Stranger Son

by Jim Nelson

  There was no lock on her door. Ms. Abney-Rance could enter at any time. Ruby wondered if she would have even a moment of assured privacy in this house.

  An electronic buzz sounded. "Cynthia," came a staticky incorporeal voice.

  Ruby searched for its source. She discovered a small speaker with two push-buttons mounted beside the door. Panicking, unsure what to do, Ruby shouted, "Yes?"

  "Cynthia," announced the staticky voice again.

  "I'm here!" Ruby was unconsciously shouting.

  "Cynthia," the staticky voice demanded. It was Ms. Abney-Rance. "Press the button."

  Ruby pressed the red button under the speaker grille. The electronic buzz returned.

  "The other button," the staticky voice said.

  Ruby pressed the white button. She sensed she needed to hold it down to talk. "I'm here," she said into the grille.

  "Come to the kitchen. Dinner is ready."

  Through the kitchen window, Ruby watched husband and wife dine on the patio table beside the pool. They were framed by the distant ocean horizon line and a brilliant watercolor wash of oranges and yellows with red streaks of clouds. Ruby prepared one of Dr. Abney's hamburgers with mustard, mayonnaise, lettuce, and onions. She sliced open a grilled bratwurst and added mustard to it as well. She piled on her plate potato salad and a bowl of a mixed greens with cream dressing. She ate standing at the kitchen counter, just as most bridge daughters would, until Ms. Abney-Rance came to the kitchen and told her to sit down for God's sake. She was making them nervous.

  Ruby devoured the meal, both cheeks full. It was the best meal she'd eaten in a month, perhaps more. When she spotted Ms. Abney-Rance approaching the exterior kitchen door, Ruby leaped up and presented herself just as she would stand at attention as a ten-year-old bridge daughter: hands held before her, elbows lightly bent, back straight and chin level.

  "We'll be finished shortly." Ms. Abney-Rance extracted a salad fork from a drawer. "Clear the table when we're finished and take care of the dishes. You can run the dishwasher tonight after we've retired."

  Only when Ms. Abney-Rance reached the patio table with the fork did Ruby return to her meal. She gobbled it down to ensure she was not still eating when they finished. She could not believe the absolute good luck she'd fallen into. This situation was better than she could ever have expected.

  Eight

  The phone rang four times before her call was answered. The man on the other end announced, "Folsom State Prison, Sergeant Cobham speaking."

  "Women's Facility office, please." Ruby was sitting on the floor of her bedroom with the side of the bed against her shoulder blades. She spoke into her cellular phone with one hand cupped over her mouth. The Abneys were taking their morning coffee and fruit salad beside the pool. There was no knowing if Ms. Abney-Rance might barge in with another of her household demands.

  Ruby was transferred. A gruff, weary-sounding woman picked up. She did not offer a name, only saying, "Folsom Women's Facility. This call is monitored and recorded."

  "I'd like to schedule a telephone call with Driscoll." Inmates did not take incoming calls. Ruby had to arrange a time for her mother to call her. That call would be monitored and recorded as well.

  "Inmate ID?"

  Ruby rattled off her mother's prisoner number and repeated it. She'd memorized it years ago.

  "Relation?"

  Ruby could not say she was her mother's bridge daughter—Ruby lived in perpetual violation of her conditional release. The state of California issued a standing warrant for her arrest years earlier. With California's Hanna Laws in effect, the warrant was not strictly enforced—but Folsom Prison was no longer in California either.

  After a decade of agitation, the northern counties in California had separated to form the Free State of Jefferson. They took with them all state facilities now within their borders, including Folsom Prison. And while the Free State of Jefferson did not hold an outstanding warrant for Ruby Driscoll, the state also did not pass any equivalent of the Hanna Laws. In fact, California's Hanna Laws were the last straw for the northern counties, who'd also opposed California's taxes, California's immigration sanctuary acts, and California's relaxed sex trade laws. Separating from California gave those counties all the autonomy they desired.

  Before Ruby could fake a relationship to her mother, the woman on the line said, "Driscoll, Driscoll, Driscoll—Oh, the Hanna woman." She spoke the name with a thick layer of disdain. "All personal communication is forbidden with AIP."

