t was early afternoon, the peak of a surprisingly hot June day. The sea and sky were a solid sheet of sparkling blue. Sunlight glinted along the surface of the water. At the edge of the property, just before it dipped down to meet the sand, trees reached out to one another, their leaves whispering in the wind. Starlings banked and dove along the eaves, chirping loudly, flying low above the grass.

Ruby sat in the white Adirondack chair on the second-floor balcony. She couldn't seem to stop crying.

She kept thinking about Eric, about all the times they'd spent together, how he'd been the big brother she'd never had-and the thought of losing him was unbearable... but no worse than the realization that she'd lost him years earlier, thoughtlessly, by walking away and never bothering to call.

Never bothering to call.

It was the story of her life. Ruby the half-wit girl who exits stage right. She had loved Eric. Not in the searing, heartbreaking way she'd loved his brother, but in a solid, dependable way. For all the years of her youth, he'd been there. It was Eric who'd taught her to set up a pup tent when the Girl Scout jamboree was coming... Eric who'd shown her how to stand on the bow pulpit of the Wind Lass on a windy day.

And yet she'd walked away, let him become a faded snapshot in the drawer of her life.

"I'm sorry," she whispered aloud, hearing the pathetic edge to her voice. It wasn't good enough, her apology into thin air. She acknowledged that. But the thought of seeing him terrified her. How could she stand by his bed and talk to him... smile as if they'd stayed friends... and say good-bye?

How could she watch him die?

Closing her eyes, she leaned back into the chair. In the bedroom behind her, the phone rang, but when she picked it up, there was no answer.

When the briiiiing sounded again, she realized it was her cellular phone. She dove over the bed and reached for the phone on the floor. She'd plugged it in less than an hour earlier.

"Hello?"

"Jesus, Rube, I've been trying this number endlessly. How's life in the outback?"

It was Val. She could hear his exhalation of cigarette smoke into the receiver. "It's Summer Island, Val, not Siberia. And things are fine."

"I thought you might need to be airlifted out."

Ruby laughed. "No, just keep that alibi handy in case I need it."

"How's the article coming?"

"Okay, I think. Maybe even good."

"Excellent news. I talked to Joan this morning.

Things are really heating up on this story. The press is crucifying your mother."

Ruby was caught off guard by her reaction to that. It made her mad. "She doesn't care. She's walking away from her career. Quitting."

"No shit?"

"Amazing, huh? Anyway, I'm working hard."

"Joan'll be glad to hear that. Remember, you're booked on Sarah Purcell for next week. See you then, babe."

Babe. Ruby couldn't help rolling her eyes.

He'd never called her that before; it must be a term reserved for clients who actually made him money. "Okay, Val. Talk to you soon."

After she hung up, she retrieved her paper and pen, then went back out onto the balcony and sat in the oversize chair her grandfather had made by hand. She forced herself to stop thinking about Eric. For now, she needed to work on the article.

She looked down at her yellow pad, then slowly picked up her pen and began to write.

I have spent most of my adult life pretending I was motherless. At first, it took effort. When a memory of my mother came to me, I ruthlessly squelched it and forced other images into my mind--a slamming door; the sound of tires sputtering through gravel; my father, sitting on the edge of his bed, weeping into his hands.

In time, I taught myself to forget, and in that state of suspended amnesia, things were easy. Time moved on.

But last night, my mother and I watched some old home movies. There, in a darkened living room, the doors I'd tried to keep closed slowly opened.

Now I am left with a disturbing and disorienting question: In forgetting my mother, how much have I forgotten about myself?

It seems I don't know either one of us. My mother tells me now that she is going to walk away from her career. I don't know what to make of that. She traded our family for fame and fortune; how could it mean so little to her?

Ruby set the pen and pad down on the rusty, frosted glass table beside her chair, unable to think of anything to add.

She couldn't forget her mother's face when she'd said, I'll just fade away.

Her mother had looked... broken, resigned, and more than a little afraid. Just like another time.

I'm leaving. Who wants to come with me?

For eleven years, Ruby had remembered only the words, the harsh, ugly sound of them in the silence of that morning.

