Ruby's Slippers (6 page)

I nod.

“Your retinal tests came back just fine. Like I said, it’s going to take some time for things to settle down.”

I stare out the window at the brilliant blue sky. “When can I leave?”

“This isn’t a prison.” He clips a pen to his coat pocket. “If you want to get out and experience the beautiful weather or go shopping, the facility offers lots of opportunities. Your only restriction is how you feel.”

* * *

I SENSE SOMEONE staring at me, and I wake with a jolt. My hand automatically reaches for Otto. He’s laying beside me, his ears pricked upward, twitching. For a moment I’m not sure if I’m awake or just dreaming. My eyelids are heavy and my body relaxes until a shadow near the bed shifts.

“Is someone there?” I’ve become accustomed to nurses
and doctors coming in my room at strange hours. Or not so strange. I sleep at odd times.

“Do you have them?” an exotic voice says. It’s a woman’s voice, the consonants clipped and precise, the vowels slightly warped.

“What?”

“The shoes.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The ruby slippers.”

I rub at my eyes, try to see the woman more clearly, but she stands in the shadows, several feet from the bed in the corner of the room. “No, I—”

“You be careful then. Very careful.”

I struggle with the sheets and blanket, pushing them off me, and slide my legs to the side of the bed. I reach for the lamp. The light flickers and glares, pooling an orangey light around my bed and chasing away the grayness. I turn toward the shadowy woman. “What are you—”

She’s not there. I plant my feet on the floor, take a couple of hesitant steps, my hand pressing into the mattress to steady me. Was I dreaming?

I realize the door to my room is open. I close it, lean against it, and breathe slow and deep.

The drawer where I keep my collection of apples is open. I ate one before I turned out the light, but I didn’t forget and leave the drawer open. Or did I? The doctor said my short-term memory would take time to recover. A closer look reveals the shoebox lid is ajar. It’s all that’s left of my home, a few mementos, bits of scrap paper found after the storm. Gently I place it on the bed and sit down beside it. Otto walks around on the covers, watches me with weary eyes, his eyebrows heavy with concern. I pick up the stack of papers and photographs from inside. There’s nothing of value here. Nothing that anyone else would want. A rusty screw rolls along the length of the box. Along the bottom are bits and pieces—a silver dollar,
a pair of sunglasses with one lens missing, a bent fork, a yellowed die, a crusty ribbon from a high school football game. Nothing of significance and yet all more precious to me since this is all that remains.

Picking up a dull penny, I rub the pad of my thumb over the engraved face and date, close my eyes. Bits and pieces of memories roll through my mind until I crumple my features in an effort to block out the images. When I open my eyes, the penny is hidden within my tight fist.

I recognize Momma’s careful handwriting on a torn envelope. Whatever was once inside is missing now. My fingers glide over her lettering, the smeared ink. The address means nothing. I skim over the name, which I don’t recognize. Finally, I set the envelope aside.

One by one, I look through a handful of black-and-white photographs. Some are yellowed from age, others splotched and dotted with water damage. There’s a color picture of Abby and me in our pajamas on Christmas morning, our hair in sponge curlers, eyes bright with excitement. Behind us the Christmas tree leans precariously toward the window. We helped Momma pick it out at Ernie’s tree farm. The trunk was so crooked, we finally hammered a nail in the wall and attached a string to the top of the tree.

There’s a black-and-white of Momma in her teens holding a baby pig. I flip the picture over and on the back is the date—May 1965. Looking back at the picture, I study her smile, her smooth complexion, capable hands that hadn’t yet been worn down by hard work. Her long skirt hides her polio-withered leg. She didn’t know what lay ahead for her, the hardships of the future.

The next picture stumps me. At first the man is a stranger to me, but then I recognize him. It’s the eyes, his
smile, which is slightly slanted to the left. A young version of my father.
What does he look like now?
If only I’d been awake when he came to see me. If only …

My chest tightens. When I was four, I called him Daddy. Abby was a couple of years younger than me, young enough not to remember. I stare at his smile, recognize the cowlick in his forehead as my own. Abby has his chin, his straight teeth. He was an undeniably handsome man. For a time I imagined he was a prince or a knight who would ride in and save me from a spelling test I wasn’t prepared for, or to declare me a princess and therefore worthy of some boy’s attention, or to rescue me from Tommy Parker who pressured me in the back of his father’s Buick.

But wishing never worked out so well. My father never rode in on a steed or even in a dilapidated clunker.

Other times I imagined he was a tattooed biker, sitting in prison, or a snarling monster like Hannibal Lecter, trying to convince myself that it was a good thing he’d left.
We
didn’t want
him
, not the other way around. But the truth, I’ve always known, lay somewhere in between.

