Seasons of Her Life

by Fern Michaels

  All she did these days was go through the motions of living. Going someplace else the way she planned was her only way to survive. She’d been teetering on the edge for too long.

  Ruby finished the bowl of popcorn just as the television anchor announced that Calvin Santos, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, had won his state.

  “Bravo, Calvin,” she whispered before she shut off the television.

  Her eyes glistening with tears, Ruby made her way upstairs. Calmly and methodically, she packed her bags, two huge ones and one long garment bag. She was surprised to discover that she had so little in the way of personal possessions. Andy had been by earlier in the day, his face long and sad when she told him to take whatever he wanted from the house. The rest was to be given to the Salvation Army.

  She’d tried so hard to make her voice light and motherly when she said that he would be the first person she would call as soon as she found a tent to camp in.

  “You talked about this with Dad, huh?”

  “For hours. You know what he said?” Andy shook his head. “He said, ‘do whatever the hell pleases you. You paid your dues, Ruby, and you don’t owe anybody anything. Reach out. Do what you want for a change.’ ” She laughed then with a genuine mirth that surprised Andy as well as herself. “He said, ‘just tell those lawyers of yours not to screw up the payment schedule.’ End of quote.”

  “And Marty? Did you tell her?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. She was outraged that I would sell the old family homestead. She said a lot of things, half of which I don’t want to remember,” Ruby said in a choked voice.

  “She’ll come around one of these days,” Andy said miserably.

  “She betrayed me, Andy, at the most vulnerable time of my life. It’s not important anymore. Your father is right, she’s as stubborn as I am. Who knows? In time, none of this will be important.”

  “What about the business?”

  “It runs like clockwork. My secretary told me last month that I got in her way. She said I add to the confusion. Do you believe that?”

  “And Aunt Dixie?”

  Ruby shrugged. “She wasn’t the person I thought she was. It’s that simple.”

  “You were like sisters, you know, attached at the hip.” Andy threw his hands in the air. “Women!”

  They said their good-byes then, and with much effort, both managed not to cry. Ruby watched until her son’s Jeep was out of sight.

  The following morning Ruby showed up at Nick Palomo’s private clinic and went through seven hours of testing. “I want the works, whatever the works are,” she’d said briskly. “And, yes, I fasted.”

  From the clinic she drove by Dixie’s house. She pulled to the curb but didn’t cut the engine. She stared at the house for a full five minutes before she gave a jaunty middle-finger salute. She drove home and pounded the For Sale sign into the front yard. She hoped Andy wouldn’t be swamped with calls. It occurred to her then that the neighborhood had recycled itself. She really didn’t know anyone anymore. From time to time she nodded and waved to her neighbors, but she couldn’t come up with a name to put to a face.

  After a quick dinner Ruby sorted through the papers she thought she would need to take with her. The rest were filed into huge cartons, which Andy would take back to his house and store in the attic. The last things to go into the box she was taking were the Rolodex from her desk at the office and her personal address book. Her checkbook and wad of traveler’s checks went into the zippered compartment of her purse. All nineteen credit cards were safe in their special compartment. With what she had in her purse, she could probably live out the rest of her life in luxury if she wanted to.

  At nine-thirty Ruby went to bed and slept straight through the night. It was her first full night of restful sleep in over five years.

  Since there was no food in the house, Ruby went out to breakfast and passed the time with the owner of the diner. Then she headed out to the highway and the shopping mall, where she walked around for two hours. She bought two books, one by Helen MacInnes and one by William Goldman. She prowled through the five and dime, marveling at the array of costume jewelry that smelled like burned popcorn.

  Ruby killed another hour by stopping for an Italian hot dog, French fries, and a milk shake. If she took the long way home instead of the highway, she’d only have an hour or so to wait till Nick Palomo called with the results of her medical tests. She could read one of the new books while she waited.

  It was almost four o’clock when Ruby picked up the phone to hear Nick identify himself. They made small talk for a few minutes and then Nick said, “I want you to sit down, Mrs. Blue.” Ruby sat, her face draining. So, there was a reason she’d been feeling so lousy lately. It wasn’t all nerves and emotionalism. She drew in a deep breath and held. it while her son’s friend talked.