Now, she remembered the rest.

Her mother's eyes had been filled with that same agonizing pain, and when she spoke, her voice had been strained... not her voice at all.

Then, Ruby had heard nothing beyond the good bye. She'd understood that her mother was leaving... but what if Nora had been running away?

I never saw you as a quitter, Ruby had said today.

And her mother's answer: You, of all people... you should have.

But what could her mother have been running away from? And what had kept her away?

The package arrived from Seattle in the late afternoon, while her mother was taking a nap. Ruby knew what it was. She debated with herself for a few moments after all, she'd purposely chosen never to read her mother's newspaper columns-but the Cache article changed things. Now, Ruby needed to know what "Nora Knows Best" had been about.

Quietly, she opened the box and pulled out a manila envelope marked BEST OF. In the living room, she plopped onto the sofa, tucked her feet up underneath her, and withdrew the pile of clippings. The one on top was dated December 1989, from the Anacortes Bee.

Dear Nora:

Do you have any tips for getting red wine out of white silk? At my sister's wedding, I got a little drunk and spilled a glassful on her gown. Now she's not talking to me, and I feel just awful about it.

Wedding Dress Blues.

Nora's answer was short and sweet.

Dear Wedding Dress Blues:

Only your dry cleaner can get the stain out. If it can't be done, you must offer to replace the gown. Because you were drunk, even a little, this is more than an ordinary accident, and your sister deserves a perfect reminder of her special day, a dress she can pass down to her daughter. It may take you a while to save the money, but in the end, you'll feel better. Nothing is more important than family. I'm sure you know that; it's what made you write to me. It's so easy to do the wrong thing in life, don't you think? When we see a clear road to being a better person, we ought to take it.

As Ruby continued to read the columns, she noticed that her mother's mail changed gradually from household-hint questions to earnest, heartfelt questions about life. Ruby had to admit that her mother was good at this. Her answers were concise, wise, and compassionate.

Ruby began to hear her mother in the column. Not the sophisticated, greedy, selfish Nora Bridge, but her mother, the woman who'd told Ruby to wear her coat, or brush her teeth, or clean her room.

As she read a column about a sixteen-year-old girl who was having a problem with drugs, Ruby remembered a time from her own life...

It had been in that terrible year that Ruby had almost "gone bad." She'd been fourteen, and Lopez Island-and her own family-had seemed hopelessly small and uncool. For a time, skipping school and smoking pot had offered Ruby a better way. She'd even turned away from Dean.

Dad had gone ballistic when Ruby got suspended school for smoking, but not Nora.

Her mother had picked Ruby up from the principal's office and driven her to the state park at the tip of the island. She'd dragged Ruby down to the secluded patch of beach that overlooked Haro Strait and the distant glitter of downtown Victoria. It had been exactly three in the afternoon, and the gray whales had been migrating past them in a spouting, splashing row. Nora had been wearing her good dress, the one she saved for parent-teacher conferences, but she had plopped down cross-legged on the sand.

Ruby had stood there, waiting to be bawled out, her chin stuck out, her arms crossed.

Instead, Nora had reached into her pocket and pulled out the joint that had been found in Ruby's locker. Amazingly, she had put it in her mouth and lit up, taking a deep toke, then she had held it out to Ruby.

Stunned, Ruby had sat down by her mother and taken the joint. They'd smoked the whole damn thing together, and all the while, neither of them had spoken.

Gradually, night had fallen; across the water, the sparkling white city lights had come on.

Her mother had chosen that minute to say what she'd come to say. "Do you notice anything different about Victoria?"

Ruby had found it difficult to focus. "It looks farther away," she had said, giggling.

