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Rising early, Ruby carried her going-to-town clothes to the kitchen so she wouldn’t wake the house and put the coffee pot on to perk. She dressed quickly. Tying an apron over her navy-blue slack suit, she dabbed on some makeup, then put a curling iron on her hair. Taking a quick look in the mirror, she was satisfied with her looks. Appearing professional was important when you owned your own business. She always ran into customers in town and, sometimes, one of those uppity salon owners.
Readying things for Mack, she laid the legal affidavit between the dinner plate and his coffee cup, the telephone book right next to the affidavit, then got ready to set Sister’s hair. She propped the hot curling iron on a tablespoon so it wouldn’t burn the Formica countertop and set a can of AquaNet next to it.
She had slept well, better than she had in a year, and credited the restful night to Mack being home. As she lay under the covers after waking, she ordered their day. First, they would go see Pa. As soon as Mack explained things, her father would come around, give up this idea about Bill and Jack. Then they would talk to the Administrator there at the nursing home. Those people there used language that was hard to follow. Nonny Folsom could understand them fine, but Nonny wasn’t family.
Though Lord knows, she should’ve been. Sidetracking briefly, Ruby wondered again, as she’d done a thousand times before, what had happened between Nonny and Mack those many years ago. She forced her thinking back to the present, to the mental list she’d created.
After talking to the Administrator, they would talk to the doctor. Ask him about the medication Pa would need once they got him home, about the cause of those night spells. Together, we’ll figure it out, she thought. Then we’ll load up Pa and haul him home, and tonight, we’ll sit down to supper, just the way a family should.
“Why, maybe I’ll call Nonny, invite her over, too,” she murmured. “Wouldn’t that be just the perfect ending to this day? Get Mack and Nonny back together again after all these years.”
Hearing someone coming down the hallway, she debated whether it was Sister or Mack. She sipped coffee while she waited, ready for whichever one walked through the door. Not prepared to see both of them enter the room at the same time, she stared at the spectacle they made: Sister clinging to Mack’s arm, barely standing above his waistline and looking up at him like a love-struck girl, and Mack taking baby steps, pacing himself to his aunt’s gait like an awkward teenager.
In the full light, Ruby noticed that Mack’s sandy hair was graying at the temple now and his tanned face was showing the deep wrinkling of a man who worked out of doors. And, of course, there was his nose, which had not been the same since he got out of the service. She often wondered what had happened to him over there, but he had refused to talk about his military years.
Still, he’s a handsome man . . .
Ruby caught her breath then, noticing Mack’s resemblance to his father. Simultaneously, she realized he would be the same age her Will had been twenty-five years ago when that prison riot took his life. Mack was no longer that fifteen-year-old boy she wished him to be but a grown man, and the vision of him right then brought both a gladness and an ache to her heart.
“Look who came to get me for breakfast,” Sister said.
“I see that.” Ruby gave her sister an up-and-down look. “Why’d you pick that dress?”
Sister pulled at the pink cotton dress to straighten it. “Mack picked it out.”
“But it’s a summer dress.”
“He said it was my color, even helped me into it.” Sister laid a hand on her head. “My hair frizzed, I seen it in the mirror.”
Ruby looked toward Mack. “You dressed Sister?”
“Don’t worry, I turned my back at the appropriate times.” Grinning, he led Sister to a chair next to the counter. “Looks like Mama’s all set up for you.” As soon as Sister was seated, he started for the back door. “I’ll get outta here so you two can get on with your business.”
“Hold on—” Ruby’s thinking became tangled. She had assumed Mack would have planned for them to spend the day together, that he would want to spend as much time with her as she did with him. When Mack turned to look at her, she spoke hurriedly. “Well now, I thought I might go to town with you. I cleared my appointments already.”
“I see . . .”
Ruby watched her son rub his fingers across his mouth and knew he was mulling things over. He had developed that mannerism as a boy, was always prone to thinking things through before speaking. Who had he gotten that from? she wondered now. Will, maybe. She tried to remember if her husband had done that, too. Dear Lord, she thought, how quickly memories fade once someone was gone.
“What about Sister?” Mack said. “You don’t leave her out here all alone, do you?”
“Well, for short trips, I do,” Ruby said, puzzled by the question. “I go in the afternoons when she naps, but I leave Whitey in the house with her. When I go on longer trips, she goes with me. Like when we go to the home to see Pa or to the Walmart. She likes to ride in those chair-carts when we shop, the motorized ones.” She paused. “I thought she’d like to go with us today. There’s a lot to do, a lot to take care of.”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead at a dogfight, my hair looking like this.” Sister ran a hand through her hair, trying to smooth the tangles with her fingertips.
Mack rubbed his mouth again. “How ‘bout I meet up with you later, Mama. I got that appointment and you do need to fix Sister’s hair.”
“Doesn’t take but a half hour to drive into McAlester and Sister’s hair won’t take but a few minutes.” Seeing Mack look at the watch on his wrist, she grew uneasy. “Why you need to leave so early, Mack?”
He rubbed his mouth again, then took a seat at the table. “Aw hell, guess I got time for coffee. I slept longer than I should’ve, that’s all. Couldn’t go to sleep, kept hearing something on the roof.”
