Page 2 of Chosen Road

She was the last person I wanted to take after.

Looking back through adult eyes, Mom was oddly dismissive of Ruby. She hugged her, kissed her, and tucked her in at night. She bought her something whenever she bought something for me, although it was what we liked, never anything that Ruby liked. She didn’t take her out with her the way she did with me. She didn’t teach Ruby about essential oils and fragrances. As far as I knew, Ruby never asked. Still. It was odd.

I remember feeling a vague sense of guilt that she never included Ruby, mostly because I liked having Mom to myself, but Ruby never seemed bothered. She had Dad. I had Dad, too. He treated us equally, but he spent more time with Ruby, probably because Mom was always with me.

And Iwantedto be with her. It got to the point where I sensed her mood. I could tell when she started getting restless, and I remembered the sensation of anticipation that pooled in my belly. She made me feel special, loved, and important.

Until she didn’t.

Over the year since my dad passed, Mom became more and more irritable with Ruby and me. At night she sometimes let me come into her bed and she cuddled me like she used to, but the times between those sweet moments stretched further and further apart.

I felt her rising restlessness. I could barely contain my excitement, knowing there would soon be a mommy-and-me adventure.

Ruby and I came home from school to find her standing on the driveway with her coat on and I thrilled at the knowledge that the time had come.

She opened her arms to us, and I went to her readily. I wondered why she was ready to go so early. Yiayia wasn’t home yet, and we couldn’t leave Ruby home by herself.

“Go on into the house, my jewels,” she ordered us.

Her eyes glittered in a way I’d never seen before. I couldn’t read her, and it frightened me.

“Mommy?” I questioned. I hadn’t called her Mommy for years, but something about the moment made me feel younger and uncertain.

“My jewel, I love you so much,” she said softly, then smiled. A real smile, a genuine smile, the kind we hadn’t gotten from her in so long. “Go on into the house.”

That time when she told me to go inside, I listened.

I shrugged out of my coat and had just hung up my backpack when I heard the car start.

My heart skipped in my chest, understanding instinctively that which my brain denied. I flung open the front door and stood in the archway, wondering why she was moving the car. She stared at me for a moment and my body went cold.

“Mommy?” I asked, though she could not hear me.

She stretched her arm over the back of the seat and quickly pulled out onto the street.

I stepped out onto the porch and yelled her name. “Mommy!”

She paused; I know she did. I saw her look down at her lap, and I ran. I ran down the driveway because I knew if I could get to her in time she’d change her mind.

She’d come back into the house and wait for Yiayia to come home.

She’d nestle me into her side and take me to Treasure Trove.

She’d call me her jewel and remind me that I was just like her.

My stockinged feet hit the edge of the sidewalk as the car rolled faster and faster away from me. I screamed, “Mommy! Mommy, no! Mommy, come back!” I screamed as loud as I could because if she heard me, if she heard me, she’d come back.

Ruby met me on the driveway, her pigtails bouncing around her pale face, her skinny arms reaching for me, and I lashed out at her like a wild animal. And like a wild animal she hung onto me through my incoherent screaming and clawing, fighting against the arms that held me back from where I wanted to go.

The neighbor called Yiayia at work and she came home right away, but it was too late.

The bottom had dropped out of my world. I lost my sense of self. We were best friends, I was her mini-me, we were partners in crime. I was just like her. Losing her was like losing a limb. There was no earth beneath my feet, my foundation: erased.

Even now, whenever memories of her snuck past my barriers, I found myself back on that driveway, clinging to Ruby and screaming for my mom to come back for me. I could still feel Ruby’s strong arms holding me. I could still feel her flesh give way beneath my nails.

She bore those scars still.

For the longest time, I believed she’d come back for me. Not for Ruby, I somehow knew she wouldn’t be back for Ruby, but I could not fathom her leaving me. I was Mommy’s girl; Ruby was Daddy’s girl.

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