Nery Legacy (2): Playing Favorites

    The day had been pleasant. The weather was growing warmer, and Ruby enjoyed working outside. The garden was her baby, and it saddened her that her husband, Ben, wound up doing most of the work that she wasn’t able to do because she was inside home schooling their daughters. He’d talked to her about him taking over their older daughter’s education, but she’d asked him to give her one more chance. She had no idea how Charlotte felt about them being indoors together all the time, but if she had, she would have put it out of her mind, anyway. Ben was right; they had to act more like a mother and daughter than like sisters who were constantly sniping at one another. Separating themselves from one another wasn’t going to resolve their differences. This was something that they were going to have to work through, and Ruby wasn’t going to learn patience if she didn’t practice it.

    Because today was Saturday, however, Charlie was out with her father doing the chores that she had been assigned as punishment after the last big fight on Thursday. It was also a way, she hoped, to stop Charlie from continually asking about why she couldn’t see her boyfriend, Greg. The punishment, therefore, served a double-purpose of reminding Charlie to watch her language and the way that she spoke to her parents while also separating her, however temporarily, from a boy that both parents felt was bad for her. Besides, Ruby was pretty sure that Charlie would be exhausted by the time that she was done making up for the chores that she hadn’t done during the week. She’d found three more assigned duties that hadn’t been done, but this time hadn’t passed the information on to Ben, since it was apparent that they’d been left before Charlie had been punished for not putting the horses away on the night of the last big storm.

    Supper had been cleared away, and Rissa was in the living room, curled up on the couch with one of the Harry Potter books. Ruby wasn’t sure about Charlie, who seemed to have gone upstairs to shower and then retreated to her own room. Ruby stood in the kitchen, finishing off the dishes, when her husband came in through the back door. She went to the laundry room door and watched as he pulled his boots off. “I’m thinkin’ about orderin’ some more chicks,” Ben said. “Maybe get us some roosters. Work on sellin’ more of them. Or the eggs. Get a better production goin’ so that we can make more money.” There was a brief hesitation, and then he said, “I heard from Raph this afternoon.”

    Ruby cocked an eyebrow. She didn’t approve of her husband paying the child support to Raphael’s ex wife that he wasn’t paying himself, and it was a point that they argued frequently. Ben hadn’t talked to Raphael in two years, and as far as Ruby was concerned, there was good reason for it. She hated that ex-wife of her brother-in-law’s, but she also didn’t like the things that Raph had done himself. She swore that if Ben ever cheated on her like his younger brother had done with his wife, she’d castrate him right then and there, without hesitation or thought. 

    “So you talked to Raphael....”

    “Yeah. He was sayin’ somethin’ about how he got a call from Maia, askin’ him if she could come an’ live with him. Said he thought she was a bit young to make that decision on her own, an’ that he was gonna talk to Mal an’ find out what can be done about her age an’ whether or not the courts will listen to him. He’s talkin’ to Mandy too. She’s cooperatin’, which has him real nervous. He thinks she’s up to somethin’, but he’s gonna try to get Maia livin’ with him.”

    Malcolm was their other brother (along with Seth) and he was a good divorce lawyer. Ruby had no doubt that if Raph needed help, he’d get that help from Mal, but it still worried her, thinking about what they were proposing. She didn’t much care for either of the two brothers who had just been mentioned, but she still cared about their well-being, and more than that, about Maia. “Who gets to pay the child support then?” Ruby cocked an eyebrow.

    Ben shrugged his shoulders. “I imagine Mandy would be payin’ the child support then, or that Raph would be supporting his daughter.”

    But Ben wasn’t meeting her eyes, and Ruby took a step forward toward her husband, forcing herself into his space. He cleared his throat and glanced at her, then looked away again, putting a hand on the washer. “He’s wantin’ to maybe move here.” Ben cleared his throat, then looked at her again. “We’ve got the room for both of ‘em. It’s how Granddad wanted this place, all of us livin’ here kind of like a legacy of his or somethin’. All four of us brothers. I mean, it’s just Raph an’ Maia.”

    “For now,” Ruby said, clearly understanding what her husband wasn’t saying. She sighed and shook her head. “We have the room,” she agreed. “For all of you four, an’ all the kids besides,” she added hastily. “But that don’t mean that we can afford to keep ‘em. He ain’t been payin’ his child support, an’ now you’re gonna have him livin’ here an’ livin’ off us still?”

    “I was... I was thinkin’ that maybe with his help we could expand,” Ben explained. He had a sheepish expression on his face, and Ruby groaned inwardly. “You know, get us some more cows, maybe start sellin’ more livestock. An’ he’s workin, Ruby. It ain’t like he don’t have a job. You’re makin’ somethin’ of this that don’t need to be. He needs somewhere for Maia an’ that’s a one bedroom apartment he’s got.”

    “Then he can find himself another rental, Ben. You know how I feel about your brothers. They’ve made a bunch of bad choices an’ you’re always the one who’s doin’ the cleanup. It ain’t fair to the family you got now to have them always showin’ up with their hands out.”

    Ben went pale, then shook his head. “Well, the thing ‘bout that, Ruby... He didn’t really ask me. I kinda... I kinda mentioned it to him. Pointed out that it was what Granddad wanted, an’ that it would be nice to have the whole family around again. That I missed him, an’ would like to know how Maia’s doin’.”

    “Without mentioning it to me,” Ruby said dryly. “You talked to him about this without sayin’ a word to me about it, an’ now he’s gonna be comin’ to live here?”

