Beggar of Love (30 page)

One minute she was thinking that maybe Ginger would get back with her, and the next she was imagining the world without Ginger in it.

Her father kept the wheelbarrow upended against the front row of wood in the shed. She slammed firewood with satisfying whacks into the wheelbarrow until it was piled high, then pushed it to the porch steps. Ginger opened the door for her and held it while Jefferson toted in armloads of logs. She thought she might as well get enough for Saturday night too and went back to fill the wheelbarrow again, gentler with the wood this time. When she returned, Ginger was sweeping up fallen bark and log dust, as she had dozens of times before when they’d spent time in New Hampshire. Why did Ginger have to get sick? Had all Ginger’s shut-down feelings corroded her arteries? If only Ginger could let go, be loving and cuddly like she’d been at first, before she’d opened the school, back when she still had dreams of performing, when the world was filled with promises instead of late-night bookkeeping, parental demands, kids’ fickle attendance, all the bottom lines of being grown that had robbed them of the childhood of their love. Ginger got too serious on her.

She berated herself. It wasn’t Ginger’s fault, but her own. All the heartache she’d caused finally burst open inside Ginger and almost killed her.

Jefferson didn’t sleep much that night. A splinter in the palm of her hand throbbed. Every time she woke up from the discomfort her brain got back on the why-Ginger track, with links to the it’s-all-my-fault siding and the Ginger’s-going-to-beat-it station stop. Instead of getting up to serve Ginger breakfast in bed as she’d planned, she didn’t awaken until the sun was high outside her bedroom window and Ginger sat on the porch wrapped in the army blanket, sound asleep, quietly snoring, a mug and a saucer with a smear of cream cheese and some poppy seeds from a bagel on the porch rail. The smell of coffee had not wakened her because Ginger was sticking to herbal teas, which were better for her blood pressure. They’d brought a whole braid of garlic because that was supposed to be good too, and they had to replace salt. Ginger was adding brewer’s yeast to everything but the chocolate cake.

It was noon by the time they strolled down the hill. Gentle, regular exercise, like walking or swimming, had been prescribed, and Ginger had to avoid going out in very cold weather, which they’d be unlikely to get on a spring morning. She found herself monitoring Ginger for signs of pain.

“I wish I could bottle this day,” Ginger said. “It’s the perfect mix of balmy and breezy, sun and shadow, blue and green. And I feel wonderful!”

Hope washed into Jefferson’s heart. The surgery had worked! She touched Ginger’s hand with a quick, soft gesture. “We can get the canoe out of the boathouse and paddle to Two Oar Island.”

At Ginger’s nod, she ran back up the hill for the key and grabbed bottles of water, chocolate bars, some almonds, and beach towels, stuffing it all in a rainbow-striped beach bag. Ginger helped slide the canoe into the water, but Jefferson wouldn’t give her a paddle. “Pretend you’re Cleopatra on the Nile.”

“Sure. Complete with a built-in asp.”

“Don’t talk that way.”

“I need to face it, Jef.”

She held out the wrist where she wore her plastic hope bracelet. “You don’t need to assume the worst.”

“Okay, I won’t. From here on out,” Ginger said, “you can call me Miz Sunshine.”

She felt like a flower yearning toward the sun. She would love Ginger back to superb health if it could be done. Otherwise what good would it have been to finally have learned to be faithful? Faithful unto death was not her idea of happily ever after. “Would you prefer I park on the shady or sunny side of the island, then, Miz Sunshine?”

“Surprise me.”

She smiled. How long had it been since Ginger had challenged her with that phrase? Her heart wasn’t the only place hit by a flood of hope this time. She hadn’t brought Ginger north with designs on her body, but an invitation wouldn’t be unwelcome. She wanted desperately a last cautious, beleaguered lovemaking. She pulled the paddle through the water steadily, rhythmically, remembering Ginger’s scent, the give of her flesh under Jefferson’s fingertips, that incredibly stimulating narrow tuft of red hair she loved to play with.

