a greased string of curses. She might have been able to do that for this wicked bitch.
“And my wonderful brother said to me, ‘Vera, everything will be fine.’ Do you know what I replied? I said, ‘Now I know how poor Mrs. Lindbergh felt!’ ”
They sat in silence for what seemed a year, letting that sentence hang over them. Ruth’s mind roiled. Could she hit this woman? Could she step out of this ancient car and walk back to Fort Niles?
“But now she is with me, where she belongs,” Miss Vera said. “And we do as we please. No husbands to tell us what to do. No children to look after. Except Ricky, of course. Poor Ricky. But he doesn’t ask much, heaven knows. Your mother and I are independent women, Ruth, and we have a good time together. We enjoy our independence, Ruth. We like it very much.”
Ruth stayed with her mother for a week. She wore the same clothes every day, and no one said another word about it. There were no more shopping trips. She slept in her clothes and put them on again every morning after her bath. She did not complain.
What did she care?
This was her survival strategy: Fuck it.
Fuck all of it. Whatever they asked of her, she would do. Whatever outrageous act of exploitation she saw Miss Vera commit against her mother, she would ignore. Ruth was doing time in Concord. Getting it over with. Trying to stay sane. Because if she’d reacted to everything that galled her, she’d have been in a constant state of disgust and rage, which would have made her mother more nervous and Miss Vera more predatory and Cal Cooley more smug. So she sat on it. Fuck it.
Every night before she went to bed she kissed her mother on the cheek. Miss Vera would ask coyly, “Where’s my kiss?” and Ruth would cross the room on steel legs, bend, and kiss that lavender cheek. She did this for her mother’s sake. She did this because it was less trouble than throwing an ashtray across the room. She could see the relief it brought her mother. Good. Whatever she could do to help, fine. Fuck it.
“Where’s my kiss?” Cal would ask every night.
And every night Ruth would mutter something like “Goodnight, Cal. Try to remember not to murder us in our sleep.”
And Miss Vera would say, “Such hateful words for a child your age.”
Yeah, Ruth thought. Yeah, whatever. She knew she should keep her mouth shut entirely, but she enjoyed getting a stab or two into Cal Cooley now and again. Made her feel like herself. Familiar, somehow. Comforting. She would carry the satisfaction to bed with her and curl up against it, as if it were a teddy bear. Her nightly poke at Cal would help Ruth Thomas go to sleep without stewing for hours over the eternal, nagging question: What fate had shoved her into the lives of the Ellis family? And why?
7
In every batch of segmenting lobster eggs, one is sure to meet with irregular forms, and in some cases, the greater number appear to be abnormal.
—The American Lobster: A Study of Its Habits and Development Francis Hobart Herrick, Ph.D. 1895
AT THE END of the week, Cal Cooley and Ruth drove back to Rockland, Maine. It rained the whole time. She sat in the front seat of the Buick with Cal, and he did not shut up. He teased her about her one set of clothes and about the shopping trip to Blaire’s, and he did grotesque imitations of her mother’s servile attendance on Miss Vera.
“Shut up, Cal,” Ruth said.
“Oh, Miss Vera, shall I wash your hair now? Oh, Miss Vera, shall I file your corns now? Oh, Miss Vera, shall I wipe your butt now?”
“Leave my mother alone,” Ruth said. “She does what she has to do.”
“Oh, Miss Vera, shall I lie down in traffic now?”
“You’re worse, Cal. You kiss more Ellis ass than anyone. You play that old man for every penny, and you suck up like crazy to Miss Vera.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, sweetheart. I think your mother wins the prize.”
“Up yours, Cal.”
“So articulate, Ruth!”
“Up yours, you sycophant.”
Cal burst out laughing. “That’s better! Let’s eat.”
Ruth’s mother had sent them off with a basket of bread and cheese and chocolates, and Ruth now opened it. The cheese was a small wheel, soft and wax-covered, and when Ruth cut into it, it released a deadly odor, like something rotting at the bottom of