ruby spellbound on the threshold of adulthood, in high heels and short skirts, the antithesis of the barefoot daughter she would be in Maine. She misses her family, but she feels preoccupied by her own life, running full speed toward her bright and promising future.

Hurrying from the studio, Ruby runs toward the bus stop, her thoughts racing ahead toward home and the outfit she will change into for her date with John Grace, her excitement growing with a force of its own. He is four years older than she is, and he seems more worldly compared to the boys she has been seeing. When he finally kisses her, the mysteries of her body open; she feels the tugging in the pit of her stomach, the tingling down her spine, the ache between her legs. The immediacy of the moment, the force of physical passion, pushes all thoughts from her head, and she enjoys the feeling, falling unfettered through an abyss to breathless ecstasy.

“YOUR GRANDFATHER was a good man, Lisa. When we met, I was excited about his attentions. He was older, and he had a good job working for Decca records. In fact, that’s how we met. I worked in one of the music stores that he supplied. He was an inspirational sales man, your grandfather, and an enthusiastic musician. He loved jazz, understood it the way my own father did. John Grace was probably the reason I turned to jazz after my hopes of a career in opera had drifted away.” She takes a sip of her drink, the look in her eye turning inward. “There I was, married with children. Opera is too demanding a life to allow for such personal pursuits.”

“Do you ever regret marrying Granddad?”

“Well, you know how I feel about regrets. They are the black holes of our personal universe, sucking in momentum to no end. I did marry John, and at the time I thought it was the right thing to do. I liked the idea of marriage, of husband and wife and happy ever after. But it was over before it ever began. One day I found myself at the kitchen sink, Francis and Phoebe at my feet, John absent on a sales trip, and me, Ruby Grace, stranded in the middle of a life I never wanted, in a city I didn’t know. I picked up Phoebe, who cried out at my wet hands, and carried her to the phone. Francis tagged along behind, confused about the abrupt change in the day. I called a taxi and left that afternoon to go back to my parents. They were in Maine, but I knew the schedules for bus, or train, or plane. Ha! My escape route!”

Lisa, about to say something, stops. Her mind is full of the image of Ruby Grace as a young woman, stranded in a life she didn’t want.

“I was pregnant, though I may have only been vaguely aware of it. Another baby.” Ruby, stares out the window, her memory pulling her into itself. She is,suddenly unaware of the world outside, or of the young woman beside her.

Lisa, afraid to jar her but uncertain about leaving her to her painful reverie, sits quietly beside her grandmother. She has never heard this story before. She has heard her father and aunt talking about their childhood—their words full of nostalgia, the honey that sweetens the past—but this is a time before her father was born, before Phoebe would remember, a time when Ruby was vulnerable with youth and hampered by convention, confused and lonely and fleeing for her life.

RUBY’S FINGERS TREMBLE as she dials the number of the house in Maine, remembering the long summers spent there, the long warm evenings on the porch, the beach, the bonfires her father would make, the wind-up gramophone playing scratchy music while they danced into the night.

“Hello?” Ruby’s eyes sting at the sound of her mother’s distinctive voice, tentative but sweet.

“Hi, Mom. The kids and I are coming for a visit.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful, dear. When?”

“I’ll be on the late train.” Ruby struggles to keep her voice calm.

“Tonight? Isn’t this a bit sudden? Is everything all right, dear?” Jeanie’s voice turns sharp with concern.

“Yes, Mom. Everything is fine. I just need to see you and Daddy. I just … I just miss you….” Her voice cracks with emotion. She is worried about putting her parents in a difficult position, but she is overwhelmed by the intimacy of her mother’s voice. With effort, Ruby stops herself from spilling out the truth, from laying it down before her mother like the weight it is. She holds back the gravity of the situation, that her daily life has become a tormented existence: being married to one man and pregnant with another man’s child.

Daniel is at the train station to meet them. He lifts Phoebe with one arm and hugs Francis and Ruby with the other. Ruby can imagine herself melting into him, lingering under the protective care of his arm, but he moves away, too quickly, looking for the luggage.

“Is this it, then?” He lifts the small case, concern deepening the lines around his mouth.

“Yes. That’s it.”

“Leaving in a hurry were you, Jewel?”

Ruby buries her face in her hands, sobbing at the use of her baby name; the late-night train station, the children, the few passengers, all is forgotten in the immensity of her emotions.

“Oh, Ruby, sweetheart. Are things that bad?” Daniel places Phoebe on the ground and smiles at Francis before moving to his daughter, taking her in his arms. It will be okay, honey. Don’t cry now. You’ll frighten the children, and I’m sure they’re confused as it is.”

