But she doesn’t say “see,” exactly. The s slides, s-s-s-s-see, a hiss almost, and I notice one eyelid drooping.
I’ve made it … so easy for you.
Her words are slowing down, and she waves one hand lazily at her nightstand.
Not even sure what all I took. Think … think some pills still left from … from Duke, things they-they don’t … sell the-ese days-s-s. As soon as I s-a-saw your … your car. In the drive. Swallowed them down w-with a glass …
She smiles then, hazy.
A glass of the 1959 Dom.
My stomach lurches and I rise to my feet.
What have you done? What the fuck have you done?
You could let me … let me die and get all you ever wanted. B-but you won’t. Just like … like you never told th-them. About Dora Darnell.
Her smile widens, teeth glinting. About me. You wouldn’t … wouldn’t do that. And you’re not going to do that. Not going to do this. You’re … you’re going to call … call the … ambulance, the siren …
Her eyes open and close, the lids heavy, then lifting quickly, her thick lashes blinking against her pale cheeks, chest heaving.
B-better than me, she says on a wheezing breath. I made you better th-than all of us … I made you …
She keeps smiling at me, and then her smile starts to change.
Camden.
Confusion on her face, then something that would be panic were the drugs not pulling her under. A jerky movement, a thin hand slapping at her nightstand, nails tapping the acrylic of the French phone by her bed, and suddenly I find my legs.
I don’t even think, I don’t let myself think.
I pick the phone up, unplugging the cord from the back, and clutching it to my chest, I begin to back away from the bed.
Ruby watches me, panting now, fighting to keep her eyes open, her mouth opening to scream, but all that comes out is a breathy sort of moan, and I keep backing up, backing up, backing up until my heels hit the wall, my head thumping back, my eyes never leaving her.
As Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore slowly dies in her bed, I sink down against the wall, holding on to the phone so tightly that later, I’ll find red grooves in my palms, a bruise making a purple line against the skin of my chest.
I sob as she finally stops struggling, sitting there on the floor as her breathing slows, steady at first, like she’s sleeping.
But there are gasps after that, and then, for a long time, so long I can feel my mind cracking inside my skull, there’s a rattling, guttural noise.
And my mind must crack because that’s when I get up from my spot against the wall, the phone clattering out of my grip, and grab a pillow from her bed and press it over her face, just wanting her to stop, stop making that sound, she needs to stop …
She does.
Later, I put the phone back into place, plug it back into the wall. I wipe it down with a washcloth from Ruby’s bathroom that I shove in my back pocket and, later, throw out the window of my car somewhere near the Georgia border.
I’m in my bedroom that next morning when Cecilia knocks, her face tearstained, her hands reaching for me.
Oh, honey, she says, and I let myself be hugged and wonder how soon I can leave Ashby House forever.
* * *
WHEN I’M FINISHED, I’ve stopped crying, but Jules had started somewhere around the part with the phone, tears dripping onto her gray T-shirt, leaving dark splotches.
“She gave me everything,” I say. “And she trusted that I’d save her. She took all those fucking pills because she believed I was a good person. But I wasn’t. She was right. If she died, I was free, and I … I chose that. Chose it over her. I let her die rather than stay here.”
Jules gets up then, moving across the carpet on silent feet, and stands in front of me.
She cups my face in her hands, and then leans down and kisses me.
“I love you,” she says when we part, and I didn’t know until that moment how much I needed to hear that. “I love you, and you are a good person, Camden. The best person I know.”
I shake my head, wanting to deny that, needing to, but she won’t let me. “You were a kid,” she says, her grip tightening on my face. “And she threw you into this … this fucking snake pit to prove something to herself. She let Nelle and Howell and even Ben and Libby treat you like shit just to see what you could take. She killed herself, Cam.”
Jules is right, I know she is, but I still want to deny it, am already opening my mouth to protest when she pulls me to my feet, her hand firm in mine.