Here and Again (3 page)

So it was quite a shock when she stepped out of the hospital, dawn just rising, to find Jesse in jeans and a sweater standing next to his truck, asking her out for coffee and maybe breakfast. He was not cold, but warm—not aloof, but more present than anyone she had ever met. He loved her full name, Virginia, for it was his home state, he said, which made them both laugh. They dated for three weeks, after which time Ginger’s contract was up and she sat weeping on a plane back to Seattle. When she arrived, she stepped into the Ginger Moon and fell apart in her parents’ arms, trying to understand the incredible emptiness in her body. Forever, she had been free, light, and airy, with no particular need to go any one direction or to be responsible to anyone but herself. But such freedom seemed now hollow; being without direction seemed suddenly pointless.

Ginger was a contract nurse who took assignments all over the country. Quickly she searched for contracts on the East Coast, but nothing was open in North Carolina. She could have gone to Virginia or Georgia, but what use was that? Her schedule would be erratic, as was always the case for a traveling nurse, and unless she lived closer to Fort Bragg, there was no guarantee she could get enough time off to drive there when Jesse had days free. So instead they talked on the phone. They’d call and talk for hours and as soon as they hung up Ginger returned to empty. It hurt so
deeply—all her bone tissue, every liver cell. Being without him disturbed her peace so entirely that, soon, she wouldn’t answer his calls anymore. He was there and she was here and an entire country lay between them.

Notes stacked up on the counter at the Ginger Moon:
Jesse called at noon. Call Jesse.
Will you PLEASE call Jesse. He’s tying up our line.
But Ginger wouldn’t call. She worked. Sixteen-hour days back-to-back in Seattle or in little rural hospitals to the east, blowing around the state of Washington like a tiny seed on the wind that never finds a place to root.

Then, late one night, as she shuffled out of Swedish Hospital absolutely exhausted, she found Jesse standing in his uniform next to her car. She said nothing. She cried and he took her in his arms, grounding her within his heart. They were married by the end of the week and she was on a plane to Fort Bragg, having kissed her mother and father good-bye.

“You will always be our Ginger Moon,” she whispered, repeating her parents’ words, her voice echoing in the hollowness of the covered bridge. As she stepped out, she sank ankle deep into the snow on the other side.

Looking to her right, she saw the springhouse looking lonely and abandoned. When the stream went dry, the springhouse lost its purpose. So it stood, forgetting what it was there for, becoming nothing more than a barrier that blocked the north wind from blowing across the Smoots’ small family cemetery. The short, black iron railing seemed to have sunk deeper in the snow. Several crosses peeked out, dark and gray against winter’s white mantle. Yet there in the snow, several vases of weathered but colorful flowers dotted the cemetery—Osbee’s dutiful care for her husband and their mutual relatives.

Ginger wanted to go home to her relatives in Seattle, but she
could not—for here were Osbee and the farm. The actual farming of the land fell now on the shoulders of John Mitchell, Solomon Schaaf, Todd Whitaker, and James Creed. These four men were working their own fields and farms each day, after which they’d come down the road in shifts instead of spending time with their wives. It was a team effort, keeping the Smoots’ farm a going concern until Jesse returned. He had planted and was shortly thereafter deployed to Iraq. That was a year and nine months ago, in May.

The four farmers harvested that fall and set to planting the following spring, working the crops for Jesse until his expected return home this last June. But summer came and went without him. So they harvested once more and now it was coming on to planting time again. Ginger knew it was because John Mitchell had said so last time he plowed the drive. How could she ask them to plant once more? Especially Solomon Schaaf. He could barely sit his own tractor, he was so old. To have them plant again would continue to take them away from their own needs. She had tried to compensate them by paying them from the farm’s proceeds, but they’d have none of it. Each of them knew she needed every cent to pay the taxes and next year’s planting needs. Even when she kept all the earnings, it wasn’t enough.

