by Vivian Lux
Jonah let my hand drop. He furrowed his brow but said nothing.
"I guess he was cleaning out the shed? It's pretty small in there and Izzy was wanting to re-decorate. Anyway, I'd just bought my house and had the extra storage. Maybe that's why he did it?" I realized, as I as talking, that I'd never actually thought about why Gid had given the box to me.
"Did what?"
"He gave me all his music, Jonah. A whole cardboard box, this big," I spread my arms. "It's full of tapes and even some old reels."
Jonah licked his lips. He was holding perfectly still but there was energy surging through his body that made him almost vibrate. I had no idea if it was excitement or anger. Fear licked at the edges of my emotions, but I soldiered on. "He said it was his life's work, all his demos, some live shows from when he was in that cover band. And his originals too."
I saw him clench a fist and the flex it. "Why did he give them to you?" he said, with a heavy emphasis on the 'you.'
I felt my cheeks burn hot but I lifted my chin. Ignoring his challenge, I said, "I'm telling you because I thought you might want to hear them."
He looked bemused. "Well of course I want to hear them."
I smiled encouragingly. "Okay. Well then we can listen together."
"You haven't listened to them yet?"
"No."
Some of the cold challenge in his eyes went out. I thought I saw something in there. Maybe wary respect? "Well thanks. I can come by and grab them tomorrow," he said.
Cold panic slithered through my belly at the idea of giving the box up. "We listen together," I said, folding my arms. "That's the deal."
I could see the confusion in his eyes. He was so used to getting his way, to taking what he wanted that the idea of me putting my foot down was completely foreign to him. "Really? I know he gave them to you but they..." his voice caught and he looked away for a moment. "I can get them out to the world, you know. I still have connections."
I shook my head vehemently. "Maybe that's not what Gid wanted. Maybe they're just meant for his friends." I looked at him. "And family."
"And you think you have the authority to decide this?"
I folded my arms over my chest. "I know it."
"Fine," he said, throwing up his hands. "Let's go listen to them, right now."
Who was I kidding? I hadn't gotten him all wrong. I had gotten him exactly correct. He expected to always get his way and he expected me to follow suit. I suddenly wished I'd kept my mouth shut, but that kiss had my brain all scattered. Not anymore. "No," I said. "Right now doesn't work for me."
"What, you have plans or something?"
"Yes."
"Doing what?"
"None of your business."
He gritted his teeth. "I don't understand the game you're playing here, Ruby, but I don't like it very much."
"It's not a game, and that's the point," I said firmly. "Gideon trusted me with this box for some reason." I wanted to say 'not you' but I could see by the coldness in his eyes that I didn't need to. "So I decide when we listen, understand? We, as in together."
He glared at me but I stood my ground, staring back until he finally let out a sharp exhale and walked out the door, leaving me with the feel of his touch still singing all over my body.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jonah
I hadn't slept all night. I felt like I was being pulled in two directions. Towards Ruby with her soft lips and kind spirit, and away from her and this town and the uncle I thought I knew. In the end, I'd woken up before dawn with the sudden urge to go down to Gid's shed for the first time.
It didn't make sense. It didn't make any fucking sense. There was nothing about Ruby that made me think she would lie, but my brain still insisted that's what this was. That she'd made up a cruel joke, first about Gid having a secret stash of music he hadn't shared with me and second about how he'd given it to her - someone outside of our family - instead.
No. That couldn't be true. But I was stomping across the lawn, heading down to the darkened shed all the same. If Ruby had a box, then I wanted something too.
We'd always called it 'the shed' but really it was the original house to this property. Built by hand by my great-great-grandfather, it hugged the banks of the creek, low-slung and gray shingled, and smaller than my Dad's garage was now. My great-great-grandparents had raised five children there, one of whom stuck around to build the big yellow house on the rise behind me where my own five siblings had grown up.
Uncle Gid hadn't always lived there. He'd been gone a lot of my young childhood, traveling all over the world as a touring back-up musician. But when my grandparents died in a boating accident, he'd come back home again because he and my dad didn't want to lose each other after losing their parents so quickly. As far as I knew, the question over whether he should get the big house never came up. He knew that us five kids needed the space, so he gladly stepped aside and took the small house down by the creek. And every time I came home from touring, I'd go see him there. He was always there for me.
But the shed was empty now.
Completely.
I stood there, frozen in place as I tried to slow my suddenly panicked breathing. Even the air smelled empty, just frozen cold blankness that filled my lungs and made me cough.
The complete panic that gripped me made no sense. The shed had been cleaned out before. When we used it as our studio back when we were auditioning, it was empty.
But not truly empty, not like this. Emptied not only of Uncle Gid's stuff but of his spirit too.
I reached out and gripped the door frame with my gloved hand, my fingernails digging into the soft wood. It didn't help with the spinning in my head at all. I leaned back and pressed my back against the cold wall and slid down to sit on the freezing ground.
There was no box here. Nothing. Nothing was left. It was like Gid had never even existed except as a memory.
I took another deep breath.
But that wasn't true, his voice lived on. I could play the music he'd written for those little kids to sing. And I could listen to him, hear him like a whisper from the afterlife.
