Read Online Ruby's Slippers by Leanna Ellis - Free Book Online Page A

election. Does he save money like me? Or squander itlike Abby? Does he like football? Baseball? Women? Does he have a girlfriend? Another wife? Other children? The questions pile up like the coins I collected at his expense.
    Beside him in the picture is a woman I don’t recognize. She wears her hair pulled back in a pony tail. Her face is young and fresh, scrubbed and buffed with an inner glow. She has a hand on my father’s shoulder, as if she leans on him more than he leans on her. Or maybe she’s trying to take hold of him in some way. The resemblance between them is clear. They share the same cowlick, the same nose.
    The writing on the back of the photograph isn’t Momma’s. The ink is waterlogged, forming a purple halo around each line and stroke. It reads, Liz visits on her way to California . The woman must be my father’s older sister. From some forgotten drawer in my brain, I pull an old memory of my father telling me about Aunt Liz. “She knows what she wants, she sure does. All of us Meyers do.” Abby sure knew what she wanted. So what’s wrong with me?
    But I did have a dream. A dream I was scared to believe in. I wasted so many years waiting for him, looking down that empty driveway. Since the tornado, I’ve learned that life is unpredictable and often shorter than we expect. No more waiting. If I want something, I have to go after it.
    When I was young, I told a friend, “My daddy’s dead.” Momma overheard and corrected me. “Dottie, that is not true.” But I wanted it to be true. Because that was easier to accept, a handy explanation for why he never came home.
    Abby concocted her own tale, telling a friend, “Our daddy bumped his head and forgot where he belongs. It’s called ambinesia.”
    “Amnesia,” I corrected, but I liked her idea better. A live father could find his way home one day.
    But Momma heard about our stories. “Girls,” she said, “you can’t lock up a bird and expect him to like it. Love means letting go. If he comes back of his own accord, then he might just decide to stay.”
    I pick up the envelope with Momma’s writing and read the address again. San Francisco. Then the name, Mrs. Elizabeth Turney . Elizabeth? Could that be Aunt Liz’s full name? Her married name?
    A strange emotion flows through my veins. It feels like anticipation … almost excitement over the possibility. The hope buried inside me begins to burns brighter. Maybe she knows where my father lives.
    * * *
    WITH DETERMINATION, I take one step after another. Sunshine pours in through windows, making me squint and turning the tiled floor a daffodil yellow. I’ve set aside the walker and now use the wooden support railing that runs along every wall when I need it. I push myself harder, trying to keep up with Otto. He scurries around my legs and often races ahead of me, nudging a greeting to those he meets, barking at others. I’ve lost him for the moment.
    “Good morning, Dottie.” Harold plays dominoes at a square table.
    “Who’s winning?” I ask.
    Four sets of dentures smile at me. “I am!” they each say.
    “Have you seen—”
    “That way.” Carl Rogers—or is it Roper?—tilts his head toward the side indicating the direction Otto took.
    “Thanks.” I turn down a hallway.
    “Dottie!” Marge Shepherd calls. A smiling woman in ablonde wig, she’s recovering from chemotherapy. “I always wanted to be a blonde,” she told me when we first met. She sits with a group of knitters. Their needles click and clack with urgency. “How are you?”
    “Good, thanks.” I have one of Marge’s creations, a bright-red lap blanket, on the foot of my bed. “Have you seen—”
    “Otto came by and gave all of us some sugar.” Patty Simmons adjusts her reading glasses. “You’ll be moving as fast as him soon.”
    “You won’t be with us long.” Bernice Young waggles her double chin. “Sure hope you come back to visit.”
    “I will.” Then I spot Otto sitting at a side entrance, his