Page 36 of Such a Quiet Place
“Now I look at him and I don’t remember what I saw in him,” Ruby continued. She smiled to herself. “Well, I do remember.” A single high-pitched laugh. “I remember, anyway, when I was too young for him. God, I loved the chase. Loved it because I knew he was always looking at me, even when he wasn’t supposed to.”
I flinched. Ruby hadn’t been a kid when they’d met. She’d been nineteen or twenty. Too young for him, yes, but notthatyoung. From my perspective, he’d barely tolerated her back then. I wasn’t sure which of us was misremembering.
“Something about those Seaver boys, huh?” she asked. She gave me a look halfway between a grin and a wince. I didn’t know what she was implying. “They love them around here, those boys who never seem to fully grow up. Not the girls, though. Not people like me.”
She was right. Hitting on exactly how the neighbors here viewed her. Maybe it was because Ruby had been in college when we met her. She’d walked dogs and brought in our mail, come home late or not at all, owned roller skates and laughed loudly, spoken more from impulse than from tact. Maybe it was because her father never seemed to have a handle on her himself, always asking if we’d seen her.
“How’s your dad?” I asked her. As if she needed a reminderthat she had somewhere else to go. Somewhere else to be now that she’d gotten what she’d come for. One of those missed calls, of course, could’ve come from him.
Her expression darkened, her eyes narrowing on the edge of mean before her gaze flicked away. “He died,” she said. “I thought you knew that.”
“Oh. Oh, no.” I shook my head, a sudden wave of grief washing through me, though I hadn’t had much contact with Mr. Fletcher other than when he’d neglected to accept Ruby’s things. He’d seemed too mellow for his daughter, too lost, like he’d given up attempting to control her long ago. The path my own father had taken with my brother, whereas my mother had gone to the other extreme.
When Mr. Fletcher retired, he moved to Florida. Perhaps figuring Ruby was old enough to figure things out on her own, like the rest of us. And she’d shuttled herself the two blocks over, to me.
“I didn’t know,” I said. I closed the distance between us, placed my hand awkwardly on her upper arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Well,” she said, stepping away, “I’m gross right now, sorry. I really need a cold shower.” And that was that.
Maybe the calls from the lawyer were about her inheritance. Maybe her staying with me was a waypoint on her journey, then she would ultimately collect her father’s estate and start fresh.
Ruby retreated to her room, but I settled on the love seat in the loft, listening for the call I knew she’d be returning. About her case, or her dad’s estate, or whatever she planned to do with the rest of us—the people who were going to pay.
But she remained silent. There was nothing, nothing, from the other side of the wall, until the sound of the water in the pipes. And then, moments later, the faint hum of her off-key tune in the shower.
