Ruby

When a new face appeared at the counter, one or the other of the women approached them with a smile and a gleeful greeting. Two elderly men chose a booth behind the stranger. They wore matching khaki pants with careful creases down the front. One of the men was quite round and waddled as he walked. With each passing word, he panted as if he couldn’t ever catch his breath. A slender belt made its way around his waist, magnifying his ample midsection. The other man was thin and casual. A yellowed thermal shirt hid beneath his slick nylon jacket that danced with embroidered horses.

The men enjoyed open faced hot browns and copious amounts of coffee. Ruby wrote them a ticket and slid it toward the portly, well-dressed man. As she poured their last refills the breathless, old man reached into his pocket and thumbed through large bills. “Miss Ruby, you got change fer a fifty?”

Ruby continued filling their plain ivory mugs, and without a glance responded, “Now, honey, if I had a fifty, it’d be a change!” The men burst into laughter, the one holding his wallet wheezing and coughing. Proud to make them laugh, Ruby smiled and shot a playful wink at them and made her way back behind the counter. Four ladies crowded into the booth behind the men and prattled over one another.

They all wore hair that was massive and thick with body. The first woman’s hair was short and raven black, another blonde and full of curls, another shoulder-length and flaming red, and the last sported a chestnut-brown bob. The stranger glimpsed with curiosity. Their shoes were orthopedic with wide Velcro straps, their pants a palette of polyester hues. They wore loosely knit cardigans, dressy sweatshirts, and dainty gold jewelry. While their hair appeared youthful an...

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...anger placed his hand over Ruby’s hand, his distinctly sapphire eyes searching out hers. “Ruby, life is full of difficult decisions. Sometimes we lose things that we hold dear, but it doesn’t mean that all is lost.”

Ruby studied the stranger as he spoke. She saw her father’s lovely, straight nose. The wave of his hair, the furrow of his brow were all too familiar. She had dreamt of this young man’s face since she was fifteen years old. It was hard to believe he stood before her now. “Forgive yourself, Ruby. Forgive Agnes. A mother deserves that.”

Ruby’s eyes blinked back unyielding tears. She did not know what to say to the stranger, but she hoped he would feel what she felt. Relieved by the startling knock of a regular, Ruby realized it was 4:00. She wiped her watery eyes and found a tissue for her nose before rushing to unlock the door and turn the sign to “open.”