Thus Ginger stayed for Osbee’s sake, continuing to work as a traveling nurse, picking up shifts throughout the valley and West Virginia from the nurse registry. When she wasn’t working, she was bartering her skills to pay the deep debt she owed these farmers. With great care and sensitivity, she performed the service she was educated to do. Someone would twist their ankle, sure it was broken, or have a strange pain in their neck, convinced it was a heart attack, or catch a bad cold, positive they had the bird flu. Ginger was there to feel the ankle, never broken; review the neck
pain, from being on the phone too long with a shoulder scrunched up to the ear; or prescribe cough medicine and a week in bed for a bad cold. Not only did Ginger save them the cost of going to the doctor, which all of them could little afford, but she also was the local medical practitioner whose advice was free to be ignored, which it usually was. Still the phone would be on the ear just as it always had been and a farmer couldn’t stay in bed a week. Death would have to be knocking on the door for that to happen.

And Ginger would never allow that—death to knock on the door—ever, and this day could be like so many others lived these last eleven years. Jesse was simply gone on another deployment like the others before, leaving Ginger and his children on the Smoots’ land, holding on to Grandma Osbee, clinging to his dream. It could have been and was until last March, one year ago to the day, when a car pulled up the gravel drive and parked next to the unfinished fence. Two uniformed men came slowly up the steps, their eyes sorrowful but steady. Had Grandma Osbee not held her hand that day, Ginger would have burst into ash and blown away. But Osbee was there then and Ginger was here now and so today could have been like so many others these eleven years—but it wasn’t.

She stepped from the little wood of ash, hickory, and walnut and came to a tottering stop. No one, not Ginger, not her kids, not even Osbee had ventured beyond the copse of trees in the last year, for this was Jesse’s spot, given him as a boy by his grandfather as his own private place. This was where the empty stream met the mighty river and a giant ash tree lent its trunk as a shoulder to lean upon for support. It was from here, near the ash on the river, where Jesse would float across in a little boat to the other side. Here is where he’d come to be quiet and hear the world and think and dream. Surely, if he was still around, here is where he’d be.

But he wasn’t and she fell helpless to her knees. She wept
quietly, disturbing neither the squirrels who busied themselves around her seeking nuts they’d buried last fall, nor the crows sleeping in the branches above her head. The river murmured as it flowed slowly by the snowy bank. The world was cold and quiet and pale as Ginger’s grief fell heavily on the frozen ground.

She waited—waited for him, for anything. Just one more passing word, a touch of his hand on her hair, soft breath on her neck. Anything. Anything. A wind blew. It was a strange breeze—warm and moist, flowing down the winter water as if spring was just coming around the bend. Ginger felt it touch her cheek and ear and she closed her eyes, imagining Jesse sitting next to her near the river just as he used to do. The breeze turned cold again.

“Stay,” she whispered.

“Good afternoon.”

Ginger spun her head to the left and found a man standing on a fallen pine tree that spanned the river. Quickly she stood, wiping her cheeks. Jesse’s ash tree had split and splintered across the small pebbly streambed. A massive pine tree had uprooted on the other side of the river and its top was just long enough to reach the ash, the two fallen trees forming a bridge over the river. Snow flittered around her like so many silent white flower petals and Ginger stared, dazed by the violet light of winter’s coming eve and the darkness of the uprooted base of Jesse’s tree.

“Afternoon,” the man repeated as he stood perfectly still with his cap held in his hands. He was gaunt, about the age of thirty, with light brown tousled hair and a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee, and wearing a butternut-colored military uniform. She had seen uniforms like his before since reenactments of Civil War battles were year-round affairs in the Shenandoah. But this man’s was dusty, the insignia worn, and it fit him loosely. Surely it was not his uniform; Ginger thought it must be borrowed.

“G-good afternoon,” she replied hoarsely.

“A cold afternoon,” he added.

“It is cold. You lose your regiment?” She tried to smile. Her cheeks stung with tears.

“Why, yes, I did.” His accent was very Virginian. Not from Richmond. Not from the coast. Ginger was very good at placing Virginia accents because Jesse had a talent for mimicking them. This man’s accent, though, was not one she had heard Jesse do. A tear escaped, rolling hot down her face.

