alium.

That discovery opened a door, hinted at a woman Ruby had never known, never even imagined.

In 1985, everything had been fine. Great.

Or so Ruby had thought.

She wished she hadn't found the bottle. It was the sort of thing she didn't want to know. Like accidentally finding your mother's vibrator. Some things were supposed to remain hidden.

Finally, Ruby couldn't stand being in the bedroom anymore. She went downstairs and found Nora already in the kitchen.

"We're going to make chicken divan. How does that sound?"

Ruby groaned. "Cooking together."

“I want you to chop that broccoli. The cutting board is right there."

Ruby did as she was told.

Smaller, please. Each piece needs to fit in a human mouth."

Ruby took a deep breath and started over.

For the next half hour, they worked side by side. Ruby boiled and cut up the chicken-in human-size bites while Nora did everything else. Finally, the casserole was in the oven.

"I have a surprise for you," Nora said, putting the cutting board away. "There's a big cardboard box in my closet. Will you get it?"

Ruby shook her head. "I don't think so." A surprise from her mother just couldn't be a good thing.

Nora gave her "the look," and Ruby caved. Some things were bigger than willpower, and a mother's raised eyebrow was one of them. She went into the bedroom, opened the closet's louvered doors, and found the box. As she hefted it into her arms, it made a rattling, clanking sound like auto parts crammed together.

She took it into the living room and set it down on the glossy wormwood coffee table. It hit with a clatter.

Nora had followed her into the living room. "Open it."

Ruby pulled the cardboard flaps apart and peered inside the box. "Oh, shit."

It was their sixteen-millimeter movie projector and a reel of film. She turned to her mother.

"Home movies," Nora said with a forced smile.

"Don't tell me you want us to bond over old times?"

"I want to watch them, that's all. You can join Me... or you can set it up and leave me... alone."

Ruby was trapped. Whether she watched the movies or not, she'd know that the film was here, in the house, waiting like a monster beneath a child's bed. She reached deeper into the box and found a folded white sheet and a set of thumbtacks. Their old "screen."

She set up the projector on a table in the living room, clicked the reel into place, and plugged the cord in. Then she tacked the sheet onto the wall.

She refused to dwell upon how big a deal it used to be to watch family movies. Every Christmas Eve, they'd sat together in their pajamas, with their unopened gifts glittering seductively beneath the tree, and watched the highlights of their year. It was an essential tradition in a family that had only a few.

Ruby turned off the lights. With a dull, clacking sound, the film started as a gray and black square in the center of the sheet.

Ruby lowered herself to the sofa's arm.

The words LOPEZ ISLAND TALENT REVUE stuttered understood across the makeshift screen. There was a buzz of people talking, then her mother's voice, clear as day, There! Rand; she's coming.

Ruby couldn't have been more than five years old, a scrawny, puffy-cheeked kindergartner dressed in ragged pink tutu. She twirled and swirled drunkenly across the stage, her toothpick arms finding all kinds of awkward angles.

-Oh, Rand, she's perfect

-Hush, I'm trying to concentrate

Onstage, Ruby executed an uneven spin and sank into a curtsy. Applause thundered.

The picture went dark, then stuttered back to life. This time they were down at the beach. Caroline, in a skirted one-piece bathing suit, was splashing in the ankle-deep water, laughing. Ruby was wearing a bikini; her belly poked out above banged-up stick legs. Her mother was sitting in the sand, looking through a plastic bucket full of shells and rocks. Ruby ran over to her and stamped a foot down beside the bucket. Mom leaned over and fixed a strap on her saltwater sandals, then pulled a wiggly, laughing Ruby into her arms for a kiss.

Mom...

There she was.

Ruby slid off the arm of the sofa and landed on the soft, threadbare cushion. Her whole childhood played out in front of her in staccato, black-and-white images accompanied by the sounds of children laughing.

