Chapter 38 Ruby

38

Ruby

The house was quiet. It had been like this for the last twenty minutes as Ruby worked on her laptop, moving money from account to account.

No pings, whizzes or pops from Tomas's iPad games. No music. No sound of his feet on the floor above. It wasn't a calm silence. The air was filled with a heavy stillness. A tension that Ruby had to break.

Tomas could not tell his parents that Ruby had been mad at him. They trusted her. And nothing, absolutely nothing could be allowed to damage that faith. Not when she was so close to being free, and resolving the problem that had threatened her world and consumed her thoughts for months.

She breathed out, poured some orange juice into a glass. Then, using two spoons, Ruby crushed a Xanax into a fine powder and tipped it into the glass. A spoonful of NyQuil and another of Benadryl. And then Ruby stirred up the mixture. The color of the orange juice dulled into a muddy yellow. She washed the spoon, picked up the glass of OJ, took a chocolate-chip cookie from the jar in the cupboard and went upstairs.

Tomas's door was closed. She put her ear to the door and listened.

At first, she heard nothing, and then sniffing.

Ruby cradled the cookie in her wrist, opened the door and stepped inside. White walls, white shelves, a pop of bright blue on one wall behind Tomas's bed, and toys neatly arranged everywhere. Tomas was curled up on his pillow. A small, dark, damp stain next to his head where he had been crying. His back was to Ruby, and he tensed as she walked in.

‘Tomas, I'm so sorry. My mom is sick. I just got word she is going to have to go into a special home to be looked after by nurses and doctors. That's what I was doing on my laptop when you came into the kitchen. I'm sorry I yelled,' she said, softly.

‘You said a bad word. A real bad one.'

‘I know, sweetie. I was upset. I won't ever use that word again.'

As Ruby slowly walked round the bed to face Tomas, he screwed his chin into the pillow. He didn't want to look at her. Sometimes, with children, if they can't see something bad in their mind, it isn't there. It just goes away.

Rubeeeeeeee.

The buzzing began in her head.

Her foot stood on something. She looked down. Saw it was Tomas's skipping rope. It was a thick, white woven fiber rope with wooden handles painted red. Some of the paint had chipped off.

Rubeeeeeeeeeeeee.

She shook her head.

‘I brought you a drink, and a cookie. To say sorry.'

His little fists grabbed the pillow, twisted it, trying to move the whole thing over his head.

‘Come on, little buddy. I know you're hungry. You must be thirsty too. Drink this juice all up and you can have this cookie.'

For a second, his head came out from under the pillow and he saw the glass in Ruby's hand, then dug his face back into the pillow again. Deeper, this time.

His voice was muffled as he spoke. ‘Don't want it. I remember that drink from last time. Dirty juice. It tasted funny.'

‘It's just orange juice. Come on. We can watch Star Wars this afternoon if you like?'

He must've been struggling to breathe, because he shifted his body and turned his face away from Ruby toward the door.

‘Come on, it'll be fun, munchkin man. I can show you how to make popcorn?'

No response. The boy lay there in the bed.

Ruuuubeeee . . . take the rope. Do it now. He'll ruin everything . . .

Ruby sometimes caught a look in Tomas's eyes that tugged at something inside her. It was the same look Ruby had once worn, when she was about Tomas's age or perhaps older. A fear that a child carries inside them, all the time. Only at certain moments does it rise to their face and express itself fully.

Ruby remembered seeing herself in a mirror, maybe four years ago. Mother had sat her down in the living room and told her that she had to be strong. That men were coming to look for her father and he had to go away.

‘What men?'

‘Bad men. Men he owes money to.'

‘I know we're not rich any more. But we have money, don't we? Can't Daddy give them the money?'

Her mother fell silent, but her face let Ruby know that she was composing her response and carefully choosing which words were least likely to wound her child.

‘Your father works hard, Ruby. But he also gambles and drinks too much booze. This is a bad combination. Because he's no good at either of those things. We might have to move away from here.'

‘What? Move away?'

