A Year Less a Day. James Hawkins
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and they had always jumped to the same conclusion. But Ruth’s words were not some carefully parsed euphemism. She really did lose her mother and, despite the fact that it has been more than twenty years since she vanished, her mother’s name has never been logged in police records as a missing person. In fact, if fifteen-year-old Ruth had been able to come up with the rent at the end of that month, no one else might have known that her mother simply went out one night and never returned.
“Mom will come back eventually,” the teenager had convinced herself as she hid out in their dingy basement and tried to eat her way to happiness; after all, her mother had always returned before—to let the swellings subside and the bruises heal.
“You’re a good girl, Ruthie,” her mother would tell the young girl as she bathed the battle scars. “You’re not gonna be like me. You’re gonna get an education like your dad.”
But Ruth had already quit school. Handicapped by her size, she was never able to outrun the mob of girls streaming out of the school at the end of the day. With careful timing she might latch on to a departing teacher, but an ambush usually awaited somewhere on the route.
“My dad’s bigger than your dad,” never helped Ruth either.
“You ain’t got a dad.”
“I have so.”
“Yeah, he’s a fuckin’ insect.”
“A Beatle ... He’s a Beatle.”
“Well, this is what we do to beetles ...”
By lunchtime, Ruth has abandoned any hope of persuading Jordan to call his mother, and she is in the kitchen when Trina struggles into the busy café with a wheelchair.
“I brought Mr. Jenson ...” Trina calls to Cindy.
“Johnson,” says a thin voice from under a battered panama.
“He gets very befuddled,” whispers Trina, then she questions herself and takes a quick peep under the hat. “Oh, you’re right. It is Mr. Johnson. How did that happen?”
“You said you were gonna buy me lunch,” complains the ancient man as Trina explains to Cindy, “He’s from the home. I’m always mixing them up. Is Ruth in the kitchen? I’ve got a book for her.”
“Don’t give me nothing to chew,” comes the voice from under the hat. “I didn’t bring my teeth.”
“He likes rice pudding,” says Trina as she dumps her charge and heads to the kitchen.
“You can’t leave him there,” calls Cindy, but Trina is on a mission. The book, liberated from Marcie’s extensive library of unopened digests, is called “Fight Cancer with Food and Live Forever,” and Trina figures the sooner Jordan starts, the better.
“It’s gotta be worth a try,” she is telling Ruth when Cindy breaks through on the intercom.
“Trina. There’s a very funny smell out here.”
“Oh shit! ... Colostomy bag,” exclaims Trina and takes off at a run.
By the time Trina arrives the following morning, the café has turned upside down and, according to Cindy, Ruth has lost her mind. “Look at this,” she complains to Trina, stabbing angrily at the cooler filled with salads. “It looks like a cow has thrown up in there. Where’s all the cakes?”
“Where’s Ruth?” asks Trina, and Cindy nods toward the kitchen.
“I’ve been up all night,” gushes Ruth as Trina dashes in. “Look,” she adds, sweeping her hand across the opened book and around the bare shelves.
“Trans fats, saturated fats, and hydrogenated oils—all gone,” she says, ticking off her checklist as she points to a packed garbage bin, then she turns to the next bin and plucks at bottles, cans, and packages as she sings out: “White flour, refined sugar, nitrates, sodium, modified starch, unpronounceable something-or-other, more unpronounceable stuff, chemicals, chemicals ... more chemicals.”
Ruth stops to jab at Marcie’s book and recites, “‘Golden rule number one,’ Trina: ‘Never eat anything you can’t pronounce.’”
“You can’t throw all that away ...” starts Trina, but Ruth’s on a roll as she turns to the third bin. “Burgers, bacon, wieners ...”
“But I could take it to the women’s shelter,” says Trina starting to haul out the still packaged food.
“No you don’t,” says Ruth, ripping it from Trina’s hands and dropping it back in the bin. “Those poor devils have enough problems without you poisoning them.”
“Poison?”
“Yes. It’s a wonder no one ever sued us for making them fat.”
“They couldn’t ...”
“They can in the States,” says Ruth, flipping through the book. “And I haven’t even started yet. Here it says, ‘broccoli and garlic,’” Ruth pauses to look up, sensing a certain lack of enthusiasm from Trina. “Thanks, Trina. You’ve no idea what a difference this will make.”
“Ruth. You’ve got to be sensible.”
“I am. That’s exactly what I’m doing from now on.”
“What I mean is, you’ve got to be realistic. There’s a lot we don’t know about cancer. How is Jordan doing anyway?”
Ruth’s fervour wanes at the thought of her husband. “He doesn’t say much. He’s on the Internet quite a bit.”
“That’s good. He might come across some coping strategies, maybe even some new therapeutic procedures.”
Ruth doesn’t answer. If Jordan has found coping strategies online they are not medically related.
The intercom buzzes to life. “Tom’s usual please, Ruth,” calls Cindy. “Two eggs, sunny-side up, bacon, and sausage.”
Ruth gives a sly smile as she puts her finger on the button. “Check the new breakfast menu please, Cindy.”
“Shit,” mutters the waitress after a few seconds and races to the kitchen.
“What’s happening, Ruth? What about breakfast?”
Ruth shrugs. “Nothing fried, Cindy—no bacon, burgers, or hash browns. I mean, look at those people out there. Look what they’re doing to themselves.”
“But that’s the point, Ruth—they’re doing it, not you.”
“Aiding and abetting, Cindy. We’re aiding and abetting, and we’re not going to do it anymore.”
“But we’ll lose all our customers.”
“Better than poisoning them.”
“This is ridiculous, Ruth. That’s why they come here: to get a fat fix.”
“OK. So what are you saying? If we sold guns and a guy comes in and says he wants to blow his brains out, we’d sell him one?”
“No, of course not.”
“Right,” she says, walking away. “We’ve sold our last gun, and if they don’t like it they can try McBurgers’. I am not helping anyone else to kill themselves.”
“Ruth,” yells Cindy, “they’re not stupid. They know they shouldn’t be eating this stuff—that’s why they do it. People eat properly at home, they come here for everything else. We can’t afford to lose them.”
Cindy is right. They can’t afford to lose customers; in fact, if it hadn’t been for Tom, the padlocks would already have been on. Tom has been terrific; cheerfully keeping Ruth afloat for weeks after the phone guy and the frozen food guy had followed the coffee guy, then Jordan’s mother had turned up on schedule with her hand out. She’d arrived on one of Jordan’s treatment days