Page 36 of Movers and Shakers

And it continued into adulthood. Knox was now a billionaire and the head of some company he’d started. Whenever his name was anywhere in the news, Mom brought it up to Ruth.

It felt like Mom lovedKnox more than her own daughter. Even I saw it.

So when Ruth was in the news with Knox last week, I knew she would face many questions. And she had from the very second she’d walked in the door.

And in a twist of events, Ruth said no. She didn’t tell themanything.

Our parents were mad—furious, even. But she’d managed to escape relatively unscathed since she’d left early. Now, it was a week later, and our parents had seven days to think of ways to break her.

I dreaded it.

Though I was prouder of Ruth than I ever had been, I didn’t expect her rebellious streak to last long.

When I saw her at dinner, on time as always, I readied myself to be disappointed again.

But then she leaned over to me and cracked ajoke,of all things, which I couldn’t help but return, and I wondered if I’d gotten my sister wrong.

Mom and Dad questioned her as expected, but she held to what she said last week. Shewasn’ttalking about Knox. Instead, she was brave enough to try to talk business with Tom and Dad.

But he wasn’t having any of it, especially not when she managed to call him out on being money-hungry.

“Andthatis why you’re unmarried,” he said, shaking his head. “That attitude of yours.”

For a second, I wasn’t sure that I heard him right. Why was he bringing up marriage? He didn’t care about our social lives, only our professional ones.

“Unmarried?” she replied. “Since when do you care about my marital status?”

“Since you crossed over twenty-eight with no prospects in sight.”

“Todd,” Mom hissed. “We agreed not to talk about this.”

“She’s almost thirty!”

“What are you saying?” I asked him. I had an idea, but surely our parents wouldn’t bethiscruel.

I should have known not to underestimate them.

“I’m saying that your sister is nearly too old to have kids. She should be worried about that.”

“I have more to worry about than children, Dad,” Ruth cut in.

He scoffed. “Not in my books.”

“Todd,” Mom pleaded, “we agreed to let her try to have a career.”

“And what has she made of herself? She’s refusing to talk about the one man who can make her into something, and she’s a menial director of a shitty banking company.”

Ruth argued back, but I was too busy trying to deal with the fact that Dad was also a sexist piece of shit as well as a god-awful father.

Well, he did always want to exceed expectations.

When I finally tuned back in, Dad was confirming that he thought Ruth was only meant to be a housewife, that Mom had pushed for her to be treated equally to us, and that she was some evil, man-hating feminist.

Ruth hated many men, but mainly the ones who talked to her exactly like Dad did.

Even though I knew she was angry, I wouldn’t have blamed Ruth if she backed down. After all, she’d just found out that all she’d worked for was for nothing.

But then again, this was Ruth Murray.

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