The Book of Ruth: Eating Out

I woke up.

I woke from a year-long daze of denial, of despair, of lethargy. I was a fucking business executive and I fucking well knew how to approach problems! I switched into thinking-machine mode. And I grabbed the cordless phone.

The RN-PhD in clinical nursing arrived with her small team in twenty-five minutes. They monitored Ruth while the home crew who landed three minutes later schlepped stuff out of and into the downstairs guest room to prepare it as a mini-medical facility. The medical supply crew was ten minutes late but they brought all the gear the RN and I ordered. The home hospice team did not need to rush; their task was to keep Ruth comfortable. And Jocelyn would arrive this evening. We had the bases covered till then.

The RN-PhD was happy to hand Ruth's case management over to Jocelyn that night. The rest of the nursing team was not needed. Jocelyn said the hospice people knew their stuff and would be quite enough.

Good thing we had a big house; we needed all the rooms, some for the full-time help, and most for quickly-arriving family. Jocelyn left her lover and their (my!) kid in Omaha. Ruth's sister Rachel and their mom Deborah, and my mom Nina, all left their (my!) kids and their husbands home. Deb and Rachel were happy to share the black Fuck Room. Lupe came with her (my!) infant son Raul. She was tickled to get the Red Room; I hope the kid does not grow up to be a vampire. Juanita, almost a surrogate mother to teenage Ruth, also left her (my!) kid and her husband home to come and help.

About the only of our close circle who did not arrive were my sister Jill and her lover (and their (my!) kids) -- my door was closed to those women. And to Dave, the shit.

Am I hypocritical? I have never shown remorse for fucking married women who approached me. Should I hate Dave for being the same? Well, yes -- screwing MY wife is not the same as screwing someone else's wife, right? I try to convince myself of that. I may have a hard time looking at myself in the mirror. Oh well.

-----

Do you think estrogen levels and tensions ran high around here? With all these women I had impregnated caring for the one I could not?

It was easier than that. Nina ran the house. She knew the most about these tangled webs and she could keep things straight. Deb ran the kitchen; who knew she had a degree in restaurant management? Jocelyn ran medicine and hospice, of course, and remained Ruth's constant counselor. Juanita, Rachel, and Lupe handled whatever tasks were handed to them. I just stayed out of the way of busy women.

Which meant I spent every waking and sleeping minute with Ruth.

Ruth deteriorated rapidly, visibly. A morphine drip controlled her pain. Nothing restored her body mass. Watching Raul play his baby games with Lupe lifted her spirits. Nothing lifted mine.

Ruth made peace with her mother and sister, competitors no more, family once again, forever and ever. Jocelyn and I were closest to her in life and love now; we were inseparable these last few terrible weeks and days, our cots just across from her powered bed.

Only the three of us were in the room just before midnight. Ruth could barely speak now. Jocelyn held the Gatorade flex-straw to Ruth's lips to moisten her mouth and throat. Ruth waved her away.

"Ran," she croaked, "I have to tell you now..."

"No you don't. You don't have to do anything."

"Shut up, Stinky. Yes I do. I have to tell you..." (cough) "I have to tell you why I left. It wasn't you. I've just..." (cough) "I've been broken all my life. I've always been nothing, nothing. And you were always something. You were..." (cough) "something I couldn't have. And then I had you! But..." (cough) "but only because Katia was killed. I couldn't get you on my own. And you had all those women..." (cough) "all those women with your kids, and so many of them are here right now, even your mom, everyone except your sister and..." (cough)

"What!" I said too loud. "What makes you think-"

"Shut up, Stinky. Of course I know. So does Joss..." (cough)

Jocelyn nodded. "We've talked a lot, Ran. We figured it out."

"I forgive you, Stinky. But I could never..." (cough) "never forgive myself for not giving you kids. And then I found I never could, and..." (cough) "and that was just too much, too fucking much. And I freaked."

Ruth waved to Jocelyn for another sip, and another.

"Yeah, I'd been screwing Dave for a while. He was just so strong..." (cough) "so strong and supportive in ways you weren't. And you screwed everything that moved so why can't I? That's..." (cough) "that's what I told myself. And maybe I thought he could knock me up if you couldn't. Pretty sick, huh?"

Ruth closed her eyes. Her breathing was ragged. The heart monitor beeped irregularly. Ruth whispered again after a minute with her eyes still shut.

"Ever since we got married, Stinky, the only other guy I ever touched was Dave." (cough) "Dave, and that asshole who raped me. And maybe then I thought you weren't strong enough and Dave was. So I just trapped myself."

She opened her eyes and stared at me.

"And now it doesn't matter, does it? I've run..." (cough) "run out of time, whatever time I had, which was never much because I've been broken since..." (cough) "since forever. I forgive you, Stinky, and I forgive myself. I just hope you can forgive me..."

Her eyes closed again. Her breathing ceased. The heart monitor screamed. Jocelyn jumped to grab a syringe, then stopped. She looked at me and switched off the monitor. The hall clock chimed midnight.

"I forgive you, Ruth," I whispered.

I took what was left of Ruth into my arms and I cried till I died.

-----

Robert Heinlein wrote that there is only one way to console a widow. Seems like everybody in the house thought I needed consolation. Maybe I did. But I did not get fucked, only held nakedly.

