Ruby's Slippers (5 page)

She’s progressing well.” Gloria is speaking to someone in the hallway outside my door.

Within arm’s reach is the walker I’ve begun to use. The flashy … fleshy part of my palms hurt from leaning almost my full weight on the handles. I stare out at the parking lot dotted with palm trees, and a yellow-brick walkway crossing the street beyond. The light plays tricks on my eyes.

“Can I go in?” A familiar voice turns my head.

“Craig?” I try to rise too quickly, and my hand slips on the arm of the chair.

A sharp bark makes my heart lurch. A dark streak scampers across the floor, tiny nails scraping and clicking against the linoleum. Suddenly Otto is in my lap, licking my face. Silky fur fills my hands, and I stroke the quivering
body over and over, hugging him close. His feet press into my legs and stomach.

With a chuckle, Craig hobbles into the room, carrying a couple of boxes. “I thought you two would like to see each other.”

“You,” I cough to clear the emotion clogging my throat, “brought him from Kansas?”

“All the way. He’s been staying with us. The kids kept him entertained. It didn’t seem necessary to move him here while you were still in a coma. And Abby didn’t …” He shrugs. “She was busy with a show, getting ready to go on tour, so she couldn’t care for him the way we could. When we heard you’d woken up, I checked with the facility to be sure you could have four-legged visitors.”

“I was so worried! No one told me. I thought … I thought …” Hot tears fill my eyes. I bury my face in the wiry fur.

“Your sister didn’t tell you?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

Craig frowns and leans a hip on the end of my bed. “We found him at your side after the storm. The kids hate to see him go. They’ve grown very attached, so I guess I’m going to have to provide a substitute when I get home.”

“It’ll be good for them to have a pet.”

He’s grinning at me in a crazy fashion.

“What?”

“It’s just so good to see you. You look great. You do.” His voice turns husky and he coughs into his fisted hand. “We were worried about you.”

“I’m sorry.” I open my arms wide, welcoming a hug.

He smells of sunshine and, surprisingly, sugar. I want to hold on to him, a piece of home. Otto squirms between us, and I pat Craig on the back. When he backs away, I catch a
glimmer of emotion in his eyes. Feeling awkward at the attention, I scramble for something to say. “Did Lindsey come?”

“She’s with the kids at the hotel. It’s a couple of hours south of here. We’re taking them to Disneyland this week. Want to go? I’ll get you some mouse ears.”

I laugh, stroking the soft fur along Otto’s back. He nuzzles my arm and licks my hand where tape once kept my IV attached.

“I brought you something. I hope you can eat it.” He picks up a bakery box and sets it on the end of my bed. “If not, then I will.” He winks.

“No you won’t. I’m tired of mushy food.”

“Maybe you should check with your doctor first.” He peels back a sticker and lifts the lid.

Inside are a dozen peaks, like little mountains of snowy frosting. “Mugcakes!”

“Here,” he says, “have a cupcake.”

We share a red velvet cupcake, the cake so moist it slides right down my throat. It tastes like heaven. Otto gives me
the look
, and I let him lick the cream-cheese frosting off my fingers. As the minutes grow quiet between Craig and I, comforts of home give me courage to ask. “The farm is gone then?”

He turns and brings the other cardboard box and places it in my lap. Otto snuggles against my side, licking his paw. “This is all we could salvage.”

Unable to speak, I stare at the small container. My home, memories, and life compressed to the size of a shoebox.

As I slide my finger along the pressed cardboard edge, Craig tells me of my friends and neighbors and the damage caused by the storm. My house was the only one demolished, as if the tornado had made a straight trajectory for it.

“It’s a miracle,” he says, “you two weren’t killed.”

My throat tightens.

“I should have stopped you that day from going back to the farm.”

I attempt a laugh, but it comes out garbled and I end up coughing. “Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t feel guilty.”

He gives a self-conscious shrug. “That little fellow there, he was found right next to you, refusing to leave.”

I rub the tips of Otto’s ears as a thank-you for his faithfulness.

