The Loves of Ruby Dee by Curtiss Ann Matlock

wondered what was going on, in the little shack as well as with Lonnie Starr. His merry hazel eyes had turned dark, rather like a dull mud puddle, even though his face remained as pleasant as ever.
    “We’d better get your Miss Edna out of the sun,” he said and turned for the house.
    But he hadn’t taken two steps when Will Starr hollered at them. In the doorway of the old shack, he motioned with his arm. It was obvious he meant come on the double.
    Lonnie Starr murmured a curse and dropped the bag and Miss Edna back on the car seat and strode off toward his brother. Ruby Dee set her box of precious things beside the urn before running after him.
    Will Starr and his daddy had argued and come to blows. Will Starr had a nasty puncture wound on his cheekbone, just below his eye. It would need stitches. He wiped the blood away with his sleeve, but succeeded only in smearing it.
    His daddy, a stocky man with a shock of white hair, sat across the room, on the floor, his foot having gone through a rotten floorboard. Both men were white as starch, and as stiff, too, and the aura of hostility was thick as smoke from an oil fire.
    Will Starr took his daddy beneath the arm on one side, and Lonnie grasped him on the other, and they got the older man up and out of the hole. The elder Starr immediately commanded his sons: “Leave be,” and shook them off as he would flies. The next instant he promptly about fell over, because the ankle that had gone through the floor gave way. Will Starr caught him. His daddy said he was fine and blamed his almost falling on Lonnie Starr letting go so quickly.
    “Gimme my cane.”
    But even with his cane, he couldn’t manage more than two shuffled steps. He couldn’t put weight on the foot that had gone through the floor, and he was awfully shaky, besides. His white face was now gray, with a red nose.
    Will Starr said, “Dad, you’ve hurt that ankle. Don’t try to use it. Let’s get you over to the door, where you can sit in the fresh air.”
    To which his daddy said, “Ever’thing on me’s hurt, and fresh air ain’t fixed it yet.”
    Lonnie Starr didn’t say anything. He stepped through the door ahead of them, shoved his hands in his pockets and propped a boot and his back against the shack.
    Will Starr got an old chair from the corner, set it just outside the doorway and helped his daddy into it. The older man braced himself hard on the arms of the chair, and Ruby Dee saw that his fingernails were long and unkempt, with blue showing underneath their yellowish color, and he was shaking like a leaf in a high wind. His blood-sugar level was no doubt soaring like a kite.
    As he relaxed, he emitted a rush of breath. Ruby Dee was close enough to him to catch the hint of whiskey on it. Whiskey was poison for anyone with diabetes, not to mention an eighty-five year old man. Of course, it had been Ruby Dee’s observation that most anything a person enjoyed was poison to a body after about fifty years of age.
    “Well, Mr. Starr, we’d best take a look at that ankle,” she said, crouching on the ground in front of him and reaching for the foot that had gone through the floor.
    The man’s hand came flying, as if to swat her, and she ducked. She had quick reflexes—had to, in her work.
    “All of ya’all get away from me.” The old man glared at her and then looked up at Will Starr. “Haven’t you done enough? Leave me be.” His tone was sharp as a knife blade.
    Will Starr said tiredly, “We’re gonna have to get you to the hospital, Dad. Lon, go bring the truck."
    “I ain’t goin’ to no hospital,” the elder Starr said.
    “Of course not,” Ruby Dee said, which caused Will Starr to frown at her, and his daddy to eye her. At least she had gotten their attention.
    She was still crouched there, in front of the elder Mr. Starr. She met his gaze but kept her expression casual as could be, saying, “We need to see if your ankle is broken. Then you might want to go to the hospital,