Ethan, no doubt, had shared with her Ruthanna’s feelings about punctuality. “Two more minutes and I might’ve locked the door,” Ruthanna said.
“I was writing, and I lost track of time. I feel terrible.” Then AnnieLee straightened up and noticed the beautiful table, and her expression turned to delight. “Wow, it’s gorgeous—a romantic dinner for just us two?”
“I like a civilized meal,” Ruthanna said a little stiffly; it was the truth but hardly the whole of it. She’d made everything perfect because the alternative was to lie on the floor, sobbing. She poured a glass of wine and held it out to AnnieLee. Then she poured herself twice as much and took a delicate sip. It was ice-cold, its color a hazy sunset pink, and it tasted of strawberries.
“Cheers,” said AnnieLee.
“It’s a Willamette Valley rosé.”
“I’m not going to pretend I know what that means,” AnnieLee admitted.
“You will, I hope, learn about the finer things in life someday,” Ruthanna said dryly.
AnnieLee giggled. “Just don’t ruin me for vending machine Cokes and cold beans from a can, okay?”
“That’s the most depressing dinner I’ve ever heard of.”
“No, the most depressing dinner is the one without any food at all,” AnnieLee said, “and believe me, I’ve had my share of those.”
“Well, you won’t starve tonight,” Ruthanna said. She quickly dressed the salad with a simple homemade shallot vinaigrette, and then she turned around with the wooden spoon in her hand, which she pointed at AnnieLee. “Do you want to tell me where you were yesterday?”
AnnieLee looked startled. “I don’t mind, but why?”
“Because I want to know if I’ve been wasting my time with you.”
AnnieLee flinched. “I met with Mikey Shumer.”
“I know,” said Ruthanna.
“Then why’d you ask?” AnnieLee cried.
“I wanted to see what you’d say.”
“Well, I wouldn’t lie about that,” AnnieLee said.
Ruthanna bent down and pulled the gratin from the oven. It smelled cheesy and buttery and rich as she set the pan on the table in front of AnnieLee. “I thought I told you to stay a million miles away from him.” She handed her a serving spoon. “Go on. Help yourself.”
AnnieLee meekly piled her plate high with food while Ruthanna sipped her wine.
“Well?” Ruthanna eventually asked.
“I guess I didn’t see what harm a single conversation could do,” AnnieLee said.
“It could do plenty with the likes of him,” Ruthanna said. “Mikey stuck a gun into a man’s mouth last year—he told him that if he didn’t play his artist’s song, he’d be back to pull the trigger.”
AnnieLee’s eyes went wide.
“There are plenty of stories like that about Mikey Shumer,” Ruthanna said. “But I have my own story, and that’s the one I think you need to hear.”
She took a deep breath. The sun was shining into the kitchen, slanting and golden, in what Ruthanna always thought of as the angel light of evening. This was when memories of her daughter came to her most frequently. Often she tried to push them away, but other times she let them flow over her like water. She never could tell which hurt more.
“Do you remember when I told you that you made me think of someone?” Ruthanna asked.
AnnieLee nodded, her mouth full of food.
“Well, that person was my daughter.”
AnnieLee went pale. “Was?” she whispered.
“She would’ve been twenty-seven this year. Her name was Sophia.” Ruthanna drew in another breath. It was hard to know where to start the story. Hard, too, to acknowledge that not all the blame belonged where she wanted to put it, which was at the feet of Mikey Shumer.
“Sophia was a banjo player,” Ruthanna finally said. “She was very good, and she could’ve been great. But hard work didn’t come to her naturally, not the way it came to me. Maybe because she was born having everything.”
Ruthanna took another sip of wine; she hadn’t touched the dinner she’d worked so hard to make. Whatever. It was glorified mac ’n’ cheese, and she wasn’t supposed to eat it anyway.
“She had everything, that is,” she went on, “except for a normal childhood. Imagine having flashbulbs snapping in your little face when you went out with your daddy for ice cream. Or unscrupulous reporters asking you for dirt on your famous mom. The world cared so much about me—Sophia couldn’t escape that. And she also couldn’t escape realizing that the world didn’t care as much about her. What a cruel lesson that was, and I didn’t even know that she was learning it.”