Carrying Mason

by Joyce Magnin

  “I won’t be going,” she said. “I won’t be leaving Mason, and I won’t be leaving you, Luna. You’re like my daughter now.” It was the clearest I ever heard her explain what was sitting so heavy on her heart.

  I sat next to her and patted her knee. She wore a flowery housedress on account of it was Saturday, and that was what she wore every Saturday to watch cartoons.

  “Why, Ruby Day, that’s the nicest thing anyone ever said about me. I like having two mamas.”

  She set the picture back on the table and then gave me a bear hug that nearly popped the stuffing out of me. But Ruby Day was like that. Sometimes she didn’t know her own strength.

  She tugged on a stray thread in the hem of her dress and twirled it around her index finger until it turned the color of an overripe plum. “I’m supposed to be out of my dress by now and in my garden clothes.”

  “I know, Ruby Day. You can still get changed and work in the garden.” “Don’t want to, Luna.”

  I turned off the television and sat back down. It was obvious that she had some explaining to do about Aunt Sapphire. But expecting Ruby Day to explain anything was a little like listening to Pastor Davis explain the Trinity. It just left you with more questions. But I had to start somewhere. Aunt Sapphire apparently had some kind of say in Ruby Day’s life, and I needed to get to the bottom of it.

  Sapphire seemed a powerful woman with powerful opinions. Still, I couldn’t figure how a person could blow into town, make demands, blow out again, and expect someone like Ruby Day to follow along.

  “Ruby Day, how come you never told me about Aunt Sapphire and Bryn Mawr and all?”

  “Didn’t need to, Luna. Long as I had Mason, didn’t need to.” She untwirled the string from her finger. “Sapphire said as long as Mason could help me it would be all right to stay.”

  “Then why does she want you to go back there? You’re doing fine right here. And I’m here.”

  Ruby Day swiped at her tears and ran her palm over the top of Mason’s picture. “Don’t know. Sapphire is just like that. She’s so rich and all.”

  “But rich doesn’t give her any special rights to tell you where to live. She might look like a queen in all her fancy getup and hat and pointy glasses, but she doesn’t have any right to tell you where to live. Ain’t no rule about it.”

  Ruby Day pulled her glasses off. She cleaned them with her dress. “Sapphire sent me here … with Mason.”

  “To Makeshift?”

  Ruby Day nodded her head so hard I thought it might fling right off her shoulders.

  “How come?” Other than right after Mason’s funeral, I’d never thought much about Ruby Day not living in Makeshift. I mean, she was always just there and Mason was always my friend. I never remembered them moving into town. Their arrival was a mystery, and now all of a sudden I needed to solve it. Especially if Sapphire was involved.

  “After my daddy died. She said I embarrassed her, so she sent us here. To this house.”

  Ruby Day went quiet, and I stared at Mason’s picture, wishing he could give me more answers.

  “Luna,” Ruby Day said. “I think I want to change into my garden clothes.”

  I nodded. “You go ahead. We’ll figure this out later.”

  Ruby Day started up the stairs, stopped, and said, “I ain’t going back with Aunt Sapphire.”

  “I know. I heard you say that. Don’t worry.”

  My stomach growled. I figured if I was hungry then so was Ruby Day, so I went into the kitchen. I opened two cans of tomato soup and plopped the contents into a pot with two cans of milk. I stirred and stirred and watched the mixture turn dusty rose. Next I made two grilled cheese sandwiches just like Mama taught me, with butter inside and out.

  I thought about calling Mama and telling her what happened, but I really didn’t know what had happened. It seemed simple enough to me that if Ruby Day wanted to stay in Makeshift, she should. How could even a force so seemingly powerful as Sapphire make that happen if she didn’t want it?

  Ruby Day walked into the kitchen carrying a shoebox closed tight with gobs of masking tape. She was wearing her garden clothes—blue jeans with rolled-up cuffs and a flannel shirt.

  “Whatcha got there?” I asked.

  “Papers. Stuff Sapphire told me to keep.”

  “Certainly has a lot of tape.”

  “Mason did it when he was little. I kept dropping it and things poured out on the floor.”

