Ruthie

When the ambulance pulls away with her mother tucked inside, Ruthie blinks in sync with its flashing lights. Her eyes widen as her pupils curl up in little balls. She isn’t supposed to be home alone. It’s two o’clock, and at two o’clock, she and Mama watch General Hospital and drink chocolate Yoo-hoos with calcium and vitamin D in little boxes with bendable straws. “It’s two o’clock,” Ruthie says aloud as the sirens fade away, and she stands barefoot on the evergreen grass in front of her mother’s maintenance-free home.

Ruthie knew how to give the EMTs the Ziplock bag with the insurance information that Mama keeps in the cookie jar that never has cookies, just as she knew how to call 911 when Mama fell down and couldn’t get up like the lady on the TV commercial. She wondered why the ambulance came with a firetruck when there was no fire. There was just Mama on the floor with the tuna fish sandwich that she didn’t finish for lunch. Ruthie knew better than to interrupt the firemen and EMTs with what Mama calls her nonsense, so she just answered their few questions with “yes” or “I don’t know.” Then, the firemen left, and the EMTs took the Ziplock bag and jumped in the ambulance with Mama inside.

“We’re taking her to the hospital. You can meet us there,” one of them shouted, but Ruthie didn’t yell back, “I can’t drive.” She is thirty-one and a half, but Mama still won’t let her because she and the DMV have rules. Mama also won’t let her go anywhere in the Hello Kitty pajamas she’s wearing under the housecoat stretched tightly over her slightly sagging breasts.

Ruthie is still standing and blinking in her small front yard two hours later when the girl next door comes home from high school. “That is Anna,” Ruthie says to herself. “She looks like Dolly, my special doll that I lost that isn’t in the lost-and-found at the YMCA down the street. Mama says don’t go there and pester them every day because Dolly isn’t in the blue plastic bin behind the front desk with the lady that pretends to be nice.”

Anna waves and says, “Hi, Ruthie.” Ruthie stares at her and blinks, muttering, “Anna’s backpack is pink, but it used to be pinker. Her sneakers are new because they are very, very white. I like the flowers on her dress.” She wants to tell Anna about the ambulance with flashing lights, but it’s after school, and Anna has homework, and Mama always says to leave her alone.

Three days later, Ruthie is still in her Hello Kitty pajamas, and Mama still isn’t home. She decides to put on her exercise clothes and walk to the YMCA where she can go if she comes straight back and doesn’t bother anyone. When she gets there, the lady who pretends to be nice isn’t behind the front desk. Ruthie sneaks a peek into the lost-and-found and finds a Pokémon ball, a dirty pacifier, and a Nike sock turned inside out. There is no Dolly. There is no Mama.

Back at home, all of the Yoo-hoos with calcium and vitamin D in little boxes with bendable straws are gone. Ruthie isn’t allowed to use the stove, so when she’s hungry, she eats the Corn Flakes in the big box from Costco and spoons of crunchy peanut butter from the jar. She isn’t allowed to touch the remote, so she can’t find out if Franco on General Hospital still has a brain tumor. She also isn’t allowed to go out past dark or disturb the neighbors, but she doesn’t have anything to watch, and there are no more Yoo-hoos with calcium and vitamin D in little boxes with bendable straws, and she is so worried about Franco, and Mama is still gone. She wonders if Anna and her mother watch their TV next door.

It isn’t a wet night, but Ruthie wears Mama’s dark hooded raincoat over her exercise clothes to sneak into their yard. The light is on in their big front window, which is just like the big front window at Mama’s house. She slips between the brick of their house and its shadowy hedge. The blinds are mostly closed, but she can see through the slats that they have a TV in their big front room, too. It’s off, but Anna is there with her mother, who has blonde hair that used to be brown like Anna’s. Anna has long, straight hair like Dolly, the doll she lost that isn’t in the blue plastic bin at the YMCA. The mother is nice like Anna and waves whenever Ruthie is standing and blinking in her yard. Ruthie sees the father in the window, too. He also waves when she is standing and blinking in her yard, but she squeezes her eyes tight at him because Mama says fathers leave when things aren’t perfect, so Ruthie makes him disappear.

Ruthie goes unnoticed watching the family inside. They are playing dress-up like dolls and laughing and taking pictures with Anna’s cell phone. Ruthie isn’t allowed to have a working cell phone but can play with Mama’s old one with the black screen and no pictures of families laughing and playing dress-up like in the big front window of Anna’s house. The mother is wearing a long, shiny wedding gown. It is white but not as white as Anna’s very, very new sneakers and has puffy sleeves and dangling beads that Ruthie wants to eat like candy. She isn’t allowed to have candy, but sometimes Anna puts a secret pack of Skittles in her mailbox and winks while Ruthie is standing and blinking in her yard. The father, who hasn’t left because things must be perfect, is dressed up in a black suit and bow tie. He stands by the mother, who is wearing the shiny, white gown with the beads that aren’t candy, and Anna is laughing and taking more pictures with her cell phone. The mother leaves the room with the big front window, and Anna follows. When they return, Anna is wearing the shiny, white gown. She makes silly and serious faces at her cell phone camera. The serious faces make her look like Franco’s wife, who gets upset a lot on General Hospital. That makes Ruthie lie down in the dark mulch below the big front window to hug her knees and worry about Franco’s tumor and if Mama is still gone.

MICHELE ALOUF lives in Richmond, Virginia and is a master’s degree candidate in creative writing at Harvard Extension School. She is a founder of the new writers’ collective, Story Street Writers. Her stories are forthcoming or have appeared in Drunk Monkeys, the Wordrunner e-Chapbook Fiction Anthology–Salvaged, Grim & Gilded, and Sad Girl Diaries. Michele previously taught children with special needs and owned a yoga business.

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