“The house,” Craig continues, “was a total loss. Randy took what furniture might be salvageable and is trying to fix it up in his spare time. The basement was flooded, everything ruined from mold and exposure. Folks from the church rounded up what we could find of your stock—a few chickens and pigs—and found them homes. The money collected is in that box. It will help make ends meet for a while.” His mouth compresses into a pencil-thin line. The creases forming along his cheek tell me he’d like to withhold the next part, like a confession.

“It’s okay,” I say. “You can tell me.”

I flash back to a time when our roles were reversed. I was eighteen and sat beside Craig on his hospital bed, his leg in a contraption of white bandages, metal bolts, and rods.

“It’s over, isn’t it?”

“What?” I asked, purposefully evasive. At the time I wasn’t sure if he meant dating my sister or his boyhood dream of the big leagues.

“My baseball career.”

I met his gaze, even though every ounce of me wanted to turn away. Shouldn’t his parents or the doctors answer that question? They could throw big Latin words at him to soften
the blunt reality. But he and I had always told each other the truth.

Your history paper sucked.

You played lousy. The team deserved to lose.

I love you, but not like that. Like a friend.

The pain and difficulty of speaking the truth couldn’t make me break our unspoken pact. “There are worse things,” I said, trying to encourage him. “At least your brains are intact.”

“Yeah, but I know what I can’t have. There’s not much comfort in that.”

I reached over and clasped his hand. He transmitted his pain, that deep sorrow in his heart, into my hand. I’m the one who cried, not him.

But today is different. Today, tears form in his eyes, held back by sheer will. “I did my best, Dottie.” His voice crackles with the emotion I feel. “Abby was determined to get power of attorney. She was your nearest kin. There wasn’t much I could do.” He looks down at his thumb, picks at a hangnail. “But already I’m working to get it reversed, now that you’re awake and alert and doing well. I’m gathering paperwork for the judge.”

“I don’t know how I can pay you for—”

He waves away my comment. “Don’t think about it.”

Needing to withdraw and regroup, I dab my eyes on the soft sleeve of the faded flannel shirt someone donated. Craig hands me a tissue, then touches my shoulder. My throat tightens. “So she sold the farm?”

His mouth thins, his hand tightens on my shoulder, grows weighty. “It’s as good as sold. Goes on the auction block in a couple of weeks.”

I feel as if I’m trapped in a room with no windows or door, searching for a way out. It’s the same feeling I had when
the doctors finally told me, “There’s nothing else we can do for your mother.” I wasn’t raised by a wimp. My mother was strong. She taught me to be strong and resilient, and I’m going to fight for what is mine. “How do I stop the auction?”

Regret darkens his eyes. “I don’t know that you can, Dottie. Abby already signed the paperwork. Even reversing her power of attorney doesn’t change that.”

“There’s got to be a way.”

“How much do you have in savings?”

I lean forward. “Why?”

“You could bid on your own property.”

“I don’t have enough for that. Or is there half a million in that box there?”

“Afraid not.”

I lean back, my arms around Otto. “Even without the house or barns, the land is worth a few hundred thousand. Who’d even give me a loan right now?” It’s as if the breath has been pulled from my very fiber. I stare out the curtained window. A slight breeze ruffles the giant leaves of a palm. The green edges are frayed, battered, torn. “There’s nothing left.”

Craig gentles his grasp on my shoulder, then pulls away as if he doesn’t know what to do with my pain, as if it’s too much for him to absorb. “Friends. You’ll always have friends there. And memories.” He reaches forward and pets the furry lump on my lap. “And don’t forget Otto here.”

A smile comes easily. I am grateful to have Otto back. But my smile fades. His brown eyes watch me anxiously as if he senses my panic, my fear. “What can I do then?”

Craig folds his arms over his chest. “First, you’re going to get well. Keep making improvements. You’re making extraordinary progress. Then you’ll find new dreams. A new life.”

“You make it sound easy. The farm is all I ever wanted.” That and …

“There’s more to life than land and crops, Dottie. So much more.” At least when Craig lost his dreams of the major leagues, he was young enough to adjust. He had his whole life before him. I’ve wasted so much time.

“My father was here.” I watch him carefully for his reaction, which is swift.

His eyes widen and his mouth gapes open for half a second. “What? When?”

“Before I woke up. I didn’t see him. But now I know he’s alive.”

