Chapter 6: What Ruth Already Knew
Aunt Ruth arrived that afternoon with a canvas bag over one shoulder and the particular expression of someone who had been waiting a long time to be called.
She hugged me at the door and held on for longer than usual.
She smelled like the same soap she had always used, something I hadn't realized I remembered until that moment.
"Let me look at you," she said, pulling back.
She studied my face the way adults do when they're checking for something specific.
"You're taller."
"It's been a while," I said.
"It has." She glanced past me into the hallway.
"Is she here?"
"Upstairs."
Ruth nodded and carried her bag inside.
Claire came downstairs twenty minutes later, dressed carefully, composed.
She greeted Ruth with a smile that didn't reach her eyes and offered tea in the voice she used for people she needed to manage.
Ruth said yes to the tea and sat down at the kitchen table.
Dad sat across from her.
I sat beside him.
Claire made the tea with her back to the room, and Ruth watched her do it.
"Claire," Ruth said pleasantly, "do you mind if I speak with my brother-in-law and my nephew for a few minutes privately?"
Claire turned from the counter.
"This is my home."
"It is," Ruth said.
"And I'm asking nicely."
A beat of silence.
Claire looked at Dad.
Dad said, "Please, Claire."
She set the mugs down on the table without looking at me and walked out.
Her footsteps went up the stairs.
The bedroom door closed.
Ruth wrapped both hands around her mug.
"How long?" she said to Dad.
"I found out last night."
"I've known for eighteen months," Ruth said.
Dad went very still.
"What?"
"Ethan called me." She looked at me.
"Do you remember?
You were at school.
You used the phone in the office and told the secretary it was a family emergency."
I remembered.
I had been eleven.
Mason had taken my bike and Claire had told me I was being dramatic when I said it was mine, not his.
It was a small thing.
But it had been the day I finally understood that no one in that house was going to help me.
"You called me," Ruth said, "and you told me about the bike, and about three or four other things.
And then you said, 'I don't think she likes me, Aunt Ruth.
I don't know what I did.' And I told you I was going to call your father."
"I asked you not to," I said.
"I was scared she'd find out."
"I know.
So I called anyway and I told him I was concerned." She looked at Dad.
"Do you remember that call?"
Dad's expression had changed.
"You said you were worried Ethan was having trouble adjusting."
"I said I was worried about how he was being treated," Ruth said.
"You told me Claire was a good woman and that Ethan needed time."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"I didn't push harder," Ruth said.
"That's on me.
I thought if I pushed, you'd close the door completely and I'd lose contact with him altogether." She looked at her mug.
"I made the wrong call."
"We both did," Dad said.
"What matters now is what happens next." Ruth looked up.
"I want to take Ethan home with me for a few days.
Give you and Claire space to have a real conversation without him in the house."
"I'm not sure Claire will —"
"I'm not asking Claire," Ruth said.
Dad looked at me.
"Do you want to go?"
I thought about Claire standing over my bed in the dark.
He'll calm down.
He always does.
"Yes," I said.
Ruth nodded and picked up her mug.
From upstairs came the sound of a door opening very slowly.
Then nothing.
Just the particular silence of someone standing at the top of the stairs, listening.
Ruth looked at the ceiling, then back at Dad.
"She heard that," she said quietly.
"I know," Dad said.
"Then you should know she's already working out her next move."
He looked at his hands.
"I know that too."
May you like
"Good," Ruth said.
"Because so am I."
