Drowning Ruth: A Novel by Christina Schwarz

Author:Christina Schwarz [Schwarz, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 0345439104
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2000-01-02T04:00:00+00:00

Ruth

When we found my mother's stone with the thick green honeysuckle growing behind it, I was almost sorry I'd brought Imogene there. You shouldn't visit your dead mother just to impress your bored friend. I traced the letters in my mother's name, hoping she'd believe I'd come just to see her, hoping she'd forgive me.

“That's funny,” Imogene said.

“What is?”

“She died on my birthday. November 27th. Same year, too.”

We looked at each other. It was a strange idea, frightening somehow, as if for a moment the door between the world of the living and the world of the dead had blown open.

“Maybe you're her, reincarnated,” I said for a joke to push the scariness away.

“What's reincarnated?”

I explained what Rudy had told me about a soul getting a new body when it died, about how you could have another life as a completely different person or even as a cat or a goldfinch, and about how a person living a long time ago could be born again as you. Not that Rudy and I really believed it, although after Rudy told me, I looked for my mother whenever an animal was born on the farm. None of them seemed to know me as I knew my mother would, and obviously neither did Imogene.

As we walked back into town, we talked about what we'd be in later lives and what we might have been before.

“I'm sure I must have been someone famous,” Imogene said. “At least once or twice. Maybe Pocahontas. Everyone says I must have Indian blood in me. My hair is so dark and both my parents are blond.”

“That's not how it works. When you come back, you don't look anything like the person you were. It's not like you're related.” And then because I wished I hadn't shared my mother with her, I said, “What makes you think you were someone special, anyway? It's much more likely you were just ordinary. There are a lot more ordinary people than famous ones, you know.”

I said it mean and I meant it mean and I waited for her to be angry, but Imogene was too sure of herself to let anything I said upset her.

“Oh, I'm positive we were both famous,” she said. She stopped, grabbed my arm, turned me toward her, and stared at my face without blinking. “I know what you were,” she said finally. “You were a Chinese spy. Your eyes have that little slant and you're always so quiet, watching people. You know things, but you don't tell.” She smiled, pleased with her story.

I didn't know anything, though. I only thought it seemed very strange that, while my mother and I were drowning, Imogene was being born.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.