In the summer of 2001, I went to Dublin for a week. I would be moving on to campus that year at Harvard, and visiting Dublin just seemed like something I needed to get out of the way. I suppose I resented Mom. But then she was thrilled to see me, and Ruby was too, I guess. She tried to convince me to stay in Ireland and go to college there, but Harvard had always been my dream. In her hometown, Mom was comfortable, easier. My parents were in a stalemate. Ruby was mad with Dad for not keeping in touch more. In the beginning he would call every week, but by this time a whole year had passed, and the calls were irregular and infrequent. She felt he didn’t care about her. She told me that she thought she embarrassed him because of what had happened. I reassured her that he missed her and talked about her all the time. It was a white lie to make her feel better because the truth was that we rarely spoke her name.
Mom encouraged Ruby and me to go out and spend time together, and we decided to go to the movies one night. It was easier than talking, I suppose, because it was still awkward between us. As soon as we left the apartment, Ruby took me to a bar. Nobody carded us. I had only had alcohol a few times before at parties. I had three beers while Ruby drank five vodka Cokes and got completely wasted. Afterwards, she wanted us to go to a nightclub. I put my foot down. I wanted to go home. Thisnew Ruby was a stranger to me, composed and adult in some ways but completely wilful and childish in others. The next night she wanted to go to another bar, and I said no. She sulked the whole evening while we watched some videos of old films that Mom loved, anything with Patrick Swayze in it. Ruby opened another bottle of wine for this. Grandma came over for dinner one evening. It was great to see her, and I could tell she had a special bond with Ruby. Mom opened a bottle of wine and Ruby drank most of it. Mom didn’t comment. It seemed like I was the only one that noticed.
I decided to go to Dublin every second year. A week was as much as I could bear. Mom came to visit me in the intervening years, but Ruby never came back to Boston.
Going to Harvard was liberating. Studying English and History meant a whole lot of reading, much more than I’d anticipated, but I was no longer surrounded by echoes of Milo or Ruby. Living on campus wasn’t exactly as comfortable as home, and I learned quickly how to survive using a microwave and TV dinners, but I could go home as often as I wanted. Dad and I still took turns to cook on Sundays after church once a month. Occasionally I would bring my room-mate home too. Carla was Puerto Rican and the first girl in her family’s history to go to college. Her older brothers all worked in construction, and she was the baby of the family. Dad liked her. She played our keyboard and thought our house was awesome. That’s what Milo had said.
One Sunday, I brought Carla home to find that Dad had a guest of his own, Kathy Brown. I could tell that Dad liked Kathy the first time I saw her. She looked exactly like Mom but younger by a decade, and her blonde hair was less natural than Mom’s. If Dad had a type, it seemed, it was a beautiful waif or stray that he could rescue. Kathy was from the Blue Ridge Mountainsof Virginia, like in the song. She had grown up dirt poor and worked as a nursing assistant in Mass General. She came to our church because of the sewing circle, she said. I don’t remember her being there before Mom left. But she stood out. Her clothing was always a little eccentric, patchwork coats and weirdly shaped hats and an awful lot of lace. There was no overlap between Mom and Kathy, Dad was too honourable for that. But when Dad started seeing Kathy outside the church, I knew where it was heading. Dad told me before he told Mom that they were going to be divorced. I was expecting it. It was May 2002. I called Ruby and she said Mom was shocked. Mom did well financially out of the divorce. Though she liked her job as a school secretary, a one-off settlement meant that she never had to work again and I think that softened the blow. She didn’t give up the job – I guess it gave her a purpose. Ruby said she didn’t care. It sounded to me like she cared a whole lot, but wasn’t going to let it show.
In September 2002, I received an anonymous letter hand-delivered to my dorm.
I hope you’re happy now. Milo’s mom, Elaine Kelly, jumped into the Charles River two weeks ago. She took her own life, but I think you took it, Coopers. She could never accept your family’s lies. You should tell your sister, wherever she’s hiding, that she killed Mrs Kelly. She’ll probably kill Milo too, he’s not doing too well in prison, but I guess you don’t care about that. Neither of you spoiled brats care about anyone except yourselves. Burn in hell, Coopers.