    “Well... Not exactly,” Ben said. It was obvious that he was getting nervous now. “I told him that you an’ I would talk about it. But I’m the head of this household, Ruby, an’ I’m tellin’ you that I’m invitin’ my brother to come stay here until he can get on his feet with his daughter. He’s gonna need the support, an’ she might too. An’ I gotta be honest with you, if he’s payin’ us rent -- and he offered! -- that’s money that we need, Ruby. I ain’t stupid about these things.”

    “Just stupid enough to get us into this financial crisis in the first place,” Ruby said, crossing her arms over her chest, hugging herself as she walked out of the laundry/mud room.

    “Now wait one minute here!” Ben said. “You know why I did this. You know I moved out here so that we could save the farm an’ so that it would be a better life for our kids. Things are gettin’ better, Ruby. I won’t have you talkin’ like that. I done told you, that’s where Charlie gets her attitude from.”

    “No,” Ruby said, turning around and narrowing her eyes at Ben. “She gets her attitude all on her own. She ain’t happy here. You an’ Rissa are doin’ fine, but me an’ Charlie? We’ve got different ideas about the kind of life we wanna have. I love workin’ out there in the garden. I love livin’ here. But I hate bein’ poor. I hate it when one of my girls asks me for somethin’ I can’t give ‘em. I hate it when I have to sew up the holes in Rissa’s skirts because we can’t afford to get her new ones. I hate it when I’m worryin’ that she’s gonna grow out of somethin’ because we can’t afford to replace it. I hate sewin’, but that’s what I’ve been havin’ to do. This was your choice, Ben. An’ just like all the others, we weren’t involved in it at all.”

    “Fine!” Ben snapped. She could hear the frustration sparking in his voice as he turned around. The shuffling noises from the laundry room indicated that he was shuffling his shoes back on, and then the back door slammed.
   
    Ruby winced. She hated it when her husband stormed out of the house, angry about something that she’d said. They hadn’t fought about this since the second month that they’d lived here and the washer had gone out, leaving Ruby to wash the clothes by hand. Eventually Mal had given them his old appliances, so they weren’t without after that, but it was still frustrating for her to feel as though she was denying the children things that they wanted and needed.

    For a long moment Ruby debated going after her husband, but she knew that would only push the fight further, and she’d wind up getting sent to their room until later on, when he was calm enough to “deal with her.” Although she hated being spanked, she accepted the domestic discipline for the most part. Her father had approved of it when she’d first called him in outrage, and since then, she’d learned that it was better to simply trust Ben to do what he felt he needed to do, and for her to otherwise move on with things once it was over and done with. She would prefer that he didn’t spank her, but what usually came afterward was very nice. Sometimes it felt as though she was pushing her husband, and this was one of those times. If he wanted to move Raphael in with them, why not? Especially if her brother-in-law could help to support the family, why shouldn’t she allow for him to come and stay with them? She cared about the niece that she hadn’t seen since she was barely more than a toddler, and she was worried about what would happen now if they turned Raph out.

    So Ruby would talk to Ben when he came back in, and they would discuss what it meant to have his brother and their niece staying with them. She knew that it was in his nature to have changed his mind by the time that he got home, based on what she’d said. He did usually take her thoughts into consideration and now, as she went back to start drying the dishes so that she could put them away, she felt guilty enough that tears came to her eyes.

    “Mama?”

    Rissa’s voice reminded Ruby that she had things to think about other than her own guilt and self pity, and she wiped at her eyes and turned to her ten year-old daughter. “What is it baby?” she asked, her throat thick.

    “You and Daddy were fightin’ again,” the little girl told her mother.

    Ruby felt the lump in her throat grow larger, and she sighed, then went to her daughter and put her arm around her shoulder giving her a firm hug. “It’s alright,” she told her daughter, rubbing her shoulder a little bit. “Sometimes Mama’s an’ Daddy’s fight. But they always make up. Things are gonna be fine.”

    “Is Daddy gonna divorce you like Uncle Mal is divorcin’ Aunt Carrie?”

    Ruby frowned. Not only was she unaware that Malcom was going through a divorce, but she couldn’t think of where her ten year-old could have possibly gotten ahold of that information. “How do you know about that?”

    Rissa shrugged. “Facebook. He was mad an’ he said somethin’ about it. Is Daddy gonna divorce you, Mama?”

    With a sigh, Ruby shook her head. “Daddy an’ I don’t believe in divorce, Rissa. An’ no, he ain’t gonna divorce me. We just had a little fight, that’s all. I was angry because he did somethin’ without askin’ me first, an’ he’s angry cause I called him on it. Everythin’s gonna be okay.”

    The clock was telling her that it was nearly bedtime, and Ruby sighed. They had church in the morning, which meant an early bedtime on Saturday night. “Come on,” she told Rissa. “Let’s get you ready for bed. You need to have a bath before tomorrow mornin’. I don’t want you or Daddy stinkin’ out the whole church.” She grinned down at her daughter and gave her another squeeze, then propelled her toward the stairs. “You want some help, or you think you can get it covered on your own?”

    “I got it!” Rissa called out as she climbed the steps.

    Alone, Ruby went back into the kitchen and poured herself a tall glass of water from the sink, then went to sit down at the table. There had been a time that whole family would have been drinking sweet tea, but they were out of money now. She suspected that Ben had an account she didn’t know about, and she was only grateful that the house and their truck were both owned outright and that Charlie hadn’t started asking for a car yet. They’d cross that bridge when they came to it. And now potentially two more mouths to feed. The very thought made Ruby groan, but she had to remind herself that Raph had a good job in construction and that he’d probably continue working. It would mean that they would still be working the homestead, but... Well, if he was paying rent and contributing, it might ease things up quite a bit, wouldn’t it? But how much could they make him responsible for their kids?

