Part 36 (1/2)

Shelby was left holding the phone. In her bedroom, the sun pushed at the backs of the rolled-down shades, threatening to burst through. Shelby threw back the covers and pulled open the curtains, letting the light spill over her bare feet.

Her brother had not said he was coming back. But then, he hadn't said he wasn't wasn't, either.

On the doorstep of Ruby's house, Ross rang the bell and stuck his hands in his pockets, only to find them filled with rose petals. ”I know,” he said aloud. ”I'm anxious, too.”

The woman who answered the door was a six-foot Amazon in scrubs with cornrowed hair that reached her behind. ”We don't want any,” she said, and started to slam the door.

”I'm not selling anything. I'm here to see Ruby. Tell her it's Ross.”

”Ms. Weber is asleep now.”

A voice, from the belly of the house: ”No, I'm not!”

The home health aide narrowed her eyes and then stepped aside to let Ross into the house. She muttered something under her breath in a language Ross didn't understand, and was certain he didn't want to. Ross followed her into a living room, where Ruby sat on a couch with a crocheted afghan covering her legs. ”Welcome home,” he said.

”Welcome to to my home.” Ruby turned to the health aide. ”Tajmalla, could you give us a minute?” my home.” Ruby turned to the health aide. ”Tajmalla, could you give us a minute?”

With a bearing that made him think of African priestesses wearing kente headwraps, she glided from the room. ”The agency sent her,” Ruby said, watching her go. ”She's been teaching me Swahili. Gorgeous language. It feels like a river running over your brain.”

Ross sat down across from Ruby. ”Go ahead. Impress me.”

She concentrated. ”Miya . . . no wait, that's . . . no wait, that's Liya Liya . . .” . . .”

Lia?

”Liya na tabia yako usilaumu wenzako,”Ruby said in a rush.

”That means h.e.l.lo?”

”No. It means, 'Do not blame others for problems you have created yourself.'”

Ross shook his head. ”I think I would have started with 'Hi, my name is Ross.'”

”Actually,” Ruby said, ”I asked her to translate that particular sentence.” She reached for the remote control, and turned off the soap opera on the television. ”I thought it might help, you know, to have it in my head.” Before I tell you the rest Before I tell you the rest. ”You need to explain something first. Why would you want to bring this up, now?”

Ross thought of Lia, haunting the property; of Shelby unrolling those genealogy charts; of the rose petals that filled his pockets. ”Because I need to know what happened to someone I love,” he said.

Ruby pulled the afghan higher. ”He told me to bury the baby.”

”Spencer Pike?”

She nodded. ”You need to understand, the professor- well, I've never met anyone like him, since then. He had a way of talking to you and before you knew it you were nodding right along with him without knowing how you'd even come to agree. I always figured that was what made Cissy Pike marry him.” Ruby looked at Ross. ”She made herself a friend, an Indian, and they kept sneaking off to see each other.

The professor, he knew something was going on between them. He found the Indian up in her bedroom one day, threw him out, and knocked around Miz Pike . . . which made her go into labor.”

”Was the baby born alive?”

Ruby seemed surprised by the question. ”Oh, yes. I'd never attended a birthing before, I was only fourteen. And after all that work, to hear that baby cry . . .” Her voice trailed off. ”Professor Pike took the baby, so his wife could get her rest. I was cleaning up inside when he came back and said that the baby had died. He'd left her in the icehouse, and he wanted me to bury her in an old apple crate before his wife woke up.”

”Did he tell you how the baby died?”

Ruby shook her head. ”He didn't tell, and I didn't ask. I think I knew the answer, already. I went out to the icehouse, and found her there, just like a doll wrapped in her blankets. There was something about putting her in the ground, when she still looked like an angel, that I just couldn't do. So I put her in the apple crate, but left the lid off. I figured that he could bury that baby himself if he felt a need to.

”By the time I got inside, he was drinking in his study. I went up to bed. And in the middle of the night I heard a baby crying. I got up and went outside, following that noise.” She s.h.i.+vered. ”Sometimes, I still hear it, just before I fall asleep at night. I went out to the icehouse, toward that sound. But when I stepped up onto the porch, I b.u.mped into Cissy Pike's legs.” Ruby's voice dropped to a whisper. ”She was tied to a rafter, her eyes wide open and bright red . . . I screamed. I thought that the professor had killed her-and that I was going to be next. I decided to run away, right then and there- and then I heard it again. That cry. The baby I'd seen dead with my own two eyes was just inside the icehouse, in the apple crate, kicking and screaming.”

”You took her.”

Ruby glanced up at Ross. ”I had made a promise to care for that baby, if anything happened. So I took a roast we'd been saving for a dinner party, and put it in the crate instead, and nailed the lid shut, like Professor Pike wanted me to do in the first place. Then I grabbed the baby and ran.”

”Where is she now?” Ross asked.

Ruby glanced away. ”The baby was young and sickly. She died on the way to Baltimore.”

Ross thought of Lia, of Lily, of Meredith. And suddenly he understood why Ruby was lying. ”You haven't told her,” he said quietly.

Ruby's eyes met his, in that small cramped s.p.a.ce where no words can fit. After years of keeping this secret, big as Atlas's burden, Ross had come to offer a shoulder. But just because she'd told him did not mean she was going to be willing to tell anyone else.

Suddenly there was a thunder of footsteps, and the little girl Ross had seen days earlier in her mother's company rounded the corner. ”Granny Ruby, we're back!”

A moment later, Meredith stood in the doorway, trailed by Tajmalla. ”How are you feeling?” she asked Ruby, before her eyes homed in on Ross. ”You.”

Ross stood up. He would have introduced himself, but again he was struck by this woman's uncanny resemblance to Lia Pike. He wondered what she would do if he reached out his hand and touched her cheek to make certain she was real.

”I don't know who you are, and what business you have with my grandmother,” Meredith said, ”but I don't think-”

”His name is Ross, dear,” Ruby interrupted. ”He's come to take you out to dinner.”

”What?” Ross and Meredith spoke at the same time.

”I'm sure I mentioned it. Last week.”

”Last week you were in the hospital, talking to people who weren't in the room.”

Ruby smiled tightly at her. ”Ross is an old friend . . . of a friend. And I've told him so much about you.”

Ross felt Meredith size him up, and find him sorely lacking. Then she looked at the woman she believed to be her grandmother-a woman who'd almost died-and her eyes softened. Was this Ruby's way of getting rid of Ross? Of pus.h.i.+ng him to tell Meredith the truth? Or was this Ruby's way of making him understand why she hadn't hadn't?

Either way, Ross knew, he would go out with this woman in a heartbeat. If only so that he could sit across the table and stare at a face that he could not forget.

”Will you, um, excuse me?” Meredith said politely, and she turned to Ruby, lowering her voice-but not enough that Ross could not hear. ”Ruby, he's not my type . . .”

”Merry, you have to actually date to have have a type.” Ruby smiled. ”I have Lucy and Tajmalla to keep me company.” a type.” Ruby smiled. ”I have Lucy and Tajmalla to keep me company.”

”Coffee,” Ross heard himself say. ”Just a cup.”

Meredith turned to Ruby again. ”When you're all better again, remind me to kill you,” she murmured, and then she turned to Ross. ”Just a cup.”

She moved stiffly to his side. Ruby stared at Ross, but she had on her poker face. And as he walked with Meredith out of the living room, two strangers who each thought they knew the other better than they truly did, Ross realized that her perfume smelled faintly of roses.