Harvest of Ruins

by Sandra Ruttan

  He remembered a time when he’d believed they’d only hit a rough patch, that they could still work things out.

  Tom recalled the day when walked through the door to his home, and felt as though he’d walked into a wall. Rose was in the kitchen. There were no boiling pots of food on the stove that required her attention, plates in the sink that needed to be cleaned. The kitchen counter was spotless. The floor reflected the light back, threatening to blind anyone who looked at it for too long.

  He had one of those rare moments when he wished he’d fought Rose over the white tile.

  His wife stood by the counter. She had a pale blue dress on, one that showed her figure was still intact, and her honey blonde hair was tied back off what had once been a lovely face. Tom supposed it still was, but he’d forgotten how she looked when a smile lit her eyes.

  He’d forgotten how it looked when she offered even the smallest smile at all. Lately, Rose had seemed increasingly frustrated…

  She had her arms folded across her chest. The corners of her mouth were turned down in a scowl. Her eyes were narrowed. Even her stance was tense. She didn’t lean back against the counter but stood stiffly, face toward the door.

  Tom had only seconds to consider whether he was the one who had inspired her ire that day, or if it was Vinny who had angered her.

  “Your daughter has ruined her clothes.”

  She was always his daughter when she was in trouble.

  “All of them?” He blurted the question without thinking it through.

  Rose drew herself up taller and at the same time took in a deep breath. “Of course not. What she was wearing today. She ruined it.”

  What had Vinny been wearing that morning? Tom didn’t remember, but he knew how Rose reacted to even the slightest grass stain or smudge. “I’m sure whatever she got on it will come out.”

  “Whatever she got on it? I wish it was that simple, Tom. She cut her dress. Her new dress. The one I bought her for picture day.”

  Ah, right. It had been picture day at school. When he left that morning Vinny’s hair had been combed and sprayed stiffly straight, against its natural inclinations. Rose was fussing and primping, barking commands about standing up properly, but not being rigid as she tried to get their daughter to look comfortable in what she was wearing.

  Tom thought Vinny was dressed like an underage secretary, and her expression could best be described as dour.

  The sound of Rose’s shoes against the tile snapped Tom back to the present. She emerged from the end of the hallway with Vinny’s skirt in her hands. “Do you see this?” she asked as she held it up in front of him. “Do you see what she did?”

  He didn’t. Tom opened his mouth to say as much, but he thought better of it. What had Vinny done? It was a slit in the skirt. It had been there that morning. He remembered wondering about the idea of a child wearing a tight skirt with a slit in it.

  “Isn’t it snug?” he asked.

  “It’s form fitted.”

  No wonder he hadn’t remembered what Vinny had worn to school at first. He’d spent the better part of the day trying to forget.

  “Well?” Rose glared at him and held the skirt right up to his face.

  He pulled back. “I see the slit, but wasn’t it there this morning?”

  Her face went a deeper red than Santa’s suit, and swelled like a balloon. Her chin actually trembled from the tension. “She cut the slit.” She seemed to deflate as she exhaled. “Why should I expect you to understand?” she muttered as she walked away, back down the hall.

  After Rose had opened the hall closet and dropped the skirt inside, presumably through the laundry chute to the basement, she closed the door and returned to the kitchen.

  “When’s supper?” he asked. Her nostrils flared. A tiny reaction by comparison to the anger she’d displayed only minutes before, but he still noticed, and held up his hand. “I just wondered if you wanted me to talk to her.”

  “About what? You don’t even know what’s wrong.”

  “Rose, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “Maybe you could just try to understand.”

  “Okay.” It sounded fair. He could try. He should try. “It’s just… She’s five years old.” When she didn’t respond, he tried shifting the direction. “You’ve seemed unhappy lately. I don’t want you getting this worked up over something so small.”

  “Small?” Rose’s hands flew to her hips. “I overspent on the back-to-school clothes, and the first time she wears this skirt she ruins it. We can’t afford to throw every outfit away after she’s worn it once.”

