Island Girl (56 page)

SHOW ME THE ICE FLOE

The blog for people who know what they want

 

 

By Ruby Donaldson

 

 

 

 

Number 30 in a series. Or is it 31?

 

Shhh. Big Al is sleeping again. He’s been wide awake since the wedding three weeks ago, and so far I have fallen into every booby trap the bastard has set. Losing things, impatient with everyone, forgetting more than the names of celebrities, believe me.

But oddly enough, this feels like a good morning. Mostly clear. The fog thinner, like mist when it rises from the lake. Not enough to obscure important things, just enough to soften the edges. But it won’t last. Big Al will pump up the volume on his fog machine and once again I’ll be wandering around in a thick soup, bumping into that bugger at every turn.

Of course, Hope is still there at the corner of my mind. Telling me to have faith. Assuring me that a mircle is right around the corner. Or at least in the offing. Perhaps. If we’re lucky. Okay, probably not, but that’s not her point. Her point is that I must hold on because what I’m contemplating is selfish and wrong. Think about the people who love me. How will they feel if I hope on the next Ice Floe?

Relieved, if they’re honest.

Since the wedding, everyone has been on Ruby Watch. Even poor Jocelyn on days when Mark and Grace have to work, and Mary Anne has meetings in the city. No one talks to me about it, but I know they’re all worried about what happens in a few weeks. Fall is coming. You can feel it in the night air, bringing high school for Jocelyn and a new semester for Mary Anne. Who will babyst me then? Who will give up their life to tend to mine?

Let’s face it. I’m a pain in the neck for everyone, including myself. Naturally, Hope doesn’t want to hear that. Hope wants me to believe there are options, but Hope lies.

I have been to Dr. Mistry again, and she is the only one who is not surprised by my sudden decline. It’s true that some people will go on for years, the illness always chugging ahead, but more slowly than it has for me. Giving them the time that Mark and Hope have dangled in front of me like a carrot. Keep coming, Ruby, keep coming, you’ll reach it, don’t worry.

But I won’t reach it. Unlike Hope, Big Al is honest with me. He has me in his sites and he is moving in for the kill. I know the options, the choices, and they come down to this:

Take my life back from Al while I can or go quietly into that fog and disappear forever.

I don’t know about you, but for me, the fog is more frightening than anything I could encounter on the Ice Floe.

So here I am. I know it’s eight a.m. because the clock beside the bed tells me so. Outside, the sky is grey and clouds are gathering.
Storm’s coming,
as Grandma Lucy used to say.

Downstairs, Mark is making coffee, making breakfast. I’m in bed alone with my laptop and the sign on my ceiling—
Go canoeing
—because Mark’s letting me sleep in, letting me ignore the sign because I had a rough night. Nightmares, restlessness. That means he had a rough night too, but he doesn’t have the option of sleeping in. He has work to do, a wife to support. A wife who is sliding downhill faster than either of us imagined possible.

But it’s a good morning and I remember bits and pieces of the wedding. A piper. A fairyland. Mark in a kilt. What I don’t remember comes to me in pictures, popping up on my lptop screen, and in the special frames that Mark bought and put all around the house. There is one on the dresser. I see Mary Anne pop into the screen, wearing more pink than any woman should ever wear, yet looking fabulous as always. And Jocelyn, so pretty in a green dress and almost normal hair. And then Grace. Beautiful Grace. Even that horrible dress can’t take that away.

Now comes a picture of people I should recognize but don’t. Guests, I suppose. The important thing is that in every shot, people are smiling and happy. Enjoying the party.

And there’s me, smiling too. I look happy. I look good. For a fifty-something bride. Where is that tartan sash now? I’d like to find that sash.

Now there’s one of me and Mark together, under the arbor. I feel myself smiling just like I was in the picture. I like that kilt.

Another shot under the arbor. Mark sliding the ring onto my finger.

Looking down at my hand, I see it’s there still. White gold, engraved on the outside instead of the inside. So I don’t have to remember to take it off to see the words.
As fair you are, my bonnie lass, so deep in love am I.
A Robbie Burns poem. I’ve known the words by heart since I was little. Funny that Big Al hasn’t stolen them away. Look, there’s Liz.

It’s a good picture. She’s not so thin anymore. Not so pale. Stunning was always the word that came to mind with Liz. Stunning with her black, black hair and her dark gypsy eyes.

There she is again with me and Grace and Jocelyn. All the Donaldson women making faces at the camera, sucking in our cheeks, lolling our heads, definitely not proper wedding poses, and all because Liz is with us I’m sure, egging us on the way she always did. I start to laugh as we must have been laughing when someone took the pcture.

I hear the door downstairs open and close. Mary Anne’s voice. Mark going for his paper. No other voices, so the girls must be out biking or looking for birds. Did Grace and I ever get on a ferry? I don’t think so. I’m sure I meant to. Mary Anne’s voice again. I should get up.

There’s Liz again, with Grace, dancing the Highalnd fling. Liz came to the wedding. And she comes to the house now too. I know because Mark writes it on the sign above my bed.
Go canoeing.
And below that is another line—
Liz has been here this many times ++++
|. Six times.

Each time she visits, he puts another line on the sign. Six visits since the wedding. Six is a lot. I wish I could remember even one.

Mary Anne is puttering away downstairs. Puting on the kettle, making tea.

Time to go.