“Why are you crying?” the man asked, gently.

Ginger looked away from him, shaking her head.

“It’s personal,” she replied, wiping the tear as she slid her gaze across the river, searching for more roaming Civil War soldiers in the woods. The man chuckled. Ginger flicked her eyes back to him, unclear why what she had said was at all funny.

“I apologize, but I have never cried a tear nor heard of one shed that was not personal,” he said with a little smile. She cocked her head and smiled a little in return. His eyes were the color of his hair and soft and he stood so still, as if he yet waited for her to answer.

“My husband died,” she whispered.

“I am sorry. Was it sudden?”

Ginger took in a deep breath and looked up at the soft purple-white sky above her, trying not to feel her hurt. It didn’t work.

“He was a soldier, like you,” she said, smiling back at him through her unwanted tears. “He died serving his country.”

“It is an honorable death, then.”

Ginger nodded quickly, pulling the sleeve of Jesse’s coat to her mouth. Sometimes she could just catch his scent within the flannel lining.

“He’s in a better place,” the man continued.

Ginger’s throat tightened.

“You know? I don’t believe that,” Ginger whispered. “A better place for him would be here. Planting his fields and mending fences and picking apples for pie and teaching the kids to ride horses and caring for his grandmother, who cared for him. What better place? Where is this better place? I sure don’t see it!” Ginger froze; her voice had grown angry and her words tore the still air like the cawing crows that now lifted into the air from the branches above.

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head and covering her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

“It is all right,” he replied, quietly, almost formally.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s personal,” he said with a small smile.

Ginger nodded, wiping her face with Jesse’s sleeve again.

“I should go. Um . . . you wanna come in? Osbee’s probably made coffee by now and I can take you back to your regiment. I’m so sorry.”

“We have already had forgiveness here. No need to apologize further. Who is Osbee?”

“Oh, uh, Grandma.”

He nodded. “And you? What is your name?”

“Virginia.”

The man smiled with a chuckle.

Ginger shrugged. “I know. It’s your state,” she said.

“No. It is my country,” the man corrected.

“Oh, right,” Ginger replied. “Fighting for Old Dominion.” She knew those who had fought in the Civil War thought of Virginia as a country, a separate republic. So Jesse had said.

“Virginia what?” he asked.

Ginger’s heart lifted a bit from her grief. This was her favorite question when asked by someone from the state.

“Virginia what?” the man pressed as he watched her face lighten.

“Virginia Moon.” She grinned as a smile grew brighter on his face as well.

“Virginia Moon. I love your name!”

“Most people around here do,” she replied, her head heavy again with cold and tears. “Where’s your regiment? I’ll take you back.”

“No need. They are a ways away and I have to take care of a couple of things on that side of the river.” He pointed to the woods of the state park. “But I thank you.”

He turned and headed back across the river.

“Careful. There’s snow on the tree,” she said, imagining that, if he fell in, it would be a visit to the emergency room for sure. That was one place she did not wish to go today.

“I have waited a long time to cross this river. No slippery path shall take me down,” he replied with his back toward her. “You go and be warm.” The man stopped and turned back to face her. “And, Virginia Moon?”

“Yes?”

“A man is not dead if his dream yet lives. If his love lives.”

Ginger gazed into his soft brown eyes, so far away. She swallowed hard.

“Think on that.”

She nodded, watching him turn and cross back to the other side of the river. He jumped off the fallen pine and climbed up toward the wall of trees.

“Hey!” she yelled. “What’s your name?”

“Samuel,” he whispered. “Samuel Ezra Annanais.”

Then he climbed through the trees and disappeared into the brush.