    The very thought made Ruby bristle a little bit. They’d been paying to support his children for two years. It was the least that he could do to help to meet some of the needs and wants of their children.

    Ruby sighed and shook her head, then crossed her legs under the table. She had a manuscript sitting on her desk in the bedroom, just waiting for her to get the courage to find a publisher. That could make some difference. Just a small advance would mean a lot to her family. And if the book succeeded? They’d have it made. Wouldn’t they? She’d been holding back out of fear, not listening to Ben when he tried to push her to get her book published. Now she was thinking that she was going to have to make a push for it, or maybe get a “real” job herself. She was qualified to teach. She’d talk to Ben about that, too, though she suspected she wouldn’t get the happiest of receptions to the proposition.  He was very traditional and preferred her to be at home with the girls. But something had to give. Maybe she could... Start selling baked goods when they sold their vegetables and their eggs, or even set up a farm stand on the property and work that daily. Increase the garden size... She was sure that it was possible. She’d have to look into what it would take to make things work. Ruby Nery was tired of being poor!

    There was always work to do, and Ruby stood up and went into the living room, beginning to straighten up. She put Rissa’s book back on the shelf, then she turned off the television, reminding herself that she had to talk to Ben about cutting the cable off so that they had a bit more money to save for things that were more important. The Internet too, for that matter, given the fact that Rissa was finding out things about her uncles that even Ruby didn’t know. It made her feel uncomfortable, and it was worse that they had these luxuries that they couldn’t afford while she was telling the girls “no” to needed clothes and new pets.

    When the water stopped running upstairs, Ruby looked up and gave another sigh, satisfied that Rissa was doing what she’d asked. She went to the front door to check for the truck, her heart sinking when she saw that wherever he’d gone, Ben had clearly taken it with him. She just hoped that he hadn’t gone far, and that he wasn’t spending too much money. It was bad enough that he was spending the gas money to go wherever he’d chosen this time around. Thankfully she’d asked him to keep their cell phone on. There was only one in the family and it belonged to Ben. Ruby was almost always at home, and they’d kept the home phone for times like this, when he was out and she needed to get in touch with him. And if she knew her husband, he wouldn’t be gone for too long.

    Ruby had been sitting on the couch with a favorite romance novel for about twenty minutes when Rissa came bounding down the stairs in her pajamas. “Hey Mama!” she said, sitting down next to Ruby and curling up at her side. Ruby put her arm around her daughter and gave her a tight squeeze and a kiss on her head. “I like livin’ here,” Rissa said, suddenly serious.

    The announcement wasn’t what she’d expected, and Ruby sighed, then closed her eyes. “I know you do, baby,” she told her younger daughter. “But sometimes it’s not so good for Charlie, an’ she’s havin’ a tough time, an’ givin’ me an Daddy a tough time about it.”
   
    Thinking of Charlie made Ruby frown, and she glanced toward the stairs. “Has she had her shower yet?” she asked Rissa. It occurred to her that she hadn’t seen Charlie since supper, and now she was wondering whether or not there was something wrong. It wouldn’t be unusual for Charlie to throw one of her temper tantrums and head up to her room as a way of punishing her parents for not giving her what she wanted. After all, Charlie was grounded this weekend and specifically forbidden from seeing her boyfriend, Greg. She sighed and shook her head, reminding herself that Charlotte would get over it and that everything would be fine. They’d get through this the way that they’d gotten through everything else.

    “Charlie’s just bein’ stupid,” Rissa said. The two girls got along most of the time. They were friendly with one another and they usually took care of one another, but of the two girls, Rissa was the one who wasn’t afraid to tell it how she saw it. “If she’d just do the stuff Daddy says to, I bet she’d be happy. She’s mostly upset cause she thinks you guys don’t love her no more.”

    Out of the mouths of babes. Ruby hugged her daughter tighter to her, rubbing her shoulder briskly. “We both love both of you very much. Where would Charlie get the idea that we don’t love her any more?”

    Rissa shrugged her thin, childish shoulders. “I dunno. Prolly cause you an’ Daddy are always fightin’ about her. Cause she heard you sayin’ that she’s too much trouble when you’re at home with her all day, an’ him sayin’ that you gotta get used to it cause she’s your daughter.”

    The child’s cheeks grew red, and Ruby sighed. She’d never figure out how her children managed to hear her fights with Ben, and it was hard for her to think of how much damage those arguments could do to their girls. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, trying to figure out what to say to Clarissa. “Baby, Daddy an’ I love you girls both as much as one another, just different. Sometimes we don’t always get along with the people we love, an’ that’s the way with me an’ Charlie. I love her to death, but sometimes I grate on her, an’ sometimes she grates on me. That’s just the way things are, Rissa. An’ chances are that when you become a teenager, you’re gonna have similar feelin’s to what she’s havin’ right now too. That’s just how it is.”

    “She thinks I’m your favorite,” Rissa pressed. “Am I?”

    “It’s not like that,” Ruby insisted. “Just cause I get along with you better doesn’t mean that I love you any more’n I do her. I love you both. You’re both my girls an’ you’re both very special to me.”

    “You and Daddy,” Rissa insisted. “She told me. She said that she thinks Daddy loves me better’n her cause... I dunno why, really. But she thinks that. An’ she said she’s jealous of me too.”

