Breaking Matthew (25 page)

Asa came toward me and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “We’re glad you’re here, son. Come on in here.” He guided me into the bedroom and showed me to a wooden chair near the bed. Mrs. Graves and Henry followed, with Dr. Fisher coming in last and closing the door behind him.

Mrs. Graves fell onto the bed and began sobbing. I thought the sound might split me in two. “I’m…I’m so sorry,” I said.

“No one here blames you,” Asa said. “We all know how much you loved Ruby. And you did everything you could to save her.”

“You about drowned yourself trying to get to her from what the officers said,” Dr. Fisher added. “You feeling all right?”

I must have looked terrible. I sure felt it. I coughed and rubbed my hand over the stitches in my chest. “I reckon I’m all right. I just…I can’t give up. I have to find her. Me and Henry, we’re going back out there tomorrow.”

Dr. Fisher came over and knelt down in front of me. He peered at me the way he used to when I was sick with T.B. “How do your lungs feel?”

“Fine. I just have a bit of a cough.”

“Sounds like you’re getting sick.” He felt my forehead. “Fever, too. You better rest. You could get pneumonia, and with your history, that could be deadly.”

“I don’t care.”

He raised an eyebrow, then reached for my shirt. “You mind if I have a look?”

I unbuttoned my shirt and opened it. “It won’t make no difference. I’m not quitting till I find Ruby.”

“You’ve pulled some stitches loose. And you’re well on your way to infection.” He pressed gently on the wound. “Let me take care of this, and get you in a bed. Then tomorrow we’ll talk about what you should or shouldn’t do.”

I’d run out of energy to argue with him, but I knew I was going back out there the next day. And the next. And the next. As long as it took to find her.

The Graves family put me up again. And every morning for the next three days, Henry, Asa, and I set out for Cold Spring. We walked around it, searched up and down the woods, the road, the tiniest branches that weaved away from the spring. There was simply no trace of her.

By that Sunday, my body simply gave out. I was ravaged by a fever, infection in my chest wound, and a cough that brought back terrible memories of the searing pain of tuberculosis. That morning, I lay on the Graves’s sofa wanting desperately to go back to the spring and search again, but I couldn’t move. All I could do was lie there and cough, choking on my misery.

Henry stood at the window across the room, gazing out at the rain. Next to me, Asa stoked a fire to keep me warm. He set the poker against the wall and took a seat in the rocking chair near my head. The gentle sway and creaking of the chair lulled my eyelids to close. But every time they drifted shut, I saw Ruby sinking away from me into the murky depth of that freezing water, and they’d shoot back open.

I forced myself to sit up, which was more of a sad sort of leaning sideways against the back of the sofa. Asa stood and rubbed the back of his neck. “Can I get you some coffee?” he asked.

I shook my head. I hadn’t eaten much of anything. I’d been surviving on coffee the past three days, and I was ready to puke just thinking about it.

“How about some food?” Asa asked.

“No, thank you.”

He sat down and went back to rocking. “You’re going to have to find a way to move past this, Matthew,” he said. “Ruby’s gone.”

I rubbed my face and tried to keep the rage inside me from overwhelming me. “She can’t be. I can’t face that.”

“Yes, you can. You have to. When all the dust settles, and you’re looking at the days ahead, you’ll need to come to terms with what got you here.”

“And what’s that?”

“Fear.” Asa stopped rocking, leaned forward, and looked me right in the eyes. “Doubt. A lack of faith in the One True God. You lost your center, lost your faith. And you took matters into your own hands. I know a little something about that myself. There are always consequences.”

“I can take my own consequences,” I spluttered, waiting for a fit of coughing to pass. “But Ruby? She shouldn’t be punished for what I did. She didn’t want any part of it. She was the one telling me, over and over, to hang on to my faith. I failed. Not her. Why should she suffer ’cause of what I did?”