The little island was shaped like two crossed oars. She drew around to its sunny side and entered the V between the oars, aiming at a sandy patch. This cove was a sacred place. She’d motored out here a lot the summer before college and been back several times over the years. There was plenty of tinder and it was easy to find fallen limbs for a little fire.

She pulled the boat onto the beach and helped Ginger out, gratified that Ginger let Jefferson help her, sad that she needed help. Today they sat, skimming rocks, Ginger talking little, as if she was too tired even for words. She told Ginger about work, how she missed the new equipment and decent playing fields that had gone with a private education, including for the girl athletes, but her students needed her so much more she had no regrets about the path that got her to them. They’d mobbed her last September, two telling her that they’d only come back to school because they liked her class so much. She had hopes of convincing a few to try college.

“Why is it that the teachers liked by students are always the ones butting heads with the administration?” she asked.

“Jef, you’ve always been in trouble no matter where you taught.”

She scoffed. “That was because I kind of had attendance problems. Since I stopped drinking, I seem to, I don’t know, get all contrary when they tell me what to do. It’s like they’re in it to make themselves feel more important, not to teach the kids.”

Ginger closed her eyes and smiled. “I’m glad I had enough saved to indulge in this long vacation.”

“And health insurance through your group.”

“It’s almost time to go back to work so I don’t lose it. Not to mention that there are so many people on our waiting list for classes I may never get to all of them teaching till I’m eighty,” Ginger said, with a sad look on her face.

“And you will,” Jefferson said with a smile of certainty. There had been all kinds of cancer in Ginger’s family, but only one uncle who had, as her parents put it, dropped dead. They’d never known the cause for sure, but now thought he must have had what Ginger was having, this aneurysm thing. The family saw one another through the tough times and went back to work. Her father and brothers thought they were invincible. Ginger liked to say that anyone who had survived her mother, a stiff, pert-looking, sharp-tongued woman, had to be invincible. Her father, as good as his word, had snuck into their retirement fund to get Ginger the rest of the seed money she’d needed to buttress Jefferson’s investment, to start her dance school. When Mrs. Quinn found out, she went and stayed with her sister’s family in Woodside for six months, leaving her husband and her bachelor son to cook and clean and shop for themselves. For sure Ginger had inherited her mother’s unbreakable will.

On the trip back to the Jeffersons’ house the afternoon breeze broke the water into a million moving facets of light, like diamonds floating everywhere. They didn’t speak and there was no sound but wooden paddle and water. Although it felt more like she was stirring a thick pudding than pulling through water, she knew it was she who was stirred up. The Jefferson place came into view, set like a monument in its nest of great cedars, balsam firs, sugar maples, and white pines at the top of the green slope of lawn. The sight always made her think entering heaven could not feel better.

The cottage, really too large for a cottage, but that’s what her family had always called it, was freshly painted white with a screened-in front porch and gray roofing. It had two bedrooms, although in the summer, Jefferson usually used the cot on the porch. The sun would wake her, its rays reaching between the trees to touch her face and eyelids. If she had to define happiness, it was a place, this place, for her. Finches and sparrows sang early morning songs. Whenever she came up here she wondered why she lived in the city, but of course she knew why. The lakes region was short on gay life. There were no Café Femmes softball teams to coach. No gay friends she’d known forever.

She guided the canoe into the boathouse and held it steady while Ginger climbed onto the wooden walkway that lay between Mr. Jefferson’s powerboat and the racks where they stowed the canoe and the kayak. She attached hooks and touched the switch. Pulleys hoisted the canoe out of the water. She rolled the lake door down, then hurried out the dry door and locked it. Ginger sat on the brown wooden bench, her long hair wavy, thick, still mostly copper against the shade of the pines. Jefferson stood before her, offering her hands to pull Ginger up.

Ginger seemed to hesitate at the bottom of the hill as they reached it, caught her breath, and started up. Jefferson lagged a half-step behind, slowing herself to Ginger’s decreasing pace. They’d gone about two-thirds of the way when Ginger stopped, swaying in place. Her voice was thin when she said, “Jef. I can’t. I can’t make it up this little hill.”