It was Margie or maybe Milo’s friend, Ben Roche. It had to be one of them, or maybe someone from Milo’s neighbourhood. Who would write such a letter? I was shocked by the news, though. Poor Mrs Kelly. She loved Milo so much and he had destroyed her. He had thrown her pride in him back in her face. Though he hadn’t even completed his first year in college and had no guarantee of graduating in medicine, she used to say, ‘My Milo, a doctor, can you imagine?’ I had been fond of her. She always made such an effort for church, and I was never invited to their home because Milo said she was ashamed of how small it was, but I didn’t even know if that was true. I called Ruby in Dublin. I wanted her to feel the hurt I felt. She was drunk when she answered her cellphone. She didn’t have much to say about Mrs Kelly, just, ‘That’s terrible, why would she do that?’ I hung up on the call. I knew it wasn’t logical to blame my sister, but I did.
Even though I realized she would be angry, I called Margie at home. ‘Hi, it’s Erin. I’m sorry about your mom,’ I said and, before I’d finished the last word, the phone went dead. Poor Margie was on her own. Milo had destroyed his own family.
The year 2002 was also when the Catholic Church scandal rocked Boston. Priests had sexually abused minors and there was a network of cover-ups. I remembered Milo saying that was why his mom came to Dad’s church, looking for a new start. She knew all about clerical abuse. It was ironic. If only she could have accepted that she had raised a predator.
9
Ruby
At the end of the academic year in May 2005, Professor White called me into his office and told me how disappointed he was. I had screwed up the year’s showcase performance because I was drunk on stage. ‘I thought you had potential, Ruby, and you have one year to prove me wrong. Get some help or I’ll kick you out. We are not putting up with your chaos next year. Pull your socks up.’ I was devastated.
The next thing I knew, Lindsay evicted me.
I landed back at Mom’s apartment. That summer, the others in my year travelled and worked to pay their way around Europe, the US and Canada. I decided to try my luck with the smaller independent theatre companies, but I did not see the need to change my behaviour. I was an instinctive actor. I was fine when we were doing improv scenes, but the weed was interfering with my ability to learn my lines. I got a part in one small profit-share show in a room above a pub, but after the two-week run, they were going on tour around Ireland, and I was fired and replaced. Mom was aware now how much I was drinking and nagged me about it. I was staying out late a few times per week and drank at home, until Mom banned it. She found the stash of empty bottles in my room. I started staying out later. I was relieved when fall came again, and I could go back to Trinity.
In September 2005, six years after the incident, there was agas explosion in Altman High in one of the science labs, killing seven students and a teacher. One of the dead kids was Tasha’s cousin and I should have written to her or called but I did not want to be plunged into the past. It made headlines in Ireland.
I was only barely on the rails by this time, but this sudden exposure to footage of Altman being beamed into my bedroom in Dublin shattered me all over again. Alcohol and then drugs were the only cure. Weed alone wasn’t really doing it for me any more. It wasn’t enough to make me forget, especially when every new person mentioned my accent and I’d have to lie about how I’d come to live in Ireland. Ecstasy made me feel wonderful, speed gave me a buzz, and as my tastes developed I discovered cocaine, which made me feel invincible, but always alcohol first. I don’t think I’d ever have had the courage to take the drugs if I hadn’t been drunk in the first place. I began to hang out with a dealer who was on the fringes of college life and would sell coke to middle-class girls like me. Darren claimed to be a mature student, but I never figured out exactly what he was studying. I knew he liked me, though. In the beginning, I paid for the drugs with sex, but Darren soon demanded money instead. I stole money from Mom and Grandma and then began to sell the things in our flat to pay for my habit. I had a lost weekend on Mom’s engagement ring. She didn’t need it any more. Mom threatened me with the cops, but I knew she’d never do that. She did throw me out, though, back to Grandma’s house. I had stern phone calls from Dad. He was just a voice on the end of a line with a time delay. He meant nothing to me by then. Grandma, tearful, told me she was ashamed of me. Shame was something with which I was deeply familiar. I didn’t bother to tell her we had something in common.
One night, Darren and I were in an upmarket club, snorting speed off the top of the cistern in the gents, when the bouncer caught us and, instead of throwing us out like a normal person,locked us in a room and called the cops, or the guards as the Irish call them. Darren was arrested and I arrived home in a squad car with a warning. Grandma was outraged.