    Ruby frowned. That was a lot for Rissa to be carrying on her shoulders. She shifted, pulling her younger daughter into her lap and allowing the ten year-old to put her head down on her shoulder. She sighed, her chest heaving beneath her daughter, and she shook her head again. “Rissa... I think that maybe Charlie’s choosin’ to be hurt. Sometimes we do that when we get upset about somethin’ that we can’t understand. We make the choice to hurt instead of lettin’ things go. But tomorrow, after church, I think me an’ Daddy’ll have a good long talk with Charlie an’ make sure she knows just how much we love her. An’ maybe I can find a bit of money in the budget for us to get some shakes too. What do you think?” There was no money for the shakes, but she’d try to make it work. Carve it out of their small food budget or something. They needed some entertainment, and living out here in the middle of nowhere, it wasn’t as though they could just hang out with...

    Friends. Ruby sighed, realizing now what was really getting Charlie down. She vowed that she’d talk to Ben about letting Charlie spend some more time with her friends in town. It was important, and she was ignorant if she tried to convince herself otherwise. “It’s about bedtime, don’t you think?” Ruby asked Clarissa. She was staring to worry about Ben, but she put it out of her mind. Normally, if he went out, he’d be back in time to tuck his daughters into bed. But here it was, nine o’clock, and he wasn’t home. She glanced at the front door, sighed again, then shifted Rissa up and out of her lap. “Come on. Let’s get you into bed. Daddy’ll be home soon to tuck you in.”

    “What if Daddy doesn’t come back?” Rissa asked, asking the questions that it seemed were always on a young girl’s mind.

    “He’ll come back,” Ruby promised. “He always does.” She hugged her daughter again, then stood up and guided her toward the stairs so that she could get her put to bed.

***

    Twenty  minutes and two chapters of Rissa’s favorite story later, Ruby closed her younger daughter’s bedroom door behind her. Rissa was already asleep, and Ruby wanted to check on Charlotte and make sure that she got a shower before she went to bed, since they had church in the morning. She rapped on the door, but when there was no response from within, Ruby tried the knob. The door was locked, and the red haired woman sighed, shaking her head. It was a simple matter to simply pop the lock open with an allen key or something similar in size and shape, but it was a hassle. “Charlotte, open this door up right now! If I have to unlock it, I’m taking the door down!”

    There was no sound from within, and for a moment Ruby just hoped that she’d find her daughter asleep instead of defiant. She sighed and headed for her bedroom, then dug around in the night stand drawer until she came up with the small allen key, then headed back to her daughter’s room. She popped the key into the lock, then heard the click that said it was open. She pushed the door and then stepped into the room, only to find... That there was no Charlotte.

    The window was open, the curtains fluttering in the cool spring breeze of the evening. There was no note on the bed the way that Ruby would have imagined it from stories and from movies, just the window open. Going to it, Ruby looked down to see that there was a ladder propped up against the side of the house, presumably so that Charlie could get back in, assuming that she would be able to do so without being missed.

    With a shake of her head, Ruby closed the window to keep the cold out, then went down the stairs and out the back door. She was barefoot, and she didn’t want to be outside long, so she simply grabbed the ladder, shrank it down, and then carried it into the laundry room. She locked the back door, then went to the front to make sure that it was locked. When that was finished, Ruby went to sit down on the couch in the living room to watch a television show.

    An hour passed, and then another half hour. Still there was no call from either Ben or Charlotte, nor had either of them appeared to have come home. Becoming nervous, Ruby finally went into the kitchen and picked up the land phone, dialing Ben’s cell phone number with shaking, achy fingers. “Ben!” she cried when he finally picked up. “Where are you?”

    “I went to see Raph,” Ben said wearily. “Mal’s here too. We called Seth, but Bridget ain’t feelin’ too good, so he didn’t wanna come over. What do you need?”

    Okay, so he was still upset with her. The tone of voice, and his words, were enough to tell Ruby what she needed to know about the status of their argument. But that could wait to be dealt with until later. For now, Ruby was looking at the fact the clock said it was going on eleven, which was Charlotte’s curfew on a regular weekend, and she was out when she was grounded. Furthermore, Ruby had no idea where her daughter was. “Charlotte’s missing. I went to ask her to please take a shower for church in the morning and she wasn’t in her room. Looks like she went out the window. No note. I got no idea where she’s gone, Ben. I need you home.”

    “Shit, church in the morning!” Ben said loudly, and Ruby had to assume that he was reminding his brothers. “I’ll be home in twenty  minutes,” he said into the phone.
   
    Ruby nodded, though she knew that he couldn’t see her. “Thank you honey. I appreciate you comin’ home.”

    “You know who you can call to see if they’ve found her?”

    “No, who?” Ruby asked her husband.

    “I dunno, I was askin’ you. Lemme get off this thing so I don’t go over our minutes, an’ I’ll be home in twenty. I’m sure she’ll come home, but if she gets there before I do, you have her go an’ wait for me in my office, understand, Ruby? Don’t you dare try to handle this yourself. Not with the way you two been fightin’.”

    But Ruby had no intention of letting her husband handle this. She was fuming, and already on her way into the laundry room to find her husband’s tool kit so that she could start working on taking the door off of Charlotte’s bedroom.

    By the time that the front door opened and closed, Ruby had put the door out in the garage and the tools were put away. She poked her head out of the kitchen, where she’d just been making coffee. Though she was already sure from the volume of the door shutting that it was Ben, she’d wanted to make sure. Disappointment crept over her, and she shook her head. “What are you thinking?” she asked as she poured her husband a cup of coffee and then put it down on the table before pouring one for herself.

