The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [165]
Sam sat down on the first chair she came to. “Yes, there is.”
Locating glasses in the pocket of her pink fluffy bathrobe, Georgette examined the DVD case. “‘Jack’s Movie.’ What does this mean? ‘Jack’s Movie’? Is this about Annie’s dad?”
“Yes.” Sam walked back to the front door as if she’d changed her mind about her late-night visit and decided to return home immediately. But then she slowly let the back of her head fall against the doorframe. She looked at the younger woman. “You may want to sit down.”
“Is Annie’s dad dead?”
“No. Well, as far as I know, no.”
“Is this about Annie and the Miami detective?”
“Oh, did you talk to Rafael Rook too? He thinks Annie’s spending the night with that detective Daniel Hart.”
“How does he know? She called me and talked about floating around with this detective in outer space. She sounded intoxicated. And/or she’s in love.”
“Already?” Upset, Sam shook her head no, then yes. “Well, I can’t think about that now.”
Georgette took the older woman by the arm, leading her back into the hall. “Sam, what’s the matter with you?”
“Annie may call you about her mother tomorrow. I want you to be prepared.” Sam pulled Georgette down beside her on the painted pine bench.
“Prepared for what?”
“I’m pretty sure I know who Annie’s mother is.” She pressed Georgette’s hands in hers. “Your aunt Ruthie is her mother.”
Georgette laughed. “You’re joking.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
Georgette looked at her. “No, you don’t. Who told you this?”
“Nobody. Nobody tells me a goddamn thing in this family.” Sam thrust the DVD at her. “Watch this home movie. If you don’t see what I see, we’re both crazy.”
Georgette stood up, frowning. “Let me process this. You think my aunt Ruthie is Annie’s mother because of a movie?”
“Well, tell you the truth I’ve wondered about it ever since Ruthie came back here that night, you remember? You and Annie were fourteen, I think. But this is footage Jack shot of Ruthie about a year before Annie was born.”
The young psychiatrist held out her hand. “Sam, I want to take back what I said. I guess maybe there is a movie you could name that I’ll watch at three in the morning.”
They went to the Nickerson “family room,” still so called, although there was no one in the family living here but Georgette. Together, while the cat Pitti Sing purred for attention, the two women viewed the DVD of the short silent films that Jack had made of the teenaged Ruthie.
Georgette turned off her DVD player. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. Ruthie was hot. It’s clear Jack was crazy about her. It’s clear your mother Grandee was crazy.”
“Don’t go there. Talk about Annie.”
“I guess you’ve got a point about Annie. There’s a…”
“Family resemblance?”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?” laughed Sam tensely.
“Sort of. Still it’s a stretch. Wouldn’t somebody have said something?”
“People don’t say things.”
Georgette snorted. “Get into psychiatry. People say things to me for fifty nonstop minutes. You can’t stop them from saying things. They keep saying things as I shove them out the door.”
Sam rubbed her hand affectionately on the case of the DVD. “You didn’t see Jack’s face when Ruthie ran off. I always suspected he went after her when he robbed us at Dad’s funeral…But I couldn’t even think about it then. Dad had…drowned. Mama’d gone even crazier. This is before your time, of course.”
“It’s a relief to find something that’s before my time,” admitted Georgette. “So you think Ruthie is Annie’s mother? Wow. Ruthie stood right out there in the yard with us that night in the ninth grade. And then she just packed up the Nickerson salad forks and left and never came back.”
Sam said that she didn’t think Ruthie knew that Annie was the child she’d given up at birth. Once, pressed, Jack had told Sam that Annie’s mother had abandoned him, believing their just-born baby had been adopted. Sam suspected Ruthie had no idea that Jack had kept the child and that the child was Annie.
Georgette wondered, “Why didn’t you ever ask Jack about Ruthie’s