  "AIP?" Years of dealing with Folsom Prison had led Ruby to learn much about prison bureaucracy, but this acronym was new to her.

  "Abetting an Illegal Person," the woman on the line said. "Her legal representative is the only person she's permitted to contact."

  Ruby's face grew hot. Calling her mother made her cry every time. The pressure behind her eyes was already building.

  "What is an 'illegal person?'" she asked.

  "Undocumenteds," the woman said. "Runaway bridge daughters. Hagars."

  "But I talked with her only three months ago," Ruby said.

  "Law was passed in Redding last month. Just took effect."

  Redding—the capital of the Free State of Jefferson.

  "Who can I appeal it to." It sounded ridiculous the moment she said it. A Hagar appealing was as ludicrous as a house pet filing a legal motion. For a Hagar to appeal to a court in the Free State of Jefferson was doubly absurd.

  "There is no appeal," the woman said as though bored. "Appeal to Redding," she added with a flip tone. "Now, is there anything else?"

  Ruby said there was not and quietly ended the call.

  Nine

  The Abney family's genealogy was well-documented and easily researched online. Using her Internet phone, Ruby traced Dr. Frank Abney's grandfather to Cynthia Abney's younger brother. Cynthia Abney, the web sites explained, shunned the family and was disinherited during the Great Depression. This is Ma Cynthia, Ruby realized. This is my great-grandmother they're writing about. The web sites, so fascinated with the family lines of the oil-rich Abney family, could not be bothered to trace the lineage of Cynthia Abney once she stepped out of the limelight. To an unknowing reader of these sites, Cynthia died without offspring, nameless, impoverished, forgotten. Ruby knew better.

  Looking up and around the tight boxy room she was housed in, she realized, I'm my great-uncle's housemaid. Her mother would have a fit. Her grandmother would be apoplectic. Grandma Dian took orders from no one, especially some rich old man.

  For two months, she washed Abney sheets, ironed Abney shirts, and scrubbed Abney shit from designer toilets. She'd worked service jobs most of her adult life, but she'd never been a domestic for more than a day. Even as a bridge daughter, expected to clean the house and prepare meals, her forward-thinking mother never required her to eat standing in the kitchen, as was true in more traditional households. In the Abney house, she took every meal away from the Abneys, alone but thankfully seated. When guests were in the house, she took her meal to the walk-in pantry, shut the door, and ate under the hard glare of the single exposed light bulb hanging from the ceiling. It was privacy, hard-earned and worth it.

  Ruby developed a routine. She broke the house into quadrants and rotated cleaning chores throughout the week. The first weeks were touch-and-go, as Ms. Abney-Rance had a particular way for everything. The mirrors had to be cleaned using a special glass cleaner for mirrors and only mirrors. She directed Ruby to wipe the mirrors with long vertical motions, not back-and-forth as Ruby had always done. The bathtubs required a soft cleanser, but the designer shower in the master bedroom demanded a gritty abrasive to scrape the soap scum out of the rough-hewn rock crevices and grout. Attention to detail, elbow grease, and a sore lower back became her daily life.

  She dared not bring up Barry before the Abneys. She didn't even dare use her real name, worried they might piece the connection together. None of her online searches located a Barry Abney. She assumed any family would change his n
ame upon adoption. For all she knew, this was another dead-end, wishful thinking on the part of Azami.

  Dusting and polishing the first-floor offices were Ruby's earliest attempts to locate Barry. Ms. Abney-Rance's office was decorated with plants and classical art and rococo upholstered furniture, a soft and inviting room. From the paperwork on the desk, Ruby gathered she was a prominent booster of the local performing arts, in particular the orchestra in San Luis Obispo. She also contributed to a local shelter for battered women. In Dr. Abney's office, Ruby discovered one of the two filing cabinets was unlocked. Further observation led Ruby to believe the key for the second cabinet was on Dr. Abney's key ring, which he only carried when he left the house. Otherwise, the ring of keys lay atop a pile of pennies and nickels filling an oval ceramic ashtray on a table beside the door to the garage. He retrieved the keys when heading for the cream-white Mercedes-Benz parked there with a bag of golf clubs stored in the trunk.

