Sublime Messages

Nine, A

Daddy wasn't messing around. First thing he did when Ruby followed him out of the motel room and toward his truck was slap her across the face, and before she could fight back, he confused her by saying he was so proud of her and wanted her to come stay with him. With an inexplicable impression that she'd narrowly avoided some catastrophic, dismal future, the girl hadn't felt much like arguing anymore. She obliged her father and got up into the passenger side without so much as a word, even while her cheek stung prickles, and she paid only mild attention when he returned to the motel room, came back out with that hideous harlequin painting, and threw it into the bed of his truck before getting into the driver's seat.

Ruby kept quiet as they drove into town. She had no idea where her daddy stayed when he wasn't with them (and he was so seldom with them). She figured the drive could be quite far, as far as Mexico or Canada or even somewhere on the East Coast. He traveled, was all her mother ever said. So when they meandered through Lone Rock only to end up in the one nice neighborhood (where all the preppy school girls with their new shoes and brushed hair lived) and pulled up into the drive of a large cookie-cutter-designed house, Ruby was absolutely astounded. Surely the place belonged to someone Daddy knew, someone he worked for. But no. He didn't go around to a side or back door; he didn't ring a bell or even knock. He himself pulled a key from his pocket and opened the front door.

Amazed, the girl followed her father into the pristine home. It was far nicer than any house she'd ever been in—not a mansion by any stretch and yet proper size for a family of four or five, filled with well-kept modern furniture (not like the bits and pieces her mother had picked up off curbs and gleaned from dead neighbors over the years) and decor that served no other purpose than to add aesthetic pleasure. Ruby had always known such homes existed; she'd seen them on television. To actually be inside one, though, and one in which her father seemed fully comfortable, flipping switches and walking through rooms as if he owned the place . . . well, it was something out of a dream.

Also dream-like was the sheer reality of being with her father. In her entire life, Ruby had never spent more than a few hours in the man's presence, and even when she had been around him, she'd found herself typically tongue-tied. They'd never seemed to have much in common, her father being interested either in fucking her mother or in drinking before leaving.

"There. Wash up. You need it. And I got some clothes for you somewhere around here."

Daddy had directed Ruby to a bathroom, where there was a shower with glass so clean she could see right through it and towels as white as snow. She even noticed (when she lifted the lid after her father shut the door) that the toilet was clean enough to eat out of. She'd never seen such shiny porcelain. Every step she took into the space, she felt as if she were dirtying it.

So she did as her father had asked and took a hot shower. When she'd finished, the girl wrapped herself in one of the fluffy towels and stepped cautiously out of the bathroom to find on the floor some neatly folded clothing, a cream-colored skirt and a thick cream-colored sweater. She was somewhat disconcerted by the heaviness of the material, the monochromism, the fact that it was a few sizes too large, but she didn't want to disappoint her father. The whole situation was so odd, and she had no real notion of other options at the moment.

"Come on, girl," Daddy called from somewhere deeper within the house, startling his daughter. Ruby, wondering whether the man had some kind of magical eyes, hurried back into the bathroom to dress herself.

When she was done, she wandered until she found herself in the kitchen. The tiled floors and beautifully marbled counters lined with unknown appliances hurt something within Ruby; she didn't know exactly what she felt or why she felt it, only that this whole place caused a dull ache deep inside her stomach. Her father was standing against the kitchen island, drinking a mug of what smelled like coffee.