Ginger's Heart (a modern fairytale) (44 page)

CW: I love you.

The Princess: I love you too.

He tucked his phone back into his pocket, then ate the shitty food and attended the remedial classes that felt a little silly after six years of active service. But on Thursday night, lying in his bunk, he pulled out his phone again.

CW: How was work today, baby?

It took a little longer for her to respond this time, and he was almost asleep when his phone buzzed.

The Princess: Still here. Just leaving.

CW: Late shift?

The Princess: Spent a little extra time with Gran.

CW: How’s she doing?

The Princess: Not good. I wish you were here.

His heart twisted because he wished he was there too. For a moment he thought about calling her, but he knew that cell phone calls at Silver Springs were frowned upon.

CW: I’m halfway there. Day after tomorrow.

The Princess: I know. She’s just . . . I don’t know. She’s so frail and weak. And the tube is bothering her. I can see it in her eyes. She’s giving up.

Cain thought about Miz Kelleyanne—a woman he’d known his whole life. She’d been kind to him, an especially good friend since—

The Princess: How’s training?

CW: Mostly bullshit. But at least I don’t have to come back for four weeks.

The Princess: Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask, can we go away sometime? Together?

CW: Like on a vacation?

The Princess: Uh-huh. I’ve barely been anywhere.

Cain rolled onto his back, sighing with pleasure as he thought about all the wonderful places he’d seen on his travels—all the amazing places he’d like to take Ginger.

CW: Where do you want to go?

The Princess: Where would you take me?

He thought about her wearing a bikini on the white sand of Crete, or getting a tan poolside in Madrid. But when he thought of Ginger, really thought about who she was and what she loved, a different place sprang to mind, all the more perfect because it would be new to him.

CW: My pop always talks about the Lipizzaners. How do you feel about Vienna, baby?

The Princess: I wish you could see my face right now.

CW: Tell me how it looks.

The Princess: It looks happy because you are so right for me. It looks sad because it wishes you were here. It doesn’t know how to love someone this much, this hard, quite yet. My face doesn’t know what to do when you say the perfect thing. Yes, I want to go to Vienna with you.

CW: Then we’ll go to Vienna.

The Princess: Just like that?

CW: Just like that. We’ll go to the Spanish Riding School and see my pop’s horses, and then we’ll ride my bike all over Austria, all over Germany, wherever you want.

The Princess: And I’ll hold on to you.

CW: Fuck, yeah.

The Princess: And you’ll speak German.

CW: Scheisse, ja.

The Princess: I’m home now. And I’m not as sad. Thanks for cheering me up.

CW: I’d do anything for you, princess.

The Princess: Then come home to me on Saturday safe and sound. That’s all I want.

CW: See you then.

The Princess: I love you.

CW: I love you too.

Cain sighed as he placed his phone on the bedside table, dreaming of Ginger and motorcycles and white stallions and making love all over Europe.

When his alarm sounded, at 0600, the little red text icon was red and waiting, and he swiped it urgently, wondering if he’d missed one last sweet PS to last night’s conversation. He grinned at the screen, scrubbing a hand over his sleepy face, but his heart sank like a stone when he read the words that popped up on the screen:

The Princess: She’s with Amy, Cain. Gran’s gone.

There is nothing good about a phone ringing at 4:43in the morning. Your mind acknowledges, even before your fingers can move, that something terrible has probably happened.

It’s not that she wasn’t expecting it. She was. Just not yet.

“Ginger, baby? It’s your daddy.”

That’s all it took. And she knew.

“When?” she asked.

“An hour ago. Or so. One of the night nurses stopped in to check on her and realized that she wasn’t breathin’.”

Ginger swung her legs over her bedside. “Are you there?”

“I am.”

“Momma?”

“I let her sleep,” he said. “But you . . . you had such a special bond with her.”

Yes, I did.

“Wright’s is comin’ soon.” He paused. “Virginia Laire?”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to say good-bye,” she said, “before they take her. Don’t . . . don’t let them take her yet, Daddy.”

“I’ll be waitin’, baby.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes starting to burn as her brain processed the finality of Gran’s death.

“Me too, Ginger. But, all things considered, she had a good life. And she was loved.”

Yes, she was.

“I’ll be there soon, Daddy.”

She hung up her phone and clutched it in her hands for a moment, the quiet of Gran’s cottage surrounding her with the sort of peace she wasn’t expecting.

Her Amy’s back. She can see her and talk to her, and maybe it doesn’t hurt as much anymore.

Tears tumbled down her cheeks as his words gave her the strength to send him a quick text before getting up to get dressed.