    “I think she went out with Greg after we both told her that she wasn’t allowed to. An’ I’m thinkin’ that she’s gonna be gettin’ herself one good, sore, hot bottom right before church tomorrow, make sure she can sit down on that pew an’ remember why she’s supposed to be doin’ what we tell her to.”

    Ruby flushed, because she knew what that felt like. It was a horrible thing to have to sit down when your backside was sore from a recent spanking. She shook her head and added fresh milk to her own coffee, then sat down at the table with her husband. “So what do we do now? Wait her out? Or should we call the police?”
   
    “I think it’s a bit early for the police,” Ben said. He took a sip of his coffee, then he paced away from her. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her the last couple of years, but I ain’t gonna have her defyin’ me this way, Ruby.”

    It was clear that their argument from earlier was forgotten, and Ruby wished that she could be relieved, but the truth was that it was her turn to be concerned about her husband’s attitude. “Charlie’s been hearin’ us fight. Rissa told me. It might be what made her do somethin’ like this. Rissa said Charlie’s feelin’ like she don’t belong here, an’ like we don’t want her. That’s a powerful feelin’, Ben.”

    “Well then maybe you should stop snipin’ at her, Ruby!” her husband shot back, clearly agitated. “You think she don’t know how you feel about her when you’re always snappin’ at her?”   
   
    Ruby had been about to point out to her husband that Rissa had told her clearly that it was both of them, but she was so taken aback that for a moment she simply stared at him. “An’ how’s that, Benjamin Nery? How do I feel about our older daughter, since you know so much about everythin’?”

    “Well it couldn’t be much more obvious that you don’t like her much, Ruby!”

    “Ben... You been drinkin’, ain’t you?” Shocked, Ruby stared at her husband, and then shook her head. “I love you an’ both our girls more than my own life. If I had to make a choice between me an’ one of them -- either of them -- I’d choose them without blinkin’ an’ eye. It wouldn’t even be a matter of thinkin’ about it. So I’ll tell you how I feel about Charlie; I think she’s wonderful. I think she’s motivated, an’ smart, an’ that she’s goin’ places if she can get her head on straight an’ get used to the fact that we make the decisions an’ she’s just gonna have to live with that.”

    “Speakin’ of decision, Raph’s movin’ in with Maia, an’ Mal’s thinkin’ on comin’ with him, since he’s divorcin’ Carrie.”

    It took several slow, deep breaths before Ruby trusted herself to speak. “I figured that,” she said slowly. “Though I’m a bit disappointed that I had to hear about Mal an’ Carrie from our ten year-old. She found out on Facebook. How long have you known?”

    “Just since tonight,” Ben responded in a lower tone. For a long time he was silent, and Ruby cleared her throat, then sipped her coffee and set it back down on the counter. After a moment, Ben shrugged his shoulders. “You know I don’t get on Facebook or any of that stupid shit. An’ he does. Maybe our daughters shouldn’t be gettin’ on there though.”

    Ruby thought there were better times to be talking about ridding the house of the Internet, so she said nothing for a long moment. There was silence in the kitchen, and that put her on edge. It either meant that they were good now, or that things were going to blow up later. She cleared her throat again. “I think I should be the one to punish Charlie. You been drinkin’ -- an’ don’t try to deny it. You’re actin’ drunk -- an’ I was the one who found out she was missin’. Her door was locked. I already got it taken off her room. She wants to lock us out, she ain’t gonna have the door for a couple of weeks to remind her. An’ that way, she won’t be climbin’ out her window again, I’d imagine.” She sighed, then glanced up at Ben, watching as his face contorted. “I can handle it,” she said again. “You’re too mad right now anyway. I got it under control.”

    As though on cue, there was a firm knock at the front door. Ruby glanced at Ben again and shook her head. “I’ll get it. I’ll bet that’s gotta be Charlie right now, found out that she can’t use that ladder to get back in through the window that I shut. She’s gonna have a big surprise ain’t she?”

    Ruby pushed away from the counter and then walked to the front door. She unlatched it and then opened it, thankful at first that it was chained. There was a young man on the doorstep. “Ben, get the shotgun!” she shouted to her husband just as Charlie came into view next to him. “Scratch that!” she called out, then unchained the door and opened it to Charlie and the young man who was holding her up. “She drunk?” she asked, getting one whiff of her daughter and wrinkling her nose.

    “Yeah,” the man said. He didn’t make any move to come into the house. “You really got a shotgun?”

    “We really got a shotgun. But he’s not gonna go get it unless we think you’re dangerous,” Ruby replied, stepping back and nodding her head for the young man to bring her daughter into the house. “So you’re Greg?”

    “Yeah,” the boy said. Now that she was really looking at him, Ruby realized that he was far from grown, and probably not much older than Charlie was. Maybe seventeen, eighteen at the most. “Charlie called me from a pay phone and said I hadda come get her. I don’t know what was going on. There was a party tonight. She wanted to go, so I took her. I wasn’t going to stay, but... When I saw what they were doing, somebody had to stay to look after her.” He shrugged, and Ruby narrowed her eyes, shaking her head.

    “And that somebody was you.”

    “Who else was there?” Greg asked. Ruby had to admit that he had a point.

    “She shouldn’t be sneakin’ out of the house. None of this started before she met you,” she pointed out. “If you were doin’ such a good job of lookin’ out for her, then why’s she actin’ out this way?” Ruby said pointedly.