  Ruby immediately picked up on the seriousness in Dr. Palomo’s voice. She wondered if he were going to tell her she needed a life-saving operation or if she was going to die.

  “First things first, Mrs. Blue. Your blood pressure is high. I’m sending over a prescription. Follow the instructions on the label. You’re thirty pounds overweight. The weight must come off. The urologist who administered your kidney and bladder tests says you have a kidney infection of long standing that hasn’t been treated. The medication for that will be delivered, too. You also have the makings of an ulcer. Diet will aid you there and some additional medication. That’s the good news.”

  Ruby’s eyes rolled back in her head. She drew a deep breath to steady her nerves. How was she going to handle what came next?

  “The bad news is what we found out from your blood work. Listen to me, Mrs. Blue. You are a prime, and I do mean prime, candidate for a heart attack or a stroke.... You do know what cholesterol is, don’t you?”

  “Vaguely,” Ruby whispered, her eyes twitching so badly she could barely see.

  “Well, yours is so high, I don’t know how you’re still walking around. I am trying to scare you. With the medication I’m sending you, there are some medical pamphlets for you to read. Your HDL and your LDL have to be controlled as well as your triglycerides. Do you know what they are?”

  Ruby shook her head. She realized Nick couldn’t see her. “No,” she squeaked.

  “By tonight, if you read what I’ve sent along to you, you’ll know everything. You’re a smart woman, Mrs. Blue. Don’t ignore any of this. I made out a special diet for you, and I want you to stick to it to the letter. Most important, you must exercise.”

  “Wait a second, Nick. Someone’s at the door.”

  On legs made of Jell-O Ruby opened the front door to the delivery boy from the clinic. It took her five minutes to extract the right amount of money from her wallet along with a tip. With her thumb and forefinger clutching the bag as though it held poison, she made her way back to the kitchen.

  “It was the delivery from the clinic,” Ruby muttered.

  “Good. I’m not finished, Mrs. Blue.”

  “Am I going to die, Nick?” Ruby whispered.

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone line. “There’s always that possibility, Mrs. Blue. It’s all up to you. You can’t cheat, Mrs. Blue. You don’t have that luxury. Is there anything you want to ask me?”

  “Yes,” Ruby mumbled. “You won’t tell Andy, will you?”

  “Of course not. Are you alone, Mrs. Blue? Do you want me to come over?”

  “I think I’ve been alone all my life, Nick,” Ruby said sadly. “No, I don’t want you to come over. I’ll do as you say. Thank you, Nick.”

  Ruby stared at the calendar on the wall. For some reason it looked ominous. Dates. Numbers. She was moving into the winter of her life. She felt like crying.

  Death. Die. Dead. Other people died. You died when you got old. How much time do I have? Will I just drop over or will I die in my sleep? Will I struggle to breathe? Will I turn blue?

  The prescription bag from the clinic was heavy. Nick said there
were pamphlets and articles. Prescription bottles weren’t heavy. She wondered if she would die if she got up from the chair for a glass of water. She was afraid to move. Did she dare move? Maybe she shouldn’t exert herself. When you don’t know what to do, do nothing and nothing will happen.

  If I die here in the kitchen, how long will it be before I’m found? Everyone thinks I’m leaving tomorrow. I can’t call Andy and tell him. I’m ... it might be weeks. They’d have to tear down the house because they wouldn’t be able to get the smell of her decomposed body out of it.

  Ruby quivered and shook, her legs like straw as she minced her way to the kitchen sink for a glass of water. She carried the water and the bag from the clinic to the living room. If she was going to die, she’d damn well die in a comfortable chair. She flicked on the television as she passed it. She needed sound.

  Ruby read the instructions carefully, trying desperately not to make her eyeballs move. She shouldn’t move. Once she took the pills she would hunker down and never move. Ever.

  Stroke. She could become a vegetable. Phfffttt, and she could go like that with a heart attack.

