The Book of Ruth Read Online Free PDF Page A

mention proof: she had photos of Aunt Marion’s living room that showed where the valuable antiques were located. May said nothing. She averted her eyes from the salt water taffy box, and the basket full of extra-fancy red delicious apples. She mumbled something about requiring charity from no one, and left the room.
    I was alone with Aunt Sid. She took a present from her bag and handed it to me. I didn’t care about the gift. I wanted nothing but blond hair exactly like hers, sweeping back over her head into a long bun held together with tortoise-shell hairpins. She had brown eyes and lips that were a color I never saw on anyone but Aunt Sid. I had to stare at her mouth, at her moist lips, continuously. Finally she showed me the tube of lipstick in her purse; it said “Coral” on it. She stretched out her hand for me to come closer. I never forgot how her lips parted and she cocked her head and smiled without fear. Although I looked like May, Sid seemed sure I wouldn’t tear her nylons with my fingernails or sink my teeth into her thigh. I took her hand and went to her side, without one thought in my head. I couldn’t hear what she was saying into my ear because my heart was singing like a frog—a frog calling to her partner down in the marsh, singing through layers of mud. I hung on to her skirt until she left. I watched her drive away. I watched her even after her car disappeared into a cloud of dust and exhaust.
    The present was a music box that was intended for jewels. It played “Oh, How Lovely Is the Evening.” After Sid was gone May came back into the living room. Her face was puffy. I knew she never cried so I figured she must have gotten stung by several hornets.
    “What’s that box?” she asked.
    “Nothin’,” I said, trying to hide it under my dress.
    “Give it here,” she said, grabbing it from my arms.
    She turned it over in her hands, lifted the lid, and heard the song. She bent down and stared at the metal pegs striking the keys for several minutes, completely absorbed by the machinery.
    “It’s mine,” I said in a voice hoarse from the frogs chanting in my chest cavity.
    She laid it on the table without saying a word and went to stare out the window. It seems to me that later in the day she smacked me out of the blue. She must have felt that she bungled her chance to make peace with her sister and she was so mad at herself she came at me with her zinging hand. I learned the lesson about justice fairly early on: if the rulers of the kingdom aren’t fairminded, then there simply isn’t any such thing as fairness or just deserts. I’m not going to tell you how many times in the following weeks I set out for De Kalb, where Aunt Sid lived, before my stomach led me back to the hearth fires. I won’t tell you about my dreams starring Aunt Sid, who adopts me, and I happen to look exactly like Shirley Temple.
     
    In the third grade I actually started to know Aunt Sid. We were supposed to write to a pen pal. All the girls in my class picked their best friend, who sat across the aisle from them. I didn’t understand the logic of writing someone within reach, so I chose Aunt Sid, who lived forty miles away. We were to write one letter a week to practice our penmanship. We were to ask our parents for stamps, if we wanted to write someone beyond the classroom. I took stamps from Elmer’s table, where he paid the bills. I could not believe the miracle of the U.S. postal system: Aunt Sid wrote me back each time, and since it was my task to bring the mail up from the box at the road after school, May never knew of our regular communications.
    At first Aunt Sid told me about her childhood, and she wondered if it was still the same there in Honey Creek. She guessed it probably was. She said if she remembered hard enough she would know how it was to be me. She hadn’t lived in Honey Creek since she was eighteen, at which time she figured out what was good for her and made a beeline to the teacher’s