“We can do it together,” Jefferson replied, all hope rolling back down the hillside, like a golf ball after a weak chip shot. Ginger had been so strong—why was this happening? “Or else,” she joked, “I’ll stick you in the wheelbarrow!” She put one arm around Ginger’s waist, the other under her elbow, so that she pushed and supported and steered. Resting a few feet on, she looked to the treetops and asked the goddess, her higher power, the universe—whatever—to give Ginger back her life, but she knew now, as they started their last awkward dance uphill, that Ginger was a step away from being wholly spirit. The touching they were doing at this moment was nothing like any she had felt before with Ginger, only with Glad.

That night she lay in bed on the porch with two army blankets over her sleeping bag, yearning for Ginger. She wanted to crawl into bed with Ginger, who slept inside, and have Ginger hold her, hold her and maybe say something soothing or how sorry she was to have gone off to look for happiness in the wrong place when Jefferson came home to her once and for all, how she’d miss all the years they could have had together now, how she’d miss Jefferson and longed to stay, stay, stay, and then Jefferson would roll out of Ginger’s arms and hold her and say, but we have now, we have this minute, this night, and maybe tomorrow for perfect closeness, as close as I’ve ever been to you, to anyone, as close as I’ll ever want to be with anyone, and I can carry this time all the rest of my life and feel I’ve lived and loved well.

But she never crawled into Ginger’s bed and Ginger never held her, never held her at all the way she’d longed for her to. Had Ginger been ready for that all these years and Jefferson not there to receive it? Ginger was her heaven, her afterlife, her universal love. Ginger had only been able to love her by staying through it all.

On a drive the next day she told Ginger she had enough years with the school system and planned to retire. Whether she helped Ginger to live or to die, these last days or years would be Ginger’s and Ginger’s alone. A long time ago Ginger had told her she wanted her ashes spread here, under the pines. She would ask Ginger to stay at the lake with her, sell the dance school and live off the interest. Maybe they both could find some peace by the serene water while Ginger was alive. After that, well, she would have planted the shadow of the flower that was Ginger at the lake.

To Jefferson’s surprise, Ginger agreed to stay. She wasn’t ready to sell the school, and it paid her enough that she felt she was contributing to the household. Jefferson mailed in her resignation; her young substitute was a good teacher and wanted full-time work. They went back to the city once a month to see the doctor and so Ginger could claim she was teaching part-time and managing the business long-distance. Those trips wiped her out.

It was as if Ginger was preparing herself for a final stillness and the quiet of afterward. She slept a great deal, of course, and when she was awake, Ginger lay motionless a lot of the time. She wanted no music and seemed perfectly content to walk slowly to the bench overlooking the lake on the cooler summer mornings. She said the green lawn and the blue lake water soothed her. Every night, Jefferson went to bed excited about their walk to the bench. She enjoyed every moment with Ginger; loved looking at her, loved helping her, loved making her life better, loved Ginger’s touch when she held on to Jefferson’s arm. How many more moments would they have?

At Ginger’s insistence, she called Webbers, the local funeral parlor, in case. Ginger had explained what might go wrong post-surgery—loose stitching, not enough of the artery resected, a new aneurysm. If that happened, Ginger said, she might go very quickly. Russ Webber came out and made arrangements with them. All Ginger wanted was to be cremated before her parents got hold of her body and buried her in a box with some priest mumbling over her. Ginger had sent a copy of the paperwork to her brother Joseph and told him to say she loved them, but Mom and Dad were not to stop Jefferson from carrying out her wishes.

Only once had the subject of Ginger’s time with Mitchell come up.

“I’m sorry I caused you pain,” Ginger had offered. “I never had sex with him.”

She nodded. “I thought—”

“Oh, please. I could smell his men on him.”

Her mouth filled with the taste of bile, and she got so hot she could feel sweat at her hairline. She could say nothing, only shook her head.

“I felt sick and weak and disheartened and didn’t know it was this illness. I was afraid I’d been wrong all those lesbian years. I was sick in spirit. Then I realized that you were so much of my spirit I was even more sick without you.”