The Jesse Tree

G
inger stood for a while, waiting to see if Samuel would return. There were several cultural struggles she had to wrestle with when she moved from the West Coast to the East and even more so when she arrived in the South. The greatest of these was this courtesy right here. Samuel had said to go in and be warm. If she was in Seattle, that meant exactly that: go in, be warm. In the East, and in particular the Southeast, it may mean exactly that or it may have just been said out of courtesy. The expectation, of course, would be that she wait for him and, together, they would go in. Together they would be warm. Her needs did not supersede his. Her comfort was gained only when they both had comfort. “Together,” in the South, wasn’t an adverb or an adjective; it was a noun and a verb. It was being and action—belonging.
We
are
one together
and so she waited.

She looked up to the empty branches above her head and to the pale evening sky beyond. She leaned forward, peering south to
see what, if anything, had changed around the river’s bend. She examined everywhere but the fallen ash. Yet, if Samuel was to return, he would cross upon it, and so her eyes turned ever to Jesse’s tree. The emptiness in her body was just like the earth there—a gaping wound left by a broken root. Shifting in the hollow cold with tears threatening again, she watched in her mind’s eye as the two solemn men climbed the drive, and she decided Samuel was not returning. Quickly, she stepped away from the river and headed to the house.

The footprints she had made going down to the river were perfectly set in shape and form to her foot, and heavily she followed them back just to their right, measuring her stride as close as she could in order to create a second set of perfect footprints going in the opposite direction. It seemed to her that this was always how it had been with Jesse. He was going in one direction, she in another. But always they circled each other, being apart and then together—mostly apart.
Together
for them was not the Southern sense. It had part of that intense conformity from Jesse’s Virginia sensibilities, but from Ginger there was her Western independence and liberty. The depth of their differences should have made for great conflict. But that was not how it was. Instead, he planted her in Virginia’s soil where the roots of family obligation ran thick and many like the veins in an old man’s well-worked hands. In return, she helped him begin his own family—less Martin, more Barnes. Together they made a new home on old land where their faith in each other was so bright, it burned straight through the body and lit all the dark places of the soul. And Jesse had dark places. War creates them.

She stopped, peering back to follow her footsteps coming and now going from Jesse’s tree and the great, dark hole at the water’s edge.

•••

G
inger rested her head against the ash, her eyes closed in the lazy afternoon weight of Shenandoah’s early fall. Henry’s head lay across her thighs, his breath steady and even with sleep. The insects buzzed conversation about her head and as she rested, feeling the slight kick and roll beneath her belly button, she laid her hand there to soothe the child within. From out on the water, she could hear Jesse reading, his voice high and clear in imitation of a little English girl.

“‘WHAT’S that thing?’ said Lucie—‘that’s not my pocket-handkin’.’” His voice changed to an old Englishwoman. “Oh no, if you please’m. That’s a little scarlet waistcoat belonging to Cock Robin.”

The buzzing of an insect grew nearer Ginger’s ear and as she waved it away she realized Jesse had stopped. She opened her eyes. Following the rope that anchored him to the tree on which she rested, she found her husband lying prone across an inner tube floating in the river, with three-year-old Bea curled up on his chest, fast asleep. His nose was buried in the hair upon his daughter’s head and his eyes were as fast closed as hers.

“She fell asleep? She never falls asleep to Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle,” Ginger said. “I guess you are just not a believable little English girl.”

“I think I’m a better girl than I am a hedgehog.”

They both laughed softly so as not to wake the sleeping children. Then all fell silent, except for the insects. They stared a long while at each other, the small smile on his lips matching the smile on hers.

Jesse finally broke the silence. “What are we going to name that one?”

“Well, we’re not calling it after any Civil War general,” Ginger said adamantly.

“I think you need to reconsider that.”

“I am not standing at the back door and calling, ‘Thomas Stonewall Jackson Martin, come in for dinner.’”

Jesse snickered. “I wouldn’t name him that anyway.”

“Okay, well, I’m not calling, ‘A. P. Hill Martin, your room needs to be picked up.’”

Jesse let his head fall back on the inner tube and he stared up at the sky. From behind Ginger, Osbee called, “Jubal Early Martin, your daddy’s calling you!”

Jesse laughed.

