Her long, red hair was dull and lifeless and I saw the beginnings of grey around her temples and scalp. She looked…old. And that freaked me out. Ruby had always been strong and capable. She was the rock I had always needed. Staring at my aunt, I realized she wasn’t my rock anymore. And that I was going to have to suck it up and be the rock for her.

“Ruby,” I called out. She turned her head in the direction of my voice and I was relieved to see some of the old sparkle come back into her listless eyes. She got to her feet and held her arms out for me.

I walked into them and hugged her. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she breathed out as she held me. I let her hold on, knowing she wasn’t ready to let go yet. She felt smaller, almost as though she had shrunk in on herself. It worried me.

Finally I pulled back and she tried to give me a smile. It didn’t come close to reaching her eyes. But I took what I could get. I found my suitcase quickly and followed her out of the airport.

Once outside I shivered. God damn it was cold. I had gotten too used to southern Florida and the days that never dipped below seventy degrees. Shit, this was like walking into a freezer.

“I hope you remembered to bring a coat. We’ve had an unseasonable cold snap. They’re actually calling for snow tonight. The seasons are all messed up. And some people have the audacity to say that global warming is a myth,” Ruby said, clearly trying her hardest to make things normal.

But there was no such thing as normal. That was the myth. I had fought long and hard for something that I now realized didn’t exist. And boy was that depressing. I took a deep breath. I swear the air just smelled different in Virginia. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it just felt like…well, home.

I put my arm around my aunt’s shoulders and walked quietly with her to the car. “Why don’t you let me drive?” I suggested, holding my hand out for the car keys. Ruby looked exhausted and I didn’t want to admit to her that on a good day her driving scared the piss out of me. But seeing her like this, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, there was no way I was letting her behind the wheel.

Ruby didn’t argue as she dropped the two pound key ring into my palm. I sorted through the mess of spare keys and random trinkets until I found the one for her Volvo. I got into the driver’s side and looked over to see that Ruby was standing in the open door, not moving.

“Ruby?” I said her name more as a question. Mostly because I hated to see my aunt, who used to be so full of life, reduced to this shell of a person. It pissed me off that life could be so cruel. Ruby didn’t deserve the grief she was feeling. There were millions of people who lived their f**ked up lives, never lifting a finger to help anyone else. But a woman who had put her life on hold to save mine was suffering. It made me want to hit something.

“Sorry,” Ruby murmured, finally getting into the car. She sat numbly, looking out of the window as I pulled into beltway traffic. We didn’t talk. Not a word. I knew there was nowhere else I’d rather be than with Ruby right now. But God, that selfish part of me wanted to run for the hills.

The weight of our mutual grief was suffocating. “Have you eaten any dinner?” I asked, trying to prod some sort of conversation out of my silent aunt. She shook her head.

“I’m not hungry,” her deadened voice replied. I was starving but I thought it was a better idea to just get to Davidson and start dealing with everything that was waiting for me there. I wanted to ask how she was doing. But I could see with my own eyes exactly how she was doing. And it wasn’t good.

Ruby was hollow and I wasn’t sure how well I was going to handle all of this. I merged onto I66 and headed south. I tried several times to start a conversation and even though Ruby attempted to engage, we ended up dropping off into silence. After a while, I gave up and turned on the radio.

Two hours later, I drove into Davidson and it was like my entire world shuddered around me. I drove down the familiar streets and felt intense and overwhelming panic. I couldn’t do this! I needed to get the f**k out of here!

The mellow edge brought on from my medication blurred into the freak out rising inside me. The roads were pretty empty. Not surprising considering it was almost midnight on a Wednesday evening. And what did I expect? A mob greeting me as I rolled into town with pitchforks and torches shouting, “Get the nut job?”

I fought an internal battle that urged me to drop Ruby off at home and run away as fast as I could. I pulled into the driveway at Ruby’s and parked behind my car. It still sat there as though waiting for me.

“You didn’t have to hang onto it, you know. I told you to sell it and to keep the money,” I said to Ruby as we climbed out of the car. Ruby shook her head and gave me a ghost of a smile.

“There was no way we were going to sell it. It’s yours,” was all she said as we walked to the front door. Turning on the hallway light, I dropped my suitcase in the living room and froze.

Lisa’s glasses and book still lay on the coffee table. Her favorite mug half full of cold coffee sat beside them. Lisa’s slippers kicked half under the couch as though she had just taken them off.

The air in here was oppressive. Lisa had always been the housekeeper and that was very obvious. The place was a wreck. Going into the kitchen, dishes piled up in the sink, the trash overflowed onto the floor. The counters were sticky with spilled tea.

There were flowers everywhere. The sickeningly sweet smell of decaying food mixed with the scent of flowers made me want to puke. One particularly huge arrangement sat on the kitchen table. I noticed distractedly that someone had to have spent a lot of money on that particular bouquet.