Page 20 of The Fadeaway

Patty inhaled deeply and sighed, though she did it quietly and smiled and nodded as she did. “Yes,” she said, reaching over to feed Trixie a bite of green beans mixed with mashed potatoes. “A walk will be good.”

Ruby

“You fainted,” Banks says as he stands over Ruby, who is stretched out on the gold velvet couch in the front room. He’s opened all the windows and the sound of the ocean fills the house, as does the fresh, salty breeze. “Here.” Banks hands her a tall glass of water. “It’s from the tap, but there’s nothing else in the house.”

Ruby sits up slowly and reaches for the glass, drinking from it gratefully. “I haven’t opened a single drawer or found anything to tell me what went on in this house, but I’m already wishing it wasn’t the first place we’d come.”

“We can always leave,” Banks says. It’s a reasonable statement, but Ruby shakes her head emphatically.

“No,” she says. “I’m here, and I want to know more.”

Banks reaches for a photo album that’s sitting on the coffee table and he holds it out to Ruby. “I found this on the bookshelf,” he says.

Ruby takes it in both hands and sets it on her lap. With a cracking sound, the cover opens and the first page reveals four square photo prints stuck to a page beneath clingfilm. They’re all of the little girl—a picture of her sitting in a bathtub with bubbles up to her armpits; two of her laughing and chasing a kitten;one of her standing in a white crib in the nursery, the toddler bed not yet installed as the baby holds onto the bars and grins at whoever is taking the photo. Ruby carefully peels back the clingfilm and pries one of the photos loose.Trixie, 1969it says on the back in blue ballpoint pen.

“Trixie?” Ruby says aloud. “Huh.” She flips pages, and sure enough, there are photos that are clearly of her mother, hair pulled back off her grinning face as she holds Trixie, runs after her, and sits next to her on what appears to be this very same gold velvet couch. Patty is gorgeous. If it’s 1969, then she’s twenty-one, and this stunning, youthful image of her mother nearly takes Ruby’s breath away. “This is my mom,” she says in a hoarse voice, tapping the page with her finger.

Banks sits on the edge of the coffee table so that he can peer at the photos too. “She’s so young,” he says noncommittally. It’s clear that he wants to say more—to ask questions—but he doesn’t.

“I…I don’t know who Trixie is,” Ruby says. She feels almost betrayed as she looks at the photos, turning pages and watching the baby grow. Her mother is on every page. “I don’t think I even know who my mother was anymore. In my entire life, I never once heard her say the name Trixie.”

When she gets to the end of the photo album, she lets it slide from her hands onto the couch cushion and she puts both hands over her face.

“Banks,” Ruby says, looking at him. “Would you mind if we went back to the hotel and just started fresh tomorrow morning? I think fainting kind of threw me for a loop. I can’t even think straight.”

Banks stands and holds out both hands, which Ruby takes. “You head out to the rental car,” he says. “I’ll close all the windows and lock up. We’ll come back in the morning and try again.”

Ruby nods gratefully and stumbles on her way to the front door. She turns around one more time to look at the room in the growing twilight, realizing in that instant that she knows nothing about anything.

The next morning Ruby drinks three cups of coffee, spends an hour walking around the edges of the resort to clear her mind, and then shows up at the bungalow ready to try again.

“Can you bring me the boxes from every closet, please?” she asks Banks as she kneels in the center of the front room, pulling the tape off a box that she found in the coat closet. She tosses a beach towel over her shoulder and keeps digging.

“Sure, no problem.” Banks disappears down the hallway and the sound of him opening and closing closets and moving boxes drifts out to the front room.

Ruby moves another towel out of the way and discovers that the box contains an old-fashioned projector, which she lifts out carefully and sets on the coffee table.

Banks sets a box next to her with the wordsHome Moviesscrawled on the side in a feminine hand.

“Ah, that looks like the next thing I’m going to need,” Ruby says, pointing back and forth from the box of home movies to the projector.

Banks stands there observing with his hands on his hips. “You want me to set it up?” he offers.

Ruby already has a fine layer of sweat on her forehead and the back of her neck, and she brushes a loose strand of hair from her eyes with the back of her wrist. “I need to find a place where I can project whatever is on these film reels,” she says, standing up.

“Okay, why don’t you let me figure that out, and you can keep going through boxes. No need for both of us to be working on the same thing.”

Ruby acknowledges him with a curt nod and moves on to another box. With the flaps open, she realizes that she’s looking at a container of baby items. Reverently, she lifts out a baby book, a hand-knitted pink afghan, and a tiny yellow dress covered with embroidered daisies. She sets each item down on the couch before moving on to the next.

After she has everything laid out on the couch, Ruby reaches for the baby book and opens it, looking at the first page.Trixie Michelle Huberman, it says.July 13, 1968.With a deep breath, Ruby flips the pages, pausing briefly to look at the tiny ink print of a baby’s foot, the snippet of white blonde hair trapped under plastic, the black and white photo of a newborn with its tiny fists balled up next to a plump face and tightly closed eyes.

As the pages turn, there are photos of Trixie growing inch by inch, pound by pound. There are handwritten notes about first doctor’s visits, first smiles, first gurgles. It all brings tears to Ruby’s eyes as she remembers her own excitement about her tiny girls hitting these milestones. Oh, the excitement of watching your baby morph into a real person! Those first moments of understanding when eye contact resulted in giggles, when tummy tickles devolved into full blown laughter, when one more verse of “You Are My Sunshine” sent your baby off to dreamland on the peaceful waves of a mother’s love. She recalls it all as she watches this sweet girl stand up on two feet, smile with her first baby teeth, and hold a sippy cup in one hand.

“Okay,” Banks says. He’s standing before Ruby, wiping his hands on the front of his black shorts, which are now covered in dust. “I have the projector up and running. Do you want to see what’s in the box?”

Ruby closes the baby book and sets it on the coffee table. “Yes,” she says, nodding. “I want to see.”

Banks has set the projector up in the baby’s nursery, where a giant white wall allows the images to flicker on it as if on a movie screen. He has the projector propped up on the changing table, and as Ruby sits on the edge of the toddler bed, he spools the film and flicks a switch that makes the movie play.

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