Ruby nods and moves away from him, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Here, honey.” Daniel hands her his handkerchief, and Ruby, unable to find her voice, nods again. His handkerchief is soft against her face and smells of her father, of her childhood. The memories sting her eyes again. She swallows against the lump in her chest, her emotions threatening to break the surface, leaving her a crumpled mass of uncontrollable tears. I can’t go there. I can’t go there…. I mustn’t go there….

Blowing her nose and dabbing again at her eyes, she smiles, a weak, pale smile. Looking at her father, she nods.

“Good,” he answers, nodding. “Francis?” He turns to his four-year-old grandson. “Take Mommy’s hand. I’ll take Phoebe and the suitcase and we’ll go see Grandma. Shall we?”

Francis nods, his eyes serious and watchful. He takes his mother’s hand.

It is not until later that night, when the kids are bathed and in bed, that the adults can talk more openly about the implications of Ruby’s hasty arrival.

“So, what does all this mean, honey?” Daniel asks, handing Jeanie and Ruby a glass of bourbon and then pouring one for himself.

Following her parents out onto the small porch, Ruby sits on the Adirondack chair beside her mother. “I don’t know, Dad. I just don’t want to go back. I think I want to leave John, I suppose.” Ruby shrugs, unable to look up from her drink.

“Really, Ruby.” She hears her mother’s voice beside her, gentle but practical. “What kind of an answer is that, honey? We’ve been through this before, and I thought it was settled then. Wives don’t just leave their husbands. It’s just not done.”

Ruby sips her drink, then stares into her glass. “Even when they feel like they’re dying?”

“Oh, Ruby!” Her mother’s laughter echoes in the shadows of the cottage, shimmering like moonlight off the water. “Nobody dies just because they feel like it.” She shakes her head. “And separation, divorce, well that’s just such a big step.”

Turning to Daniel for understanding, Ruby holds his gaze. He has always been the parent who would give in. Even as a child, she knew that if she dug in her heels, her father was no match for her will. He believed in “live and let live” and found it difficult to force his will upon his family. “Daddy, you must understand how I feel. I just can’t go on like this.”

“I think I do, honey, but it is not just you involved in this. You have to think about John and the children. You have to understand the consequences of your actions. You have to respect the lives entrusted to you: your children and your husband.”

“I do respect the children. And I respect John, but he is living his life, pursuing his goals. He’s hardly ever home. I feel like my life is over before it has even begun.”

“Oh Ruby, that is just not right,” Jeanie interjects, looking from Ruby to Daniel and then back again. “Your life is just beginning. You live for your children and your husband. That is what a mother does. And what a wonderful thing it is.”

“But it is not enough for me, Mom. I have a right to the life I want. If I’m unhappy, how happy can John and the kids be?”

“You already have all life has to offer, Ruby. There isn’t anything more,” Jeanie answers, as if explaining something to a child.

“There is more,” Ruby says quietly, but her mother isn’t listening. She rushes on with her own line of reasoning.

“Daniel, don’t you think Ruby has a full and blessed life? Tell her there isn’t anything more…. Daniel?” Jeanie looks from Ruby to Daniel, realizing that he has retreated from the conversation. She looks at Ruby, her face pinched with concern, a world of unspoken communication passing between them.

Leaning forward in her chair, Ruby touches her father’s arm, her voice gentle with worry. “Dad?”

Daniel looks up as though he is waking from a dream, his eyes taking in his surroundings. He makes an effort to rouse himself; it is a struggle he is getting used to, one he knows he must undertake. “Ruby, what is it, honey?”

“Are you all right, Dad? You just seemed to wander off there. Where you thinking about your fishing holes?” Ruby laughs unconvincingly.

“Yes, I’m fine. It’s nothing, really.” Standing abruptly, Daniel bumps the small table holding his drink but quickly steadies it, one hand on the table the other on the glass. “Well, it looks like I need another drink. How are you girls? Anyone for another drink?”

“No, I’m good, Dad. But I would love a tea.”

“A tea?” Daniel laughs. “All right, but it will take me a few minutes, you know, boiling the water and all.” He turns to Jeanie. “And for you, my dear?”

Jeanie smiles, handing her husband her empty glass. “I’ll join you in another drink, honey. But make it a short one.”

When he has left the front porch, the screen door banging on its hinges, Ruby turns to Jeanie, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. “What’s going on with Dad?”

“I don’t know, honey. In the last few years he has been falling into these moody silences. Sometimes they pass quite quickly, but lately they have been lasting longer. Sometimes for days.”