How was it she'd forgotten how much they'd laughed... or how regularly her mother had hugged and kissed her? She'd remembered the feel of riding on her dad's strong shoulders, of seeing the world from way up high, but not the gentle pressure of her mother's kiss.

But she remembered it now. She was seeing it.

There was no way to keep her distance from this. There was Dad, twirling Ruby around and around in a circle... and Mom, teaching Ruby how to tie her shoe... a rainy Halloween with two princesses skipping hand in hand up to the Smithsons" front door; carrying pumpkin-headed flashlights... the snowy Christmas morning when Ruby had gotten a guinea pig from Santa... Mom and Dad, dancing in the living room of this very house, the picture blurry and bouncing from a camera held in a child's hands...

By the time the final bit of film flapped out of the reel and the screen went blank, Ruby felt as if she'd run a ten-mile race. She was unsteady as she turned off the camera and hit the lights.

Her mother (Nora, she reminded herself) sat hunched in her wheelchair; hands drawn into a tight-fisted ball in her lap. Tears glistened on her cheeks and lashes. She caught Ruby's gaze and tried to smile.

At the sight of her mother's tears, Ruby felt something inside of her break away. "You and Dad looked so happy together."

Nora smiled unevenly. "We were happy for a lot of years. And then... we weren't."

"You mean you weren't. I saw what it did to him when you walked out. Believe me, he loved you."

"Rand would have stayed with me forever; you’re right about that. Just as he'd vowed to do."

Ruby frowned. "He would have stayed because he loved you, not just because he'd promised to."

"Ah, Ruby... there's so much you don't know. Your dad and I have a... history that's ours alone. No child can judge her parents' marriage."

"You mean you won't tell me why you left him."

"Beyond saying that we were unhappy? No, I won't."

Ruby wanted to be angry, but in truth, she was too battered. The movies had hurt so much she couldn't think straight. For the first time in years, she'd seen Mom.

"I had forgotten you," Ruby said softly, closing her eyes. "I've never dreamt of you or had a single childhood memory with you in it." When Ruby opened her eyes, she saw that her mother was crying, and it made Ruby uncomfortable, as if she'd done something wrong. It was crazy to feel that way, but there it was. Strangely, she didn't want to make her mother cry. "But tonight I remembered the locket you gave me on my eleventh birthday. The silver oval that opened up. I kept a picture of you on one side and Dad and Caro on the other side."

Nora wiped her eyes and nodded. "Do you still Have it?"

Ruby got up, went to the fireplace. Shestared at the pictures of Caroline's family. When she reached up and touched her own bare throat, she felt the phantom locket. She'd been sixteen the last day she'd worn it.

It had been a hot, humid day in the second week of August. Ruby and Caroline had refused to go school shopping. It had been the rock-bottom basement of their faith, the thing they'd said to each other for weeks: Mom would be home in time for school...

But she wasn't, and August had bled into September and their lives couldn't be kept on hold anymore.

In that season, when all their friends and neighbors had been gathered together for picnics and barbecues and parties at Trout Lake, the Bridge family had stayed huddled in their too-quiet house. Ruby andCaro had learned to move soundlessly that summer. They did their best to disappear. Girls who were invisible didn't have to answer people's questions or make painful explanations.

It had been easy to do. Dad had seen to that. He'd started drinking and smoking when Nora left in June. By August, he never came out of his room. The Captain Hook sat idle all summer; and by the fall, Dad had had to sell off another chunk of land to pay their bills.

Finally, on the first day of school, Ruby had taken the locket off and thrown it to the ground...

"Ruby? I asked about the locket." She turned and looked at her mother. "I threw it away."

"I see."

"No, you don't. I didn't throw it away because I hated you." She drew in a deep breath. For a split second, she almost lost her nerve; she had to force confession out. "I threw it because it hurt too much to remember you."

"Oh, Ruby... "

In the kitchen, the oven's timer went off.

Ruby lurched to her feet. "Thank God. Let's eat."

