Here and Again (14 page)

“Just a couple. I started throwing up. I hurt something awful.” He grunted.

“Let’s get you inside.” With his left arm swung across her shoulders, Ginger walked Jacob toward the glass door of the ER. Before they arrived, Ernest P., MD, came trotting across the icy parking lot.

“I’ll take him,” Dr. Patterson said, relieving Ginger of her burden.

“He has pain in his lower right abdomen,” she said, walking briskly but carefully ahead.

“Yup,” the doctor replied. “You been throwing up, uh—”

“Jacob,” Ginger prompted, stepping through the door. She waited for the doctor and his patient to pass and then shut and locked winter outside.

“Jacob?” Ernest P., MD, finished.

“Yeah.”

“You been drinking?” he asked.

“I think I threw it all up,” Jacob replied with a moan as he was lowered onto the bed.

“Let’s get this shirt off.”

Dr. Patterson helped Jacob off with his shirt and then laid the boy down as Ginger washed her hands. When the doctor turned
to wash his, Ginger stuck a thermometer in Jacob’s mouth. It beeped as the doctor’s gloves snapped into place.

“A hundred degrees, Doctor,” Ginger said.

“Yup.” He nodded as he helped Jacob lie back.

“How long have you had the pain?” the doctor inquired.

“Since last night.”

“Last night early?” The doctor pushed across Jacob’s abdomen, left to right.

“After dinner. I threw uh—ahh!” The doctor pressed the abdomen right where the appendix was and, as expected, Jacob went off like an alarm does when the right button is pushed.

“I’ll get the on-call surgical team,” Ginger said, turning to leave.

“Yup,” the doctor replied.

First she phoned the hospital exchange to call in the surgical team and then she rang Yvette in acute care to prep surgery. When she returned, she found the doctor helping Jacob off with his clothes. She started Jacob’s IV.

At five a.m., Jacob was rolled into surgery. At six a.m., Dr. Patterson’s relief showed up.

“We got that in time,” Dr. Patterson replied as he walked into triage. Aside from Jacob, there had been no other patient.

“Yes, we did,” Ginger replied.

“You working tonight?”

“I am.”

“I’m here for a week,” Ernest P., MD, replied. “I suppose this was a quiet night.”

“Yes,” Ginger said. “We’re used as general medicine as well as emergency care.”

Dr. Patterson nodded. “Not enough money out here to keep a GP, I suppose.”

“And very little insurance,” Ginger affirmed.

Dr. Patterson nodded again.

“The calf had insurance, though,” she added.

“What say?” Ernest P., MD, tilted his head.

“The calf Mr. Wheldon hit. It had insurance, so we’ll be paid. So Mr. Wheldon says.” Ginger waited and watched Dr. Patterson process her words.

“Mr. Wheldon has no insurance?”

“Yup.” She said it exactly as the doctor always did. A wry smile grew on his face.

“That’s just wrong,” he said.

“Welcome to American medicine.”

“Something’s wrong with us.”

“We’re independent. Don’t like anyone telling us what to do. Need to turn a profit on everything, including illness and death, you know.” Ginger smiled.

“The calf has insurance!” Ernest P., MD, announced. “I gotta call my dad with that one. All that money to put me through college and a dead cow pays my fee.”

They looked at each other and laughed.

“Holy cow,” Ginger added.

They laughed louder.

“I work the six p.m. to six a.m. shift,” Dr. Patterson said. “What do you work?”

“The two a.m. to two p.m. shift,” Ginger replied. “Nurses and doctors have different shifts here.”

“Okay. See you tonight,” Dr. Patterson said, shaking his head and chuckling as he walked toward the glass door. Morning was waking outside; it stretched its long rays into the clear sky as it yawned.

“Sleep well,” Ginger said, deciding she might like Dr. Patterson after all.

The door shut. She looked at it. No need to lock it. She turned
and walked down the hall past the doors into acute care, where Jacob had been taken. She found him lying quietly, the IV dripping slowly in the dim light of his room. She stepped over to check it.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

She gazed down and found the young man peering up at her with a pop eye.

“No. Neither are you.”

“I’m here by mistake. By many mistakes.” He closed his eyes and faded back into a drug-induced rest.