Perking up at this announcement, Sister said, “Did they speak English?”
“Hush, Sister.” Quickly, Ruby filled Mack’s coffee cup. “It’s just branches on that old tree. Thought you might do some trimming while you were home.”
“Guess I can do that.” Mack nodded toward the materials Ruby had placed on the table. “What’s this?”
“Oh. That one there’s a copy of the affidavit I told you about, the one your grandpa had drawn up, and . . .” She pointed to the telephone book next. “That’s the phone book.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking at Ruby questioningly. “I can see that.”
She exhaled loudly. “Well, look at that list Pa made on it! He did that the night before he had that bad spell. I’ve been giving it some thought and I think it’s what set him off.”
Mack studied the scribbling on the front cover of the phone book. “Looks like a list of names to me.”
“I know what it is, Mack. I don’t recognize a name on that list, not a single one. Who are those people?”
“Hell if I know,” he said after looking over the list. Handing the phone book to Sister, he said, “You know any of these people?”
“Oh, Mack,” Ruby said. “I already showed it to her. She doesn’t know who they are either.”
He shrugged. “thought they might be someone Grandpa knew before you were born. Sister’s a good bit older than you.”
Ruby stared at him, hands on her hips.
He turned his hands palm up. “I’m just trying to help here, Mama.”
“Who are these men?” Sister said, deciding to put in her two-cents worth. “Am I supposed to know them?”
Ruby’s shoulders drooped. “I swear, you two are enough to put anyone in Vinita!” She took the phone book from her sister’s hands and pitched it into a kitchen drawer. The next thing she knew, she was pointing a finger in her son’s face. “Well, I tell you what, Mack Barlow. There’s some connection between that list and your grandpa’s spell—I know there is.”
“Easy now, Mama. I’m not saying there’s not. But if you and Sister don’t know who those guys are, I sure wouldn’t. Hell, I’ve been gone better than twenty years. Just let me look at this affidavit. Okay?”
Ruby breathed deep to calm her ragged mind. She watched as Mack picked up the legal document, telling herself that, of course, he was right. They needed to focus on that legal paper, talk some sense into Pa. They could figure out that list of names later. And once Pa got better, he could just explain that list himself. She resumed working Sister’s hair, keeping one eye on her son’s face to see what his reaction might be. Within a couple of minutes, she saw Mack set the affidavit aside.
“That didn’t take long.”
He shrugged. “It’s short and sweet. Says he wants to be buried next to Bill and Jack. Made you the Assignee.”
Ruby felt anxious again. “Do you see any loopholes? Ways we can get around it?”
He shrugged. “I’m a carpenter, Mama, not an attorney.”
What’s happening? Ruby wondered. Things aren’t going at all like I planned.
“Well then,” she said, “you got to talk some sense into your grandpa. I’ll not have this . . . this travesty. It just wouldn’t be seemly.”
Slipping the affidavit into his shirt pocket, he said, “Let me think on it.” Rising from his chair, he walked around the table to where Sister sat. “See you later, gorgeous.” He gave her a kiss on the head, then stepped up beside Ruby. “I think you’re making too much out of this, Mama.”
“Just do this for me, son. Please?”
Ruby savored the long hug her son gave her, wishing she could tuck him into her apron pocket so she could keep him close forever. But her boy had taken the wanderlust after he gotten out of the service. Fleetingly, she wondered if he had inherited his grandmother’s genes, for Grace had turned out to be a wanderer, too. She pushed the thought away quickly, reminding herself that Mack had a good reason for leaving home. He had to go where the job took him. Grace had left for no good reason at all.
“How about I meet up with you and Sister for lunch at the Hometown Buffet? Say, twelve o’clock?”
Ruby crossed her arms over her chest. “I just don’t understand why we can’t all go together.”
“I’m just thinking I could talk to Pa better if I was alone. It might confuse things, we double team him.”
“Well . . .” Though she did not agree, Ruby said, “If you think it’s best.”
But as Ruby followed Mack to the living room, she came around to his way of thinking. Pa was on a short fuse these days and Mack understood Pa better than anyone did. They were two peas in a pod. Mack would lay the groundwork and it would all work out in the end—for the better.
“C’mon, Whitey,” Ruby said when they reached the front room. The old white dog struggled to get up from his blanket beside the rocking chair. “It’s time for your morning constitutional.” She opened the front door and let the old dog out with Mack.
Breathing in the crisp air, she let it cleanse the smell of setting lotion and heated hair from her lungs before she closed the door again. She watched through the front curtain as Whitey flopped down on the front porch and Mack got into his Bronco. She continued to follow him with her eyes as he backed around and drove toward the county road, then hurried back to the kitchen so she could watch some more.
It was always the same when Mack came to visit. She wanted to fill her eyes with as much of him as she could for as long as she could. From the kitchen, she would be able to see the dirt trail his car would stir up as he made the crossroad and veered south toward McAlester.
She stood at the kitchen window now, looking. She had watched her son depart in this same way for over twenty years now, on his way to somewhere else, and it pleased her to know that at the end of the day, he would be returning home. This was the day when things would change, when things would go back to normal . . .
A puzzled look crossed Ruby’s face as she watched the dust trail at the crossroad veer north rather than south. “Mack. . .?” she whispered.