“Listen, son, death ain’t a punishment. Ruby…if she’s…if she’s gone, she’s in a better place, with no suffering at all. She’s praising Jesus, not being punished. Those of us left behind, we’re the ones who suffer.”

He was right about that. I looked over at Henry, who was still lost in thought by the window. My actions had hurt so many people. All ’cause I didn’t believe God was doing right by Ruby. If I’d just been patient, maybe her appeals would’ve worked. I’d never know now.

“Henry,” I said. “Are you going back out there today?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. Just stared out the window with his hands shoved in his pockets. “No,” he finally said. He turned to face me. “Ruby wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself. She wouldn’t want you to kill yourself trying to find her. She’s…she’s all right. She’d want you to find a way to move on with your life.”

I shuddered. “Move on with my life? I don’t even know how to begin to do that.”

“It starts with accepting that she’s gone,” Asa said. “She ain’t coming back.”

For the first time, I considered that he might be right, and that Ruby was really gone forever. My insides shattered, and all I wanted to do was crumble away and die myself. A life without Ruby? Why had I ever thought I could save her? I was no savior. I was the reason she was…
dead.

And I deserved the pain of living with that.

Sitting through Ruby’s funeral service was an inescapable nightmare. It was bad enough I was still coughing from whatever illness had taken over my lungs. But every kind word from those who knew her, every reminder from Brother Harbison of Ruby’s care and sacrifice for others,
every moment
, was an individual nail driven into my chest. By the end, I could barely breathe.

I went outside to the cemetery where a small stone slab had been placed in the ground next to her father’s headstone. The wind blew right through me, chilling my bones and making me shiver. I wrapped my coat around me, thankful that at least the rain had let up for a time. Ruby deserved a beautiful day, and she’d gotten one.

I knelt next to the sad little marker, touching her name on the stone. It still didn’t seem real. Something inside of me was still connected to her, and it refused to believe she was really gone. I couldn’t see how I could ever let go of her completely until I knew for sure what happened at that spring.

I felt someone approaching from behind, so I stood and turned around. Henry tipped his hat and came up next to me. He’d seemed surprisingly calm most of the day. I couldn’t understand how the Graves family managed that inner peace that always eluded me.

“She deserves better than this,” I said.

“She already has it,” Henry answered.

“Soon as I can make some money, I’ll replace it myself. She should have a proper headstone.” Henry didn’t say anything. “I mean, I know the family doesn’t have much, and this is the best they can do for now…I just meant…”

“It’s all right. I know what you mean. And I understand. But like I said before, Ruby don’t want you agonizing over the past. What’s done is done.”

Even Henry seemed to have a hard time talking of her in the past tense. I wondered if he realized it.

“What will you do now?” Henry asked.

“Not sure yet. But I have to get away from here. Maybe I’ll head west or something. Maybe north. You’re doing all right for yourself. What do you do?”

“You don’t want the life I have. Trust me. Moving from place to place for work in the winter. Hoping a team will pick me up for the spring and summer. It’s not a life I’d recommend to anyone else.”

“Actually, it don’t sound so bad. There’s nothing left for me here.”

“What about your family?”

I shook my head. “I don’t care to ever see my father’s face again, long as I live. I reckon that means the rest of my family as well.”

Henry kicked at the loose rocks by his feet. “Listen, I know guys all over the country in several different Conservation Corps camps. They’re not paid much, but it’s work. And it’s a start. Kept me fed during some hard times.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. But I’ll probably try to get back to building things. That was all I dreamed of for a time.”

I couldn’t help but remember the day I’d done my best to leave Ruby Graves behind, when I’d come to her after Hannah was healed. I couldn’t bear the way she’d looked at me, like I could be so much more than who I was. Instead of working to become that man, I’d pushed her away. She’d been hurt. I could see it in her eyes. But she had still looked on me with the gracious love that shone out of her, even back then.