  Her life flashed before her then, the way the books said it did. She tried not to cry. She didn’t want to cry. All she had in her pocket was one used tissue.

  Who, she wondered, would come to her funeral? Andrew, of course. And Andy. But Marty, would she attend? Dixie wouldn’t even know. Neither would Calvin.

  She sniffed, unable to stem the flow of tears. Andrew would give. her a hell of a sendoff. Top-of-the-line casket, the whole works. He’d probably give the eulogy. “Say something nice, Andrew,” she whimpered.

  Is this what I worked for all my life, to die now, when I’m at the top? “Oh, God, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,” she sniveled into the sleeve of her sweater.

  The only thing left was to pray. Pray not to die or pray to live? She wished then for the Bible she’d left on the train so many years ago. A rosary to pray. All she had was her fingers. Make do, Ruby. Maybe an act of contrition, if you can remember the words.

  Her voice was thin, frail, when she started to pray, but it grew stronger with each Hail Mary. She dozed during the fourth decade, between the fourth and fifth Hail Mary.

  When she struggled to wakefulness later, she stared wild-eyed at her living room. The television was still playing, and it was at least an hour past dawn. She was alive. She’d made it through the night; that had to mean something. Maybe she did have time, time to rectify all the damage she’d done to herself.

  Ruby finished the rosary, said the act of contrition, blessed herself, and got up from the chair. She looked upward. “I didn’t ask for anything. I just prayed. I’ll take it from here. If You have the time, look out for me, okay? Last night . . . yesterday . . . was ... to get me to this place in time. I needed to hit bottom. I think I cut myself a little slack. Whatever . . .”

  Ruby showered and dressed in the clothes she’d laid out the afternoon before. She made a cup of tea just to have something to do, then sipped her tea as she read Nick Palomo’s instructions. It took her a full hour to read through the pamphlets. When she had all of the information secure in her mind, she folded the papers and stuffed them into her purse. “I can handle all of it,” she muttered as she washed down the pills with a glass of water.

  When she reached Barstow she would stop in the library and photocopy every article ever written about high blood pressure, cholesterol, and all those other things she never knew about. She allowed a smile to tug at the corners of her mouth when she looked at the three bottles of pills. Yesterday she hadn’t noticed that one of them said estrogen.

  “What the hell.” She grinned. “I’m alive, and if I have anything to say about it, I’m going to stay that way.”

  Ruby left the autumn of her life behind in Rumson, New Jersey. None of that slim-to-none stuff for her this time around. The winter of her life was hers, to do whatever was best for her. A time to look back, a time to make new inroads if she so chose. A time to come to terms with everything in her life. A new beginning. The last season of her life. When she drove away from the house on Ribbonmaker Lane, she didn’t look back.

  PART FOUR

  WINTER

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  1985

  It was a ramshackle office, the decor early junk, consisting of aluminum lawn chairs and a plywood desk covered with artificial wood-grained sticky paper peeling and curling at the edges. Prints of Whistler’s Mother and something by Grandma Moses hung askew on a mustard-colored wall. Everything was old and dusty, including the man sitting across from Ruby. The sign on , the door said the offices were inhabited by Angus Webster, Realtor. Even the man’s name sounded old, Ruby thought.

  Angus Webster looked old. The word wizened popped into Ruby’s mind. Pale blue eyes hid behind smudged spectacles. Never eyeglasses, for eyeglasses denoted something modern, whereas spectacles denoted a period gone by. He was a slight man with puffy pink cheeks that huffed and puffed when he spoke. Rather like a squirrel eating a nut. He wore a battered baseball cap that said he was a member of the Knights of Columbus. It covered a full head of wiry white hair that matched his thick eyebrows, one of which trailed down the left side of his face. A gold tooth winked when he spoke.

  “We’re a mite off the beaten track here in Lords Valley. I’d be interested to know how you found your way here,” he said in a voice that sounded as if it were made of gravel and molasses. Sort of sticky. Ruby sat back in the rickety lawn chair.

  “Does that mean you don’t much care for outsiders in ... these parts?”

