(Part3) The Haunting of Ruby Shane

Some wounds are so deep I can't imagine how we survive them. Let alone thrive with them in our hearts and souls.

Maybe that is why I gave Thomas the wrong address the day he fixed my car. I gave him the address of a friend of mine who was out of town for her uncle's funeral and wouldn't be back for a week.


Thomas later told me he had waited at her house for 4 hours for me to come home. He said he finally figured it out that I had given him the wrong address when the neighbor boy came over and told him that Mary was out of town. He said he wasn't looking for Mary he was looking for a Ruby.
The boy told him there was no Ruby that lived there and never had been.

Thomas said it just made him more determined to find me. He had found the girl he was going to marry. And he said, he knew it, from the minute he had looked into my aqua blue eyes.


But I didn't want Thomas to find me. I didn't know how he would react to where I lived. The girl from the wrong side of the tracks. That was never allowed to forget that her Mother cleaned other people's homes for a living, or that her father was the town drunk that often slept it off in the ditch in our front yard.
No, people were cruel. I had learned that in my life.



People judged you from where you lived and by who your parents were.
They judged you by what clothes you wore, what shoes you wore. And I wasn't ready for the most beautiful person I had ever meet to deal with that.

He was to me, like the hard orange candies I kept in my favorite jar. That I only ate on very special days. Or when I had done something extraordinary. The rest of the time I just opened my cabinet and looked at them or smelled them. The brilliance of their color delighted me and the smell was intoxicating.

If we met again I had to be sure that where I lived was not an issue.
That it would not make a difference to him. That he would like me for me. I would find out the next day...


to be continued...

by Nita Barrow Zimmerman

Today's Song, A Rainy Night in Georgia
By Brook Benton
1st video, 1st clip

This song is one of my favorites. The way he sings this with such sadness and soul fullness has always touched my heart.