The Library of the Dead Read online

  “Should I try George again?”

  “Oh!” The woman sucked in her breath, her reverie snatched away.

  Ruth stared at the phone. “The number?”

  “Okay. Home. 523-1180.” The woman turned her head toward the wide kitchen window facing out to the garden as dawn turned the pale golden kitchen walls a mottled peach.

  Ruth pressed in the number. It rang once, then went to voicemail. “You’ve reached the Miramontes. Leave a message.” Miramontes? She had no recollection of knowing anyone by that name. Someone who worked for them in one of the care facilities? She’d have to leave a message.

  “This is Ruth Scavone. Your wife’s here at my home and needs your help. Can you call here?” Ruth glanced at the woman who looked baffled. Ruth rattled off the phone number. “Please. It’s important.”

  Ruth put the phone back in her pocket. “He didn’t answer. Could he be at work already?”

  The woman shook her head. “My husband should be there. Why isn’t he worried about me? I’ve been gone for days.”

  Days? Ruth’s heart raced a moment as she dipped in and out of her inebriated fugue.

  The woman clasped her hands under her chin. “I’m sorry. I’m so confused. He is going to call, isn’t he?”

  Ruth gave her the Everything’s-Just-Fine look. “Why wouldn’t he?” She straightened up, groaning with the pain in her back. “Do you need to use the toilet? I have to. Will you be all right?”

  The woman nodded, staring into her coffee. Dried blood had begun to flake onto the saucer and table. Ruth rankled at the mess.

  In the bathroom, Ruth ran cold water and splashed her face. As she dried herself, she whispered to Louis, gone sixteen years now.

  “I’m scared, Lou. Something’s wrong with this woman. I don’t want to think about her mental state. Or what happened to explain all that blood. And where is her husband? She’s been missing days! If only you were here, you’d help me figure it out.”

  Ruth brushed her half-braided hair out, twisted it into a loose bun and secured it at the nape of her neck, chatting away quietly. “I’m so out of it. This medication. I’m trying to remember how I know her, and I think I met her after you passed away. She left an indelible impression somehow, but, I can’t seem to remember her name.” Ruth closed her eyes. Handsome sailor Louis from her dream floated into mind. She felt his hands, remembered his youthful skin, his mouth on her, and blushed. “Oh, Lou. My Lou.”

  Louis prepared his naïve bride to live a life less sheltered than the privileged one she’d grown up with. He loved his soft, supple Ruth, but encouraged her to get tougher out in the world; brittle if she had to. It had to be his way; how they would raise the kids, and ran the businesses he inherited from his father, Fausto. Just as his father had taught him, so it would be with his family. Only Louis didn’t want the weak-willed nervous wife his mother had been; in and out of a sanitarium his entire life.

  A beauty, but awkward and shy at eighteen when they met, Louis made sure that over the years Ruth developed into his equal, a force to be reckoned with in business and at home. Ruth worked side-by-side with Louis when the kids were in college, and the moment they were out on their own, Ruth became a businesswoman full-time. Louis insisted she take over the elder care business, telling her she didn’t need his approval or advice anymore. She’d become a true Scavone; smart, sensitive when she needed to be, and most importantly, powerful.

  Ruth thought of Louis, how he’d have advised her to take care of the woman for now. She needed help, but keep a keen eye on her. If Ruth needed to get tough, she had it in her.

  On her way back to the kitchen, Ruth stopped at the hall closet and took out a bag of neatly folded clothes planned for Goodwill. She chose a wool sweater, a pair of baggy pants, and boots with heels that constituted a health hazard for Ruth, who’d been eighty-eight when her granddaughter gave them to her. She stood staring into the closet, a memory of Lucy at four trying on Ruth’s high heels, falling over, and bursting into tears. Her innocence. Jolted then by the realization of what sat in her kitchen, Ruth ambled back.

  The woman stood at the window, her arms hanging at her sides. She didn’t move as Ruth set the clothes on the table, shifted a chair, clanked her coffee cup in the sink and cleaned up the mess she’d made.

  “Don’t you want to sit?”

  The woman shook her head. “Why can’t I remember what happened?” She gave Ruth a quick glance, then stared out at the garden. “This …” she put her hands up, “isn’t my blood.”