Matthew, I will be fine. God has a wonderful life ahead for me, and a wonderful life ahead for you. There’s no need to dwell on this anymore. You go on and finish college, and build those skyscrapers you dream of. I just hope that one day you come to understand that God wants so much more for you than you could ever dream of for yourself. I do see more than what’s in front of me. I see the man you could be. A man who builds a little home in the woods for a colored woman and her son is a much greater man than the one who builds skyscrapers for the wealthy.

I reckoned it was time for me to be that man. I didn’t have any idea what that meant, but I knew I would find some way to serve others the way Ruby had. With my whole heart and soul. And maybe then I could find some small measure of the peace she’d found.

I turned to Henry and took hold of his hand. “Thank you for…well…for being here. And for the advice. Ruby loved you like crazy. I can see why.”

“Good luck to you,” he said.

I turned to go, but only got a few steps away when Henry called out to me. When I turned around, he was turning his hat over in his hands. “One more thing. Do me a favor, would you? When you get to wherever you’re going, you stay in touch.”

“All right,” I said.

“I mean it. Write me and let me know how to reach you. You know…just in case.”

“In case of what?”

He shrugged. “I…I don’t know. Just, don’t forget. Let me know where you are.”

I said I’d do my best, and waved goodbye. Then I walked across the empty cemetery back toward town. Everything I owned was either on my back or in my pockets. I had barely enough money to catch a train north.

But I had hope, and I was determined to make something out of myself that would make Ruby proud.

Epilogue

Ruby

I coughed. Water spluttered out of my lungs. Something pounded on my back, and I coughed again. “That’s it, honey,” said a low, gruff voice.

Rocks pressed into the side of my face. I heard my name from far away. I fell onto my back, and the sunlight pierced my eyes. A dark figure moved above me, blocking the brightness for a moment. Rough hands felt my neck and pushed up my eyelids. Then the darkness returned.

When I woke again, the first thing I noticed was the earthy aroma of potatoes and onions. I opened my eyes and found myself in a strange bed, in a house I didn’t recognize. I was covered in several quilts in the corner of a small one-room house. A fire blazed across the room from me in the fireplace, and a large pot sat on the stove nearby. Potatoes. My stomach tightened with hunger.

I tried to sit up, but pain shot through my head, making the room sway. Nausea replaced my hunger.
Not another concussion.
I refused to let it get the better of me, so I forced myself up to sitting on the side of the bed. Looking down at my body, I saw a dress I didn’t recognize. Where was I?

The door opened, and a stocky man with a load of wood in his arms came inside. He set the wood by the fireplace and stoked the fire. I couldn’t see his entire face, just a sprinkling of gray in his dark sideburns. When he turned around to see me, his eyebrows shot up. “Well, thank the Lord. I was afraid you was done for.”

“Where am I?” I asked.

“This here’s my home. I’m George. George Harper.”

I gripped my stomach as another wave of nausea hit. “I’m…I’m Ruby. How did I get here?”

“Brought you here myself when I seen you and that boy crash your car into the spring. I was fishing for my dinner.”

“Matthew!” I gasped.

“Oh, he’s all right, far as I could tell anyhow.”

I said a silent prayer thanking God for saving Matthew. “Mr. Harper, how…what happened?”

He scratched his chin. “Well, like I said, I was fishing for my dinner yesterday, minding my own business—” He stopped and pointed at the pot on the stove. “Say, you hungry? Let me fix you something to eat.” He went over to the stove and dipped out some of whatever was in the pot into a small bowl and brought it over to me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Careful now. It’s hot.” He went back to the stove to fill another bowl while I investigated the soup. It was mostly water, with a few potatoes and onion mixed in. “Now, like I was saying,” he continued. “I was minding my own business getting some dinner when your car came hurtling into the spring. I jumped up and hurried over to the shore closest to where the car went down. Then I seen you diving down into the water. A couple of minutes later, I seen this boy floating up to the surface like a dead body or something. He drifted over to the other side of the spring, and a couple of police officers drove up to that side. They pulled him out and started trying to get him to breathe.”