    “Well maybe it’s because she wasn’t sixteen before she met me,” Greg retorted. “I didn’t have nothin’ to do with her comin’ out. She wanted to go to that party. It’s not my deal. Do I sound like I’m drunk to you? Get a fucking breathalyzer. I’m not drunk. She is. I think somebody slipped something into her drink.”

    That wouldn’t have happened if Charlie hadn’t snuck out in the first place. Ruby sighed and shook her head, then called out to Ben. “Ben! Take Charlie upstairs and get her into a cold shower to start workin’ on gettin’ her sobered up. She’s gonna have a lot of explainin’ to do an’ she’s in a whole world of hurt!”

    “Don’t be too hard on her,” Greg said as Ben took Charlie’s weight from him. He looked nervously at Ruby, then followed Charlie and Ben with his eyes.

    With a sigh, Ruby shook her head. “Well, let’s just see. She was grounded. Specifically told she couldn’t see you tonight. An’ she snuck out of the house. There’s that. Then there’s the fact that she didn’t tell us where she was goin’. No note, nothin’. Then to add to that, she’s been drinkin’. An’ it only makes it worse that she was with you. We don’t look too kindly on straight up defiance in this house, Greg. But thanks for the parenting tips. I’m sure they’ll be useful when you’re a father one day.”

    Ruby turned to head for the stairs, where she could wait for Charlie to finish up with her sobering shower. They were going to be having a long, long talk tonight, and she still planned on going to church in the morning, then deal with the extra chores that Charlie had earned herself. They were all going to be exhausted in the morning, but right now she was too upset to care. Deep down, she knew that she wasn’t really angry with her daughter, just deeply disappointed. The fights were what got her riled up. Right now she was sure that she would be the cooler head if it had to be either her or Ben. Ben had been drinking, too, and nobody thought clearly when they were drunk.

    “You can go,” Ruby said, turning at the bottom of the stairs and staring at Greg. “She’ll call you, if we decide she’s allowed. But don’t expect to hear from her for at least a week. She’ll be grounded for at least that long.” She watched as he finally went out the front door, and then she followed him to it, turning the latch and chaining it again.

    Finally Ruby sighed and started up the stairs again. She went into the bathroom, staring at Ben as he dumped Charlie under the cold water. Since the teen was already wet, Ruby figured that she’d climbed out before Ben was done with her. “Stay put!” he snapped at their daughter, and Ruby went in and put a hand on his shoulder.

    “I’ve got it from here,” Ruby told her husband. “You go on downstairs an’ have another cup of coffee. Or lay down in bed. I’ll talk to Charlie. We got church in the mornin’ an’ I’d rather not have the two of you goin’ in lookin’ like you been drinkin’ all night.”

    With that, Ruby stepped into Ben’s place, blocking the shower door so that Charlie couldn’t get back out for a moment. She watched her husband as he retreated, grumbling under his breath about how he wasn’t drunk. Ruby shook her head, then pulled back the shower door. “Come on out an’ get dried off,” she said to Charlie before she realized that her daughter was completely dressed. “Better yet, get those wet clothes off. I’ll get you a towel. Just leave ‘em there in the shower an’ I’ll take ‘em down an’ wash them tonight or tomorrow mornin’.”

    Ruby slipped out and went to grab a fresh bath sheet out of the linen closet, then brought it back to the bathroom and offered it to her trembling, naked daughter. Though Charlie’s eyes were a bit red-rimmed, they were clearer than they’d been before. “Come on,” Ruby said. “Let’s get you into your room an’ get you dressed, then we’re goin’ down into the office to talk. I’ll give you a few minutes to warm up, cause we’ll only be doin’ so much talkin’. You know you’re in trouble, kiddo.”

    Outside Charlie’s door, the girl paused for a moment, clearly hesitating. Then she turned and put her arms around Ruby, hugging her in the way that people who had been drinking sometimes did. “I’m sorry, Mama!” she said, and Ruby only shook her head.

    “Go get dressed. I’ll meet you downstairs in a few minutes, an’ then we’ll figure out how we’re gonna be handlin’ this. You’re in a lot of trouble, Charlie. An’ we’re still goin’ to church in the mornin’. I don’t care how tired you are.”

    Charlie nodded, and Ruby waited until she’d gone into the bedroom before calling out. “Dad’s office!” When Charlie responded from within, Ruby slowly started to make her way down the stairs so that she could meet her daughter in the office. She wasn’t looking forward to this talk, because it was going to be a rough one.

    With a sigh, Ruby headed into the kitchen to see if Ben was still up. Sure enough, there he was, sipping another cup of coffee. “I’m gonna need your belt,” Ruby told her husband as she approached him slowly.

    “You sure you’re up for this?” Ben asked in response as he stood up and started to pull his belt off.

    Neither of them had ever used a belt on Charlie before, but it was as though they were communicating silently with one another. Charlie had never done anything this serious before, and if there was ever a situation that called for her to be on the receiving end of her father’s belt, this was it. She had snuck out of the house to meet a boy they had forbidden her from seeing, and then she had gotten drunk.

    “I’m sure,” Ruby said. “She’s grounded for the week. You work out what chores you want her doin’. Make ‘em hard. Make her think, Ben. An’ don’t use these chores to reward her with time with Daddy. I want her to struggle with them. I want her comin’ in exhausted when she’s done.” Ruby paused, then took a deep breath. “I told Greg she’d call him, but not sooner than next week. I ain’t gonna stop her from seein’ him, but I want her makin’ good choices, not this shit she’s been doin’,” Ruby added.