  He sighed, scrambling to find the right words to pacify her. “It’s one outfit. Just one. And I think we can fix it. My mother-”

  Rose grew an inch. “I will fix the skirt.”

  Think of hostage negotiation. Diffuse the tension. “Okay. And our budget isn’t tight. This won’t bankrupt us.”

  “That still doesn’t make it okay. She should appreciate what we get for her.”

  “I agree.”

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “Then what are you going to do about it?”

  It clicked. What she was really after. Rose wanted him to punish Vinny for her skirt. “I’ll deduct two dollars from her allowance. Fair?”

  Rose stared at him for a moment, then settled into the suggestion. “Fair,” she said as she walked to the counter and gripped the edge of the sink. “Pizza should be here in five minutes. I was too upset to cook.”

  Tom didn’t want to argue. “That’s fine. You know what the doctor said.” He walked down the hall to his daughter’s room to tell her about her punishment.

  When they gathered at the table for supper, Rose passed the plate to him with the stiff formality he’d grown accustomed to. He remembered when they’d bought the house and started working on it and was struck by a sudden image of them in that very room, rollers and trays littering the plastic-covered tile, wearing paint-splattered jeans and tee shirts and eating cold pizza from paper plates on the floor.

  “Here, why don’t I cut that up for you, Vinny?”

  Tom reached for his daughter’s plate before he realized his slip. He tried not to react as he took a fork and knife and cut the slice of pizza into small pieces. From the corner of his eye, he could see Rose stiffly pretend to push back a loose strand of hair, as though any strand of her hair would dare fall out of place. She reached for her glass and took a sip, the practiced formality of her movements evident in each action.

  Vinny picked up her fork and started eating. He noticed she glanced at her mother, wide-eyed, but didn’t say anything.

  “You know, Evelyn,” Rose began, “your father and I spent hours discussing names for you before you were born.”

  Vinny glanced at Tom, who nodded.

  “Your father wanted to call you Abigail.”

  Vinny’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  Rose nodded. “I didn’t like it.”

  There was silence at the table. Tom took a bite of pizza, other memories from earlier days in the dining room trickling back. Rose cooking their first proper meal, when they still had the used table with the chipped surface that they’d bought at a yard sale for twenty dollars. The chairs had been metal frames, padded with faded flower cushions. They reminded him of lawn furniture from the 70s. They’d had pizza then, too. Homemade pizza, his favorite.

  He couldn’t remember the last time Rose had made pizza herself.

  The point of Rose’s story wasn’t lost on him. “Your mother didn’t want kids to call you Abby.”

  Vinny looked at her dad. “I thought I was named after Great-Grandma.”

  “You were.” Rose offered a wan smile. “I thought people would try to call you Eve, maybe even Evie, but we’d just tell them your name was Evelyn.” Her nose wrinkled as the smile disappeared. “It never occurred to me Evelyn could somehow be shortened to Vinny.”

  Vinny looked down at her plate as she lifted another
forkful of pizza to her mouth. Tom sighed. Making them eat pizza with a fork and knife was just another one of the ways Rose managed to take all the joy out of life. Pizza was meant to be finger-food. Messy. The napkin was meant to be used, not left on the table as a decoration.

  The nickname had come about innocently enough. It was Rose’s nephew who’d started it, just a few months earlier. The toddler was babbling a mile a minute and trying to repeat everything people said to him, but Evelyn was too much of a mouthful. Somehow, it had come out sounding more like, “Eh-vin-ee” and after everyone had laughed at him, Evelyn had pointed to herself and said, “Eh-veh-lin.” She’d carefully enunciated every syllable.

  Her cousin had smiled and wobbled, then pointed at her and shrieked, “Vin-eee.”

  Evelyn had shrugged and said, “Vinny,” not realizing her mother wouldn’t want even a baby to call Evelyn by a boy’s name.

  “Can you tell me something?” Rose asked. “Why do you like being called Vinny?”