  “Not at all,” he mumbled. “Not much call for property by outsiders around here. Might be one or two pieces, but that’s it.”

  “I’d like to see ... both of them. Now if possible.”

  Angus nodded, the baseball cap bobbing on his head. The brim was greasy and a leaf was stuck to the visor. It had probably been there for a very long time. “You didn’t say how you found Lords Valley,” he complained as he struggled up from his chair. It creaked and groaned. Or maybe it was Angus Webster’s joints creaking.

  “I developed car trouble and ran out of gas at the same time. The man at the Mobil station fixed the fan belt and filled my tanks.”

  “That’s a spiffy vehicle you’re driving, Mrs. Blue. Don’t see cars like that in these parts. We’re simple folks. We drive trucks,” he said, spitting into a spittoon, dead center. “You need a vehicle with four-wheel drive around here.”

  Ruby nodded as she gathered up her purse. She slid behind the wheel of her car, a duplicate of the one she’d sold after the fiasco on the Point Pleasant bridge. She waited a full five minutes before Webster settled himself and started the engine. She noticed his vehicle had a running board.

  The trip to the first piece of property that just might be for sale took thirty minutes of solid driving—up hills, down hills, around corners, and across a field because it was a shortcut. Ruby bounced along behind, keeping up with the old man with the lead foot. Twice her head hit the visor as she jounced over ruts big enough to bury a bear.

  When the ancient truck ground to a halt, Ruby had to swerve to avoid hitting it. Mr. Webster didn’t believe in signaling.

  “Here ’tis,” Webster called. Ruby watched as he put both feet on the running board before he stepped gingerly onto the ground.

  Ruby’s heart fluttered.

  “A real fixer-upper,” Webster cackled. Ruby’s heart fluttered again before it started to pound.

  “You said there were two properties.”

  “What I said,” Webster said, wagging a finger, “was there might be more than one, but there ain’t. T’other one doesn’t have a clear title. Probably won’t ever have a clear title, not leastaways in my lifetime. This is the only one available. Comes with a right nice parcel of land. Hundred acres. Taxes ain’t bad. Septic tank in the back. You got your own pond for fishing. Deer run right through here.”

  Ruby’s eyes widened. The house looked l
ike an antebellum mansion gone to seed. “There’s a hole in the roof,” she sputtered.

  Webster snorted. “One in the back, too, bigger. Porch floor is rotten, front and back. Told you it was a fixer-upper. Price is right for a fixer-upper.”

  In its heyday it must have been beautiful, Ruby thought, with its wrap-around porch and floor-to-ceiling multipaned windows. Over the front door that Webster said was solid oak was a fanned window of stained glass.

  “Seven fireplaces, all with solid oak mantels. Staircase is in bad shape, but it’s oak, too. Oak costs a fortune today. Price is right,” he muttered.

  “Who owns it?” Ruby asked.

  “People,” Webster said curtly.

  “Why are they selling it? How long has it been for sale?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe five years, maybe more.”

  “I don’t need a hundred acres. It’s all woods, mountains.”

  “Goes with the house. Price is right,” he repeated.

  “It will cost me twice the price of the house to fix it up. If I were considering buying it,” she blustered.

  “Has a barn, a chicken coop, toolshed, and watering troughs.”

  “I don’t need any of those things,” Ruby said in a jittery voice. “Are you sure this is all you have?”

  “Yep. You want to see the inside?”

  “I’m here. Why not.”

  “Has sixteen rooms.”

  “Sixteen!” Ruby yelped.

  “Yep, and that don’t count the pantry or the garage or the cellar and attic.”

  “Heat?” Ruby asked just to hear her own voice.

  “Ain’t none, leastways no central. Franklin stoves. Blast you right out of the house. Chimneys work good. You step where I step so’s you don’t go through the floor.”

  This is crazy, Ruby thought. There’s no way I’d buy this nightmare. Andy would kill me. Still it wouldn’t hurt to look.

  The ceilings were high, twelve feet or so, and they were water-marked. Rusty chandeliers hung in all the rooms.