    When Ben had finished with his belt, Ruby took it from him and retreated to the office to wait for her daughter and to spend some time doing her own thinking.

    It was nearly half an hour before there was a knock on the office door, and Ruby stood up to open it for Charlie. Her daughter was pale, and her eyes were down. She was chewing on her lower lip and her hands were tapping at her thighs. Ruby sighed and shook her head, then pulled the door all the way open and stood back so that Charlie could come inside. “We’ve got a lot of talking to do,” she told her daughter. “An’ morning is gonna come awful early tomorrow. I think it’s probably best if we do the talkin’ with your pants an’ panties to your ankles an’ you bent on over the desk. What do you think?”

    Charlie didn’t look up at her, and Ruby just shook her head and reached for her daughter’s hand, tugging her into the room and pushing her toward the desk. She knew that this would be the sixteen year-old’s most severe punishment she’d ever received, and she was almost as nervous as she was sure Charlie was. The belt was sitting on the desk, and Ruby crossed to grab it. “Take your pajamas down, an’ your panties if you’re wearin’ ‘em,” she told her daughter. “Ain’t much to discuss here. I’m pretty sure you know what you did wrong, but there ain’t much you can say that I wanna hear right now. You’ll have your turn tomorrow.” Ruby figured that Charlie would probably be whining to Ben in the morning anyway about how unfair she’d been, and that would be a whole other story.

    The muffled sob from Charlie let Ruby know that she’d hit home, and the girl shuffled forward and slowly pushed her pajama bottoms down to her knees. Ruby put her hand on her daughter’s back and slowly pushed her down onto the desk. “You hold on now,” she said to the sixteen year-old. “I’m usin’ Daddy’s belt, an’ it’s gonna hurt like nothin’ you’ve felt before. You’re gonna stay right where you are an’ not start fightin’ me or it’s just gonna make this a lot worse. So you hold tight,” she warned Charlie.

    When Ruby was sure that her daughter had a good grip on the desk, she reached for her husband’s belt, doubling it over in her hand. She’d already thought about how many she planned on giving Charlie, and she’d decided that she would stop at four. That should be plenty to make enough of an impression, especially with Charlie sitting down for church in the morning, and even more so if Ben decided to follow up.

    With a deep breath, Ruby lined the belt up against Charlie’s bottom. The girl stiffened, her body going rigid against the desk. She made a small whimpering sound in her throat, and Ruby just shook her head. “If you didn’t want to get yourself punished, then you wouldn’t have snuck out of the house tonight,” she admonished her daughter. “An’ if you didn’t wanna get punished, then you wouldn’t have gone to a party. An’ if you didn’t wanna get punished, you wouldn’t have been drinkin’. An you wouldn’t have been seein’ Greg. Seems to me that’s four things. You’re gonna get one lick of this belt for each of those four things, an’ then I think Daddy wants to talk to you in the morning.”

    Charlie made another sound, a throaty cry of fear, and Ruby just shook her head. She pulled the belt back to shoulder height, then let it fly. She was in control, and she worried that since he’d been drinking, Ben wouldn’t have had the same control that she showed as the belt landed with a resounding crack that echoed in the chamber of the office, seeming to reverberate off the walls, the bookshelves and the furniture. The mark took on an immediate puffiness, and it was half a second before Charlie screamed, pushing up against Ruby’s hand. Ruby shook her head, then pushed her daughter back down. “No. I’m not done yet. That one was for sneakin’ out of the house. You knew that you were grounded an’ you knew that meant that you were supposed to be stickin’ to the house an’ the yard helpin’ Daddy with the chores. You weren’t allowed to go out. That’s what grounded means, Charlie. So you be thinkin’ on that while you’re sittin’ in church tomorrow on this bottom, which I’m assurin’ you, already looks pretty bad, an’ that’s just one. You got three more comin, baby.”

    Ruby wasn’t trying to be mean. She genuinely loved her daughter, and if somebody had told her that she was being cruel, or even just unkind, she would not only have been surprised, she would have scoffed. But the truth was that Ruby could be incredibly insensitive, and right now that was showing. She could feel the tension rippling in Charlie beneath her hand, but she chose to ignore it instead of offering the obviously needed reassurance. While Ben would have noticed these things, Ruby simply did not.

    “I want you to tell me what you did to get this one,” she told Charlie. “I told you one of ‘em. You snuck out when you were grounded, an’ you left the house without permission. That’s a big one. So give me another one. What is this next lick for?”

    The teenager shifted a little bit, then gave a small, throaty sob. “I... I don’t know!” she sobbed.

    Ruby shook her head and resisted the urge to give Charlie a stroke of the belt for defiance. “Try that again, or I’m gonna give you an extra for sassin’ me,” Ruby told her daughter. “You have ten seconds. What is this one for?”

    “For... For seein’ Greg!” Charlie cried just as the time was almost up.

    “Alright,” Ruby said. “Very good. This one’s for seein’ Greg when we told you you weren’t allowed to see him.” She didn’t hesitate then, but pulled the belt back and let it fly against the fullest part of Charlie’s bottom. It licked around the edge of her hip, leaving a little bruise there, and then the welt slowly rose, white in the center and red at the edges. Charlie howled again, and Ruby held her down expertly, shaking her head again. “I told you not to move, Charlie. You stay in position, here me?”

    After a moment, when it was obvious that Charlie was at least trying to obey her, Ruby asked her again. “Two more. What’s this one for?”

    There was a long hesitation while Charlie sobbed, shaking her head, and then she cried, “Cause I was drinkin’! I was drinkin’ Mama! I’m sorry! Please no more!”