  My God, then whose? Ruth sat down with a grunt. Her voice felt strangled in her throat, still slurring off her tongue. “Well, maybe George’ll know.”

  The woman shuddered, but didn’t budge. “I just remembered when I met you. Where. At St. Stephen’s. Do you remember?”

  Ruth winced as memories flooded her. “Grief counseling. You and the other women were so helpful. Were we friends?”

  The woman shrugged. “I remembered this house. I was here a lot then wasn’t I? That has to mean we were friends.”

  Yes. Something like that. “We were.” At that very same table; talking for hours about Louis, her great loss, her kids, grandkids; slowly recovering.

  Back then, most of her closest friends had died or moved away. She’d relied on her son and daughter through Louis’s illness. But, when Louis died, they too were felled by grief. Once they’d gravitated around her, but with Louis gone, they flew out of her orbit to the comfort of their friends and families.

  Then, Ruth saw only lonely, pain-filled days, unbearable without Louis. She let herself go. She stayed in bed, sleeping or weeping. Without an appetite, she lost the stubborn fifteen pounds she’d struggled with in her seventies, plus another fifteen, then another ten. She stopped cutting and coloring her hair, doing her nails, putting on makeup. Though she feigned her breezy businesswoman’s voice when anyone called, she refused requests to visit. People came anyway, bringing meals, groceries, her medications. But Ruth made little effort to be the usual hostess or pretend she was glad for the support. Sometimes she railed at her visitors, cursing them and her lot for outliving Louis. No one stayed long.

  Then, one day Lucy showed up. She cleared the house of rotting food, opened the windows, and forcibly shuttled Grandma Ruth to the hospital where they hydrated and fed her. But, they couldn’t heal her heartache. So Lucy found a church that had a volunteer community doing outreach for Bay Area folk. Ruth balked at going to a church; she’d had her fill of the Scavone Catholic zeal, and was sorely disappointed at the paltry solace it provided when Louis died. As it turned out, the grief support group ladies were more like a secular band of sisters with a sense of humor and a lot of warmth.

  There had been six women. Ruth remembered a Sheila and a Bernice, older like her. They oozed the rapturous kindness of the deeply religious, yet they made everyone laugh, feel less alone. And the woman who now sat across the table from her? Though thirty years Ruth’s junior, she bore a weight of loss Ruth found familiar and oddly comforting. Ruth sought the woman out over the others, and in time the woman became vital to her. Out of all the sweet doves nesting in the St. Stephen’s community, Ruth chose that woman to be her friend.

  The woman saw the clothes on the table and clapped her hands like a kid at Christmas, startling Ruth. “Are these for me?” She came over, lifted up the sweater, held it to her bloody robe, then grabbed one of the boots. “These are so cute!”

  Just as she’d gained a surer footing in this waking nightmare, Ruth came unmoored at the woman’s sudden shift in mood. She thought of Louis. Get businesslike. Now.

  “Yes. These should fit. You don’t want to sit in those things. Just put it all … there.” Ruth motioned toward a trash bag hanging in her laundry room off the kitchen.

  Ruth was about to remind her where the bathroom was, but the woman had already begun peeling off the robe. She let it drop, making the muffled sound of cardboard as its dried bloody edges hit the terracotta floor. Ruth knew she s
hould turn away, but just then a remnant of the amitriptyline brought on a wave of stupor. She felt like a double exposure; one misaligned self, and an unfamiliar marionette-like Ruth, controlled by medicinal strings.

  The woman pulled her nightgown over her head, revealing olive skin, still smooth except for a caesarean scar. No bloody wounds. Her breasts were still relatively high. Ruth felt the malignant envy only vain old women knew. As the woman reached out for the sweater, Ruth saw the scars along her wrists; waxy pale exclamation marks marching toward her palms. Those lines roused the memory of that one day, the pivotal day when things irrevocably changed.

  Over that last month, Ruth had noticed how the woman appeared distracted, melancholy. Then the woman, very much out of character, suggested lunch out at a casually classy restaurant Ruth had mentioned. Ruth thought about the woman’s cheap clothing, bottle-dyed hair and twelve-year-old Nissan, and prepared to get the check. The woman deserved this treat, though she’d done the inviting.

