Carrying Mason by Joyce Magnin

Author:Joyce Magnin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780310726838
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Published: 2011-10-19T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

One of the things I learned from Mason was that when Ruby Day got into one of her stubborn jags, it was best to let her be until she worked it out. Mason told me that sometimes she would stand on the porch or in the kitchen or in her garden for more than an hour crying and shaking. I sincerely hoped that this was not one of those occasions.

I sat down on the porch swing and rocked slowly back and forth, back and forth, and that brought back a flood of memories that I wished I didn’t have. Mason and I used to sit on the swing and listen to his jazz records. He would turn it up loud inside the house so we could hear it on the porch.

“Now this,” he said one night, “is Charlie Parker.” He called him a genius on the saxophone. I liked Charlie Parker well enough. I liked the way the music would jiggle and bebop through the air and tickle my ears. But mostly I liked sitting with Mason. He told me all sorts of things about jazz and music. But never in all the time I knew him did Mason mention Aunt Sapphire.

It was nearly lunchtime before Ruby Day finally sobbed herself dry and went into the house. She plunked down on the sofa, exhausted. She took Mason’s picture from the side table and hugged it to her chest.

“I won’t be going,” she said. “I won’t be leaving Mason, and I won’t be leaving you, Luna. You’re like my daughter now.” It was the clearest I ever heard her explain what was sitting so heavy on her heart.

I sat next to her and patted her knee. She wore a flowery housedress on account of it was Saturday, and that was what she wore every Saturday to watch cartoons.

“Why, Ruby Day, that’s the nicest thing anyone ever said about me. I like having two mamas.”

She set the picture back on the table and then gave me a bear hug that nearly popped the stuffing out of me. But Ruby Day was like that. Sometimes she didn’t know her own strength.

She tugged on a stray thread in the hem of her dress and twirled it around her index finger until it turned the color of an overripe plum. “I’m supposed to be out of my dress by now and in my garden clothes.”

“I know, Ruby Day. You can still get changed and work in the garden.” “Don’t want to, Luna.”

I turned off the television and sat back down. It was obvious that she had some explaining to do about Aunt Sapphire. But expecting Ruby Day to explain anything was a little like listening to Pastor Davis explain the Trinity. It just left you with more questions. But I had to start somewhere. Aunt Sapphire apparently had some kind of say in Ruby Day’s life, and I needed to get to the bottom of it.

Sapphire seemed a powerful woman with powerful opinions. Still,

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