Cuttin’ a Shine

W
hen Ginger stepped out at two thirty p.m. Saturday afternoon, the world was less white. She blinked as if waking from a short nap, listening to the dripping tears of snow melting as winter realized it was losing its grip. The sun was a warm fifty-two degrees, according to the large, round temperature gauge on the hospital’s brick wall. She shuddered. Not from cold, but from the anticipation of the smell in her truck and the fact that the world was telling her as clearly as it could that it was now time to plow.

“Maybe it’s colder in the valley,” she said to the slush that gave way under her feet.

She knew, though, there was little time now to put off the inevitable. The world was waking up, ready to grow again, and she and Osbee could not plant on their own. Osbee was also clear on this point, for she was selling the farm. On the other hand, Ginger was not clear at all. She didn’t want to be clear because it
meant the time was approaching to leave Virginia—time to say good-bye to Osbee. It was time to let go of Jesse.

When she opened the truck, she didn’t even wince at the odor. She was aching, her body spent and weak from the growing pain of loss. She climbed in, feeling as if she would never stop losing—losing Jesse, losing his dream, losing Osbee, losing her children’s childhood.

“I’m so tired of losing,” she whispered as she engaged her engine. The roads were shiny and wet as if it had rained. The snow was a patchwork of white and brown and as she drove down the hill to Harrisonburg the valley spread below her, a mist-covered quilt of green and white rolling hills glowing brightly beneath a golden peach sun. She opened her window, finding birds chirping louder than the caw of the crows. The sun was warm but the wind was cold. She did not roll up her window. Instead, she turned the heater on. It seemed to Ginger that winter hadn’t even put up a fight last night. What had been the dead of winter yesterday was the sheer rise of spring in glory today, having won the battle with not one little skirmish.

She drove on, gazing around at the trees whose branches were covered with tiny bright green buds that sparkled like so many small green Christmas lights in the sun. The valley was clear and fresh, cleaned by some mysterious housekeeper the night before and ready for all that was new.

Yet as she turned onto her lane and looked in wonder at the miracle of Virginia’s waking spring, winter was still upon Ginger. Solomon Schaaf sat his tractor, feeling the earth call to him. He waved as she passed, his face as bright as the sun above. He was in his element—an earth sprite sewing a field of dirt to make a cloth of wheat to adorn his land in a golden dress some months from now.

The Creed farm had long, winding furrows set as if by magic
overnight. Grasses budded green through the unplowed patches of snow in the far field. Finally, if there had been any question in Ginger’s mind as to the state of the seasons before, the two cars that made their way slowly toward her as she headed home on the road punctuated the fact that it was spring. She smiled through the windshield at both drivers.

Though they were strangers, she knew them. They were going for a Saturday drive and had seen the sign on Highway 81 pointing to the covered bridge. As so many people had done over the years, they exited and followed the road this way and that to the end of the lane where the covered bridge stood in the open field near a fruit orchard and small family cemetery. They had stopped, finding nothing really to look at but the bridge spanning a small, dried-up stream. Perhaps they took a picture, perhaps not. Either way, with nothing much else to do, they turned around and made their way back to the highway.

Ginger’s stomach hurt. Up ahead was the rise of Smoot’s farm. There in the driveway was Ester and Hugh Martin’s black Mercedes, sitting like a vulture waiting for a death. As she bumped off the asphalt, she found her three children slumped over the railing near the front steps. There, right behind them, leaning on the post of the porch with his arms crossed, was Samuel Annanais. Ginger slammed on her brakes.

No one moved. They stared at her as she stared at them. Slowly, she disengaged the engine, not daring to make more of a ripple in the heavy stillness that enveloped her. It was Samuel who left the porch first, followed as if obediently by her children—Bea, then Oliver, then Henry. Ginger sat motionless, her eyes tracking their progress from the house to her truck door. Bending down a little to peer at her through the glass, Samuel smiled a reticent smile as he reached the front end. Henry trotted from
behind, reaching the door first, and, as his father taught him to do, he opened it for his mother.

“Good afternoon, Virginia Moon,” Samuel quietly greeted.

Ginger said nothing.