  The woman had worn her Sunday best. She waited outside the restaurant, fingering her written directions as if they’d continue to be of importance for posterity. Ruth was late.

  “Ruth, you made it!” The woman awkwardly embraced her. “I’ve never been to a restaurant like this before. It’s a five-star kind of place, isn’t it? It’s so thoughtful of you to think of it.” The woman beamed at her.

  “Forgive me. My son drove and insisted we stop by his house and then … Never mind. I’m hungry!”

  They were seated quickly in a small booth. Though it was one in the afternoon, the woman hoped they might get wine. Ruth laughed, delighted. Her kids would be upset at her having wine before dinner, which made the idea even more delicious. They tasted a Chardonnay that Ruth approved. Once poured, the woman quickly drank down one glass, then another.

  The woman kept up with Ruth’s small talk, but as their food arrived, the woman grew solemn, pulling into herself.

  “What’s this? You’re supposed to cheer me up.” Ruth relied on the woman’s joviality, even when she sensed it was all façade. They had little in common, and came from worlds apart, but women found threads to bind them, and in Ruth’s bottomless sorrow they had. It seemed the woman needed her now. Ruth slipped naturally into her take-charge businesswoman mode.

  “You tell me what you need.” Ruth smiled warmly.

  The woman took a tissue from her purse as tears fell. “Sorry. I didn’t want to bother you with my troubles. I’m here to help you.” She wiped her cheeks, pinking with sadness. “George’s always taken my troubles on his shoulders. But he tells me this is my problem.” She slapped a hand against her chest.

  Ruth cocked her head. “Go ahead and tell me. We’re friends.”

  The woman blinked tears away, hopeful. “Are we? I hope we are. Really.”

  Ruth took a long swig of Chardonnay, poured the last of it into her empty glass. She worried that in her current state, her fragility would make her pathetic as a shoulder to lean on, so Ruth turned up her wattage.

  “Let me take some of the weight. You’ve helped me. It’s my turn!”

  The woman examined Ruth. Her animated face shifted from wary to cloudy with anger, then woeful to wary and then hopeful.

  “I’ll start at the beginning.” She looked down at her pasta, avoiding Ruth’s ardent gaze. “The first five years we were married, I lost three babies. Every miscarriage wrecked me. They wrecked George. But with that third one, I snapped. The doctor told me I had a hormone disorder, prescribed stuff for me, and said I’d get right in my head in time. I wanted it to be true, but inside I felt crazy, you know?”

  Ruth looked away. She didn’t know. She and Louis had no trouble when it came to having children. They’d wanted a happy, healthy boy and girl, and that’s what they got.

  “That sounds frightening.” Ruth heard the patronizing tone in her voice and grimaced.

  “Oh, yah.” The woman barely restrained a scowl, but went on. “Then I got pregnant with my daughter. A great pregnancy. No problems at all. George couldn’t be happy for us until I got to seven months. Ruth, she was wonderful!” The woman became radiant with joy. “You know. The kind of baby people stop and stare at and say ‘What a beautiful baby!’ She never cried unless she was wet or hungry, and she slept through the night. We couldn’t have asked for more!” She smiled to herself, remembering.

  Ruth nodded. “My daughter was like that. I don’t know where she got that thick blond hair as a baby, but everyone commented. Everyone!”

  The woman pursed her lips, shut her eyes, and made a wounded animal sound. Ruth, taken aback, crammed a roll in her mouth. A minute ticked by. Ruth swallowed. The woman straightened, opened her eyes and gave a tight smile.

  “When I met you last year, Mercy had just turned fifteen. We had a little trouble with her the year before; bad grades, fights with other girls over silly things like clothes and boys. Then she started wearing extreme makeup, like blackening her eyes and powdering her face a pasty white. She got jewelry that looked like the stuff people put on their pit bulls. Then she started sneaking out and I’d find her bed unmade in the morning. George said it was a phase, and she’d grow out of it. I suspected sex and drugs and the wrong crowd.

  “I probably tried to shelter her too much, but isn’t that what a good mother does? George never punished her. It was always me! To her, George was the moon and she’d jump over it to please him.”

  Ruth chuckled, the wine relaxing her. “Isn’t it ‘the cow jumps over the moon’?”