“Exactly!” Ginger declared, turning her head and nodding to Osbee, who was away in the woods to the left, gleaning walnuts. Five-year-old Henry stirred on her lap. Jesse lifted his head, returning his gaze to Ginger.

“Well, I won’t be back before it’s born, so you’ll have to name that little Thee-Me yourself.”

“What if it’s a boy?” Ginger asked.

“We’re doing this by gender?” Jesse’s eyebrows rose.

“You named Henry. I named Bea,” Ginger replied.

“Oh—I thought we were doing every other one. I did the first. You did the second.”

“Oh.” Ginger giggled. “Hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Gender, huh? Hadn’t thought of it that way,” Jesse said and laid his head back upon the inner tube again.

“Well, if it’s every other, then it’s your turn.”

“I won’t be home and if it’s the last one, don’t you want to do it?”

“We don’t know if it’s our last Thee-Me.”

“I still won’t be here.”

“Then we’ll wait.”

Jesse lifted his head once more.

“Wait?” he repeated.

“Yep. I’ll simply give the name Martin, and then when you get home, we’ll see.”

“Shouldn’t a baby have a name at birth?”

“Why?”

Jesse rubbed Bea’s head.

“So it can be called?”

“You’ll be back on leave, what, nine months after it’s born? We’ll just call it Martin or Thee-Me and we’ll wait.”

“I don’t know, Ginger.”

“We’ll wait.”

They met each other’s eyes, yet now there was no smile. There was dark silence in the sudden rain of golden red leaves set loose by a stirring wind.

I’ll be back, he mouthed.

Ginger nodded. We’ll wait.

•••

G
inger wiped away a rogue tear.

“No, Samuel.” She breathed.

A very loud meow drew Ginger’s attention back toward the covered bridge and there Regard stood as a dark silhouette against the pale reflection of the violet sky upon the snow. Evening was pressing its shoulder on the day and the cat was hunkered down into a small, crouching ball, his fur puffed up in an effort to keep himself warm in the cold breeze that blew through the bridge.

“You following me, cat?” she asked. With one backward glance to Jesse’s fallen tree, she scanned the other shore for Samuel just to be sure and headed toward the bridge.

Regard stood up, waited for her, and when she passed him, he trotted quickly after.

“And where will you go if we leave?”

He didn’t answer, but ran on ahead, across the bridge toward the summer kitchen. Where would he go? Where would Beau go? And the horses? It would not be a day she’d like to live when she had to take her children away from their animals. Just the image
of standing on the porch, kissing Osbee good-bye, and heading down the dirt drive to the asphalt never to return made her stomach churn. She even retched a little as she passed the summer kitchen. Following the cat up the back stairs, she opened the door to the sunroom and Regard bolted inside. She paused and gave a whistle at the barn. Beau stepped out, ears forward.

“You cold?” she asked. The dog ran across the snowy yard and trotted up the stairs. Ginger stepped in behind him and stomped her icy feet on the slate floor as the screen door slammed shut.

“Coffee’s ready,” Osbee said, poking her head out the kitchen door. Ginger could hear Henry arguing with Oliver over a pencil.

“Jesse’s tree has fallen down,” Ginger whispered, pulling off her right boot.

Several furrows rolled across the old woman’s forehead, and as soon as they appeared, they disappeared.

“It was old,” Osbee replied. “Been there since before I was born.”

The old woman stood in her cornflower apron, white cotton sweater, and pull-on jeans. Osbee was not one to go to the beautician to have her hair set every two or three weeks like so many other women her age. Her hair was long and gray, forming a single braid down the back. It was thick near the roots and thinner at the bottom and, at the moment, there was a red ribbon tied to it. It had not been there when Ginger left to pick the kids up from the bus stop, and when she saw the fraying piece of satin wrapped tightly around the braid, her stomach dropped to her left knee. It only stopped there because she still had on her boot. If she hadn’t, it would have hit the bottom of her foot for sure.

“You get a letter?” Ginger inquired, shrugging out of Jesse’s coat.

“A call.”

“They coming tonight?”