    “Two ain’t gonna do it, baby. Even you know that. I let you get away with just two of these, an’ you’re gonna be thinkin’ that you can get away with anythin’ you wanna do. Ain’t gonna let that happen. So this one is for drinkin’.”

    Ruby took a deep breath, then swung the belt against Charlie’s upper thighs, creating a deep red line there. This time, Charlie reacted strongly, bolting so hard against Ruby’s hand that she almost lost her grip. But she pushed down hard just in time for her daughter to catch her in the shin with her left foot. Ruby growled and pushed harder at Charlie’s back. “Feet on the floor!” she admonished her. “One more. What’s it for?”

    This time there was a very long hesitation, then panicked breathing from Charlie before she finally said, “I don’t know! Mama, I don’t know! No more! Please... Mama PLEASE no more!”

    Ruby paused, then shook her head. “You ain’t allowed to be at parties that Daddy an’ I didn’t approve, Charlie. What’s this one for?”

    “Goin’ to the party!” Charlie cried out, her voice desperate as she trembled against the desk. “Cause I went to the party! PLEASE Mama! I won’t ever do it again!”

    “You’re right,” Ruby retorted. “You won’t do it again because if you do, you’re gonna get much worse than what you’re gettin’ right now. You gotta know that, little girl.  Now you hold on tight to the desk. This one is really gonna hurt.”

    Lining up carefully, Ruby pulled the belt back above her shoulder, then put most of her strength into laying it across the tender crease where Charlie’s bottom and thighs met with one another, the most sensitive part of her bottom. The teenager howled, her hands shooting back, though Ruby held her down firmly until she was sure that Charlie was cooperating, and then she went to put the belt on the chair that both girls though of as “the spanking chair.”

    “What have you got to say for yourself?” Ruby asked her sobbing daughter.

    Charlie only shook her head from side to side, trembling still against the desk, her sobs desperate now. “Um... Sorry... Mama!” she said after nearly a minute.

    Satisfied, Ruby sighed and reached out to give Charlie a pat on the back, then bent to tug her pajama bottoms up over her bare, welted bottom. “Go on up to your room then. We’ll talk more about this in the mornin’. You get yourself in bed an’ sleep this off. Daddy’s gonna wanna talk to you, but we’re both real disappointed in you, Charlie. You done somethin’ real bad tonight. I don’t know when we’ll be trustin’ you again, but it ain’t gonna be any time real soon.”

    Ruby stood back while her daughter wiped at her streaming nose and eyes, then rushed out of the room. She followed after Charlie to make totally sure that she was headed for the stairs, then she sighed. She went into the kitchen to clean up from the late-night coffee, and then headed up to her room. When she got there, Ben was laying in bed with a book. He looked up at her and removed his classes, giving her a questioning look.

    “It’s done,” Ruby told her husband. “Four with the belt, an’ I told her that you’re gonna wanna talk to her in the mornin’. She’ll be sittin’ sore in church tomorrow. It’ll give her plenty to think about,” she added.

    “Did she get her lovin’ after?” Ben asked her.

    Raising her eyebrows at her husband, Ruby gave him a queer look. “What do you  mean, ‘did she get her lovin’? She did somethin’ wrong, Benny. She got punished for it. That’s what happened down there. This wasn’t cuddlefest 2011.”

    Ben nodded his head slowly, and Ruby sensed disapproval. “So you’re sendin’ her to bed wonderin’ if we’re still angry, an’ if I’m gonna be mad at her in the mornin’.”

    “Gives her somethin’ to think about, don’t it?”

    “Sure does. Somethin’ to have nightmares about too,” Ben added, shaking his head. “I don’t know what gets into you sometimes, Ruby, but you’re damned cruel to that girl. She’s your daughter, just like Rissa is. An’ if she thinks Rissa’s a favorite, maybe you oughta be thinkin’ about the fact there might just be a reason for that.”

    Ruby wasn’t going to feel bad for Charlie. She’d gotten everything that she’d deserved as far as Ruby was concerned. Without giving it another thought, she stripped off her clothes, put them in the hamper, and then slipped on her nightgown. She climbed into bed next to her husband and put her head on the pillow.

    “I ain’t gonna make her go to church tomorrow,” Ben said after a moment. “An’ if that contradicts somethin’ you’ve already said, I’m sorry. But if you done punished that girl an’ not given her any lovin’ after... Then I think you got a lot of thinkin’ to do yourself, Ruby Nery.”

    “You trust her to stay home alone?” Ruby asked, incredulous. “I already told her she’s goin’ to church so she can sit on that bottom of hers an’ think about everythin’ she done wrong.”

    “I do trust her to stay home alone,” Ben said, turning to look at her. “I trust her because I think you done broke her tonight. You’re her Mama, an’ her feelin’s are already hurt. You go whippin’ her like you’re sure to have done, an’ then you just send her to bed...” Ben shook his head. “You oughta be ashamed of yourself,” he added, then put his glasses back on and went back to his book.

    Ruby fell asleep within minutes, but after a little more than an hour, she was awakened by screaming. Ben was already up and out of bed, shushing her. “It’s Charlie,” he said quietly to her. “I’m gonna go see to her. You stay here. You done enough for one night.

    The rest of the night, Ruby felt uneasy, unable to contain the feeling that she’d done something really wrong with her older daughter. Ben didn’t return to their bed, and she could only assume that he’d stayed with Charlie.

    Sunday morning, Ruby and Rissa went to church alone.