Ruby Tuesday - #fridayflash

There is only one good thing about being in chemo and that is the time it gives Ruby Tuesday. Time to think. Time to write. A small bandage and blood wrapped package of time.

Time. “My precious,” Ruby thinks, channelling Gollum from Lord of the Rings. 

She scooches back in one of the chemo clinic’s comfortable chaise chairs. A blood pressure cuff swallows her thin arm like a hungry python, squeezing her every 15 minutes, squeezing so hard it crushes not only her upper arm but somehow her breath as well. An intravenous tube is taped to a shunt in her chest. A bag of blood seeps from a bag hung on a pole, through the clear plastic tubes, into her chest, into her veins. She imagines that she feels it on its journey, plumping her hollowed, desiccated, fading organs. She thirsts it up.

She is getting two bags today. Each bag takes about two hours to deliver, with some time in between for flushing. Ruby’s at the clinic for five hours, give or take, and even though she’s tired of doing this every few days she relishes the private time it gives her.

When she’s at the clinic, she doesn’t have to see the worried faces of her family. Her mother, lips tight with guilt; her father’s blanched sadness; her fiance’s solicitous glances. Here, she can be herself, not that she’s clear anymore on who that is. 

“Can I get you anything?” the nurse, Yvonne, asks.

“Inspiration,” Ruby says sourly. “And water, I guess.”

“I can help you with the water,” Yvonne says. “Inspiration, not so much. My feet hurt too much for inspiration. What are you writing?”

“Wedding vows.”

“Still?”

Ruby looks guilty. “Yes, still. I haven’t actually started.”

“Really,” the nurse says. “Isn’t that wedding coming up fast?”

“Six weeks,” says Ruby.

Yvonne looks at Ruby fondly. Touches her hand gently before she goes to fetch a glass of ice water. “Girl, you better get started,” she calls over her shoulder.

Ruby stares at her laptop, tries to get deep into whatever zone it is that allows her to write. There’s a crazy amount of pressure on a writer to come up with really great wedding vows. There can’t be any suckage. People expect something emotionally gratifying. 

She thinks about Keith, trying to tap into whatever it is that makes her crazy whenever he speaks her name. She thinks about the middle of the night, when she rolls over and his arm reaches out for her, snugs her close, even in his soundest sleep. She thinks about the tears rolling down his face, when he thinks she isn’t looking, and she knows he’s thinking about the leukemia. She thinks about the way he kisses her sore spots, his lips as soft as the wings of sparrows, his calloused hands like careworn cotton.

She writes.

“Keith, I stand here before you, before our families, before God, to swear my love for you.”

It’s not the tone she’s looking for. Too formal. She hits delete. 

She struggles. She feels the pressure of deadline, of perfection.

She pictures herself wearing the lacy dress hanging in her closet, the dress that is now about four sizes too big. She sees herself at the front of the church, Keith in his new black suit and that incredibly sexy French cuffed shirt with all its bling; she smells the freesia and cabbage roses in her bouquet; Keith’s face glows in the light filtering through the stained glass windows. 

“You are everything to me,” she says, sighing. Tears spring to his blue eyes, his hands tighten their grip on her own. “I am a conjurer of words but words fail me now. There are none big enough to describe what you are to me. You are my dearest, kindest rock. When I have no strength of my own, you are strong for me. You take my pain. You give me hope. Your heart, my darling Keith, your heart is what draws me, your honest, earthy beating heart.”

The minister’s head is bowed. She hears her mother’s sniffles in the congregation. Tiny bits of golden dust float in the rarified air of the chapel. 

“I knew, from that first moment we met, that you were special. You have proven yourself to be that rare bit of selfless humanity; unaware of your own beauty, your own power, your own capacity for love. Why you love me, I don’t know. I may never know. It doesn’t matter. I am just pleased that you do. 

“I can never imagine a moment when I will stop loving you. Till death do us part holds no charm for me. I will take our love with me into the void and it will fill me for all eternity, fill me like the fresh blood that rushes through my veins. With your love, I want nothing, I fear nothing. I am whole and young and happy and I will always be, infused with your love, infused with your tenderness, your caring, the benevolent song of your ingenuous soul.”

Ruby stops writing, surfaces from her mind and the church and returns to the chemo room. She considers what she has written. 

What’s sad, she thinks, isn't leukemia. It's that people don’t tell each other how they feel. They let opportunities slide until they completely pass, and then they live a lifetime of regret.

She suspects she won’t be able to say her vows to Keith in the way she has imagined. 

But he will read them.

And he will know.

***

My good friend Lou Freshwater passed along a song selection for this story. I followed her link and came across a fantastic 1962 live performance by Edith Piaf. The passion that comes from this tiny woman is awe-inspiring as she drives home her Non, Je ne Regrette Rien.
I tried to find an English translation for the song, and I did - I don't necessarily trust the source so if it's not right, I apologize in advance. Still, the spirit of this song is perfect for Ruby.
Thanks Lou, I had never heard the song before. It put a smile on this tired old face.

No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
All the things
That went wrong
For at last I have learned to be strong

No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
For the grief doesn't last
It is gone
I've forgotten the past

And the memories I had
I no longer desire
Both the good and the bad
I have flung in a fire
And I feel in my heart
That the seed has been sown
It is something quite new
It's like nothing I've known

No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
All the things that went wrong
For at last I have learned to be strong

No! No regrets
No! I will have no regrets
For the seed that is new
It's the love that is growing for you