“I don’t remember him ever being like this, Mom. Has something happened?”

“No, nothing. Well, except for life. He has never been one to talk about the past, and there have been certain things, you know—the war, the babies dying, his brother’s death. Your father likes to move on, always looking forward, letting memories slip quietly into the past as if they never really happened.” Jeanie rubs her bottom lip with a finger and looks past Ruby to the screen door. Then she continues, finally voicing a thought she has had for a long time but has not been able to articulate: “I think, sometimes, he gets lost in the silence of not saying.”

“Mom, what happened in Chicago? I can barely remember that time, but I think, somehow, it was frightening. I don’t know why.” Ruby falls silent, trying once again to gather impressions, feelings that are always just beyond her grasp, real but unsubstantial, like cobwebs on skin. “Why did you and Dad leave, Mom? Did something happen?” Leaning forward, Ruby takes Jeanie’s hand; it is small and thin, like a child’s. Ruby has always thought of her father as the stronger one in the family and her mother as the weaker one, but lately she is not so sure.

“Well, life happened … and death.” Jeanie nods to herself, smiles, and then turns toward Ruby. “I’m not sure that there is a simple answer to your question, honey. Your father had a good job. The accounting business was just starting—in its infancy really—and your father was on the ground floor. He also did the books for private businesses. He was always a good provider. But things were difficult. I had had two miscarriages before you were born and then, three years later, Jamie. Then Jamie died. Those years, honey, they seem lost to me. Grief will do that.” Shrugging almost imperceptibly, Jeanie pauses. “Your father dealt with his grief in his own way, but some days it was difficult to go on. You get up and put one foot in front of the other, wondering all the time why you’re even bothering to continue. It’s painful and pointless, but you just keep doing it, and slowly it hurts less and less. And then one day, life begins to have purpose again. I don’t know exactly why we left Chicago. I think it was your father’s way of getting over Jamie’s death, but sometimes I wonder if there was more to it than that.”

“Like what?” Ruby asks, just above a whisper.

“Your father’s brother, Michael, was killed in a robbery at a flower shop of all things, along with the man he worked for. It was a flower shop with offices above, but they also had interests in a few other businesses around town. Daniel did the books. The day after they were killed, some men came to the house to speak with your father. I knew one of them. They were acquaintances of your Uncle Mike, and I never liked them. They were what you would call ‘shady characters.’ But your father had a business relationship with them. Anyway, something happened that day that frightened your father, and we left Chicago the day after we buried Michael. It was a good thing too, because Chicago became a dangerous place.” Jeanie nods as the memories resurface in her mind’s eye. After a moment she continues, her voice bright.

“It was the era, you know. There’s no denying that. It was a fun, exciting time. Your dad would take me to the jazz clubs—they called them speakeasies. It was during prohibition and drinking in the club was illegal. But really, that’s what made the atmosphere, that and the music. The music was something else! We saw Joe Lewis, Billie Holiday—so many great names!” Caught up in the nostalgia, Jeanie smiles whimsically, her eyes liquid with memory. For a moment, Ruby can see clearly the young woman her mother once was. “We would dress up in high style and go out on the town, and you knew that this was something just beginning, something exciting and important. But there was always a feeling of foreboding—at least for me, young, Canadian girl that I was—that things wouldn’t last.”

“What would give you that feeling, Mom?”

“Well, there was always the threat of being raided by police, and we all knew that the club owners were mostly criminals. My goodness, if you were selling liquor in any establishment at that time, you were a criminal. I suppose we were all breaking the law. Prohibition was just such a ridiculous thing. It ended up being more bad than good, with all the illegal drinking and transporting of liquor. Chicago was like a dynamite keg just waiting to explode, and we got out just in time.” Looking again at the screen door, Jeanie continues, “So, I’m not sure why we left—I don’t know if it was from grief, or if it was something your father was involved with that frightened him—but whatever it was, it was fortunate for us.

“We had money. Michael had left your father a good sum, and we used that to buy a home in Outremont and for your dad to start up his accounting business. We moved to Montreal, and we never looked back. It was the best thing we ever did.”

They are silent, listening to the summer sounds outside the porch: the soft hum of night bugs, the breeze through the dunes, the ocean against the shore, soothingly rhythmical.

“He has always been so present and articulate,” Ruby says, her voice thick with emotion in the darkness. “He was always the one starting the conversations over dinner and insisting that Edward and I join in. Remember the discussions he would start, Mom? He always expected us all to have our opinions on politics or religion. He just loved to be in the middle of a good argument. This is so unlike him.” Turning to her mother for an answer, Ruby watches Jeanie shrug, her eyes worried and compelling.