Because Ruby had his tapes.
I could listen to him. I just had to do it with her. That was her only condition.
Why had that idea bothered me so much yesterday? Why was I so unwilling to share him? He'd clearly trusted her. They were friends. And she was kind, and good, and kissed like she was on fire.
I should be happy to share him with her.
She was amazing.
I dug my fingers into the wood, this time for a different reason. And then suddenly stood up, brushing my hands against my pants. A soft film of dust left streaks like ash on my jeans, but I didn't even bother to try cleaning up. I slammed the door shut on the empty shed and headed to Ethel, keys already in my hand.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ruby
Ginger was in the ceiling.
When I bought this little house, the first project I'd wanted to tackle was the awful drop ceiling in the basement. Whoever had installed it was either blind or drunk, because the tiles all hung at different levels, leaving just enough space for a tiny kitten to nose her way into.
I hadn't had the time of the money to fix it yet, and now I was cursing myself
"How on earth did you even get up here?" I demanded. "Cat, I am trying to help you, ow!" I complained. Her little kitten-daggers were still dainty enough not to draw blood but they still hurt. "I'm going to clip those nails as soon as I get you out of there."
As if she recognized the threat, she backed away from me, twisting and compressing her little body into a small space back by the duct work and completely out of my reach.
I stepped back on the chair I was standing on, and sighed....then sneezed out some of the ceiling dust. "I bet I just got a lungful of asbestos because of you, cat," I muttered. "I should just leave you there."
But she and I both knew this was an empty threat. I scooted the chair under the next p
iece of tile and pushed up. "Got you...oh, come on!" I cried as she somehow managed to worm her way out of what seemed like a pretty solid neck grab. "Why do you want to be up here anyway? It's full of dust and mouse poop. Oh that's probably exactly why you want to be up here right?" I sneezed again, and tried to bat the floating filth away from my face. "I'd say I gotta clean up here but we both know that's a lie, so you'd better come down or the dust bunnies will eat you."
I reached for her again. She stretched her little neck towards my outstretched fingers, sniffing tentatively. "That's good," I cooed. "I'm the person who feeds you, you know who I am. Come on and..."
A loud pounding sent her scurrying into the farther reaches of the ceiling. "Oh fucking hell cat!" The pounding sounded again and I realized it was someone at the front door. "Stay right there," I told Ginger. "I just have to go yell at whoever scared you and then I'm coming back to drag your orange butt out of there."
Ginger, safe in the farthest reaches of the ceiling, licked her paw.
Grumbling, I jumped down from the chair as the pounding came again. "The house better be on fire!" I shouted as I came up the basement stairs. "Because otherwise I - "
I opened the door and froze.
Jonah's eyes met mine. Then they traced up to take in my asbestos covered head, dust streaked face, and the long rubber gloves I'd bee, wearing in anticipation of plunging Ginger into the bath. "Is...this a bad time?"
"The bad time already happened when you pounded on the door and scared my cat even further into the basement ceiling," I huffed, stepping back.
"Is that why you -"
"Look this way? Yes. Yes it is."
"I was going to say look like you want to murder me, but then I remembered that was your usual expression."
"What do you want, Jonah?"
He pressed his lips together like he was catching his words before they got him in trouble. "Do you need help?" he asked.
"With what?"
He looked at me like I was daft. "Getting your cat."
This time it was my turn to take him in. His hair looked wild and needed a trim, his eyes were bright, like he'd been outside in the wind and the cold. The unbuttoned flannel shirt that poked out from under his puffy jacket was not the fashionable, hip kind of flannel. It was the kind of flannel that was sold in outdoor stores next to the tractor parts. It looked like something his dad would wear.
It actually looked like something Gid wore, a lot.
My insides felt like someone had poured warm honey over them. "Yeah, sure," I said, trying like hell to keep my composure, so he wouldn't know I was melting at the sight of that shirt. So he wouldn't see the tears in my eyes and mistake them for sadness when they were actually the happiest I'd felt in a while. "Basement."
"You said that."
"Right."
Jonah in my house looked way too big. Just standing there, he seemed to take up all of the sparse space, making my house feel full and furnished instead of meager. I looked around with him, wondering what he was making of my stacks of books, the overflowing yarn bin and the overall lack of furniture except for my grandmother's rocking chair.
"This place looks like you," he commented.
"And what does that look like?" I wanted to know.
"Clear. Uncluttered." He pressed his lips together and looked back at me. "Truthful," he finished.
That shouldn't have made a damn bit of sense, but I was starting to understand Jonah, and so it did. "Thanks?" I wondered.
"It's definitely a compliment."
"Okay."
"Ruby?"
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry I was a dick yesterday," he said. "But I sure liked kissing you." He coughed and looked away. "Where's the basement?"
I huffed out a chuckle of disbelief. "You're unbelievable," I sighed. "Door's in the kitchen."
Of course he started off walking to it first, but rather than get all affronted, I quietly smiled. Jonah was...Jonah. He didn't know how to hang back and let other's take charge.
