Page 21 of The Fadeaway

A crackling image appears on the wall and Ruby tilts her head to one side, her hands wedged between her knees nervously. She has no idea what she might see, and the thought of just how much she doesn’t know scares her.

Once the film gets running, Trixie runs onto the screen wearing a gingham romper, her wisps of blonde hair curling over two little seashell-shaped ears. She claps her dimpled hands and smiles at a German Shepherd that is clearly on its best behavior.

Into the frame comes a young, coiffed Patty, and Ruby sucks in a breath, putting both hands to her chest. This is her mother at twenty. She can see instantly the echoes and hints of the woman she’s known her entire life, but seeing her mother so young is like flinging open the door and finding a ghost.

“Oh,” Banks says. He inhales and steps back, giving Ruby most of the room. Once again, the windows are all open and the fresh air is coming through the house, but Ruby feels breathless—almost faint.

“My mom,” is all she can say before her eyes well with tears.

There is no sound on the film, so Ruby watches the silent movie of her mother reaching down and scooping up this beautiful baby, swinging her onto one hip and then dancing around the room in a way that looks almost like a jitterbug because of the jumpy film. Suddenly, the image changes and it’s Christmas. A tree covered in long, loose strands of silver tinsel sits by a window in the front room of the bungalow, and through the window there is a palm tree and a sliver of blue sky. Rubyinstantly recognizes the incongruity of Christmas on a Southern island.

Patty sits on the gold couch next to a woman with a beehive hairdo. The woman smokes a long, brown cigarette, holding it elegantly between her manicured fingers. As they sit there, talking and laughing with smoke curling around them, the baby toddles over to the tree with open arms. Patty laughs in surprise and springs from the couch, running over to Trixie to grab the girl before she topples the tree. The woman on the couch lets her head fall back as she laughs merrily.

The images and snippets of life keep coming as Ruby stares at the film’s projection on the bare, white wall. The only sounds are of the ocean through the open window, and the film spinning through the projector. Banks stands in the doorway silently, waiting to be needed.

As she watches, Trixie sleeps in a crib peacefully, a teddy bear tucked under one arm. Another brief interlude shows Patty in a one piece swimsuit with cat-eye sunglasses as she splashes through the water on the beach, holding Trixie on one hip. Ruby watches as Trixie has a birthday, opening a box that holds the Raggedy Ann doll that now sits on the shelf in this very room. There is a scene where Patty is sitting outside the avocado green bungalow, the wind playing with her long hair as she reads a letter. She sits in profile, eyes trained on the page in her hands, her bare feet pulled up beneath her. She looks pensive.

Finally there is Patty wearing a black crepe dress, looking drawn. She stands next to a bunch of flowers with a cup in one hand. She is not looking at the camera. The film cuts off and the spool runs out.

“What did I just watch?” Ruby says, still staring at the wall like something else might pop up and offer further explanation. “Why was my mother just standing there in black, looking haunted?”

Banks walks over to the projector and takes the reel off, winding the end of it and putting it back in its flat, round metal container. “Shall I put on another?” he asks.

Ruby shakes her head. “I’m feeling…kind of overwhelmed.” She stands and smoothes the edge of the pink bedspread. “I need to process that.”

Without further explanation, Ruby walks back to the front room and picks up the baby book, taking it outside with her. She finds the spot where Patty had been sitting in the home movie, her back to the house as she read the letter in her hands. In an effort to feel closer to her mother, and perhaps to understand her better through osmosis, Ruby sits the same way, pulling her feet up beneath her as she reopens the baby book.

She starts where she left off, reading Trixie’s height and weight updates, opening the birthday cards that someone (possibly Patty) had carefully taped into the baby book, and looking at the photos of Trixie smiling for the camera. She was no more than two—maybe two and a half—when the updates stop. Ruby turns a page and it’s blank. She turns another: nothing.

She’s about to close the book when instead, she turns to the last page. There, taped to the back cover, is a white envelope that isn’t sealed. Ruby pulls a folded piece of paper from it, opening it with clear hesitation. It’s from the Jekyll Island Medical Examiner’s office, and as Ruby’s eyes skim the page, she stops breathing.

Trixie Michelle Huberman, DOB: 7-13-68. Death: 10-14-70.It lists height, weight, hair and eye color, parents’ names, her address at the time of her death, and then finally, a cause:undiagnosed congenital heart disease.

“Banks,” Ruby calls out, her voice a rasp as she starts to cry. Banks appears at the open window next to Ruby and she senseshim there but doesn’t look at him directly. “Shewasmy mother’s baby. And she died. I had a sister.”

Banks disappears from the window and reappears as he walks around the side of the house. Without a word, he sits on the porch next to Ruby, putting an arm around her. Her head falls to his shoulder.

“I had a sister,” she says again, sounding shocked. “And I never even knew she existed. She died, Banks. She had a heart defect, and she died. How come she never told me? How could my mother keep that from me?”

Banks says nothing, as is his way, but his calm, solid presence is soothing nonetheless. Ruby sits there next to him for so long that her legs go numb. The tides roll in and out in the distance, and Ruby does not move.

She cannot move. Her mother’s illness and rapid death had shocked her, but not nearly as much as these facts about her life.

Ruby and Banks sit there together until the spell is broken and she stands up, wiping her face with both hands and straightening her shoulders. “I need to find out what happened,” she says. “I need to know why she never told me.”

Patty

The crowd milled around inside the green bungalow, and at the edge of the kitchen, Evelyn Huberman stood with Patty’s mother, Margaret. Evelyn was smoking a cigarette as the women stood there, speaking to one another in hushed tones. Outside, Patty could see her father standing with Jacob Huberman, their backs to the house as they faced in the direction of the sea. They were both holding highball glasses and drinking their way through the sadness.

Patty wore a black crepe dress and held a cup of tea that someone had put into her hand. She stood next to a collection of flowers that made her nauseous with their strong scent, and she blinked slowly, not even registering the names of the people as they passed by her, touching her arm gently and whispering condolences.

Jekyll Island had been her home since the eighth month of her pregnancy. Trixie was born there. Patty had waited eagerly in the bungalow with the Hubermans for the return of their son from Vietnam, hoping every night as she closed her eyes to sleep that Bradley was safe, and that he’d come home soon to meet their baby girl. But now she had nothing.

At one point, she’d seen Jacob Huberman fiddling with his camera, possibly taking footage of the funeral or the attendees. Seeing this had nearly made Patty vomit, though she didn’t have the strength to ask him to stop. She’d just stood there, holding her cup of tea and wishing it would all end.

“Patty,” her mother said, walking up to her and gently taking the cup and saucer from her hands. “Honey, you should sit.”

Patty did not care to sit. She did not care to stand. She did not care to live.

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