  Vinny looked like she was about to cry. Her eyes were wide. Tom had no doubt that she was afraid she’d get yelled at for the second time that afternoon, and he could see the wheels turning as she tried to figure out how to answer the question.

  She set her fork down and reached for her cup. After she took a drink she reached for her fork again, not looking at her mother.

  “It’s okay, Evelyn. I just want to know. I want to,” Rose looked at Tom, “understand.”

  “It’s cute.” Vinny ate another forkful of pizza.

  Rose frowned. “What do you mean, cute?”

  Vinny shrugged. “Ms. Coughnet says all the cute, girly names end in an ‘e’ sound.”

  “So Abby would be cute?” Rose asked.

  Vinny shrugged again.

  “Well, your name starts with the ‘eh’ sound and has an ‘l’ in it. Why don’t we call you Ellie?” Rose said.

  Vinny froze with her forkful of pizza in midair and mouth hung open. The first thing she moved was her eyes, in Tom’s direction.

  He forced a wide smile. “What do you think, Ellie?”

  Her face lit up and her cheeks reddened as she giggled.

  Tom reached over and squeezed Rose’s hand. “I think she likes it.”

  Rose smiled back. It was a warm enough smile to fool their daughter, but he could clearly see it didn’t reach her eyes. He couldn’t deny she’d made an effort to compromise, though.

  Perhaps there still was hope.

  Three days later, when he was tucking his daughter in, Tom kissed her forehead and said, “Good night Vin, er, Ellie.”

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  “What is it, Sweatpea?”

  She was quiet for a moment as she picked at her blanket. “I don’t want to be called Ellie.”

  “I-I’m sorry. I thought you liked it.”

  “I did.” A tear trickled down her cheek.

  “Then what’s the issue, Evelyn?”

  “The boys.”

  “I’m sure they’ll get used to the new nickname.”

  “They call me Smelly Ellie.”

  He remembered how she’d cried when Jesse had called her Skinny Vinny. Like all kids, she hated being teased. Like most parents, he wished his daughter would learn to ignore the things other kids said.

  They could, after all, be so cruel to each other, their words unfiltered by the experience and sense that helped people learn to self-censor.

  She’d hated being called Skinny Vinny, but she’d never asked him to stop using the nickname.

  “Are you sure?”

  His daughter looked up at him with big, sad eyes and said, “I want you to call me Vinny.”

  Tom nodded. “Good night, Vinny.” He started to leave and was about to open the door when Vinny’s voice stopped him.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes, Sweetpea?”

  “Please don’t tell Mother.”

  He paused for only a second before he nodded and said, “Okay.”

  The memory faded and he snapped back to the present.

  Because Evelyn has a little problem…

  God, that woman. What had he ever seen in her?

  Tom must have asked himself that a hundred thousand times since the divorce and he always came up with the same answer.

  He had no idea.

  Tom glanced at his watch. 10:18. He fell back against the wall as he raised his hand to his forehead and rubbed the creases.

  Three minutes had passed since he’d last checked his watch. It felt longer.

  A dull throbbing on the other side of his skin maintained its constant cadence, despite the Aleve he’d swallowed half an hour earlier, but he couldn’t complain. One short exchange with Rose was usually enough to make him feel as though screws were twisting into the side of his skull. Forget the lawyers: the people who produced painkillers must love divorce.

  He hadn’t returned to the waiting room since Rose’s arrival. The hallway hummed with the sound of movement, nurses and doctors making their rounds, phones ringing in the distance and the soft murmur of a voice answering. It all blended together into a soothing, hypnotic flow that kept pace with the pulsating rhythm in his head.

  “Tom?”

  He dropped his hand from his face and straightened up as he turned toward the voice. For a split second it felt as though his heart stopped. You spend all that time, waiting for news, but once it comes you might not be able to cling to the hope that’s helped you get by as you’ve waited.

  “Dr. Alton. We met once, a few months ago. The domestic abuse case with that couple? The guy’s name was Lex. Lex Long?”

  “Right. I remember,” Tom said. Lex's girlfriend had almost cut his ear off with a pair of pruning shears.

