She helps him back out into the daylight, beneath the sky and the trees. The
baby lies in the buggy sucking his fist, examining the sky with great intensity,
and Ruby guides Tom to a bench.
Cars and trucks and a white limousine pass slowly along the white bridge, high
over the river. The city glitters in the distance.
Thank you, says Tom.
For what?
For this.
How old are you now, Tom?
Twenty-one. Same as you. A breeze stirs the trees, and the leaves vibrate with
light. Everything is radiant.
World goes to Hades but babies still get born, whispers Tom.
Ruby peers into the buggy and adjusts something, and for a moment the back
of her neck shows between her hair and collar. The sight of those two knobs of
vertebrae, sheathed in her pale skin, fills Tom with a longing that cracks the
lawns open. For a moment it seems Ruby is being slowly dragged away from
him, as if he is a swimmer caught in a rip, and with every stroke the back of her
neck recedes farther into the distance. Then she sits back, and the park heals
over, and he can feel the bench become solid beneath him once more.
I used to think, Tom says, that I had to be careful with how much I lived. As if
life was a pocketful of coins. You only got so much and you didn’t want to spend
it all at once in one place.
Ruby looks at him. Her eyelashes whisk up and down. But now I know life is the
one thing in the world that never runs out. I might run out of mine, and you might
run out of yours but the world will never run out of life. And we’re all very lucky
to be part of something like that.
She holds his gaze. Some deserve more luck than they’ve gotten.
Tom shakes his head firmly. He closes his eyes. I’ve been lucky, too. I’ve been
absolutely lucky. The baby begins to fuss, a whine building to a cry. Ruby says,
Hungry. A trapdoor opens in the gravel between Tom’s feet, black as a keyhole,
and he glances down at it.
You’ll be OK?
I’ll be OK.
Good-bye, Tom. She touches his forearm once, and then goes, pushing the
buggy through the crowds. He watches her disappear in pieces: first her legs,
then her hips, then her shoulders, and finally the back of her bright head.
And then Tom sits, hands in his lap, alive for one more day.
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