It was still dark as she walked down the stairs to the kitchen, grabbed her keys, and headed out to her car. The tack room was dark as she passed the barn; the world was still fast asleep. She didn’t know why she insisted on saying good-bye at Silver Springs—Gran’s soul had departed for heaven hours before—but her body, as Ginger had always known it, would be poked and prodded into final prettiness once the Wrights took her. While it was still night, she wanted to say her final good-bye.

She pulled into the parking lot and used her employee pass to open the side door and take the service elevator to her gran’s floor. Her father sat in a chair by his mother’s body, holding her bony hand, his head bent, his shoulder shaking.

“Daddy?”

“Hey, baby,” he said, looking up her, his eyes red-rimmed and shiny.

She put her hand on his shoulder, and he reached up with his free hand to hold it. “She passed quietly, they said.”

“She’s with Amy now,” said Ginger.

Her father nodded. “That’s right.”

“Dr. Sheridan?”

“Came by with his condolences.”

She sat down on the bed bedside Gran’s lifeless body. “Why don’t you go splash your face with water and get us a couple of coffees? I’ll stay with her.”

It was the exact same line she’d used a thousand times to family members who’d lost an elderly loved one, and her father, like all the rest, nodded his ascent and stood up.

As he got to the door, he turned. “She, uh, she wanted you to have this.” He held out an envelope with her name on it.

“She wrote it?”

“Her words. I just wrote them down.”

Ginger took the envelope and stared at it, slightly dumbstruck.

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Both.” She turned the envelope over and opened it. Before she took the letter out, she took Gran’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you for this. Whatever it is, thank you for one last conversation.”

***

January 2016

Doll baby,

I am fading fast now.

So fast that I don’t always know you for the first few minutes you walk into my room, though your smile fills me with joy. And when I realize, “That’s your beautiful granddaughter,” I am filled with pride.

A long time ago, a beautiful little girl who knew two cousins asked me, “What do I do if I love them both?” and I answered, “Someday you’ll have to choose.” What I didn’t know was that your heart had already chosen. That day, so long ago, you’d already decided on Cain. Maybe you’d been born loving Cain. It doesn’t matter why or how you started loving him. He was your heart’s desire from the beginning, and I was frightened for you, and I wondered if the compass in your heart was broken.

A few years later, you came to see me, so excited that he’d asked you to a dance and desperate for me to love him as you did. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t give you my blessing because I didn’t trust him. I believe my exact words went something like this: “I’m not saying he’s
bad
. But I am saying if there’s a good man hiding in there, I’d surely
like
to see him before I tell my only granddaughter that she’s betting on the right horse.”

Not long after that, he broke your heart.

It was a confirmation that everyone was right about him—Cain Wolfram wasn’t a good man. And I was glad when he went away and you seemed to switch your affections to Josiah.

Except that you didn’t.

Your heart—that little lion heart that had always roared with love for Cain—still loved him, and—I confess, doll baby—I hated him for his hold over you because I still couldn’t see any good in him.

And yet the longer he stayed away, the more I lost my strong, brave girl. You became a shell of yourself, Ginger. Without Cain to love, I think you forgot who you were. And over time, I became desperate for his return. I wanted him to come back and breathe life into you like Adam did for Eve. I thought to myself, Yes, Cain might break her again, but at least she’ll be alive to feel the pain.

Except that Josiah died.

And part of you seemed to die with him.

Cain will be angry with me for telling you that he came to see me a month after Woodman’s passing. I knew who he was right away—his unusual blue eyes were singular in Apple Valley parish—but I couldn’t imagine why he was visiting me, and to my everlasting shame, I was cold to him and asked him to leave.

But he was persistent. At first he came with flowers—hothouse bouquets from the grocer—until I told him that wildflowers were my favorite, and after that, he always brought me wildflowers. Sometimes he’d bring a hammer and nails and fix something in my room. Once he brought a long fluorescent light bulb and fixed one of my ceiling lights. Another time he patched a broken tile in my shower. He worked quietly, silently, saying nothing, asking for nothing, letting his actions show me that he wasn’t the person I thought he was.

After a week or two, I finally asked him why he kept coming around. He stopped working and fixed those blue eyes on mine. “Ginger,” he said, simply. “I want to know her, to understand her, to love her the way she needs me to. I want you to tell me everything I need to know to make her happy because Woodman’s gone and someday you’ll be gone, and when y’all are gone, it’ll be up to me to make her happy. And I was hoping you could help get me up to speed.”

I thought long and hard about his request, doll baby, but in the end I didn’t give him any advice at all. I just told him to be himself. What he didn’t know, and I did, was that you’d loved him since you were small. He didn’t need to do anything different. He didn’t need any advice. He asked me over and over again, “What do I need to do to make Ginger happy, Miz Kelleyanne?” And every time I said, “Be yourself, Cain Wolfram.”