“I know,” her mother answers.

“I’m sure it’s nothing, Mom. Dad is strong and so are you. Look at all the things you’ve been through.” After a moment, she continues, “Well, I think it’s time to turn in.”

“Yes I suppose it is getting quite late. It’s easy to lose track of time here, isn’t it, honey?”

“Maybe Dad is just tired?”

“Yes, maybe.”

They are silent for a long time, isolated in the darkness, listening to the movement from the kitchen, Daniel making tea.

“YOUR GRANDDAD AND I separated for the first time that summer, but I knew it was the beginning of the end, in so many ways. I wanted to leave John and be with Leland, and I should have. But I didn’t. Not for years. My father and mother were struggling with Daddy’s silent moods, which were getting worse and worse. For the first time, I saw my parents as so very vulnerable. I was pregnant with Gary, and it just seemed easier for everyone if I stayed with John.”

“But you were in love with Leland James?”

“Yes, I was in love with Leland James. I have always been in love with him. From the very first time I met him, I wanted to be known by him fully, in every way, the good and the bad. And I was. That summer I ached with the love I felt for him. I was in love with Leland,” Ruby nods and then continues, almost to herself, “and I was pregnant with his child.”

Lisa, taking a drink from her glass, chokes on the Pepsi; the fluid forced up through her nose is sharp and cold. Reaching for the napkin on the table, her mind reeling, Lisa blows her nose, shaking her head to dislodge the feeling. She must have heard her grandmother wrong, or maybe Ruby is talking about something else, someone else. Turning toward Ruby, her eyes tight with the struggle to comprehend, Lisa asks in a voice lowered with confusion. “Nan?”

“Yes, lovey?”

“Nan, did you just say you were pregnant with Leland’s child?”

“Yes, I did just say that.”

“Did you have that child?”

“Of course I did.” Ruby nods as if to emphasize the banality of the question.

“Are you saying that my dad, your son Gary, is Leland’s son?”

The question hangs, an expectant bubble between them, pierced by Ruby’s forceful voice. “Yes, Lisa. Gary is Leland’s son.”

Lisa understands for the first time what it means to be struck dumb. She stares at Ruby, her mind ricocheting in uncontrolled directions, incredulity and realization staggering across her face. Ruby is calm, looking out the train window as if nothing has changed, her profile in the afternoon light burning into Lisa’s mind like a laser; her grandmother’s image becomes a shadow on her retina as she looks away, searching in confusion.

“Who knows about this? I mean, does Dad know? Do Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Frank know?” Shaking her head, Lisa answers her own question. “They can’t. I’m sure we would all know.” Looking again at Ruby, Lisa feels like she is seeing her for the first time, a stranger on the train, revealing secrets from a lost past. Questions struggle for attention, paralyzing in their magnitude, their implications. Her mind runs through the years until she arrives at this moment. Taking in her grandmother with a new perspective, she asks the only question that matters: “Why are you telling me this now, Nan?”

Ruby, whose attention has been absorbed with the struggles of a fly in the sill of the train window, replies without turning. “Maybe it can help you with your decision.”

“Help me with my decision?” What decision? Lisa wonders. This new revelation has pushed her own pregnancy into the background. This is something quite different; it is too big to allow room for anything else. “Nan, you have to tell Dad. He has a right to know. He has been going for blood work. He’s been having health issues. He’s worried. Mom’s worried. I’m worried. They have to know that Leland is Dad’s biological father. What did Leland die of, Nan? Wasn’t it cancer? Dad will have to know; he’ll have to be told. We all need to know.” Lisa’s voice pitches upward as the magnitude of this information rolls over her with a physical power. She shakes her head either with incredulity or to clear her thoughts, she is not sure. The action is automatic, involuntary, as if it is somehow facilitating her understanding.

Ruby nods, still captivated by the fly’s efforts, so like her own. “Yes, I must tell Gary.”

“No, Nan. Not must—you will! You have to tell him! You have to tell everyone!”

“I think they must already know.”

“How would they know if they were never told?”

Ruby turns to look at Lisa, her eyes, pale and large in the sunlight, compel understanding. “You don’t have to be told something to know the truth of it.”

Lisa is still struggling to understand. “How old was Dad when you married Leland?”

“Gary was around two when John and I divorced, and just starting school when I married Leland. The children were raised with Leland. After the divorce, John Grace travelled more and more for his job and saw the children less and less. I didn’t think it fair to burden Gary, to single him out as different, as the reason I couldn’t stay with John. There was no point bringing to light something that would hurt everyone.”