In this picture, the wind ruffles his sandy hair. His shirt is open at the collar, revealing a hint of a white undershirt. His sleeves are rolled up, showing muscular forearms. He’s leaning back against a fence, his elbows propped on the top rung, his hands dangling. I can’t remember his hand smoothing my hair, holding mine, or teaching me how to tie my shoes. I do remember the warmth of his touch against my ear, then quick as a flash he’d show me a coin, usually a penny, sometimes a quarter, that he’d pulled from behind my ear. My childish heart longs to lean into that hand, to know him. My adult, analytical brain wonders what he’s like. Who he voted for in the last election. Does he save money like me? Or squander it
like Abby? Does he like football? Baseball? Women? Does he have a girlfriend? Another wife? Other children? The questions pile up like the coins I collected at his expense.

Beside him in the picture is a woman I don’t recognize. She wears her hair pulled back in a pony tail. Her face is young and fresh, scrubbed and buffed with an inner glow. She has a hand on my father’s shoulder, as if she leans on him more than he leans on her. Or maybe she’s trying to take hold of him in some way. The resemblance between them is clear. They share the same cowlick, the same nose.

The writing on the back of the photograph isn’t Momma’s. The ink is waterlogged, forming a purple halo around each line and stroke. It reads,
Liz visits on her way to California
. The woman must be my father’s older sister. From some forgotten drawer in my brain, I pull an old memory of my father telling me about Aunt Liz. “She knows what she wants, she sure does. All of us Meyers do.” Abby sure knew what she wanted. So what’s wrong with me?

But I
did
have a dream. A dream I was scared to believe in. I wasted so many years waiting for him, looking down that empty driveway. Since the tornado, I’ve learned that life is unpredictable and often shorter than we expect. No more waiting. If I want something, I have to go after it.

When I was young, I told a friend, “My daddy’s dead.” Momma overheard and corrected me. “Dottie, that is not true.” But I wanted it to be true. Because that was easier to accept, a handy explanation for why he never came home.

Abby concocted her own tale, telling a friend, “Our daddy bumped his head and forgot where he belongs. It’s called ambinesia.”

“Amnesia,” I corrected, but I liked her idea better. A live father could find his way home one day.

But Momma heard about our stories. “Girls,” she said, “you can’t lock up a bird and expect him to like it. Love means letting go. If he comes back of his own accord, then he might just decide to stay.”

I pick up the envelope with Momma’s writing and read the address again. San Francisco. Then the name,
Mrs. Elizabeth
Turney
. Elizabeth? Could that be Aunt Liz’s full name? Her married name?

A strange emotion flows through my veins. It feels like anticipation … almost excitement over the possibility. The hope buried inside me begins to burns brighter. Maybe she knows where my father lives.

* * *

WITH DETERMINATION, I take one step after another. Sunshine pours in through windows, making me squint and turning the tiled floor a daffodil yellow. I’ve set aside the walker and now use the wooden support railing that runs along every wall when I need it. I push myself harder, trying to keep up with Otto. He scurries around my legs and often races ahead of me, nudging a greeting to those he meets, barking at others. I’ve lost him for the moment.

“Good morning, Dottie.” Harold plays dominoes at a square table.

“Who’s winning?” I ask.

Four sets of dentures smile at me. “I am!” they each say.

“Have you seen—”

“That way.” Carl Rogers—or is it Roper?—tilts his head toward the side indicating the direction Otto took.

“Thanks.” I turn down a hallway.

“Dottie!” Marge Shepherd calls. A smiling woman in a
blonde wig, she’s recovering from chemotherapy. “I always wanted to be a blonde,” she told me when we first met. She sits with a group of knitters. Their needles
click
and
clack
with urgency. “How are you?”

“Good, thanks.” I have one of Marge’s creations, a bright-red lap blanket, on the foot of my bed. “Have you seen—”

“Otto came by and gave all of us some sugar.” Patty Simmons adjusts her reading glasses. “You’ll be moving as fast as him soon.”

“You won’t be with us long.” Bernice Young waggles her double chin. “Sure hope you come back to visit.”

“I will.” Then I spot Otto sitting at a side entrance, his barely-there tail twitching in anticipation.

I push open the door that leads to the courtyard and Otto bolts forward. He races between the shuffling feet of a group of women who are on their way to the shuttle bus for an excursion to a nearby mall. It’s a warm summer day, a California day, with blue skies and warm breezes. Along the path delicate pink flowers are blooming. The courtyard is lush and green and reminds me of the fields back home.

“You should go shopping with us, Dottie!” someone calls out.

I sit on the nearest bench to catch my breath. “Next time.”

The sunshine feels good on my upturned face. When Otto finally plops down in the grass, panting beside me, I’m reminded that he needs water. I push to my feet and begin the long trek back to my room. The runway … hallway … is empty as everyone has gathered in the lobby to hear a singing group. The children, seven of them, sing and dance on a makeshift stage, sectioned off by potted plants. The residents
clap their hands in rhythm (and not), nodding their heads, smiling.