Cain was being himself when he decorated my room for Christmas, as he continued to do little things to make my room more comfortable, as he read to me from
The Christmas Box
, and built the bookcase that held it. He was himself when he told me all about his new business, when he bought a townhouse he hoped you’d love, and when he hired you to come work for him. He was himself, giddy with hopefulness, when he told me that you were falling in love with him again. He was himself tonight—the night before they’re putting that damned tube in my throat—showing up here with flowers in his hand because this is where your heart was hurting, so this is where he needed to be.

Here is what I know:

You were right, doll baby.

The compass in your heart was never broken.

Somehow you must have known that there
was
a good man hiding inside Cain Wolfram. I didn’t realize it at the time, but you were always betting on the right horse. Seeing my beloved granddaughter come alive again over the past few months has been the greatest blessing of my long, happy life. It has given me, and this old, tired body, permission to say good-bye.

Josiah and I are gone, and I know you will miss us.

But Cain is left standing, and I promise you, doll baby, he is the man you always loved, the man you always knew him to be. Trust your heart. It was never broken. It was always whole, and it was always right.

Hold on to each other, and know that I am standing beside Amy and Josiah, celebrating your happiness from heaven.

Your devoted,

Gran

***

Tears wet the precious paper, so Ginger folded it carefully and slipped it back into the envelope, then laid it gently on the bed so she could hold Gran’s hand with both of hers.

“Thank you, Gran. Thank you.”

“She couldn’t write anymore,” said her father from behind her, holding out a steaming cup of coffee, “but she was lucid. They were her true thoughts, Virginia Laire.”

“On Thanksgivin’,” she said, searching her father’s face, “when you sent me down to Klaus’s place with the pie, you knew. You knew he was visitin’ Gran.”

Her father nodded. “More importantly, I knew he was bringin’ you back from the dead.”

She held the warm paper cup in her hands. “I guess he did.”

“I was never fond of Cain. Didn’t trust his wild ways. But he grew up into a fine man, Ginger. I’d be, well, that is, someday I’d be proud to call him my son.”

“Daddy,” she whispered, chiding him gently. “We’re not there yet.”

“Furthermore, I was wrong to let your momma shelter you so much. Woodman was a good man, but Cain is strong. He changed the whole course of his life to be worthy of you, daughter. He loves you somethin’ fierce. Always has, I reckon. Always will.”

“I know,” she said, managing a small smile. “I know he does, Daddy.”

Her father sat down at his mother’s feet and looked at her face, which looked peaceful, like she was sleeping soundly. “She was somethin’, huh? Always had to get the last word.”

I am celebrating your happiness from heaven.

“Yes, sir,” said Ginger, turning to look at Gran’s lovely face for the last time. “She was somethin’.”

Thank you.

***

After the Wrights took Gran’s body away, her father headed to the Apple Valley Diner to get some breakfast before heading home. She joined him there, pushing her eggs around her plate and thinking about Gran and Woodman and Cain. Once upon a time, they had been the three most important people in her life, and now two out of the three were gone. And although that notion should have made her feel terrifyingly lonesome, she found that the person she missed the most was not Woodman or Gran, but Cain. She longed for him with a desperate pang of self-pity, wishing he would suddenly appear and wrap her in his arms so she’d feel strong and whole.

She looked out the window at the cold, rainy day, part of her expecting him to suddenly appear on the sidewalk, but he wasn’t there, of course. He was in Louisville until tomorrow night, which meant that she would have to bear her sorrow alone for a little longer.

“You want anythin’ else?” asked her father, and she shook her head no. “Want to meet me at Wright’s later on today? They said the wake’ll be on Monday night and the fun’ral on Tuesday mornin’. Not too much to arrange, really.”

“I’ll be there, Daddy.”

“Your momma never much liked your gran.”

Ginger shrugged. “Her loss.”

“She felt threatened, I think. My momma was a force to be reckoned with.”

“And mine isn’t?” asked Ginger.

Her father chuckled softly. “I think she’s mellowin’ with age.”

“As long as she understands that Colin Greenvale and I aren’t happenin’.”

“I’ll have a word, let her know that Cain might be comin’ around more often.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “Cain and I are still very . . . new.”

“And here I thought the whole point of your gran’s letter was that, actually, you aren’t.”

Her father took twenty dollars from his billfold and laid it on the table, then stood up and slid from the booth. “Three o’clock at Wright’s, daughter. See you there.”

As she drove home, the rain started falling harder, until her windshield wipers were slamming back and forth and the windshield still wasn’t clear.

Which was why she didn’t see Cain waiting on her front porch until she was running into the house.

She stopped in her tracks, the cold rain pelting her as she stared up at him.