“Tomorrow morning. I was thinking of baking cookies. Oliver and Henry said they’d help. Bea—well, you know Bea.”

With a deep breath, Ginger slid out of the left boot. Her stomach stayed in her knee. That was promising.

“Need a new ribbon,” she said softly, touching the old woman’s braid. Osbee winked.

Whenever her daughter came to visit after Henry’s death, Osbee tied a red ribbon onto the end of her braid. Once, Ginger asked why and Osbee’s answer was not at all what she had expected. The answer, to be kept like a secret, was that it matched the color of her underwear. The real question was why she always wore red underwear, so Osbee had prompted. Of course Ginger had to know and she asked the question, the answer to which was quite simple. Mary, Queen of Scots, wore red undergarments at her execution, and every time her daughter visited, Osbee felt like she was going to her execution. It was a way to protest—to defy her daughter and that husband of hers. So here was the red ribbon and Ginger knew a conflict was brewing and Osbee was going to protest. She was formulating a dissent. Dissent was a sensibility Ginger felt she’d brought to the farm from Seattle.

“Nothing lasts forever. Not even mountains and trees,” Osbee stated flatly. There was no emotion in her words, just as the pain of Jesse’s fallen tree had been but a fleeting crease across the old woman’s brow. So Southern. Ginger, however, had lived in Virginia long enough to know that, no matter how pleasant and normal the face and tone of a Southerner was, there were indeed deep emotions. Why there was all this hiding of them was yet a mystery to her.

“You want me to stay?” Ginger asked, not for the first time.

Osbee’s brown eyes, as deep and endless as her root, revealed nothing, answered nothing. She frowned then.

“Why is that dirty dog in here?” Osbee asked, scowling at Beau. He sat promptly, hoping manners would get him through the kitchen door.

“Regard came in,” Ginger replied, folding Jesse’s coat over her arm. She nodded to the dog, who quickly rose and shuffled by Osbee.

“And?”

“Seems unfair to leave the dog out when the cat is in.” Ginger cocked her head and followed Beau through the door. She tossed Jesse’s coat on the back of an empty kitchen chair.

“Mom, Oliver stole my pencil,” Henry said.

“Did not.”

“That’s mine,” Henry said.

“Doesn’t have your name on it,” Oliver replied. He said it exactly in the same voice Henry used when taunting Bea. Little boys learn so much from big boys, but it always seemed to Ginger they learned the worst things first.

“Give Henry back his pencil and go get your own,” Ginger said to Oliver.

“It’s mine, Mama!”

“Oliver, your pencils always have teeth marks and you bite the eraser off. That pencil clearly has its eraser. Now give it back to your brother and go get your own.”

Oliver slammed the pencil down so hard it bounced off the table and hit Bea on the chin.

“Hey,” Bea said quietly. “Watch it.”

The little girl rubbed her chin and went back to her homework. She didn’t even look up. Ginger pursed her lips and opened the refrigerator.

“I wish I could run away,” Henry said.

“Wouldn’t you be lonely?” Ginger asked as she surveyed the milk cartons for the open one.

“No. I’d be happy at not having to listen to Oliver whining.”

“One time your daddy ran away,” Osbee said.

“He did?” Ginger asked. She didn’t know that.

“Yep. Crossed the river in his boat and wasn’t coming back.”

“Why?” Henry asked.

“Because summer was ending and he didn’t want to go back home to Richmond,” Osbee replied. “He got lost and he was missing for an entire night. It rained and thundered and worried me and his grandpa something awful. Then he walks back in the door the next morning and apologizes. Tells us he’ll go home so he could come back. He realized if he’d have stayed away, his parents would never allow him to spend summers here again.”

Ginger poured milk into her coffee and gazed over at Bea. The little girl didn’t even appear to be marking the conversation.

“How did he find his way back?” Henry asked.

“A man found him and they camped together. Then he helped your dad come home. He was very lucky to run across someone on that kind of night in the state park over there.”

“You want some milk while I have it out, Bea?” Ginger asked, prompting some response from her daughter.