Free Driftwood Point by Mariah Stewart Page B

right in the middle of her abdomen, was a small blob of something faintly pink.
    â€œStopped at Steffie’s, be my guess.” Ruby folded her arms across her chest, a glint of aha in her smile.
    â€œThere’s sure nothing wrong with your eyes,” Lis muttered.
    â€œShould there be?”
    Lis shook her head. “You just . . . you never fail to amaze me, Gigi.”
    Still smiling, Ruby climbed the steps and folded herself into one of the rocking chairs. Lis shifted her body around to face her. In this morning light, the lines on the old woman’s face were more noticeable than usual. Not for the first time, Lis was struck by the beauty that radiated from within her great-grandmother. The woman had an aura, a presence. What would it take, Lis wondered, to capture that radiance, that knowing Ruby seemed to possess? What color could re-create the clear blue of those eyes, the pure white of her hair, and the softly tanned skin of that remarkable face? Was Lis artist enough to even attempt such a thing? She’d never liked painting portraits, but maybe . . .
    â€œFolks on my side live long,” Ruby was saying. “Not that I’m fearing the hereafter, mind. Nothing fearful about seeing them who gone before. See my Harold, my sisters. My mother and father. The baby son we buried, me and Harold. The daughter we lost to influenza. Eight years old and pretty as them roses growing around the front porch. Resting all peaceful, just waiting for me. Now, Harold and my mother and father, they be laid right down there on this side of the fence. The babies, well, they were laid to rest down by the old house on the point. I been thinkingabout moving them up here so they can be with me and their daddy. Never did hear of anyone moving a grave, though.” Ruby stopped rocking for a moment and asked, “You think that would be bad luck for them? Being moved after being in one place all that time?”
    â€œI . . . I don’t know.” Lis was somewhat taken aback. “I never thought about . . . well, about doing something like that.”
    â€œI swear, I don’t know what’s right. Me and my Harold talked about it, but he died before he ever said.” Ruby resumed rocking. “Decision might come to you and Owen, by and by, if I don’t figure out before I go.”
    â€œI don’t like to think about that, Gigi.” The words stuck in Lis’s throat.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause I’d miss you too much.”
    â€œMuch as you miss me when you’re off doing whatever, and I be here?”
    â€œI know. I should spend more time here. And I will.” Lis nodded. “I will. Just don’t leave me yet, Gigi.”
    â€œGot no plans for soon. We’ll see. It’s all in his hands, and he keeps his plans to himself, no reason to let me know ahead ’a time.”
    Ruby stood and turned toward the back door, then paused to glance over her shoulder and look Lis in the eye. “You don’t be worrying about what you can’t change, what’s past or what’s to come. Dying is like living, all part of the same. You be born when he say it’s time, you go on back when he calls you.Be up to you and Owen to bury me right. Don’t be forgetting where I need to be. And don’t be letting your cousin Chrissie Jenkins have a hand in it. That girl be too fancy by a mile. Sent her grandmother to her grave in a pink satin-lined coffin. I never saw such a thing. A box is a box and you need to keep in mind where it’s going.”
    She patted Lis’s head before heading inside. Lis heard voices from the radio that Ruby had turned on in the store, heard a window being opened to bring in fresh air from the bay. When Alec had talked Ruby into renovating the building, Lis wished he’d talked her into central air-conditioning. It hadn’t been too hot the night before, but Lis was betting