4. RUBY (Ricki Monique)
Rubaline “Ruby” Fae Livingston Jr has the same name as our mother, but the two could not be more different. They look alike, when my sister was a young girl she was the spitting image of my mother in pictures of her at the same age. Even now, approaching forty, she looks like my mother, and when they stand next to one another, they look like alternate reality versions of the same woman.
I said this to my sister once and she punched me in the arm.
“Shut up with that science nonsense. You never said that about daddy and Cedric.”
She was right, I would have never made that observation about the two of them because she resembled my mother much more closely than Ced did my father. But I didn’t explain that to her because I was crying from her punch and I didn’t want her to see.
My sister isn’t a bully, in fact, she is a bully-slayer. When she learned that I was being picked on at school for talking way too much about my love for Martha Stewart, she shadowed me at school whenever she wasn’t in class and she would verbally and physically assault anyone who looked at me in a threatening way. When my brother dabbled in drug dealing in high school, he was terrible at it and he told me once that his money was short and his boss was threatening to break his hands. But Ruby did something to fix the situation for him, though Ced never found out exactly what she did. She just told him very seriously that he couldn’t sell drugs anymore or she would personally break his hands and my brother walked away from that life forever.
My sister could be aggressive and mean to her brothers, but she was never malicious. She protected us like the oldest sibling usually does. Even though she looked like my mother, she had the temperament of my father and has had a long and decorated career as a Marine.
“What you laughing for?” she asked after she had slapped my head for laughing at my brother. “That smell like some all natural tobacco he was smoking, and you the only one who buy cigarettes like that.”
“Hey Rubaline,” my uncle Thomas said softly as he approached her and hugged her.
“It’s good to see you uncle,” she said and I saw a tenderness in her that I had rarely seen my sister display.
My father hugged her when my uncle was done and he kissed her forehead.
“You look strong, Rubaline,” he said with both his hands on her shoulders. “How the service treating you?”
Ruby nodded, “It’s all good, pops. I’m hoping this promotion go through.”
“It’s already done,” he said proudly. “They’d be dumb to pass you over with your test scores.”
She smiled humbly and we all stood in a circle admiring her.
“So, why I wasn’t invited to this thing?” She said and shoved Ced. “I ain’t man enough to cook a turkey?”
Everyone looked at me. I had started the group text with my father, brother and uncle where we discussed meeting like we had.
“I didn’t think you’d be in town until tomorrow,” I said pleadingly.
“Yeah, I was but uncle Thomas said y’all would be here today so I thought I’d leave early,” Ruby said. “What y’all doing out here?” She looked over at the smoker on my grandfather’s back porch next to his grill and they both sat idle. “Y’all ain’t cooking nothing yet?”
“Did you know uncle Thomas was gay?” Ced asked and I looked at him with annoyance. If she didn’t know, I didn’t think it was his place to tell her while our uncle was standing right there to do it himself.
Ruby’s face erupted into a smile; she showed her teeth and her eyes were big with enthusiasm.
“You told them?” she asked and hugged uncle Thomas again.
“I told Ced and he pretty much took care of the rest. He hasn’t told your grandpa yet, but I imagine he will before the holiday is over.”
“My bad, unk,” Ced said. “I just think we owe it to you to let you know ain’t no animosity here. We love you and nothing will change that. You ain’t gotta hide from us.”
Behind all of his machismo, my brother really is a sweetheart. Family is very important to him and I appreciated the way he embraced my uncle. I looked at my sister to gauge her reaction, but it seemed that she was already aware. They looked at each other and he gave her an encouraging smile.
“It ain’t nearly as hard as you think it is,” he said to her. “We just build it up in our heads and only think about all the worst possible scenarios. But the people who really love you aren’t the scary people you make them in your head.”
Ruby was heartened by the words and I couldn’t help but think that her showing up in the middle of that conversation wasn’t a coincidence. The way she and my uncle looked at each other, I realized that the two of them shared a connection unlike the one that I enjoyed with my uncle.
Uncle Thomas smiled at me, then Ced, then my father as he put an arm around his shoulder. My father was confused, but looked to Ruby.
“Daddy, Wes, Ced,” Ruby said deliberately, “I’m engaged. I’m getting married.”
We were all elated and offered more hugs and congratulations. But Ruby remained deliberate, resolute, like she was gathering her nerve and she looked to uncle Thomas often.
“I’ve been seeing a woman named Ariel for a few years now,” Ruby said and I watched my brother’s mouth fall open with shock. My father looked confused.
“Half a decade,” uncle Thomas said.
“It’s been a while,” Ruby nodded. “We’re happy. We set the date for early next year. And we’re gonna have a baby.”
My brother and I were over the moon with excitement and we wrapped arms around Ruby while we pelted her with questions about Ariel, why she hadn’t told us she was a lesbian even though we both had an inkling. What she said was almost identical to the words that uncle Thomas had said to my father. When we finished our sibling reverie, I noticed my father standing stone still, my uncle’s arm still over his shoulder.
A silence hung over us all as I watched Ruby shrink under the seemingly empty gaze of our father. She was nervous to come out to him, just like Thomas was nervous about telling his father, and I was suddenly overcome by the same nervousness, despite the touching moment he had shared with my uncle less than an hour before.
I couldn’t read my father, he had really been caught off guard by the news and his face was truly blank. I hoped that he wasn’t mad, that he wouldn’t justify Ruby’s apprehension in telling him who she truly was. But at that moment, I couldn’t be sure.
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