She nodded, said, ‘With your father. He's upstairs now, packing. He says he will go and get a place for all of us somewhere far away. And, once he's got it, he will come back for us.'

As young Ruby had tried to take in that information, she'd stood and walked around the living room. It was then that she caught sight of her face. A layer of grime and dust covered the surface of the mirror. Although her home was clean, her mother never polished the mirrors. Perhaps because her eyes had dulled, and her lip now hung down a little on the right side. Maybe her mom didn't want to look at her reflection. Her face was becoming an indictment of her husband. But, that day, Ruby saw through the dirt on the mirror, and saw real fear in her own face.

‘He told me he has a plan. Everything will be alright, Ruby . . .'

Ruby.

Ruuubeeeeeee . . . the rope!

Ruby shut her eyes tightly.

We are so close. Alison will throw you out of the house . . .

‘Please . . .' said Ruby, and as she spoke, she wasn't sure if she was talking to the red priest or to Tomas.

She put the glass of juice on Tomas's nightstand and placed the cookie beside it. Slowly, she sat on the bed.

Tomas didn't move when he felt her weight on the mattress.

Take the rope now . . .

With trembling fingers, Ruby reached down and touched the skipping rope. The white, woven fibers were strong. One of the wooden handles made a hollow tinkling sound as it rolled on the wooden floor when Ruby began to gather up the rope in her hands.

‘ Please . . .' she said.

Choke the boy . . .

Wrapping the rope around her fists, a length about a foot long in between her hands, Ruby knew there was no arguing with the red priest this time. His voice was getting louder, angrier. Soon her head would begin to ache and her nose would bleed, and he was right. She couldn't risk this.

Do it NOW!

She leaned forward, the rope taut, and for some reason she could not understand tears formed in her eyes.

She would make it quick. It would not be painless, but it could be quick. She could get the rope round his neck now, then kneel on his back and pull. With any luck, his neck would break before he suffocated.

Ruby got onto her knees, her heart hammering.

Lips dry.

Cheeks wet.

Rope taut.

And she hesitated.

For Tomas's little hand reached out for the cookie. He lifted it from his nightstand, and took a bite.

Ruby let the rope fall from her hands and tucked it into the bottom of the bed between the mattress and the foot stand.

‘I'm sorry too, Ruby,' said Tomas.

‘That's okay, sweetie. That's just fine. Have some juice.'

Tomas did as he was told, the fury of the very young who had felt their first taste of injustice, subsiding. He took a sip, made a face.

‘Drink it all down,' said Ruby.

He did. The whole glass. Even the thicker juice, which was mostly medication, that had congealed at the bottom of the glass. His mouth twisted and his tongue poked out from between his lips, seemingly trying to absorb the air, or anything for that matter, to get rid of the taste.

‘Eat your cookie,' said Ruby, and stroked his hair.

‘Is your mom going to be alright?' asked Tomas.

‘Yeah, I think she is. She needs people to be around her all the time. To give her the care that she needs. She deserves it.'

‘Good,' said Tomas, and took a big bite out of the cookie and crunched it around his mouth.

They sat together, quietly, on the bed. Sometimes talking. Sometimes not. But within half an hour Tomas's eyelids began to look heavy.

‘Why don't you have a nap? I'll be downstairs if you need me.'

Without another word, Tomas rolled over and let his eyes close. He would sleep, heavily, for five or more hours. Ruby would tell Alison that Tomas was in a foul mood, maybe running a fever, and that at one point she had to raise her voice, because he was screaming, but she hated doing that. Tomas had a lot of sedatives in his system. He would be groggy for many hours after he woke. His brain just as clouded. That's the way he was last time Ruby had given him some special juice when she'd wanted him to fall into a deep sleep.

Ruby felt things would be alright now.

It was nearly over.

She had one more shopping trip tonight. To a hardware store in the Bronx. One she had not been to before. She needed heavy-duty plastic garbage bags. Thick. Black. The kind used for industrial waste.

The kind you could put a body in.