“We all see him, Mama,” Henry whispered.

The ghost,
Oliver mouthed, his eyes wide, his body shaking. Ginger gazed sideways in his direction and he smiled secretly at her. He wasn’t afraid. He was wound with excitement.

“Your youngest was cuttin’ a shine in the house when I came across the bridge. Could hear him all the way in your orchard.”

Ginger made no response.

“Grandma and Grandpa Martin are here with Mr. Glenmore, a lawyer,” Henry said.

“They talk and talk and talk,” Oliver breathed, slumping his shoulders and rolling his eyes back into his sockets.

“When I reached the porch, your children were pushed out the door.” Samuel shrugged apologetically.

Ginger sat, having no idea what to do. It would be a mistake to say her mind raced. It didn’t. It had seized. It had come to a complete and utter stop. She had nothing to say—nothing to offer. She had nothing. The birds somewhere in the eves sang a little
do-re-me
to fill the void.

“Virginia Moon, I cannot go home.”

“He can’t cross the river, Mama,” Bea added. “He keeps coming back here.”

River . . . that was a body of water.

“I can hear them talking to Grandma Osbee, Virginia, through the window. They seek to sell the farm.”

“What will happen to Penny and Christian?” Oliver whined.

Ginger winced. She had reached the day she didn’t ever want to live—the day her children would know they were leaving
Osbee. They would be removed from the grace of Mr. Mitchell and all the others on this hairpin curve of the Shenandoah. But she wasn’t choosing to do such a thing. It was happening without her consent. It was an inevitable wall of reality bearing down on them—a flood of change in their small world. A disaster.

“I can help,” Samuel said.

Ginger peered up into his soft brown eyes. They looked at her just as they had done when he stood on the fallen tree. Her seizure made no answer.

“I am supposed to help,” he added.

The birds stopped singing. Silence. Stillness. A picture formed clearly in her mind: Samuel on the tree. She was on her knees in the snow by the fallen ash near the river, asking Jesse for something—anything. Ginger felt a trickle of movement in her synapses. It was small. It was flowing from the center of her body through the middle of her mind and found its way to her mouth.

How?
No sound came out. Just movement.

“I am a farmer.”

The trickle became a steady stream and the sound of the flood rushing down the dry and cracking riverbanks of her nervous system shook her body. She began literally to shake with the oncoming wash.

“Mama?” Oliver whispered, touching her knee.

Great fields of grass grow from a flood. Thousands of seedlings get a chance when the wash subsides, and without flood or fire or volcanic eruption, the earth withers. Destruction, from which is born creation, isn’t Providence causing tragedy. Providence uses tragedy for good. It isn’t always clear how and in the middle of the loss it isn’t clear anything good will ever come. But it does. Always. What is shed in death feeds life. That is the nature of things. Life rises from disasters.

“We rise,” Ginger announced and she leapt from the car. She grabbed Oliver’s hand and headed for the porch.

“Mama?” Bea called.

“Henry, shut the door and grab your sister,” she said over her shoulder. Her eyes were fixed upon the front doorknob.

“What are we doing, Mama?” Henry asked.

“Cuttin’ a shine,” his mother replied, reaching for the doorknob slowly as if it would run away if she made any sudden moves. She held on to it as she heard Bea and Henry come up the stairs behind her. Then she turned it and opened the door as if it were any other day she was coming home. She stepped inside with her children as if it were any other day they were walking into their house. Hand in hand, Ginger and her children stood next to the staircase in front of the open door.

“Ginger,” Ester declared, smiling politely as she rose from her seat at the dining room table.

There Osbee sat with a pen poised over a stack of papers; a man with salt-and-pepper hair leaned over her. Hugh sat in the chair next to Osbee. All four pairs of eyes stared in the direction of Ginger and the open door.

“That’s Mr. Glenmore. He’s a lawyer,” Bea whispered so quietly Ginger almost missed the statement in the flood of nervous noise in her ears. Gazing at Osbee, she spotted the tattered red ribbon at the end of the old woman’s braid. Ginger smiled brightly.

“Upstairs,” she commanded.

“Ginger?” Osbee inquired.

A great bustling and banging of feet up the stairs drowned out any further calls from the dining room table—and there were others.

