“And here’s a picture of you when you were a little girl.”
“Look at that,” Ruth said, and leaned toward the framed photograph hanging on the wall next to the dresser. “That’s me?”
“That’s you.”
“What do I have in my hands?”
“Pebbles. Pebbles from the Ellises’ driveway.”
“Boy, look at those fists!”
“And there I am,” Ruth’s mother said.
“There you are.”
“I’m trying to get you to hand me the pebbles.”
“It doesn’t look as if you’re going to get them.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’ll bet I didn’t get them.”
“How old was I?”
“About two. So adorable.”
“And how old were you?”
“Oh. Thirty-three or so.”
“I never saw that picture before.”
“No, I don’t think you have.”
“I wonder who took it.”
“Miss Vera took it.”
Ruth Thomas sat down on the bed, a handsome brass heirloom covered with a lace spread. Her mother sat beside her and asked, “Does it smell a bit musty in here?”
“No, it’s fine.”
They sat quietly for a time. Ruth’s mother stood and raised the window shades. “We may as well let in some light,” she said, and sat down again.
“Thank you,” Ruth said.
“When I bought that wallpaper, I thought it was cherry blossoms, but now that I look at it, I think it’s apple blossoms. Isn’t that funny? I don’t know why I didn’t see that at first.”
“Apple blossoms are nice.”
“It doesn’t make any difference, I suppose.”
“Either way is nice. You did a good job with the wallpapering.”
“We paid a man to do it.”
“It looks really pretty.”
After another long silence, Mary Smith-Ellis Thomas took her daughter’s hand and asked, “Should we go see Ricky now?”
Ricky was in a baby’s crib, although he was nine years old. He was the size of a small child, a three-year-old, perhaps, and his fingers and toes were curled like talons. His hair was black and short, matted in the back because of the way he swiveled his head back and forth, back and forth. He was forever grinding his head against the mattress, forever flipping his face from side to side, as though searching desperately for something. And his eyes, too, rolled to the left and to the right, always seeking. He made screeching sounds and high-pitched whines and howls, but when Mary approached, he settled into a steady muttering.
“Here’s Mama,” she said. “Here’s Mama.”
She lifted him out of the crib and placed him, on his back, on a sheepskin mat on the floor. He could not sit up or hold up his head. He could not feed himself. He could not speak. On the sheepskin mat, his small, crooked legs flopped to one side and his arms to the other. Back and forth he swung his head, back and forth, and his fingers waved and tensed, fluttering in the air the way sea plants flutter in the water.
“Is he getting any better?” Ruth asked.
“Well,” her mother said, “I think so, Ruth. I always think he’s getting a little better, but nobody else ever sees it.”
“Where’s his nurse?”
“Oh, she’s around. She may be down in the kitchen, taking a break. She’s a new woman, and she seems very nice. She likes to sing to Ricky. Doesn’t she, Ricky? Doesn’t Sandra sing to you? Because she knows you like it. Doesn’t she?”
Mary spoke to him the way mothers speak to newborns, or the way Senator Simon Addams spoke to his dog Cookie, in a loving voice with no expectation of reply.
“Do you see your sister?” she asked. “Do you see your big sister? She came to visit you, little boy. She came to say hello to Ricky.”
“Hello there, Ricky,” said Ruth, trying to follow the cadence of her mother’s voice. “Hello there, little brother.”
Ruth felt sick. She bent over and patted Ricky’s head, which he whipped away from under her palm, and she felt his matted hair slip away in a flash—gone. She pulled back her hand, and he let his head rest for a moment. Then he flipped it with a suddenness that made Ruth start.
Ricky was born when Ruth was nine years old. He was born in a hospital in Rockland. Ruth never saw him when he was a baby, because her mother didn’t return to the island after Ricky was born. Her father went to Rockland with his wife when the baby was due, and Ruth stayed with Mrs. Pommeroy next door. Her mother was supposed to come back with a baby, but she never did. She didn’t come back, because something was