  I turned the sandwiches over and pressed them down as flat as I could with my spatula. They sizzled as the buttery and cheesy aroma rose to the ceiling. “Sit down. I made lunch.”

  “Not hungry,” Ruby Day said.

  “Doesn’t matter. You have to eat, especially if we’re going to fight Aunt Sapphire.”

  Ruby Day plopped onto a kitchen chair. “Fight? I don’t want to fight her.”

  “I don’t mean with our fists. I mean we’re going to fight to keep you here. In Makeshift. She can’t force you to go. You’re an adult, Ruby Day.”

  She started to cry again. “No … I’m not, Luna. My brain is not. Sapphire said so. Everybody said so. Even Mason said so.”

  I used the spatula to cut her sandwich into four triangles and then arranged them on a large blue dish around a bowl of tomato soup.

  “It looks good, Luna. You make good soup. Just like Mason.”

  I triangled my sandwich and joined her at the table, but just like Ruby Day, I had yet to taste my food. I couldn’t stop looking at the shoebox. But I knew I couldn’t take it away and open it without her permission. She could easily fly into one her fits. It had to be her idea.

  “Are you going to show me what’s in the box?”

  Ruby Day shook her head and slammed her palm onto the lid. “Can’t, Luna. I changed my mind.”

  Ruby Day and I talked about Aunt Sapphire for a little longer while we ate. It turned out that Ruby Day’s family had money—lots of it.

  She said they made money in textiles. I had to look that up because Ruby Day said she knew the word, not what it meant.

  “Then how come you never got any of the money?” I asked.

  “Because it was put away.” She patted the box. “Sapphire put my money away for the rest of my life.”

  “It’s in the shoebox? Aunt Sapphire put all your money in the shoebox?”

  Ruby Day laughed so hard she snorted tomato soup out her nose. “Noooooo. Uncle Charles took the money.”

  “Uncle Charles?” I wanted to ask more questions but Ruby Day’s hands shook as she ate her soup. She took a deep, shaky breath and let it out through her nose. I watched her ball her little hands into fists, and I grabbed them both before she could start hitting herself.

  “You don’t need to do that. I promise I will get this ironed out—somehow. But you might need to show me what’s in the box.”

  She snatched it off the table quicker than a mousetrap. “No. I can’t do it right now, Luna Gleason. I can’t do it.”

  CHAPTER 12

  A bad thunderstorm blew into town that night, the same way Aunt Sapphire blew into our lives—out of nowhere. Ruby Day didn’t like storms, and I expected her to come into my room to wait it out with me. But she never showed up, even though the wind whipped around the little house and made the shutters bang against the clapboard. It was scary even for me. Every so often, lightning split the sky and lit up my room for just an instant, but still long enough to see the pictures on the walls.

  Mason’s walls were covered with pictures of his favorite jazz musicians cut out from magazines, and, well, to be honest, their faces flashing on and off all night was a little bit creepy. Thunder rolled so close overhead I could almost feel the weight of it.

  I think I even missed Delores that night, Delores and the twins. Loud, nasty thunderstorms were definitely easier to get through with sisters around.

  The next morning I found Ruby Day asleep in the living room on the floor. She had curled up on the rug near the hearth. The shoebox was next to her, an
d a slew of pictures were spread out all around her on the floor. A large ball of wadded-up masking tape had been tossed into the fireplace. Her glasses were in the shoebox, and I had the impression she ripped them off her face and tossed them in there because something made her angry.

  “Ruby Day.” I shook her shoulder slightly. “Wake up now, Ruby Day.”

  She stirred and looked around. I placed her glasses on her face. “Ruby Day. You’re in the living room. You fell asleep out here. How you slept through that storm, I’ll never know.”

  But from the looks of the photographs strewn around, I figured she had her own storm to get through.

  She rallied a bit more and sat up on the couch. “I’m … I’m sorry, Luna. I was looking.”

  “Looking for what?” I sat next to her. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

  She reached down and snagged a photo from the floor. “This is a picture of me—back … there.”

  I held the black-and-white image of a young woman standing outside a large house. It had columns and long windows, a wide wraparound porch, and a lawn that must have been ten sizes bigger than Mama and Daddy’s. “Is this you?”