Now where did Otto go? I glance around my feet. A UPS delivery guy turns down a hallway near the main desk. Behind him, a flash of a tiny gray tail. I follow at a much slower pace, pausing to listen for Otto’s nails against linoleum.

Soon, my heart pounding from exertion, I approach a tiny alcove. I pause at the doorway and lean against the frame, somewhat disoriented, as if I’ve been playing pin-the-tailon-the-donkey and my mask was whisked off suddenly. The hallways and rooms all look so similar. Then I catch a whiff of roasted corn. It’s dark inside the room, but as my eyes adjust I notice a jumble of books crammed into shelves. A sign reads,
Take your chance
… no,
choice
…
but please return
.

“Otto!” I whisper, hoping he’ll hear me and come of his own accord. With a huff, I shove my too-long bangs away from my forehead and peek behind a sturdy reading chair. Something crunches beneath my tennis shoe. I squint down at a smattering of popcorn.

“Who are you looking for?” A splintered voice comes out of the gray shadows and startles me.

I whirl around and see in the murky light a figure, tall and lanky, standing on a stepladder. Her arms are long and as skinny as twigs. She wears a wide grin beneath a mop of straw-like hair that sticks out in all directions.

“My dog. He went this way, I think. But I’m not sure.”

“Like most folks these days. Everybody wants to go their own way.” Her funny expression makes me want to laugh.

“I’m Dottie.”

“I’m a bit confused myself.” She offers a hand for me to shake, squeezing the tips of my fingers rather than my whole hand. “Sophia. How do?”

“Fine, thank you.”

“You can’t be
too
fine or you wouldn’t be here. And I’m certainly not fine. I’m, well …” She turns slightly away from me. She’s wearing a long blue chambray shirt belted around a full crinkled skirt that’s elevated a few inches in the back. Following the slant of the flowing material, I notice the real problem. The gauzy skirt is pinched in the ladder joint and she’s stuck.

“Can I help you?”

“I don’t know.” She twists, trying to get a better view of her predicament.

“Should I call an attendant?”

“Oh, no. I’ll just get in trouble again.”

“Again?”

“You don’t want to know.” She grabs a crinkly sack of popcorn off the shelf, pops a couple of kernels in her mouth and offers the bag to me. “Hungry?”

“No thanks. Were you looking for a book?” I edge around the ladder and tug on the material.

She holds up a gray lightbulb. “Trying to be helpful.”

I reach out, and she places the burned-out bulb in the palm of my hand. I set it on a lower shelf and flip on the light switch by the door. Light scatters the dark. The colors pop out at me as if they’re playing peek-a-boo. Sophia blinks down at me.

“Let’s see what we can do about this. I don’t want to rip your skirt.”

“I’m not the brightest bulb in the drawer … but if we could close the ladder it might release me.”

“You’ll have to step down first.” I take her hand.

She takes a hesitant step downward, pointing the toe of her flat shoes as she does. Her skirt rises higher in the back. She wobbles. Her eyes grow wide.

“I won’t look. I promise.”

“Believe you me, there are plenty of widowers in here who would.”

Laughing, I help her down the last two steps. She remains on tiptoe. “Hold on now,” I place her hand on my shoulder, “while I try to close the ladder.” The material pops loose, and Sophia tumbles forward. I shriek a warning and grab for her but miss. She lands with a
whoosh
in an old upright chair. Popcorn flies out of the bag.

I let go of the ladder, which bangs against a bookshelf, and rush to her, crunching bits of popcorn into the carpet. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, sure.” The corners of her eyes tilt downward. Her wide mouth twists. She kicks her legs out in front of her and rolls her ankles. “Boy, it feels good to be free.”

“How long have you been up there?”

“I’m not sure. The lights were out and no one came in for a long time.” She waves a hand. “No nevermind now.”

“You could have hurt yourself.”

“Oh, I’m fine.” Sophia grins, then looks down at herself. “Oops!” Her breasts appear to be lopsided. One of them now rests at her waist. She grabs the lump, shifts it into place, and laughs. “My stuffing leaks out sometimes.” Seeing my confusion, she adds, “I had surgery. You know, breast cancer. Complete mastectomy. Sometimes my manufactured parts go awry.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” I avert my gaze. “I—”

She adjusts her clothes, pulling and shifting material this way and that, then pats her hips and arms. “Still, I’m pretty agile, if I do say so. For my age.”

I don’t ask her what age that might be. Momma raised me to be polite. But Sophia doesn’t look nearly as old as some of the folks in this facility.

Her gaze roams over me as if searching for a badge or some reason for my existence. “You work here?”