“I tried to find him, Dottie. When Abby was pushing for control. But the trail went cold in Seattle.”

“But he came here. To see me.”

“How do you know?”

“He left me those shoes.” I point to the imitation ruby slippers. “Crazy, huh? You know, my grandmother worked on that movie.” I shrug. “It’s kind of weird, I know. But he signed his name at the front desk. He was here.” I lean back in my chair, my hand idly rubbing Otto’s neck. “I’m going to find him.”

Craig pushes up from his seat on the edge of the bed and walks over to the window where the sunlight reflects off the sequins. “Could these be real?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think they were meant as a message. I think he was telling me to come see him. And I’m going to.”

* * *

“WANT TO LOOK through your box?” Gloria asks, touching the package Craig brought.

I shake my head. “Not now.” I can’t imagine looking through what remains—what little there is—of my life, my heritage. No matter what’s inside the box, it won’t be enough. It will just remind me of all that was lost. And I have to focus on the future, on what might be waiting for me.

Then I remember about the money collected from the sale of livestock. “Is there a safe where I can keep some cash?”

“Sure.”

I ask her to take the cash from the box, which is a bigger stack than I imagined, and put it in the director’s safe. Gloria stores the box in the drawer beside my bed with my apple collection.

“These look good,” Gloria says, peeking at the cupcakes.

“Help yourself.”

She closes the lid. “No, you need them. Hey, I’ve heard of this place.” She tilts the box so I can read the label. “Supposed to be excellent.”

“Auntie Em’s Kitchen. My friend brought them. They’re good.” But the odd name has my gaze shifting toward the ruby-red shoes and the music that swirls through my head like hypnotic lights. Then Craig’s query about the shoes comes back to me.
Could these be real?

“Gloria?” I call to her before she walks out of the room with the stack of cash. “Would you mind putting those shoes in the safe too?”

“Sure.” She scoops them up. “They are pretty. Wish they were real. I remember reading about them… . You know, a pair of ruby slippers sold for over a half million dollars.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope.” She hooks the heels on her arm and heads toward the door. “Too much sunlight can’t be good for them. Don’t worry. They’ll be safe.”

Pushing to my feet, I walk around my room, concentrating on each step. In my head, I hear the
cha-ching
of change being made and a song lopes into my consciousness. It’s an odd song about money and makes my head bob in rhythm. It reminds me of Momma.

“Knock, knock.” My doctor is a short, balding man with a friendly smile and reading glasses propped on top of his head for easy access. He walks in carrying my thick folder. “How are you feeling today?”

I laugh. “Good. I was just thinking about a song … something I haven’t heard in years. Is that—” I hesitate. “Is that normal?”

“A head injury can cause some temporary rewiring of the synapses. You see, the neuropeptides break their connection within the dedrites …” He slides the folder onto the table where I eat my meals and studies me. “Think of your brain like a snow globe.” He shapes his hands like he’s holding a small ball. “When you shake it, everything gets stirred up in there—names, faces, experiences, even obsolete data you probably think you’ve forgotten, like the telephone number you had as a child. So old memories come to the surface, while recent memories may get lost in the shuffle. Sometimes it’s harder to remember something current than something from your childhood. It’ll take some time, but the brain is pretty adaptable. It’ll sort things out eventually.”

“And …” I hesitate to ask the question.

“What?” He has such kind eyes.

“Well, it feels like my life …” I can’t find the right words. “A moving … movie … has taken a prominent role.”

He slides his glasses on and opens my folder, scanning a page, flipping pages. “Sometimes with a traumatic injury like yours the brain will attempt to reboot itself, to make sense of
its surroundings by randomly associating new stimuli with a familiar place or event with which you have strong emotional ties. What kind of movie?”

“A children’s movie.”

“Long as it’s not
The Terminator
or
The Shining
, right?” He grins.

“Or
Some Flew Over the Kookaburra’s Nest
.”

His grin broadens. “Nothing to worry about. I’m guessing this movie had some significance in your past.”

“Granny used to talk about it a lot, about the different people she met while working in Hollywood. We watched it every year.”

“Makes perfect sense. Again, it’s nothing to worry about. You’re progressing well. Still seeing strange colors?”