  Ruby Day nodded. “Before Mason.”

  “You look so pretty. Where is this house? Is it Aunt Sapphire’s house in Bryn Mawr?”

  Ruby Day shook her head violently again. She balled up her fists and smacked her temples. I grabbed her hands and pulled them down to her lap. “Ruby Day. Ruby Day, what’s wrong?”

  “Don’t want to go back, Luna.”

  “What is this place, Ruby Day? Where was this picture taken?”

  She rubbed her eyes under her glasses and snuffed back tears and snot.

  “Don’t want to go back.”

  “I know, I know. You won’t have to. I promise,” I said, even though I didn’t know why she was so scared. Or why she was showing me the picture now. I took the opportunity to look at the other pictures without touching them. There were mostly photos of people standing around in small groups, near that same large house.

  Ruby Day picked up another picture. “This is my daddy. He’s dead. Like Mason.”

  I looked into the eyes of a man with perfectly round glasses, a balding head, a large nose, and the kindest smile I had ever seen in my life. “He looks nice.”

  Ruby Day sat back on her heels and rocked. She whimpered with a sound like a little cat. My heart raced on account of I didn’t know what to do. I let Ruby Day rock and whimper for another minute or two until I said, “Ruby Day, I think you should go in your room and rest. You couldn’t have gotten a good night’s sleep on this hard floor.”

  Ruby Day stopped rocking. “Okay, I’ll go.”

  I helped her up and led her toward the steps. “Go on,” I said. “Get under your covers and sleep. I’ll clean up the mess.”

  For a second I thought I saw something like fear flash in Ruby Day’s eyes as she looked over at the spilled contents of the shoebox. But then she yawned. “It’s gonna be okay, right Luna?”

  What else could I say? “I know it will. Isn’t that God’s promise—all things work together for what’s best.”

  I watched Ruby Day climb the stairs. Sometimes God’s best isn’t always what we want, I thought.

  The contents of Ruby Day’s shoebox were scattered everywhere. Considering how secretive she was about it, I was surprised she didn’t insist on cleaning it up before going to bed, but then again, Ruby Day didn’t always remember to make the wisest choice. I rifled through the pictures hoping to see something that would clue me in on why Sapphire wanted Ruby Day to move back to Philadelphia.

  I saw another photo on the floor and grabbed it. It was also Ruby Day standing in front of the same house, but there was a small sign in that photo that read Henry R. Mason Home for the Feebleminded.

  Home for the Feebleminded? I had heard of places like that from Mama. She said that Ruby Day was fortunate she had never been sent to such a home. But now it appeared that the real truth about Ruby Day was coming out. And Aunt Sapphire was in on it.

  I called Mama.

  “Mama,” I said. “I got to talk to you and Daddy.”

  “Is something wrong? Is Ruby Day all right?”

  “Oh, Mama. Something is wrong and Ruby Day is not all right.”

  “Do you want me to come over there, Luna?” Mama’s voice sounded sweet and comforting. Just like always. “Is she hurt or sick?”

  “No. She’s not hurt or sick. Can you come in a little while? Will Daddy skip church this morning? I don’t think I should bring Ruby Day to church.”

  “I don’t know, Luna. You know how he is, and today is Communion Sunday.”

  “But Mama, this is really important.”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  I hung up the phone and went to check on Ruby Day. She was sound asleep under her baby blue quilt. From where I stood in the doorway, looking at her, you couldn’t really tell that Ruby Day was retarded or feebleminded or any of the other words they’ve come up with to describe her.

  I needed to take a deep breath, which I did, and then I let it out slowly like Mama told me to do when I felt worried.

  “Don’t you fret, Ruby Day,” I whispered as I closed the door. “I’ll figure something out. I promised Mason I’d take care of you, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

  CHAPTER 13

  I hurried to gather all the photos back into Ruby Day’s shoebox—all except the two pictures of her near that horrible sign.

  Just as I set the box on the dining room table, I recognized Mama’s voice on the porch.