Nora wrestled through a long and sleepless night. Finally, around dawn, she gave up and went out onto the porch to watch the sunrise. As soon as the sun was up, she called Eric, but there was no answer; and somehow, that made her feel even lonelier. She wheeled herself back out to the porch.

It was low tide now. The shy water had drawn back, revealing a wide swatch of glistening, pebbled shoreline.

She remembered so many times on that beach, gathering oysters, clams, and geoducks with Rand's father for a Sunday barbecue.

I had forgotten you.

Nora had known that Ruby blamed her; hated her. But to have forgotten her?

Nora didn't know how to combat that.

Do you want me to be like Caroline? Ruby had asked. Pretend that everything is fine between us?

Nora leaned back in her chair; sighing tiredly. Ruby was right. Ruby, with her fire, her anger; her chipped shoulder... at least she was honest. All or nothing. Black or white. She couldn't live in the shades of gray that comforted her sister.

"I miss you, Ruby," she whispered, daring to say the words to this silent world; words she couldn't imagine being able to say to her younger daughter. Sadness welled up inside her. Instead of pushing it away or pretending it didn't exist, she allowed herself to wallow in it. I miss you, baby girl...

She thought of all the years that had passed her by-Ruby leaving for college... quitting college... moving to Los Angeles (had she taken Rand's ratty old Volkswagen or had she found a way to buy a new car?... renting her first apartment...

So much time gone.

"Enough," she said at last. Straightening her spine, she opened her eyes.

What she needed was a plan. She needed to attack the problem with Ruby aggressively-there was no other way to deal with her.

There would be no second chance; she knew that. Nora had one week-six days, now-to crack through the hard shell of the past.

But how?

"Okay," she counseled herself. "Pretend this is a reader letter."

Dear Nora:

Years ago, I walked out on my marriage and left my children. My younger daughter has never forgiven me. Now she tells me that she forgotten all memories of me. How do I make amends?

She took a deep breath, thinking it through. If Nora had received a letter like this, she would have taken the woman to task for her unpardonable behavior; would have told her it was no surprise that her daughter hated her.

"Hypocrite," she hissed. No wonder she'd lost her career.

Anyway, after moralizing for a few sentences, she would have said...

Force her to remember you.

The answer came easily when offered to a stranger.

Nora smiled. If she forced Ruby to remember the past, they could possibly find their way into the present... maybe even peek at a different future.

It wouldn't be easy, she knew. Or particularly pleasant.

Probably excruciating, in fact.

But it was the only way. Right now, it was easy for Ruby to hate Nora-she only remembered the horrible choices made that summer. Would it be so easy ifRuby remembered the good times?

Behind her; the screen door squeaked open. "Nora?"

Nora wheeled around, smiling brightly. "Hi, honey."

Ruby frowned. "You're awfully chipper for eight in the morning. Do you want a cup of coffee?"

"No, thanks. I've got some. Why don't you get a cup and join me out here? It's beautiful."

Ruby ran a hand through her spiky, sleep-molded hair and nodded. Wordlessly, she went back inside, then came out a few minutes later and sat down in the rocker.

Nora stared down at the beach. The silence between them was strangely companionable, not unlike a thousand other mornings, long ago, when they'd sat together out here.

She took a sip of her coffee and glanced out at the point. "Remember the Fourth of July barbecues we used to have out here? Your dad was always gone fishing and the three of us girls would load up on firecrackers."

Ruby smiled. "Sparklers were my favorite. I couldn't wait for it to get dark."

"We wrote things in the light, remember?" Nora said, watching Ruby. "I always wrote: I love my girls."

Ruby curled her hands around her coffee cup, as if she needed a sudden infusion of warmth. "Caroline always scrawled the name of whatever boy she was in love with at the time. Remember when it was Alexander Jorgenson? It took two sparklers to spell his whole name-she was in a panic."