"It is farther away. That's the thing about drugs. When you use them, everything you want in life is farther away." Nora had turned to her. "How cool is it to do something that anyone with a match can do? Cool is becoming an astronaut... or a comedian... or a scientist who cures cancer. Lopez Island is exactly what you think it is--a tiny blip on a map. But the world is out there, Ruby, even if you haven't seen it. Don't throw your chances away. We don't get as many of them as we need. Right now you can go anywhere, be anyone, do anything. You can become so damned famous that they'll have a parade for you when you come home for your high-school reunion... or you can keep screwing up and failing your classes and you can snip away the ends of your choices until finally you end up with that crowd who hangs out at Zeke's Diner, smoking cigarettes and talking about high-school football games that ended twenty years ago." She had stood up and brushed off her dress, then looked down at Ruby. "It's your choice. Your life. I'm your mother, not your warden."

Ruby remembered that she'd been shaking as she'd stood up. That's how deeply her mother's words had reached. Very softly, she'd said, "I love you, Mom."

That was Ruby's last specific memory of saying those words to her mother...

She turned her attention back to the columns. She noticed that this last set was paper-clipped together. The very first sentence pulled her in.

Dear Nora:

Do you ever feel so alone in the world that everything normal looks out of focus? It's as if you’re the only black-and-white human being in a technicolor city.

I have married the wrong woman. I knew it when the day came to walk down the aisle. I knew when I lifted the veil and looked down into her eyes. But sometimes you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, and you pray that love will grow.

When it doesn't, a piece of you dies, and day by day, it keeps dying until finally you realize there's nothing of you left.

You tell yourself that only your child matters--the reason you got married in the first place and you can almost believe it. When you hold your baby in your arms, you finally learn what true love really is.

And yet still you wonder, even as you're holding your daughter's hand or brushing her hair or reading her a bedtime story... you wonder if it can really be enough.

I don't know what to do. My wife and I have drifted so terribly far apart.... Please, can you help me?

Lost and Lonely.

Dear Lost and Lonely:

My heart goes out to you. I think all of us know how it feels to be lonely, especially within the supposedly warm circle of a family.

I can tell that you're an honorable man, and you obviously know that breaking up a family is the kind of act that irrevocably destroys lives. Believe me, the loneliness you feel within your family is a pale shadow of the torment you'll feel if you walk away.

I pray that if you look hard enough, you will unearth some remnant of the love you once felt for your wife, and that with care, a seed of that emotion can grow again. Seek counseling; talk to professionals and to each other. Take a vacation together. Touch, and not only sexually. Little touches along the way can mean a lot. Get involved in Activities-community events, church events, that kind of thing.

Go see a marriage counselor. You don't want to end a marriage and break your children's hearts until and unless there is no possible chance for reconciliation.

Trust me on this.

Nora.

The last item was a handwritten letter; there was no column attached to it. Obviously, it had been submitted for publication and rejected. Yet Nora had saved it.

Dear Nora:

My daughter-my precious baby girl-" killed by a drunk driver this year. I understand tragedy now; its taste, its texture... the imprint it leaves on you.

I find that I can't talk to people anymore, not even my wife, who needs me more than ever. I see her, sitting on the end of the bed, her hair unwashed, her eyes rimmed in red, and I can't reach out to her, can't offer comfort. If left alone, I'm certain I could go through the rest of my life without ever speaking again.

I want to gather my belongings, put them in a shopping cart, and disappear into the faceless crowd of vagrants in Pioneer Square. But I haven't the strength even for that. So I sit in my house, seeing the endless reminders of what I once had and I ask myself why I bother to breathe at all...

Lost and Lonely.

Across the top of that letter; someone had written: FedEx the attached letter to this man's return address immediately. Paper-clipped to the letter was a photocopy of a handwritten note.

Dear Lost and Lonely:

I will not waste time with the pretty words we wrap around grief. You are in danger; you are not so far gone that you don't know this. I am going to do what I have never done before-what I imagine I'll never do again.

You will come and talk to me. I will not take no for an answer. Your letter mentioned Pioneer Square; I see that your return address is in Laurelhurst.

My secretary at the newspaper will be expecting your call tomorrow and she will set up an appointment. Please, please, do not disappoint me. I know how life can wound even the strongest heart, and sometimes all it takes to save us is the touch of a single stranger's hand.

Reach out for me... I'll be there.

It was signed Nora.