The next day, I was dragged from my bed by Dad. Grandma had bypassed my mom, who she deemed to have no control over me, and Dad had flown in that morning. He repeated the same shit I’d already heard: ‘You’re wasting your life’, ‘You’ll end up on the streets’, ‘Drugs will kill you’, ‘Do you want to go to jail?’, ‘You’re mixing with criminals’. But Dad’s words had an extra edge. It wouldn’t do to have it known back home that the daughter of the Pastor was on drugs. And then there was what he didn’t say. I knew what he was thinking. Here it was again, the past being thrown in my face, like I was to blame.
I yelled at him, ‘I’m sorry that my rape inconvenienced you.’
He looked startled. ‘I’m sorry, Ruby. I failed you. I should never have let that boy into the house.’ His eyes flicked away from me. And there it was, the blame, the guilt and the shame. That was when I should have stopped drinking.
Darren was out on bail. I headed straight to his seedy room above a butcher’s shop. I had helped myself to the contents of Dad’s wallet on my way out and took the money to the bank to have it changed from dollars to euro. Over three hundred. ‘Party time,’ I told Darren, but he wasn’t in the mood to party, with a sentencing hearing hanging over him. He claimed not to have any coke or pills either. He said he’d jettisoned everything down the toilet. I didn’t believe him and began to rummage through the drawers in his bedside table. He pulled me by the hair and yanked me backwards, and I slapped him. Then he punched me in the face. I felt the crack of my nose and blood filled my eyes. In shock, I ran down the stairs and out of the door. An old woman in a car stopped me – ‘Are you okay? Do you need to go to hospital? What happened?’ I told her I’d fallen and lether take me to the hospital. After three hours they had cleaned up my face, but I still had to wait for an X-ray. That was when I should have stopped drinking.
I left the hospital without having the X-ray and went to the nearest pub and drank some of Dad’s money. I ended up in a nightclub where I knew I could score some coke. I had to ingest it rather than snort it because my nose was out of position. That made me mad. I was angry about what had happened and took my anger out on a barmaid who questioned whether I’d had enough and whether I should go see a doctor as the bruising around my eyes was by then violently violet. I called her a nosy useless bitch and demanded a double vodka and Coke. The next thing I knew, I was lifted off my feet, dragged down a flight of stairs and dumped in an alley by two bouncers. That was when I should have stopped drinking.
I don’t recall the rest of that night. I woke up on the floor of a derelict house surrounded by tramps who were shuffling around and burning furniture in the middle of the room to keep warm. Dad’s money had been stolen, or I had spent it. I wasn’t sure which. I walked out into the dawn and realized I was in the north inner city with no recollection of how I had got there or with whom. I walked towards O’Connell Bridge and looked down into the murk of the River Liffey. My parents hated me. I had alienated the only college friends I had. I was probably going to be kicked out. My lovely grandma was ashamed of me. My sister didn’t want to know me. It was allherfault. I didn’t seem to have many options left. Nobody cared about me, not even me. I was worthless. I climbed up on to the river wall and jumped in. Like Milo’s mother.
I woke in a hospital bed with Mom and Dad by my side and felt such overwhelming relief to be alive. For a fleeting moment, it was as if the last six years had not happened. Mom and Dad were together, but before they realized I was awake, I couldhear fierce whispering, Dad saying, ‘How could you let this happen, Maureen?’ and Mom hotly responding, ‘You have no right to criticize me. I told you she was out of control. You never came when I asked you, but when my mam calls you, you come running –’
I zoned out, feigning unconsciousness, and soon, I was.
Apparently, a passing woman on her way to work had jumped in and rescued me, risking her own life. That was when I should have stopped drinking.
Afterwards, I was confronted by both parents. Mom blamed herself. ‘I should have watched you more closely, I should never have let you go and live with Grandma. I’m sorry,’ she snivelled into a tissue. I made it clear that the only place I was going to live was Grandma’s house. Grandma loved me unconditionally.
Dad suggested a spell in rehab. ‘Your mother hasn’t been there for you in the way that she should have,’ dared say the man who I had seen once or twice per year since I came to this country. I agreed to rehab so that he would think he had done his duty and could fly off back to Boston feeling like the big man who had saved his daughter’s life.
I went back to Grandma’s. I could see that she was worried. Expecting her to take responsibility for me when I wasn’t even taking responsibility for myself was too much to ask. At least she wasn’t playing the blame game. ‘Tell me what I can do to help you, Ruby. You can’t live like this and I’m not going to let you die.’