  On a day when the couple had left for a game of doubles and a late lunch, Ruby used the opportunity to rifle through the filing cabinet always left unlocked. She discovered manila folders of financial statements, records of real estate the couple owned up and down the Central Coast, documents pertaining to corporate boards he was a member of, medical associations and their dues, stock and bond purchases, and financial speculation abroad.

  She was surprised to find so much sensitive information in an unlocked cabinet. Perhaps these holdings amounted to spare change for an inheritor of the Abney estate. None of the paperwork mentioned a Barry Abney, although she did find other members of the Abney clan listed on the contracts and as shareholders. She made note of every Abney name she found. All of them she located online in press reports or Wikipedia articles or, oddly, fan web pages dedicated to tracking the goings-on of this wealthy family. John Huston had made a film in the 1940s commonly thought to be a veiled telling of the first Abney oil discovery. Some of the Abney grandchildren and great-grandchildren had married well, movie stars and professional athletes and so on, which only contributed to the Abney mystique.

  Ruby knew Dr. Abney kept a checkbook in the desk pencil drawer. She'd seen him remove it on occasions to pay a contractor or the gardeners. She tried the desk drawer. It was locked, undoubtedly by another key on his key ring.

  The Abneys hosted guests often, other Pismo Beach residents and fellow members of their golf club or orchestra nonprofit. All the other members of the Abney family lived farther south and visited rarely. They stopped in while driving US 101 north toward San Francisco or returning southbound. These Abneys never spoke of a Barry or an adopted child. Ruby made a point of attending closely to their needs.

  For larger occasions, Ms. Abney-Rance hired a bartender and a waiter to serve canapés. Ruby's role during these events was largely in the kitchen pulling trays of prepared food from the oversized refrigerator and washing dishes as they stacked up in the sink. These were the only times she was required to wear a uniform. After the last guests finally left, she would work until one in the morning cleaning and mopping, quiet as a mouse not to awaken the Abneys. The vacuuming could wait until the morning when they were on the patio finishing their coffee and nursing their hangovers.

  Whenever she had a reason to be in the office alone, Ruby would check the drawer where the checkbook lay. It was locked every time. She grew convinced a clue to Barry's whereabouts—if he'd been adopted by one of the Abney families at all—lay in either the checkbook or the locked filing cabinet. Ruby was screwing up the courage to pilfer the key ring from the ashtray and sneak into his office as they slept. If she was caught, the Abneys would most certainly send her away. They might even call the police. Ruby could explain why she might be in a clothing closet or have a dresser drawer open, but she could not devise a single good excuse for going through Dr. Abney's papers in the dead of night.

  After two months, she began to despair. The bulk of the Abney family was spread along the California coastline between the Los Angeles hills and La Jolla, just outside of San Diego. Ruby began to scheme how she could arrange employment in those Abney households to better learn which of the clan was raising Barry. She pondered if there was some way to trick Ms. Abney-Rance into recommending Ruby to another Abney household. She didn't strike Ruby as trick-able, though.

  Early one morning, before four o'clock, she awoke with a start and a yelp. She clawed the sheets to sit up in her stunted bed.

  In the dark, she breathed deeply to contain her panic. What if Azami had been wrong about her relationship to the Abneys? What if this was yet another dead-end? Waiting on the Abneys hand and foot for nothing? She pushed her fingers through her bob of hair and told herself this time was different. It had to be.

  Ten

  Over breakfast one overcast morning, Ms. Abney-Rance and her husband batted some family matter back and forth across the patio table. The intensity never reached the level of an argument, although Ruby detected the matter was weighty enough it could have.

  "I've never seen Cynthia handle children," Ms. Abney-Rance said to him. They both wore matching USC alumni pullovers to combat the stiff chill coming off the ocean. "Why don't you drive to Emeril's and discuss it there."