Ruby's hands were trembling. No wonder these readers loved her mother. She carefully put the columns and letters back in the manila folder and left the whole package on the kitchen table for her mother to find, then she went upstairs.

She hadn't even realized that she was going to call Caroline until she'd picked up the phone. But it made sense. Ruby felt unsteady... and Caroline had always been her solid ground.

Caro answered on the third ring. "Hello?"

Ruby couldn't help noticing how tired her sister sounded. "Hey, sis. You sound like you need a nap."

Caroline laughed. "I always need a nap. Of course, what I do that makes me so darned tired is a complete mystery."

"What do you do all day?"

"Only a single woman would ask that question of a mother. So, what's going on up there? How are you and Mom doing?"

"She's not who I thought she was," Ruby admitted softly.

"How could she be? You haven't spoken to her since Moonlighting was on television."

"I know, I know... but it's more than that. Like, did you know she was seeing a shrink when she was married to Dad... or that she took Valium in nineteen eighty-five?"

"Wow," Caroline said. "I wonder if her doctor told her to leave Dad?"

"Why would he do that?"

Caroline laughed softly. "That's what they do, Ruby. They tell unhappy women to find happiness. If I had a buck for every time my therapist told me to leave Jere, I'd live on Hunt's Point."

"You see a shrink, too?"

"Come on, Ruby. It's like getting a manicure. Good grooming for the mind."

"But I thought you and Mr. Quarterback had a perfect life."

"We have our problems, just like anyone else, but I'd rather talk about-aah! Darn it, Jenny!

That's not okay. I gotta run, Ruby. Your niece just poured a cup of grape juice on her brother's head." Before Ruby could answer, Caroline hung up.

Everything was ready.

Dean knocked on Eric's door; heard the muffled"Come in," and went inside.

Eric was sitting up in bed, reading a dog-eared paperback copy of Richard Bach's book Illusions. When he saw Dean, he smiled. "Hey, bro. It's almost dinnertime. Where have you been?" He reached for the cup on his bedside tray. His thin fingers trembled; he groaned tiredly and gave up.

Dean hurried to the bed and grabbed the cup, carefully placing it in Eric's quavering hand. He guided the straw to his brother's mouth.

Eric sipped slowly, swallowed. Dean helped him replace the cup on the tray, then Eric turned his head, let it settle into the pile of pillows. "Thanks, I was dying of thirst." He grinned. "No mention of death was intentional."

Dean wanted to smile; honestly, he did. But all he could think about was his big brother; up here all alone, thirsty and too weak to reach for his glass of water. He crossed his arms and stared out the window. He didn't dare make eye contact with Eric. He needed just a minute to collect himself. "I've been working on something," he said.

"A surprise?"

Dean looked down at his brother then and saw a glimpse of the old Eric-the young Eric-and his throat tightened even more. It was all he could do to nod. Slowly, he lowered the metal bed rail. When it clanged into place, he said, "Are you up for a little trip?"

"Are you kidding? I'm so sick of this bed I could cry. Hell, I do cry... all the time." Dean leaned forward, scooped his brother into his arms and lifted him up from the bed.

God, he weighed nothing at all.

It was like holding a fragile child; only it was his brother. His strong, outspoken big brother; who'd once led the island football team in touchdown passes...

Dean shut the memories off. If he remembered who Eric used to be-now, while this frail, hollowed man was in his arms-he would stumble and fall.

He carried his brother downstairs and through the house, past Lottie in the kitchen, who waved, her eyes overbright... across the manicured green lawn and down the bank to the beach. On the slanted, wooden dock, he'd already set up an oversize Adirondack chair and piled pillows onto it.

"The Wind Lass," Eric said softly.

Dean carefully placed his brother into the chair; then tucked the cashmere blanket tightly around his thin body.

It was nearing sunset. The sky was low enough to touch. The last rays of the setting sun turned everything pink--the waves, the clouds, the pebbled beach that curled protectively along the fish-hook shape of the shoreline. The sailboat was still in bad shape, but at least she was clean.