Nora smiled. She pictured Eric and Dean, standing around the grill, laughing. They'd had impeccable timing, those boys. They never missed a meal. There was a sudden lump in her throat, and so her voice was soft when she said, "You only wrote Dean’s name. Year after year."

Ruby sighed. ”Yeah... He and Eric always showed up right when you put the salmon on the barbecue remember?" She looked up. "Caroline tells me you've stayed in touch with Eric. How is he?"

Nora had known this moment was coming; she'd thought she was prepared for it, but she wasn't. She released her breath in a slow sigh. There was no way to honor Eric's wish for privacy, not with Nora unable to drive. Sooner or later; she would have to elicit Ruby's help, and when she did, Ruby would learn about Eric. But how did you tell your daughter that one of her best childhood friends was dying?

"Mom?"

Nora casually wiped her eyes and metRuby's expectant gaze. "Eric has cancer.

Ruby paled. "Oh, my God... "

Nora watched the memories move through Ruby's eyes. She knew her daughter was thinking back to lazy summer days spent down at the lake with Dean and Eric. It was a long time before Ruby found her voice. "How bad is it?"

"Bad."

"Is he going to die?"

t hurt to answer. "Yes, honey, he is."

Ruby slumped forward, burying her head in her hands. "I should have stayed in contact with him. God..." She fell silent, shaking her head, and Nora knew her daughter was crying. "It seems like yesterday we were all together. I can't imagine him... sick."

"I know. I keep thinking about those Fourth of July barbecues. I used to watch you and Dean on the beach. You'd hold hands and duel with your sparklers. I could hear your laughter all the way up here, and when you got older; and started whispering... then I worried."

Ruby looked up. Tears spiked her eyelashes, made her look about ten years old. "I never knew that."

"Motherhood is full of secret worries." Nora realized a second too late that she'd made herself vulnerable. She should never have used the word secret. But, thankfully, Ruby had bigger things on her mind.

"Can we visit Eric?"

"Of course. He's staying at the old house on Lopez. I know he'd love to see you." Nora leaned back in her chair and stared out at the Sound. "Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can picture all of us. You, me, Caroline... Eric and Dean. What I remember most are days out on the Wind Lass. Dino and Eric loved that boat... "

"I know what you're doing," Ruby said after a long pause; her voice was thick and low. "You want me to remember."

"Yes."

"Remembering stuff like that hurts."

"I know, honey. But-"

Inside the house, the phone rang. Ruby got slowly to her feet and went inside. The screen door banged shut behind her. "Hello?"

Nora could hear Ruby's half of the conversation.

"Who is this? Oh, I'm her daughter; Ruby... Yes, she is... just a minute, I'll get her. Nora?" Ruby yelled. "It's your personal assistant, Dee."

"Tell her I'm not here."

Ruby opened the screen door and poked her head out. "I already told her you were here. Come on. She's waiting."

Nora wheeled into the kitchen and took the phone. "Hello, Dee."

"Oh, Nora, thank God. A box of letters just landed on your desk. There was nothing I could do about it. Tom Adams called-he threatened to get me fired if I didn't forward them to you. Today." Dee made a sniffling sound. "I need this job, Nora. I know you'd never fire me, but what if... you know... "

"I lose my job." Nora sighed. "I understand completely. Go ahead and mail the stuff to me at the address I gave you."

"Tom wants me to send Lake Union Air up for today's delivery."

Of course. With Tom, everything had to happen instantly. "Did you read the letters, Dee?"

"Uh... a few."

Nora's stomach turned sour. "How bad is it?"

"It's ugly, Nora. People around here are starting to talk to the tabloids... they're not saying nice things... and some lady in Iowa went on television last night and said she was going to file a lawsuit against you. Fraudulent advice or some stupid thing."

Nora glanced over at Ruby, who was shamelessly eavesdropping. "Okay, Dee. Send me the letters."

"I thought I'd send your "best of" file, too. In case you wanted to sneak some old letters in. Tom wouldn't know."