  At that, the woman put her palms on the table, then made fists, squinting at Ruth. She growled, “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours, of course.” Confused, Ruth put on her executive’s grin. “Go on. Please.”

  The woman softened. “George won a cruise from a raffle ticket at church. I didn’t want to leave Mercy alone. Sheila said she was happy to stay with her for the week. George argued that Mercy would never show us she deserved our trust if Sheila babysat. But, I insisted.”

  “I’d have done the same thing, and my children were angels!” Ruth caught herself, steeling for the woman’s spite. The woman merely sighed dismissively.

  “I got so seasick on the cruise; we had to fly home early. I ruined this once-in-a-lifetime thing!” The woman dabbed at a welling tear. “When I finally got ahold of Sheila, she said George had told her not to stay at our house, and that Mercy had been on her own for four days! I got so angry!” The woman’s voice rose and nearby diners turned towards them, glowering. Ruth feared hushing her. “But, I didn’t tell George I knew.” She balled her fists. “I wanted to kill him!

  “I couldn’t even look at him when we got home, so I let myself in while he got the suitcases out of the car. The minute I got inside, I heard grunts and cries, like someone being tortured! I would’ve waited for George, but I was so mad at him. My first thought was something horrible was happening to Mercy, so I tiptoed down the hall toward the sounds. They were coming from our bedroom!” The woman went red-faced, her voice punching at the space between them. “Guess-what-I-found?” The woman waited, but Ruth didn’t want to say. “They-were-fucking … on our bed!”

  The woman covered her face. Ruth reached out to touch her, show her sympathy, but the woman pulled away. Someone called a manager over, and Ruth imagined it was to complain about them. She was about to warn her, but the woman lowered her voice and went on.

  “She was with this man. Long ratty hair, lots of tattoos, and metal things attached to his face, his chest. Wrinkled. He had to be in his forties! I stood there, paralyzed. I couldn’t look away …” The woman put her hand over her mouth, muffling a primal whine. “Mercy had nothing on. I saw she had rings on her nipples and a tattoo on her belly. How could she do this to herself and I didn’t know? I screamed!

  “George rushed into the bedroom and all hell broke loose. I’ve never seen him go crazy mad. He beat the guy up while Mercy was on the floor shaking, yelling at him to stop!”

  “Oh, my.” Ruth
whispered, glancing around, catching stares. She’d stopped eating midway through the story, her stomach clenching as the woman’s voice, peppered with muffled growls and whines, grew ever louder.

  An officious-looking gentleman approached.

  “Anything I can help you with?” He held their bill in his hands. Ruth sheepishly shook her head, then reached out to take it. This had been her fear, that her usual steely reserve and take charge attitude would desert her in her delicate emotional state. She felt the flush rise up from her armpits to her neck and face.

  They skulked onto the street, walking along in taut silence. The woman twisted the straps of her handbag, alternately cursing under her breath and sobbing quietly. Two blocks on, they stopped in the shade of a jacaranda tree.

  “What can I do?” Ruth wanted to know the end of the story. Say the right thing. She shook her head, dazed by it all.

  The woman fixed Ruth with glaring indignity. “How dare you judge me? You with your perfect house, and perfect children, and perfect dead husband! I lost Mercy that day. She ran away and we haven’t seen or heard from her since!

  “You selfish old bitch, complaining about Louis dying with that oh-woes-me bullshit, while the rest of us have real problems!” The woman leaned forward, shaking, her shoulders set, arms straight, fists ready for a fight. “Go fuck yourself!”

  Ruth put her hand to her face as if she’d been struck. She watched the woman stalk off, fuming. Confused, feeling as if she’d been run over by a truck, she made it back to the restaurant to call her son. In his car, she thought about telling him what had happened. But, as he drove along, her mind emptied. Everything the woman had been to Ruth, as well as her name, was gone. Just like the woman’s daughter. Vanished.

  “I think I need the bathroom, now. When George gets here, tell him I’ll be right out.” The woman’s grin was no more than a slash across her face.

  When George gets here? The woman listened as Ruth left a message for her husband. How could she think he was coming to get her? Ruth had no idea what might happen next, but recalling their lunch fifteen years ago, she felt sure she needed to call George again. Or her son. Maybe even the police.