Ruth set the bowl of cake batter down on the counter hard enough to make her mother jump, which was no small feat, considering what little hearing her mother had left. She turned and sniffed petulantly.
"He didn't even have the decency to pretend," Ruth spat. She put the bowl in the crook of her arm and violently scraped the batter into the cake pan. "Just left the message from her on the machine where I could hear it."
"I always told you that boy was up to no good," her mother said.
It wasn't true. Ruth's mother had been relieved when Ruth had decided to marry Aaron. Settling down had never really been part of her plan, but it hadn't felt all that settled to be with Aaron from the beginning. Now, she could have argued with her mother about the I-told-you-so comment, but considering she was right, Ruth didn't have the energy for it.
Her mother sniffed again. "Well, if he's gonna give some harlot waitress in Dayton a baby, he'd better give you another one too. He still owes you a girl."
The last thing Ruth wanted was to be pregnant again, but she wasn't about to say that to her mother, who'd struggled to hang on to Ruth long enough to bring her to term. She set the cake pan on top of the stove, staring without seeing at the temperature gauge.
"I thought about calling her back, you know? Just to say, 'Aaron's wife sends her regards,' or something. But it sounds like she's already angry enough at him."
"Well, I hope you make him beg a good long time before you let him in the house again," her mother advised. She stood, wincing from the arthritis, and made her slow, ponderous way to the liquor cabinet above the breadbox.
"I'm of a mind to change the locks on the door," said Ruth. It was nothing but a bluff, and her mother knew it. They didn't have money to pay their utility bill, much less to hire a locksmith for a reason as foolish as that. Aaron was only here part of the time anyway. Most nights, Ruth was the one out looking for him on the street, after the bars closed.
"I praise God every day for your two boys, Ruthie." Her mother unscrewed the cap on the bottle of Four Roses and carefully poured two shots, sliding one across the counter toward Ruth. She looked hard at her daughter. "You promise me, now, they're gonna give me some great-grandchildren someday. Lord knows…"
She waved off the rest of the sentence, but it was a familiar refrain. Lord knows your brother Samuel isn't giving me grandchildren. Ruth didn't blame Samuel for being gay, but her mother certainly did. Even now, as Samuel's partner was in the process of dying of Kaposi's Sarcoma, no one in the family spoke of him with any kind of awareness that he was worth remembering.
Ruth sighed. "I promise, Ma." She raised the shot of bourbon like a toast, and sipped it, grimacing.
"Noah, he's going to pass on the bloodline. I can see it."
There was no arguing with her mother when she got like that, surrounded with mystical certainty. Whatever her mother did or not see in her dreams, it was impossible to know. Ruth wasn't one to put faith in things that made no sense. She said the blessing on Fridays and honored the high holidays, but other than that, she figured it was up to her to make her own good fortune in the world.
She stared glumly at the glass in her hand, and downed the rest before picking up Noah's fourth birthday cake and sliding it into the oven. Not that I've had much luck with that.