Jocelyn hit me with a sedative and hauled me to bed as soon as she could get me to let go of Ruth's husk. She snuggled me down. I woke with Joss in front and Lupe spooned behind me. Joss sedated me again (apparently I had been hysterical) and I woke sandwiched between the mother-and-daughter flesh of Deb and Rachel. I crawled off to piss and crawled back in to sleep. When I woke next I was in another naked mother-and-daughter sandwich -- Nina and Jill! I really did get hysterical then. More sedation; the next thing I knew, I had Joss in front and Juanita at my back.

I calmed down a bit then -- or maybe it was all the meds -- but I was hyper-pissed that goddamn fucking JILL! was in MY house. I started to rant.

"Who the fuck invited this-"

"Shut up, Stinky," my mom (I mean Nina) said. That shut me up.

I glared at the women, my mother, my sister, my lovers, my goddesses.

"Get real, little brother," Jill said. "Face reality for a change."

Only we three were in Ruth's office. The door was closed. This was a private family-only conference.

"What do you-"

Nina slapped my face. "I said shut UP!. Now, you WILL to listen, son. Go ahead."

Jill took a breath.

"Here's the reality. You're destroyed emotionally. You'll recover. You think you're destroyed personally. You'll recover. But only with our help. Just like you're only here because of us. Sure, Nina birthed you, and me. But who made you? Who taught you? You think you're a business guy -- who set you up? Who made you rich? Who introduced you to the Shapiro babes? You've got, what? Four, FOUR kids with Deb and Rachel."

"Four?" I asked. "I only know of three-"

"Shut up. Rachel had another. And you've got another four with Nina and Gabby and me -- oh yeah, Gabby had twins too -- and then one with cousin Jocelyn. You got Juanita's on your own but that was just luck 'cause of Katia, and you got Lupe's on your own but that's just blowback from Dave being an asshole poiitician, pardon my redundancy. Maybe you made some babies elsewhere around the world but they don't count here.

"Anyway, you're set for money. Ruth changed her will to counter the pre-nup so you inherit everything of hers, all the art and the Fairfax estate, and that's besides what I gave you when you left our company. You're loaded.

"But who has your back? Do you think Rachel, Deb, Juanita, Lupe, would bail you out of anything? Rachel and Juanita's rich and powerful husbands could and would do you a world of hurt if they suspected they're raising kids you fathered. Joss is all for you but she can't, and won't, do more than she's done here. She has her own life.

"You'd better face it, kid. We, Nina and me, are all you have. We are your lifelong best friends and the only ones who really give a shit."

I was still rubbing the cheek where Nina slapped me. Jill slapped my other cheek. Hard.

"Wake up, shit-for-brains. If we didn't love you, and feed you, and teach you, and cover for you, you would have gone to shit long ago. You can still go to shit. Just turn your backs on us and see where you end up."

I flinched when Jill moved for me again but she grabbed my ears, pulled my face to hers, and stuck her tongue down my throat, the fiercest kiss I ever got from her. The kiss lasted, what? Three minutes? Five?

When she pushed me away I saw her face was wracked with tears.

"That's all I have to say. I'll fly back to Washington now. Mom, see if you can beat some sense into this moron, or fuck some sense into him, whatever. I've done all I can. 'Bye, Stinky. Have a fat life."

Jill ran out of the room.

I sat in stunned silence. Nina looked at her wristwatch.

"Deb should have dinner organized in ten minutes. Eat if you're hungry."

My mother left the room.

-----

Ruth's funeral was almost a mirror of our marriage just six years before but without all the helicopters and security thugs. Dr Fernandez had retired from the Federal Reserve; nobody was that important anymore and the headlines had faded. [See the previous episode for details.] Services at Beth Shalom, burial in Forest Lawn -- hey, it was in her will.

I still prefer ethnic art to modernism; I donated Ruth's collection to LACMA with stipulations Jill negotiated giving a nice long-term tax break. I would have sold the estate but Jill persuaded me to keep it -- a good place to do business from, she insisted, so close to the La Brea Tar Pits. She wanted to sell the Santa Monica family home but I like the air there.

I still do not know what to do next. I have not reconciled with Jill and Gabby but at least we can talk. I have not intruded on the other mothers of my children -- none of whom can be seen publicly as mine except Lupe's and Gabby's, and they do not want support and certainly not interference. I stay in Portland for now, a safe distance from the Southern California madhouse.

I am thirty-five years old and very physically fit. I have a ton of money. I have no great ambitions. Don't you wish you had my problems?

I note with irony that when Ruth was 'gone' in Mexico I was near-clinically depressed but now that she is truly gone I am more stable. Maybe I should spend some money on psychoanalysis. My head could use a good shrinking.

But about my ambitions. The goals I grew up with were pretty simple, only love, decency, money, and knowledge. Decency involves being kind and working hard. Money... well, I have that now. Knowledge is its own reward.

That leaves love. Will my love for Ruth's ghost stop me from finding more?

No, I think not. I think more empty sex is just what I need. I may need to kiss a bunch of frogs before I find another princess. And if a lot of those frogs happen to be married, then so be it. Yes, I am on the hunt again.

So long, Ruth, it's been good to know you. Rest in peace, finally.

*****

Author's note: This story by Hypoxia is copyright (c) 2015 and I'm glad it's finally done. Damn, the tale sure has grown! Some of this story cycle is straight reporting. Many of the people and events are actual. Many are fantasy, too. Don't believe everything you read. Your constructive feedback is appreciated. If you like this, join the 1% and VOTE! Thank you.