“Did Leland know?”

“I think he did, but he didn’t want to acknowledge it. Saying it and knowing it are two different things. Besides, by the time we married, it was already in the past.”

“But, people have a right to their heritage, or at least the right to the know their biological make-up. Dad needs to know about this right away. He has been having stomach pain and now they are doing all kinds of clinical tests. Does that come from Leland? Shouldn’t Dad be aware of who his real father is? For his own health? You don’t have the right to keep that from him. From me! It’s totally wrong.”

“It’s the sin of omission.”

“Omission! It’s stealing, that’s what it is. Stealing someone’s right to know. I understand that it was a different time with different sensibilities, and that it was maybe confusing for you, but still….” Lisa trails off, silenced by the enormity of it all.

“Larceny. Larceny and chaos. It’s the way everything begins. Ha!” Ruby barks out a laugh.

Lisa continues as if Ruby hasn’t spoken, her voice strained with contained emotion. “And if you knew and Leland knew and at some level my dad knew, then Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Frank knew—what kind of dynamics does that set off in a family? Nan, it’s irresponsible!” Lisa’s voice is edged with anger.

“Yes, you’re right, Lisa. It is irresponsible. Sometimes the things we don’t say hurt us more that the things we do say. Another lesson learned and at my age! Ha! And you wanted some good advice from me? Was that what you wanted?”

Taking Ruby’s hand, Lisa finds herself overwhelmed with compassion for the woman sitting beside her, still defiant and bold and somehow beautiful in her human frailties. She pushes her judgement aside, but her voice cannot hide her disappointment. “Yes, Nan. I do.”

Looking down at Ruby’s aged hand lying claw-like in her own, the skin paper thin, Lisa continues, “I guess we do what we do, thinking it is the right thing, doing it with the best of intentions.” A silent camaraderie falls between them, finally broken by Ruby’s voice, intimate with introspection.

“Sometimes when I was singing, the notes would flow with such passion, such ease, seeming to go beyond the moment; the note, the timing, the meaning, one’s self, everything would reach understanding in a simultaneous way, becoming more than the moment. Other times it was a struggle—repeating a passage, a run, until it becomes exact, acceptable, more than passable but never going beyond what it is.” Ruby nods to herself. “I can recount my experiences, my story, but is that the truth of my life? Is there not a greater truth that lies behind and beyond our actions? Is it meaning? Is it intention?” Looking at Lisa, Ruby smiles slowly. “And isn’t that the road to hell, as they say?”

“Yes, that’s what they say, Nan. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Lisa answers. She looks out the window but sees only the fly that is caught between the panes of glass, still struggling to make its way to the top. “That’s how I feel sometimes,” Lisa says, turning toward the window and the captured fly. “Thinking one thing and finding out something else, thinking you are going somewhere only to realize that you aren’t the one powering anything, that you are just along for the ride, just keeping busy so you don’t realize the futility of it all.”

“Lisa!” Ruby turns sharply. “That’s just a bit too dark, don’t you think? It’s not where he’s going that matters,” she lifts her finger to follow the fly’s movements, “but that he’s doing it at all. Are things that different now because I told you something that you didn’t know? Does that make life any less worth living and struggling for? The joy is in the journey, honey. You know that. And the journey is going to be fraught with problems, some insurmountable. And we are going to make mistakes, some monumental. But it’s the going ahead and doing of it that lets us know we’re alive. There isn’t any brass ring in the end. There’s only what we learn along the way. And besides, you have to look past the window to really see.” Ruby nudges Lisa with her elbow and nods at the vista outside. “Just look at the beauty out there!”

Lisa looks. White clouds move across a clear blue sky, pierced by distant pines. Patchwork fields of pale yellow and earth brown spread across the horizon, filling the window frame with a vibrancy that seems unreal.

“I’ll tell Gary. As long as there’s a breath still in me, I’ll tell him and Francis and Phoebe. We will be with Phoebe today, and I’ll tell her. Francis—well, I’ll have to write to him. I suppose this isn’t something you tell someone over the phone. Francis has been gone so long, living in California now for twenty years. I can’t remember the last time I saw him, and that’s probably my fault.” Ruby takes Lisa’s hand and pats it with determination. Holding her granddaughter’s hand and drawing strength, she continues, “I’ll tell them all. They deserve to know the truth. It won’t make things right, but at least they will all know. It will help your father to know the truth. And Phoebe and Francis. Maybe they’ll forgive me my … omissions.”