“Henry, go into your room and find any shirt for you and Oliver with red on it. Hurry.”

Grabbing Bea’s hand, Ginger headed into the bathroom and flipped on the light.

“What are we doing?” Bea asked as her mother faced her toward the mirror.

“Remembering the lessons of history. Brush your hair, please, Little Bea.”

Rooting around in the cabinet, Ginger pulled out two small red plastic barrettes. One was shaped like strawberries and the other cherries.

“Those are from when I was a baby.”

“We need the color, Bea. No argument.”

Bea nodded solemnly as her mother clipped them into place. Then she hissed as she rummaged under the sink looking for one other red hair accessory.

“This good?” Henry asked.

Ginger popped her head from beneath the cabinet and looked at her boys. One had a Spider-Man T-shirt on and the other a Dale Earnhardt “No. 18” sweatshirt.

“Perfect. Comb your hair, please.”

As Ginger bent her head to go under the sink again, she found Bea’s hand held out, offering a red plastic hair clip with two of the five teeth broken off.

“Red like Grandma Osbee,” Bea said, smiling triumphantly as if she had figured out a perplexing puzzle.

“Exactly. And the first thing I do when we go to the store next time is buy new hair ties,” Ginger said, returning the smile. “All red. Remind me.”

Taking the hair clip, Ginger stood, and as her two boys finished combing their hair, she swirled her brown curls up into a bun on the back of her head and secured it with the hair clip. Her strawberry blond roots had grown out just enough to
encircle her face, giving her, in the light of the bathroom vanity, a halo effect.

“Ain’t no saint,” she said to her reflection.

She then gazed at her children, who were looking up at her for instructions. They were truly their father’s offspring. They were children as all other children, arguing and poking at one another. But in moments like this, they were a unit. They worked together as a unit. She looked from one to the next. Each different, but altogether they were a whole and they were hers and she loved them. She also realized how much she had missed them over the last year.

“We rise,” she said.

Bea looked at Oliver, who looked at Henry.

“We rise?” Henry repeated.

“We rise,” Oliver and Bea said. Oliver shrugged at his mother.

She kissed each of their heads and, taking Oliver’s hand, she led them to the staircase, where she stopped abruptly. Beyond the staircase window, Ginger spotted Samuel standing on the front grass, his back toward her with his hands clasped behind him. The wet asphalt road below the rise of the Smoots’ farm ran straight off into the distance, glistening like a river of water in the afternoon sun.

“We rise together,” she whispered.

He turned halfway and looked directly at her through the glass. He smiled. She smiled in return and, taking a deep breath, descended the stairs.

They plunged together down to the first floor, and when they all stood by the open front door again, Ginger pulled her children in front of her, bringing up the rear. She turned and found Osbee still seated, but now Hugh and Ester were standing in front of the dining room table between Ginger and the old woman.

“H-how are you, Ginger?” Ester asked, still holding that polite smile. Ginger looked at Ester’s smile. It was a smile, all right, but it was also a baring of teeth.

Ginger held her breath, forcing a tight lifting of her lips in return, and then looked over to Osbee. The old woman hadn’t moved an inch and gazed at Ginger quizzically. Ginger turned her head slightly, motioning to her red hair clip. Then she rested her arms on Henry and Oliver’s shoulders and, bending down, kissed Bea on one of her red barrettes.

“Ginger?” Hugh inquired, taking a step in her direction.

Ginger didn’t look at him. She didn’t answer. Her ribs ached with the strain of holding her breath as she waited for Osbee. The old woman looked away, her focus now on the papers in front of her. A lump formed in Ginger’s throat. Her heart pounded in her ears.

“We rise together,” Oliver said softly.

Osbee spun her head and stared deeply at him. Then she smiled like the spring day outside, her eyes swimming as she looked from Oliver to Bea to Henry. She put the pen down and rose.

“Mother?” Ester said, turning toward Osbee.

“Coffee?” The force of Ginger’s held breath was uncontrollable and the word came out like a shout of victory more than a spoken courtesy. Ginger cringed as it echoed through the quiet of the house.

“This isn’t your land, Ginger,” Ester said.

Ginger closed the open door.