  "Mark can only do it next week," he said. "After that, we have to find somebody else, and I want Mark on this one." He cut her off. "If Emeril and Mark drive up here, Mark can go straight on to Jefferson. The sooner her gets there, the sooner we get this over with."

  Ms. Abney-Rance shook her head. "Why does Emeril's family have to join him, though? Their little ones require constant attention."

  "They've been meaning to take the kids to the aquarium," Dr. Abney said. "They'll only be here one night. They're going to meet the Hearsts the next morning for lunch and then drive on to Monterey." He added, "The kids want to see the sea otters or something." He took a healthy slurp of his coffee. He swung the mug toward Ruby. "If it's a matter of Cynthia dealing with the children, they're bringing Bridget along—"

  "I don't want Cynthia around a bridge daughter," Ms. Abney-Rance said. She spoke as though Ruby was not standing beside them. Ruby continued to serve the coffee, doing her best to appear disinterested.

  "She's not going to teach their bridge daughter how to run away," Dr. Abney said mockingly. He turned to Ruby. "Are you?"

  Ruby stood over them with the coffee carafe. "No."

  "Would you be comfortable if some of my family stayed here this weekend?"

  Ruby said, "Of course," perhaps too quickly. A chance to eavesdrop on more Abneys was always an opportunity.

  "Are you good with children?"

  "I believe so," Ruby said. "I've worked in daycare," she lied.

  "There," Dr. Abney said to his wife. He reclined in his patio chair. "Daycare."

  "It'll be a full house," Ms. Abney-Rance told Ruby. "Emeril's family will take the two larger guest rooms upstairs. Oh, I guess they're bringing Bridget and their driver too."

  "He'll stay at a hotel," Dr. Abney said. "Bridget can share the room with Robbie."

  "Where will Emeril sleep?" Ms. Abney-Rance countered. "And what's-his-name—"

  The flurry of names and relationships confused Ruby. When there was a lull in their negotiations, Ruby spoke up. "I'd be delighted if they stayed here," she said. "I'll do whatever you wish to make their stay comfortable."

  This pleased Dr. Abney immensely. He gathered his phone from the table, stood, and walked to the other side of the pool to speak with someone named Emeril. From his exuberant greeting and jocular tone, Ruby knew Emeril was a close relation. The unusual name connected with her online research of the Abney family—Emeril Abney was a lawyer, she recalled, a representative for the family when scandal struck. The tabloids called him "the family fixer."

  Ms. Abney-Rance remained seated. She studied Ruby with tight lips and suspicious unblinking eyes.

  "I'll prepare instructions for you," she told Ruby. "We'll start with the second-floor bedrooms. Their kids love swimming, so let's be sure the cabana is stoc
ked with treats and soda and extra towels."

  "Of course, Ms. Abney-Rance." Ruby struggled to devise an appropriate way to snoop. "Can I ask the age of the children?"

  "You may," she corrected. "They have a son who just turned four named Robbie. And a bridge."

  Ruby's hopes collapsed. Barry would be turning sixteen soon. This was not the son she sought.

  "I haven't seen Emeril's family in ages," she said to Ruby. "I imagine their bridge is entering pons now. Gail probably won't want her in the pool. Robbie loves the water, though." She drummed a set of French-manicured nails on the glass table surface. "Where are the inflatables?" she asked her husband when he returned.

  "In the garage," Dr. Abney said. "I'll pull them down and see they're blown up."

  Ms. Abney-Rance caught Ruby staring at the newspaper open on the breakfast table. A headline had caught Ruby's attention.

  "You can read it tonight," she said, returning Ruby's attention to the present moment. "After we've retired." She made a simmering, sour glare up at her husband, who remained standing at the table. "We've got plenty of work to do to prepare for their arrival."

  Ruby did not wait until after dinner to read the newspaper. She managed to cobble together a free moment after lunch to scan the story, four column inches below the fold on the front page of the San Luis Obispo Herald-Tribune State & Local section.

  Jefferson Refuses Third Request to Return Folsom, Susanville Inmates to California. The story reported the new state's government had denied Sacramento's repeated requests to return inmates from two of their maximum-security prisons back to California.