Southern Ruby Read Online Free PDF

beautiful . . .
    My mother’s desire to make amends with Nan was palpable. I cringed at her attempts at appeasement:

    I’m enclosing a gold bracelet for you, Mum. I hope you’ll like it!
    And:

    Here is a picture of me and Amandine during Halloween. Everything fascinated her — all the ghouls, witches and ghosts. They go all out here — real skeletons and full on costumes. I’ve also enclosed a picture of her in her high-chair eating her grits. She’s a true New Orleans baby.
    I knew exactly what she was feeling. Nan was a good woman who would do anything for the people she loved. But if you displeased her, she could shut down on you in a way that made your blood turn cold. It took her a long time to forget a grudge. I didn’t like to think anything but good about Nan, especially now she was gone. But I had to admit the truth, and the evidence was there in my mother’s letters.
    The last line in the final letter brought tears to my eyes again:

    Please write to me, Mum. You can’t stay mad about this forever!
    I glanced at the date: 3 September 1982. One month before my parents died. Perhaps much of Nan’s grief had been that she and my mother never reconciled before the accident.
    â€˜Oh, Nan!’ I cried out. ‘Why?’
    I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a long time. The journey to the past was exhausting. Finally, I summoned the strength to gather my mother’s letters into a pile and retied the ribbon around them. I was about to return them to the box when I noticed another letter inside. I was sure it hadn’t been there when I’d looked in the box when I was fifteen because I would have remembered it.
    The envelope was cream cotton fibre and had been closed with a wax seal. The writing wasn’t my mother’s loopy cursive,but graceful calligraphy. I examined the postmark and saw that it was dated March 2001. The letter didn’t smell musty like the others, but gave off a hint of jasmine and patchouli when I opened it.

    Dear Cynthia,
    This may be the last letter I ever write to you. I have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and will undergo electric shock treatment for it next month. Nobody knows how long I have got. I may last for years yet, or I might be gone tomorrow from a stroke or heart attack. The date for my surgery is the same as sweet Amandine’s twenty-first birthday, April 12. Do you expect that I could have forgotten her? I think of her every day, and am sure my grief at not seeing her grow up is what is slowly killing me, not the irregular heartbeat that the doctors have diagnosed. It is as if you took my soul along with her to Australia.
    I am sorry we fought over her. That was a dreadful mistake that has cost me dearly. But we were younger women then, foolish and selfish. We should have come to some better compromise than to involve lawyers and diplomats. Have the years and the ebbs and flows of life not brought you to feel any pity for me? Just as Amandine is your last contact with Paula, she is my last with my beloved Dale. Yet you have denied me not only all contact with her but any news of the young person she is becoming. As a mother yourself, you must understand the meaning of this?
    You have a right to your anger, but by holding on to it you have also deprived Amandine of a large part of herself. She has a family here too: people who love her and miss her and always will. She also has a significant property that will come into her possession when I pass away. This property is of great sentimental value to our family and I ask one more time that you will allow her to come here so I might show it to her myself and explain its history.
    To get what you want is a responsibility: I have learned that in life. You won, Cynthia. Why then are you still afraid of me? What could I possibly do to harm you . . . or Amandine?
    Yours truly,
    Ruby (Vivienne Lalande)
    I was stunned. All the excuses and