  Tom didn’t know if he should feel relieved that he could cling to hope a little longer, or frustrated by the fact that someone who’d recognized him now seemed intent on making small talk. The doctor hadn’t moved on down the hall. Tom focused in on the man standing in front of him. The doctor was non-descript, average height, a little thin but not too thin, and stood patiently, chart in hand. “What are you doing here?” Tom asked.

  “The hospital has been working hard to recruit quality staff. I was tired of commuting and they made me an offer that was too good to turn down.” Dr. Alton produced a wry smile. “Lucky me, our favorite couple followed me north.”

  “I heard that,” Tom said as he looked down the other corridor, and then back down the other hallway. “I mean, that they’d moved to cottage country. I didn’t know you lived here.” The move made a certain amount of sense. Put in a few years in the city when you’re young and have the energy for the pace, then find your niche and move someplace nicer, quieter, where you can settle down, start a family.

  “Yes, well, they aren’t your problem anymore.”

  Tom wasn’t interested in the ongoing abuse saga; he doubted there was anything the doctor could tell him that he hadn’t heard before. He glanced at Dr. Alton again. “You do your best, but you can’t help everyone.” Another doctor was coming down the hall, chart in hand. Tom met the man’s gaze before he walked into the waiting room and breathed a sigh of relief when the doctor didn’t stop to talk to him.

  He’d seen it in that doctor’s eyes. The news he had to deliver was grim.

  “You don’t have to tell me that.” Dr. Alton paused. “But I’m sure you’d rather talk about your daughter’s condition.”

  Tom’s head snapped around and he stared at Dr. Alton. “You have news?”

  The doctor nodded. “Come with me. We’ll find a quiet place to talk.”

  It took less than a heartbeat for Tom to process the lines in Dr. Alton’s young face, the weight of the eyes, the subdued tone of voice. He felt his shoulders sag as he followed the doctor down the hall.

  They hadn’t gone far when Tom heard the clip-clip-clip of high heels marching down the hall after him, and the muscles in the back of his neck tightened. Without turning, he knew it was Rose.

  A
s Dr. Alton paused to open a door, Tom looked down the hall, his eyes narrowing.

  “This is just what I’d expect from you.” Rose didn’t look at the doctor; her words were directed at Tom. She came to a stop right beside him, Lily firmly in tow. “All this time I’ve been beside myself with worry over my daughter and you don’t even let me know when the doctors have news. How could you be so cruel?” She turned her icy glare toward the doctor. “I knew the police would try to shut me out, but I didn’t expect this from hospital staff.”

  Her voice cracked just a touch at the end, and she lifted a tissue to her face and dabbed at her eyes. Tom felt Dr. Alton’s glance.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you were here, Mrs. Shepherd,” Dr. Alton said.

  “Chadwick.” Rose snapped her response. “I’m Mrs. Chadwick. Evelyn’s father and I are divorced.”

  “I-” Dr. Alton glanced at the two of them, then the little girl, and finally the floor. “I see. I’m sorry, Mrs. Chadwick. If you’d like to step inside-”

  Dr. Alton opened a door to a quiet room. Other than a few chairs, the room was empty. Tom felt as though someone had slashed him with a scalpel, sliced a hole in his stomach and left him trying to stand with everything that had once been inside him spilling out onto the floor. This couldn’t be good.

  Rose marched inside the room and set Lily on a chair, straightened her beret, wiped an invisible speck of dust from her coat. Tom followed her inside and moved to the opposite side of the room.

  Dr. Alton entered the room, but didn’t close the door.

  “Ah… Should we step back outside? Just the adults,” he said tentatively.

  Rose glared at him. “I’m sure you can use discretion, Doctor.”

  “Dr. Alton,” he said. “Ah, I just find sometimes it’s best to separate younger-”

  Rose leveled the doctor with the full weight of her stare. Tom remembered being on the receiving end of that look many times and felt a tinge of pity for the doctor, who had dared to insinuate – however unintentionally – that Rose was not making an ideal parenting choice.