Southern Ruby Read Online Free PDF Page A

so as not to smudge the ink on the letter. He’d been responsible and a moderate drinker? How on earth then could he have driven a car with his wife and young daughter in it as drunk as a skunk, as Nan had always told me?

    . . . I fell in love with Dale’s family as quickly as I did with him. They’re posh and live in the Garden District. His father passed away in January and is badly missed. Dale’s sister, Louise, is warm and welcoming to me and she ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ as if everything that Dale and I do is wildly exciting. Her husband, Johnny, is charming. He’s a lawyer, but looks way too hip to be one in his denim jumpsuit and alligator boots. Then there’s Dale’s mother, Ruby. She is the most amazing character of all. A French Creole by birth, she apparently caused quite a stir when she married into an American family. Whatever the time of day or the occasion, she is exquisitely dressed. Dale says she was a ‘Heroine of the Civil Rights Movement’ and showed me the award she was given last year by the city in remembrance of that. Despite her refined appearance, she has a kind of mystique about her and I can’t help thinking she’s keeping a secret.
    My scalp prickled. It had never occurred to me that my father might have a family apart from my mother and me. Perhaps it was because there had only been Nan and me here in Sydney so it was difficult to picture anything other than a contained family unit. I’d assumed that with the death of my parents all ties to New Orleans had been severed — but I wasn’t all alone in the world after all. There were still people related to me: another grandmother, and an aunt and uncle. The idea of it baffled me. It was as if everything I’d believed about myself was now being challenged.
    I continued to read my mother’s letters through the night, falling in love with this delightful, cheeky and adventurous young woman and the city she described. The announcement of her marriage startled me as it must have startled Nan:

    I don’t know how to begin this letter — so I’ll jump right in. Dale and I got married yesterday. Louise and Johnny were our witnesses. You’ll like Dale, Mum. It’s impossible not to like him. He’s exactly the kind of man you would want me to marry: responsible and kind.
    Again that word ‘responsible’. I picked up another letter and discovered the news of my birth:

    Dear Mum,
    You’re a grandmother!!
    Amandine came into the world three days ago, on 12 April. In rather a rush, I might add — she didn’t even give us time to get to the hospital.
    Everybody here is beside themselves with joy and they want you to come over as soon as possible! Dale is the proudest father you could imagine! He positively glows every time he picks up Amandine . . .
    When I read the name my parents had given me — Amandine — a deep sense of loss washed over me. It was a name for another city and another time that was lost to me forever. I hadn’t been aware that Nan had anglicised my name to Amanda until we applied for passports for our planned trip to Europe and I saw my real name on my birth certificate. I reread the sentence, ‘He positively glows every time he picks up Amandine’ several times, as if I could somehow conjure up an image of my mysterious father.
    There were no copies of the replies from Nan, but clearly she hadn’t been pleased by my mother’s hasty marriage and was angry that she had decided to make New Orleans her home.

    I know you think I’m selfish, Mum, but I never intended to hurt you. A big lavish wedding with all the trimmings was never what I wanted. I had no idea when I left Sydney that it would be for good. Please come and visit us here. I’ve talked non-stop about you and everyone wants to meet you. You would like the Lalande family too, they are old-fashioned and elegant and the house is