Mothers and Other Liars by Amy Bourret Page A

off for his night’s adventures. And still she can’t bear to go inside.

THIRTY-NINE
    Under the Calvin la-di-da bedding is a sanctuary. As if she were immersed in water, Ruby hears only her own breath and the occasional deep sigh from Clyde, sees only the shifting light across the plum-and-lilac splashes of the bedding. She breathes in, inhaling her daughter in every breath; she breathes out, Lark wafting across her face like bubbles in the water. Breathe in, breathe out, in, out. This is all Ruby can do, wants to do. In her plum-and-lilac water cave, she doesn’t have to think, doesn’t have to feel anything but the phone receiver she clutches in her hand.
    She ignores the knock at the door, pulls the covers over her head; Lark’s covers. She has lain in this bed for three nights and days now, the sweet smells of her daughter growing fainter and fainter until now Ruby relies on memory more than nose, imagining her long body filling, spilling over, a Lark-sized dent in the mattress. She has vague memories of Chaz spooning against her, of voices—the Ms and Antoinette—swirling through the room. Mostly she just tries to remember that scent.
    The whole time, Clyde has been beside her, head tucked between his front paws as if he were trying to blindfold himself to the fact of Lark’s absence. But even a blind dog would know Lark was gone; her absence is as palpable as Braille. “I know, boy,” Ruby whispers.
    She groans at the tug of the sheets. “No.”
    “Get up,” Margaret says. “Shower. Eat.”
    Then Molly’s voice. “Come on, Clyde. You, too.”
    Ruby allows Margaret to roll her off the bed, march her toward the bathroom. She winces at the screech of the shower faucet, more noise than she can stand. The scent of Lark’s kiwi shampoo that swirls in the steam wrenches her muscles as if wringing fluid from sodden cloth.
    The hot water pelts her skin, each slender needle a stab to her senses. Rivers gush from the showerhead through her tangle of hair. Streams separate into rivulets that weave down her breasts, over her stomach. Just in the past week it seems, the life within her has decided to make a statement, the discreet bump morphing into a flashy bulge, as if the fetus were shouting, “Remember me?”
    Little creeks run down the hill of her belly, her legs. When they reach the tub floor, the creeks merge back into rivers, converge in a swirl over the drain. And Ruby remembers.
    The enormity of her situation weighs as heavily on her gut as her newly expanded belly weighs on her bladder. Lark is gone, but another life is depending on her. How will she support this other daughter from jail? Who will care for her? She doesn’t know how much, even if, she can count on Chaz. Willing her torpor to wash down her body, into the eddy of the drain, she steps from the shower.
    The sounds of Margaret’s kitchen clatters accompany her as she towels off, and this time the noise hurts less. When she swipes the fog from the mirror, the gaunt face, the football player’s black stripes beneath her dull eyes shock her into an understanding. This, she thinks, is how Lark’s other mother must have felt in those days after her child disappeared with her car.
    Shrouded in the weighty hotel robe Chaz gave her for her birthday, she walks into the kitchen. The window above the sink looks bereft; Margaret has put Lark’s avocado pit and the herb pots in the sink to soak away Ruby’s neglect. The table looks cheerier. A handful of wildflowers dance in the blue cream pitcher; Mrs. Levy’s good china glimmers on top of a much-washed twill place mat. The golden halves of a grilled cheese sandwich are parentheses around a bowl of creamy tomato soup; a tall glass of milk sweats beside the plate. Comfort food, and Ruby is ready, finally, to take comfort, in food and in the sliver of family that remains.
    As Ruby sits, Molly returns with Clyde. His walk has not done him the good of her shower. He plods across the floor from the back