"Good thinking."

Dee sighed heavily. "I knew you were going to do the column. People are saying-"

"I'll make sure that you're taken care of. Don't you worry about that. Thanks for everything, Dee. Really. Good-bye." She leaned forward and hung up the phone. She wanted to make a joke for Ruby's benefit, but she hadn't the strength.

"Nora?"

Slowly, she lifted her head.

Ruby stood by the refrigerator; her arms crossed.

Her cup of coffee sat on the counter; forgotten.

"What was that all about?"

"My boss at the newspaper expects me to answer some... rather unflattering letters from my readers."

"Well, it is your job."

Nora didn't bother answering. Ruby couldn't possibly understand. She didn't know how it felt to need acceptance; and how, without it, you could feel invisible. Worse than invisible.

Some lady in Iowa... a lawsuit... fraudulent advice...

She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "David Letterman is probably having a field day with this..

For two days, she'd been able to forget that her life was unraveling, that she was a national scandal. No more.

She heard Ruby run upstairs.

Thank God.

But in a minute, Ruby was back, tapping her on the shoulder. "Nora?"

Nora opened her eyes.

Ruby was standing beside her, holding a section of newspaper. "I bought this yesterday at the store. Maybe you should... read what they're writing about you."

Nora stared at the newspaper. She could see a big, grainy picture of herself.

It had been taken at the Emmys last year-God, she hated that shot. It made her look all puffy-cheeked and squinty-eyed.

She took the paper from Ruby and glanced through the article. "It's over," she said dully, letting the news paper fall to the floor.

Ruby frowned. "Don't be stupid. You'll get through this. Look at Monica Lewinsky-she's selling expensive handbags now. She went to the Oscars last year. And that idiot who married the millionaire got a fortune from Playboy."

"Thank you for those comforting comparisons."

"I just meant-"

"You're too young to understand, Ruby. My career is over. I have no intention of answering a single letter.

I'm going to hide out until this... is over. Another story will come along and they'll forget about me. Then I'll just fade away."

"You're kidding me, right?"

“No.”

"But you're famous."

"I'm infamous. Believe me, there's a difference."

"With the right spin, you can-"

"You don't understand my career, Ruby. I've never put a wall between me and my readers. Everything I think and feel and believe is found in my words to strangers. That's why they believed in me, they sensed my honesty."

Ruby's eyebrow arched upward. "According to the press, your columns said you believed in marriage. Is that the kind of honesty they got from you?"

"I do believe in marriage. And love, and family, and commitments. I just... failed at it."

Ruby looked surprised by that answer. "That's an interesting word choice. Failed."

"I don't suppose either one of us would characterize my wife-and-motherhood as successful."

"No. But I wouldn't have expected you to see it that way. As a failure, I mean."

They were finally circling something that mattered. Nora"s voice was gentle. "How did you imagine I'd feel?"

Ruby frowned. "I would have thought you'd see leaving us as... a success. You did it so well. Like leaving a job you hate. You might miss the income, but you're proud of yourself for finding the guts to quit."

"I wasn't proud of myself."

"Why?" Ruby asked the question in a whispered voice. "Why did you do it? Couldn't you have a career and raise children?"

Nora sighed. There were so many ways to answer that, and she was too damned depressed to pick the right one. So, she said the first thing that came to mind. "What happened to us isn't some event, like the sinking of the Titanic. It's little things, strung together over decades. To really understand it all, you'd have to grow up and see the way things really were in our family, but you don't want to do that, Ruby. You want to forget I ever existed... forget we ever existed."

"It's easier that way," Ruby said quietly.

"Yes. And it's easier for me to walk away from my career. I can't fight these charges... not with the life I've led and the choices I've made. The press will uncover what I did to my children... to you, Ruby... and it'll get even worse."

"I never saw you as a quitter."

Nora gave her a sad, knowing smile. "Ah, Ruby... of all people... you should have."