Losing Ruby

chapter three

Losing Ruby

Copyright © 2020 Kelsa Dixon

All rights reserved

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[Brody]

I stood in the driveway, staring up at a house that once brought me comfort. Promise. A house that held a future my parents would have been proud of. Years of nothing but time; of birthdays and holidays; that deft tango between those no-you-gets-to-talk-to-you-like-that, but I'll-tear-your-ego-to-shreds-myself relationships with each of my siblings. Time with a family I'd adored, but I no longer felt I belonged to.

As I traced the roof line to the window of my old room, I thought of the legacy I should've followed. It was burrowed into the walls of this home just as it'd been bred in my bones. A legacy that Luca had stepped into when I hadn't.

A wind high above rustled the leaves of the oak trees that dotted the yard. It guided my gaze upward, the warm breeze settling around me. For an August night, the air held little humidity. Stars consumed the sky and I wondered how people could look at them and find hope in such a vast, empty expanse. Ruby had once loved them. She'd told me how ethereal they seemed; how endless fate and hopes and dreams could be when you relished the mightiness of its void. I wished she were here to explain it all to me again, because the sparkle she'd once given them dulled in the years since she'd been gone.

Somewhere in the passing clouds Ruby's face morphed into Chloe's. I wondered if Ruby had ever told Chloe about the stars—would she believe in their wondrous fate?

I couldn't believe she would. The ache in my chest that was so often reserved for Ruby intensified each day as I watched Chloe silently stand at the threshold to the kitchen. As if alone, she'd study the room, her gaze sliding from one corner to another, watching the movements I'd imagine were once our parents.

Or in the moments I'd watch from down the hall as she slipped into our parents room. Her touch roved gingerly over the dresser, over our mother's jewelry, dipped into different trays of rings and bracelets. She'd pick up a piece, her fingertips drifting delicately over the setting before she'd pull it close to her chest. Her back would expand with a deep breath, then she'd put it back. Exactly as she'd found it.

But not once had I seen a single tear. Not since the night that Luca held her together as I watched idly by with no idea how to help her hold on while she learned to let go.

The only thing that played on a loop in my mind was how I'd barely spoken to my family. How I was to be what they needed—to figure out what it was they needed. How I was now assuming temporary custody of a sister I wasn't sure would appreciate the gesture.

Surely—even with the years she'd spent building the bridge in our relationship with her calls and her texts and her blatant attempts to include me in family affairs—she would've been better off with Luca or Noah. More open—more herself. Maybe she could have found more comfort in everything that happened, knowing they were still her constant.

But when a set of deputies accompanying a woman with a badge and a clipboard began threatening custody of Chloe—how minor's in Chloe's position would be taken to a foster home overnight before placement could be made—Luca's voice began to rise and threats traced the tip of his tongue, I quickly agreed she'd stay with me until permanent plans could be made. The will was to be read this week, it was only temporary, I assured the CPS agent before she looked too closely at the dark drawings curled over my arms and thought to look deeper into my past. With a disapproving scowl she agreed to confirm my relationship and handed over a stack of documents that took me the better part of an hour to fill out.