  “It won’t matter that we miss church,” I heard her say through the opened window. “Luna needs us. Ain’t no rule that a body has to be in church every single Sunday. Helping people who need it can be just as much worship as sitting in a pew singing hymns.”

  “Well, that might be true, but Luna should be in church too. Probably nothing we can’t handle after,” I heard Daddy say.

  I waited to open the door until Mama knocked, just so they wouldn’t think I was standing there listening to them.

  “Mama.” I gave her a big hug and held on for an extra second or two. Next I hugged Daddy, but not for as long a time.

  “What’s going on, Luna Fish?” Mama asked.

  “It’s about Ruby Day.”

  “Figured as much,” Daddy said. “I knew there’d be trouble.”

  We all went to the living room.

  “Where is she?” Mama asked.

  “I made her go to bed. She slept on the floor all night.”

  Mama sat on the sofa. Daddy stood with his hands in his pockets. “What do you mean she slept on the floor?” Daddy said.

  “She has a shoebox filled with pictures and she was looking at them all last night. I found her asleep this morning.”

  “What pictures?” Mama asked.

  “Like this.” I held the picture of Ruby Day out to her. She took it and studied it a second. “Home for the Feebleminded? Is that Ruby Day? Wow, she looks so young.”

  “Yes, Mama, that’s Ruby Day. And the picture made her awful upset. Do you think it could be why she’s so afraid of Aunt Sapphire?”

  “Aunt Sapphire?” Mama said. “Who in the world is she?”

  “She’s a woman who showed up here yesterday and started saying that Ruby Day had to go back to Philadelphia with her—now that Mason is … is gone. But I don’t believe her.” I looked at my daddy. “Do you think Ruby Day is afraid she’ll have to go back to this … feebleminded home?” I looked at Mama. “If you met Sapphire, you’d know. She has dead foxes and a snooty face. We can’t let that happen. You told me they’re terrible places. They treat people so mean.”

  “Aunt Sapphire?” Daddy said. “You saying this is a family matter? We are not getting stuck in family matters. Family is family, and even though you live here, Luna, you are not Ruby Day’s family.”

  That was when Ruby Day nearly stumbled down the steps. She pounded her temples in time with her steps
. “Is so. Luna is like my own daughter. She takes care of me—like Mason did, only he was a boy. Luna is a girl.”

  “I know. I know,” Mama said. “Let’s just settle down and see what we can figure out.” Mama looked at me. “Luna, make some tea for me and Ruby Day. Now, Ruby Day, you come on over here and sit.”

  “Okay, Mama.” I looked at Daddy, who decided to sit in the big chair. He was wearing his Sunday suit with his shiny shoes and white socks sticking up. “You want anything, Daddy?”

  “No. I just want to get on with it.” He checked his watch.

  I put the kettle on to boil and waited. I knew Mama well. I knew she would want to sit with Ruby Day with no words for a minute or two. It was her way. She always said that there wasn’t any rule that said people had to be talking all the time. Sometimes just sitting quietly was required. I peeked into the living room and knew without a doubt that Mama was correct in her estimation that day. Ruby Day had her head on Mama’s shoulder while Mama gently stroked her hair.

  Mama looked so pretty. But she always did. Her Sunday dress was mostly beige but had tiny green vines all over it. And she wore a little hat with a beige veil that barely covered her eyebrows. I was still in my pajamas.

  I prepared the tea the way everyone liked it. Mama drank hers with milk. Ruby Day liked milk and sugar. I even made a cup for Daddy, without anything in it, just in case he changed his mind, and carried the heavy tray into the living room.

  “Now tell me, Luna. What in the world happened?”

  “Like I said, Mama. Aunt Sapphire happened.” I sat in the rocking chair.

  “Family matters,” Daddy said. “I don’t want to get involved in family matters.”

  Ruby Day started to talk but Mama hushed her. “Ruby Day, you just stay calm and drink your tea. Let Luna tell the story.”

  I sipped my tea and started to tell them what happened.

  “And then I showed you that picture,” I said in the end.

  Mama took the picture, and for a minute it looked like she was praying over it. Then she looked into Ruby Day’s frightened eyes. “Is this where you lived, Ruby Day?”