"How did she get in the ceiling in the first place?" he asked as we trundled down the stairs.
"She's...a cat? I have no idea. I think cat's exist in an alternate dimension from us. I was looking for her this morning because her food bowl was full, so I was shaking her treats and started hearing these little tiny mews coming up through the floor. Took me forever to realize she wasn't stuck in a closet somewhere."
"What's her name?"
"Ginger. I know it's a cliche for an orange cat. I let my kindergartners vote on the name."
"What came in second place?"
"Meow."
"Should have gone with that." He looked kind of charmed.
"I think he misunderstood the question and was answering the sound a cat made, but half of the class went with it." I pulled out the chair and pointed. "I think if you come at her this way, she might actually back up enough that I can grab her over here."
He looked up. "She is literally in the ceiling."
"Literally."
"How do you know she's right here?"
I called up above us. "Ginge-y? You still up there or did the dust bunnies eat you?"
A faint, squeaky mew filtered down through the tile. Jonah shrugged as if to say "well there you go." He poked the tile up and peered in. "I don't see a...oh hello."
"Is she there?"
"Ssh," he hushed me. "You're a pretty kitty, right?" he cooed. I glanced down to see that his hand was moving slowly, and deliberately upward. "You don't want to be in the dirty ceiling, right?" I bit my tongue and chose not to hear that as an insult. "You want to come back down and eat some treats with your mommy, right little kitten?"
Then there was a bang, and a hiss, and Jonah's triumphant, "gotcha!" and all at once he stepped back down, cradling my tiny little kitten in his huge hands.
I swear I heard an audible pop, and assumed it was my heartstrings getting tugged by the sight of a big man with a tiny animal.
"You smell like dust," Jonah observed, stroking her little head. She lifted her paw and batted at his fingers, trying like hell to gnaw on them. "Hey, I need those."
"Thank you," I said, and it came out all stiffly because I was still trying to process the sight of him right now. "I guess I was being too hesitant."
"She's a feisty one," he said, wincing as Ginger clamped down with her tiny needle teeth. "Maybe keep the basement door closed?"
"Good idea. She would absolutely do this again just out of spite," I agreed.
He chuckled, stroking her fuzzy head, setting off a thunderous purr. She closed her eyes, stretching out so he could scratch under her chin.
I realized I was grinning like an idiot. "Oh, um, you want some coffee? Tea?" I blinked. "Why did you come here in the first place?"
"To rescue a kitten, of course," he said, following me back up the stairs. When I had deliberately latched the door, he set Ginger back down again. She arched her back and did a little hopping dance, then bit my ankle and charged off, probably to wedge herself somewhere else inconvenient.
I rolled my eyes. "Why are you really here?" I asked him.
He shifted on his feet.
"Sit down," I ordered. "You're making me nervous being all big in my tiny kitchen."
He obediently sat down. "I went down to the shed this morning."
I flexed my fingers. "Where Gid and Izzy lived?"
He nodded.
"Izzy is all moved out now, right?" I couldn't keep the heavy sadness out of my voice.
His eyes got that shining look to them again. The one I had thought had something to do with the wind getting in them. But there was no wind in my kitchen. "It's empty," he said, his voice strangely tight. "Nothing but dust."
I swallowed. "Yeah."
"It hasn't ever been empty," he went on. "Not since I can remember. There's not even a leftover sock to show he was there."
"You have his shirt," I said, pointing.
Faint color rose to his cheeks. "Mom found it in mixed in with
the towels." He brushed his hand over it. "I didn't think you'd notice."
"Course I would. That was his Friday shirt."
Jonah looked at me. "He wore this on Fridays? Only?"
"Your uncle didn't like to waste brain power on such trivial things as wardrobes. He had higher thoughts to think."
Jonah fell quiet. "Ruby?"
"Yeah?"
"Can we listen to the tapes?" He licked his lips. "Together?"
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jonah
"All this time I've had these," she was saying as her voice floated down from the rafters. "And I never really thought through how I would listen to them."
"You okay up there?" I was holding the ladder and trying not to sneak peeks at her round, nicely curved ass. We were both wedged in a closet in her second bedroom, the only access point to her attic a panel in the ceiling. If she stumbled, my hands were right there to grab her. Which might be a problem.
"I'm fine." She was a body without a head as she poked around in the crawlspace. "I think... yeah this is it."
I heard a scrape and then a thud and then she made a triumphant noise. "Here it is!' she cried, banging the ancient tape recorder against the rungs so close to my head it made my hair ruffle.
"How old it this thing?" I wondered, deftly taking it from her before she brained me. "It looks pure 70s."
"1980 exactly, as a matter of fact," she corrected, hopping down off the ladder. "Apparently it was the height of technology because of these." She pointed.
"A dual deck, nice."
She trundled the ladder out of the closet and set it against the wall. Then she looked at me with those big eyes of hers. There was atightness in her smile, but she was smiling and that was good enough to make me smile back. "Are you ready?"
I took a deep breath. My first instinct was to scoff. Of course I was. Except. "I'm not sure," I confessed, letting my breath out in a long, slow inhale.
"You're worried you're going to hate it?"