He sat down at a tiny wooden table near the stove and blew on a spoonful of soup, then shoved it into his mouth. I was so hungry, I ignored the burn in my mouth and kept shoveling down spoonfuls without bothering to blow.

“That was when I noticed you floating along toward me. So I waded out into the water and pulled you over to the shore. I thought you was dead. Wasn’t breathing or nothing. I hit you a couple of times on the back. You coughed out some water, garbled something I couldn’t understand, and then passed out.”

He took another couple of spoonfuls before continuing. “I seen those policemen, and I didn’t want no trouble. But I couldn’t just leave you there to die neither. So I carried you off to my home here. Reckon I’ll be paying for that soon.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“There’s a big commotion going on all over the place. People looking for ya, I reckon. Police too. I went back down there this morning. Lotsa interesting stories floating ’round about ya already.”

I took another mouthful, unsure of how to respond. Mr. Harper eyed me with suspicion. “You kill a fella? That why you running?”

I didn’t say anything.

“I know something about that, is all. I won’t tell ’em where ya are if they come looking for ya.”

“Thank you,” I said. I hesitated, wondering just how well I could trust this man. “And I didn’t kill anyone. They just think I did.”

“Innocent, huh? Well, they all say they’re innocent. Maybe ya are; maybe ya ain’t. Don’t matter one way or the other to me.”

He went back to eating, and I finished off my soup. The warmth of the room and my full belly made me sleepy. I figured some rest wouldn’t hurt nothing. Maybe after I got some sleep, I could figure out what to do next. Matthew was probably going crazy.

“Do you mind if I sleep a little longer?” I asked. “I still don’t feel so well.”

“Sure, sure. I won’t disturb ya.”

I curled under the quilts again, and drifted off to sleep. I must have slept clear through the night, ’cause when I awoke again, there was a sliver of dim light coming through the windows, and Mr. Harper was tending to some sizzling bacon on the stove.

I felt even worse than I had the day before. I was soaked through with sweat, and my body ached from the top of my head to my toes. In fact, my head hurt so bad, my vision was blurry. I coughed, and Mr. Harper came to my side. His huge hand rested on my forehead.

“Lordy, girl. You might’ve been saved from drowning, but looks like you caught your death all the same.”

I couldn’t speak. My throat was on fire. I closed my eyes and prayed for relief, finally drifting off again.

The next time I awoke, I heard knocking. Pain shot through my head again when I tried to roll over and get a look at the door. Mr. Harper pushed himself out of a rocking chair near the fire. He went to the front door and cracked it open. “Can I help you?”

From the other side, I could hear a male voice. It sounded familiar. “…young girl went missing two days ago near the spring. ’Bout this tall. Brown hair and eyes. Name’s Ruby.”

Was that Henry? Surely I was dreaming. I moaned and tried to call out to him.

“What was that?” Henry’s voice asked.

Mr. Harper didn’t move. “What’s this Ruby girl to you?”

“She’s my sister. Sir, please, have you seen her?”

I called again.

“Is that…Ruby?” Henry called. Mr. Harper pulled the door open the rest of the way, and a blurry image of Henry rushed over to the bedside. He put a hand on my cheek. “Ruby? Are you all right?”

I tried to tell him I was, but my voice didn’t cooperate. I was so tired. All I could do was close my eyes.

“She’s not doing too well,” I heard Mr. Harper say.

“Can barely feel her heart at all.” Henry said.

“I’m all right,” I squeaked out. But I was still too tired to open my eyes.

“I need to get her to a doctor, but…” Henry’s voice trailed off.

“But you don’t want her going back to jail,” Mr. Harper finished. “Don’t worry. I was a medic in France back during the war. I can care for her as well as any doctor at this point. And I won’t be telling the law where she is.”

I floated away from the voices. Floated away from everything. Prison. The electric chair. Matthew. All of it. All I wanted was sleep.

The End