Dean sat down beside Eric. Stretching out his legs, he leaned back against one of the wooden pilings. "I still have some more work to do on her. Jeff Brein, down at the Crow's Nest, is repairing the sail, and it should be done tomorrow. Wendy Johnson is cleaning the cushions. I thought... maybe if we could take her out..." Dean let the sentence trail off. He didn't know quite how to sculpt his amorphous hope into something as ordinary as words.

"We could remember how it used to be," Eric said.

"How we used to be."

Of course Eric had understood. "Yeah." Eric drew the blanket tighter against his chin.

"So, what's it like, being the favored son?"

"Lonely."

Eric sighed and leaned back into the pillows. "Remember when she loved me? When I was a star athlete with awesome grades and a promising future. I was her trophy boy."

Dean remembered. Their mother had adored Eric, her dark-haired angel, she called him. The only time Mom and Dad came to the island was football season. Every homecoming game, Mom had dressed in her best "casual" clothes and gone to the game, where she cheered on her quarterback son. When the season ended, they were gone again.

Eric had lived in the warm glow of his parents' affection for so long, he'd mistaken pride for love, but when he'd told them about Charles, he'd learned the depth of his naivete'. Mother hadn't spoken to him since.

So it had been Dean, the younger; less perfect son, who'd taken over the family business. It had never been something he wanted to do, but family expectations especially in a wealthy family-were a sticky web. "I remember," he said quietly.

"I heard the phone ring last night about eleven o'clock," Eric said.

Dean looked away; eye contact was impossible. "Yeah. Some phone company rep who-"

"Don't bother; bro. It was her; wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Still in Athens?"

"Florence. Mother had the nerve to tell me that the shopping was great." She'd also said, Come on over Dean-we've got plenty of room at the villa. As if it didn't matter at all that her elder son lay dying.

Eric's gaze was pathetically hopeful as he turned to Dean. "Are they coming to see me?"

There was no point in lying. "No."

"Did you tell them this is it? I'm not going to be around much longer?"

Dean reached out, touched his brother's hand. It surprised both of them, that sudden bit of intimacy. "I'm sorry."

Eric released a thready sigh. "What good is an agonizing death by cancer if your own family won't weep by your bedside?"

"I'm here," Dean said softly. "You're not alone."

Tears came to Eric's eyes. "I know, baby brother. I Know... "

Dean swallowed hard. "You can't let her get to you.

Eric closed his eyes. "Someday she'll be sorry. It'll be too late, though." By the end of the sentence, his words were garbled and he was asleep.

Dean leaned closer. Carefully, he tugged up blanket, tucked it beneath his brother's chin.

Eric blinked awake and smiled sleepily. "Tell me about your life."

"There's not much to tell. I work."

"Very funny. I get the San Francisco newspapers, you know-just to read about you and the folks. You seem to be quite the bachelor-about-town. If I didn't know better; I'd say you were a man who had everything."

Dean wanted to laugh and say, I do; I do have everything a man could want, but it was a lie, and he'd never been able to lie to his brother. And more than that, Dean wanted to talk to Eric the way he once had. Brother to brother; from the heart. "There's something... missing in my life. I don't know what it is."

"Do you like your job?"

Dean was surprised by the question. No one had ever asked him that, and he'd never bothered to ask himself. Still, the answer came quickly. "No."

"Are you in love with anyone?"

"No. It's been a long time since I was in love."

"And you can't figure out what's missing in your life? Come on, Dino. The question isn't, what's missing? The question is, what the hell is your life?" Eric yawned and closed his eyes again. Already he was tiring. "God, I wanted you to be happy all these years..." He fell asleep for a second, then blinked awake. "Remember Camp Orkila?" he said suddenly. "I was thinking about that yesterday, about the first time we went up there."

"When we met Ruby." Dean found an honest smile inside of him, drew it out. "She climbed up into that big tree by the beach, remember? She said arts and crafts were for babies and she was a big girl."

"She wouldn't come down until you asked her to."

"Yeah. That was the beginning, wasn't it? We'd never seen a real family before..." Dean let the words string out, find one another, and connect. Like threads, he wove them together, sewed a quilt from the strands of their life, and tucked it around his brother's thin body.