“I also think,” Cora continued, “that we should set you up to see a therapist. You’re in a period of transition, and talking to someone can really—”
“No,” I said.
She looked up at me. “No?”
“I don’t need to talk to anyone,” I told her. “I’m fine.”
“Ruby,” she said. “This isn’t just me. Shayna at Poplar House really felt you would benefit from some discussion about your adjustment.”
“Shayna at Poplar House knew me for thirty-six hours,” I said. “She’s hardly an expert. And sitting around talking about the past isn’t going to change anything. There’s no point to it.”
Cora picked up her coffee cup, taking a sip. “Actually,” she said, her voice stiff, “some people find therapy to be very helpful.”
Some people, I thought, watching her as she took another slow sip. Right.
“All I’m saying,” I said, “is that you don’t need to go to a lot of trouble. Especially since this is temporary, and all.”
“Temporary?” she asked. “How do you mean?”
I shrugged. “I’m eighteen in a few months.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m a legal adult,” I told her. “I can live on my own.”
She sat back. “Ah, yes,” she said. “Because that was working out so well for you before.”
“Look,” I said as the backhoe started up again outside, startling Roscoe, who had nodded off, “you should be happy. You’ll only be stuck with me for a little while and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
For a moment, she just blinked at me. Then she said, “To go where? Back to that house? Or will you get your own apartment, Ruby, with all the money at your disposal?”
I felt my face flush. “You don’t—”
“Or maybe,” she continued, loudly and dramatically, as if there was an audience there to appreciate it, “you’ll just go and move back in with Mom, wherever she is. Because she probably has a great place with a cute guest room all set up and waiting for you. Is that your plan?”
The backhoe was rumbling again, scooping, digging deeper.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I said to her. “Not a thing.”
“And whose fault is that?” she asked.
I opened my mouth, ready to answer this; it was a no-brainer, after all. Who had left and never returned? Stopped calling, stopped caring? Managed to forget, once she was free and past it, the life that she’d left behind, the one I’d still been living? But even as the words formed on my lips, I found myself staring at my sister, who was looking at me so defiantly that I found myself hesitating. Here, in the face of the one truth I knew by heart.
“Look,” I said, taking another bite, “all I’m saying is that you shouldn’t have to turn your whole life upside down. Or Jamie’s, either. Go on as you were. It’s not like I’m a baby you suddenly have to raise or something.”
Her expression changed, the flat, angry look giving way to something else, something not exactly softer, but more distant. Like she was backing away, even while staying in the same place. She looked down at her coffee cup, then cleared her throat. “Right,” she said curtly. “Of course not.”
She pushed her chair up, getting to her feet, and I watched her walk to the coffeemaker and pour herself another cup. A moment later, with her back still to me, she said, “You will need some new clothes, though. At least a few things.”
“Oh,” I said, looking down at my jeans, which I’d washed twice in three days, and the faded T-shirt I’d worn my last day at Jackson. “I’m okay.”
Cora picked up her purse. “I’ve got an appointment this morning, and Jamie has to be here,” she said, taking out a few bills and bringing them over to me. “But you can walk to the new mall. There’s a greenway path. He can show you where it is.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Ruby. Please.” Her voice was tired. “Just take it.”
I looked at the money, then at her. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything, instead just turning around and walking out of the room, her purse under her arm. Roscoe lifted his head, watching her go, then turned his attention to me, watching as I unfolded the money. It was two hundred bucks. Not bad, I thought. Still, I waited another moment, until I was sure she’d gone upstairs, before pocketing it.
The door rattled beside me as Jamie came in, empty coffee mug dangling from one finger. “Morning!” he said, clearly on a pond high as he walked to the island, grabbing a muffin out of the box on the table on his way. Roscoe jumped up, following him. “So, did you guys get your shopping day all planned out? And FYI, there’s no just browsing with her. She insists on a plan of attack.”
“We’re not going shopping,” I said.
“You aren’t? ” He turned around. “I thought that was the plan. Girls’ day out, lunch and all that.”
I shrugged. “She said she has an appointment.”
“Oh.” He looked at me for a moment. “So . . . where’d she go?”
“Upstairs, I think.”
He nodded, then glanced back out at the backhoe, which was backing up—beep beep. Then he looked at me again before starting out of the room, and a moment later, I heard the steady thump of him climbing the stairs. Roscoe, who had followed him as far as the doorway, stopped, looking back at me.