#ruby.mia

“It’s almost your birthday.”

“Do you think she’s okay?” Ruby asked Mia the second they were out the door of their mother’s house. They were even still on the front steps, she couldn’t wait to ask. Jean jacket over her arm and canvas bag over her shoulder (now full of chocolate chip cookies, thanks mom), she bit at her lower lip, unable to shake the concern. “Like I think we can agree she’s really easy to worry about.” Because of dad. Because she was alone in a house that once held three kids and a loving husband. It didn’t help that she herself didn’t feel comfortable being with their mother for more than a couple of hours at a time. Every week or two when she’d show up to have coffee and just kind of check in, she worried she was watching for a falter in her smile, some hint that things weren’t okay anymore. It was probably paranoia, but Ruby couldn’t help but feel she had to be ‘on’ all of the time to reassure that she wasn’t going about to relapse any time soon. It was exhausting. But now it was her time to be worried. Continuing down onto the sidewalk, she looked to the street and chewed at her lower lip. It was too nice to take a taxi and she had to head down to the shop anyways. “She doesn’t really talk about all of this stuff, what’s been going on. At least not with me.” @drmiapeterson

“How much do you think all of this cost?” Ruby asked as she tore her eyes from the decorations to her sister at her side. She herself had been searching through thrift stores for weeks for something with enough sequins and the black dress was something she could wear again if she wanted to. They’d both skipped on the gogo boots and honestly, she wasn’t surprised her elder sibling had gone with a more ‘girl boss’ kind of look. “I’ve never even been in here.” Surveying the room, the whole place could actually be some kind of seventies disco. She couldn’t really blame the decorator’s, everyone loved sequins and mood lighting. “Wonder if they have anything other than cosmo’s and martini’s to drink, too.” Not like she wasn’t used to asking for some kind of ‘kiddy cocktail’, she just didn’t want to risk anything with a bartender she didn’t know. @drmiapeterson

“Do you think self defense classes are like, too much?” Ruby looked to Mia, her teeth biting at the inside of her cheek. It was a rhetorical question, she knew Mia was going to support her. They were all about the safety as a family, they’d been that way for years. It was surprising that their mother hadn’t put them all into plastic bubbles after what’d happened to their father. Healing, protecting, that’d kind of just become what they did. It’d been why she’d been so (figuratively) out of her element at the Beekman, offense just wasn’t her thing. Sitting at Mia’s kitchen table, a muffin from their excursion to the bakery down the street in front of her beside one of her sketchpads, she knew the real reason she was there. There wasn’t any avoiding it anymore, it didn’t feel right to keep that whole incident quiet from her sibling any longer. Straightening up, she let out a deep breath and clasped her hands together, posture mimicking how she’d sat when she’d talked to Officer Rhodes. “I need to tell you something. About that night at the Beekman.” @drmiapeterson

“I know she thinks she went in too hard on the cinnamon, but this is truly amazing.” Their mother’s apple pie was even better the day after Thanksgiving when Ruby could load on as much ice cream or whipped cream as she wanted on it. There were four of them in the family home now, but three pies were still made and evenly distributed between siblings later on in the evening. Pumpkin usually wound up going to their brother, she had no idea if she had always liked apple better or if she’d just convinced herself to like it because she had no chance of getting pumpkin over her siblings. Sitting at Mia’s kitchen table, shopping bags full of the early morning’s conquest at her feet, Ruby stabbed her fork into her pie slice. “You know, I just took the Halloween decorations down at the shop and now I’m almost late to the Christmas decor game.” @drmiapeterson