Chapters (55)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Cast of Characters
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Part Two
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- A note on the Author
She felt the velvet ribbon real and rubbed it against her nose. “Me too.”
She thought she could hear him smile. He felt his lips ease back over his teeth as if this were the first time. It hurt. He rubbed his teeth with his thumb and wondered whether or not he should show her. Since there was very little either of them could see, this far away from each other, he decided he would tell her about it.
Forty-three
Going home present
“I have a drawing for you. I’ve kept it with me,” he paused as he put his hand in the pocket of his flannel shirt, “just in case we ever ran into each other again. It think it is my finest work.”
He popped open his wallet. It was thick with bills, which he pulled out one by one. They looked like dollars, but some of them had pictures of her mother on them where Hamilton should have been. With the last one laid out on the floor, he unfolded, from miniature, a scrap of lined paper just under 8½ x 11. It was ripped from a scratch pad of low quality, a ninety-nine-cent bodega job. Moving back toward the bed as though on wheels, he placed the picture in her hand.
“I drew it on a plane back from home a few summers ago. First I drew my tray of airplane food, beaten and bruised in its plastic coffin. Then I drew the view from the window, clouds and clouds and clouds, and who cares for clouds when they aren’t lying on their backs? Then the man with the headphones, sleeping beside me, the deep, clean sleep of the dull. I had more success drawing the miniature bottles of wine on his tray. Things in miniature tend to be pretty convincing, whether they are children or bottles of alcohol, don’t you think?”
She didn’t answer. Leaning across the bed, to the lamp on the side table, she brought white back into the room. Sitting up straight, she pulled her hair out of her face and saw the other face on the lined notepaper. Ruby looked at the little girl, rendered in pen strokes of love and defeat, the girl’s eyes huge with playful questioning, the artist’s strokes small with answers unspeakable.
“How did you remember how I looked, Liev?”
“I don’t know that I did. I remembered you, that’s true. But I’m not sure you did look like that. All these years, I wanted you to check for yourself. Did you look like that, Ruby?”
She followed the sweeps of the pen. The ink was so solemn, and yet the girl inside the troubled black ink was not troubled at all, but mischievous and excited.
“Yes. I think I did look like that.”