Ruby Falls by Deborah Goodrich Royce

Author:Deborah Goodrich Royce [Royce, Deborah Goodrich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642937107
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2021-03-02T14:22:34+00:00

25

Suspicion

Today is my birthday. I am not sure if Orlando knows it. I had actually forgotten it, myself, until Eddie blurted it out. I’m not even going to consider how he knew.

When I returned from shopping—if you can call that surreal expedition shopping—I found messages from my mother and Howard on the answering machine. Then, flowers arrived at the door. Howard sent yellow roses, my mother, pink.

“What do you make of that, Ellie?” Nina Blanchard would have said. “Why do you suppose you’ve forgotten your birthday? What number is it this year?”

“I don’t know,” I would answer.

“You don’t know how old you are?” She knows perfectly well what I mean.

“I don’t know why I’ve forgotten. I’m twenty-six today. Twenty-six years old. And, before you ask, I have no idea what significance that number holds.”

“Well, let’s think.”

“I’m already thinking,” I snap. “And I can see that you are, too.”

“How old was your father when he left you in the cave?”

“Nice try, but he was thirty-five. There is no resemblance between the number twenty-six and the number thirty-five.”

“Isn’t there, Ellie?”

“I don’t see it, Dr. Blanchard.”

“You do, Ellie. You’re the one who forgot your birthday. You see it. I know you do.”

“Shut up, Dr. Blanchard!” I am imagining this conversation, so I am allowed to say things like that. In fact, I say it often to Dr. Blanchard in my mind.

“What do two and six add up to? What do three and five add up to?”

“Shut up, I said!”

“Eight, Ellie! Eight! Eight! Eight!”

Now you see why I stopped seeing Dr. Blanchard. She is rather obnoxious. I mean, who cares about the number eight? I could find the number eight anywhere if I performed long division or multiplication or any other type of mathematical formula. It is everywhere. Just like four and seven and one. Two. Three. Everything is everywhere. So? Who cares? Why would I forget my birthday because of a stupid number? I am just tired, I keep saying! And no one is listening!

I shove the flowers in vases and leave them on various tables in the living room, which makes the house look funereal. Then, I practically crawl into bed. I’m too tired to cook. Too tired to do anything. I will sleep and when Orlando comes home, maybe we can go out to dinner. It’s my birthday, after all.

***

“Ruby.”

I hear the voice from a great distance. My father’s voice.

“Ruby.”

I open my eyes. Orlando is sitting on the side of the bed, smiling. He has a hand on my arm. He has called me Ruby. I am certain of it.

But am I? A nauseating swirl like the spinning house in The Wizard of Oz competes for my vision. It is filled with flitting images of Dr. Blanchard and Sylvia Long and Dottie and that storekeeper Eddie with the dried-up candy and the Hallmark quotations and dozens of cats and roses and, yes, my father. Always my father.

“What did you call me?” I whisper, but Orlando does not seem to hear me.

He knows about that name; it’s no secret anymore.

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