Here and Again Read online

  Ginger shook her head with a chuckle, her heart slowing down, and her world lightened again. Having seen Samuel up in West Virginia had convinced her that he was no ghost nor was he anywhere near the farm. Thank heaven Samuel wasn’t a weirdo wandering around the state park. As tired as she was, that would have just pushed her over the edge.

  “I think it must be in West Virginia because that’s where I was working.” Ginger reached down and pulled the atlas from the floor.

  “Not Virginia.”

  “West Virginia,” Ginger repeated, flipping to the index. She found West Virginia on page fifteen and Virginia on page twelve.

  “Not even on the same page,” Ginger muttered, turning to page twelve.

  “What?”

  “The states. Look. Here’s Virginia and we are—” Ginger ran her finger down Highway 81 from Winchester, southwest and then directly east. “Here. Here we are.”

  She batted the pages with her hand until she was on page fifteen.

  “Let’s see. Laurel Creek. Where is Laurel Creek?” She followed the road from Oak Flat to Franklin and then south. She did not find Laurel Creek.

  “He sure went way out of his way. Oh! Here, Bea.” Ginger held her finger on the tiny dot of Laurel Creek.

  “That’s his home?”

  “Yep. That’s where he said he was headed.”

  Bea flipped the page back. “Not on the same page.”

  “Nope. Page fifteen. We’re page twelve. So you just don’t worry, Bea. Mr. Annanais is not a ghost and he’s probably home with his family, watching TV or going to bed or reading atlases with his little girl.”

  Bea gazed up at her mother, her eyes slits. Ginger leaned forward, placing her forehead on Bea’s forehead and grinned. Bea smiled too and lay back down in bed.

  “I don’t like that ranger.”

  “Well, you know who you like and who you don’t, Bea. Sometimes, though, people don’t know exactly who you are, so they make mistakes. Just meeting someone can be—awkward.”

  “Don’t like people who wink.”

  “All right, Bea.” Ginger flicked off the light, kissed her daughter on the cheek in the darkness, stood, and headed carefully back out the door.

  “Mama?”

  Ginger stopped as she entered the hall.

  “Only Daddy calls me Little Bea.”

  “I know. It . . . just popped out. Maybe because I thought you were worried and it would help you feel him and be comforted. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” she replied.

  Ginger stood still as if she had been handed a gift she had waited for all her life. “I love you, Little Bea,” Ginger said.

  “I love you, too, Mama. And I love Daddy.”

  “Me, too,” Ginger whispered.

  Taking the handle of the door, Ginger closed it halfway and walked into the bathroom. There she slipped out of her scrubs and, as she always did, hopped in the shower to wash the ER from her body. Anyone who works in an emergency room knows that there is nowhere with more germs on the planet. She knew showering when she got home wouldn’t do much to protect her from catching something that had come in the ER door, but she always felt better if she bathed after work. She put on her pajamas, which were exactly where she had left them the night before, brushed her teeth, tossed her scrubs into the hamper, turned off the light, and shuffled to her room. There she found Beau and Regard exactly where she had last seen them.

  “You guys do anything today?” They both looked at her and yawned. Beau wagged his tail slightly, just so Ginger could see a little effort at happiness on her return, and then his head went back on top of his paws. Wiggling her legs past Regard, who wouldn’t move an inch from where he was lying, Ginger pulled the covers to her waist. She sat.

  Looking past her curtains to the night sky, she saw the world was white and cold and still. Winter’s heaven was transparent, like a window looking out onto Elysium, and the stars were but shards of glass from a crystalline goblet dropped by some great hero who sat at Kronos’s table. Ginger half smiled, gazing up to the great fields of the dead. She lay down and as she closed her eyes a tear formed. Within it, she saw the reflection of a star falling from the sky above. It landed silently on her pillow.

  •••

  A dim orange glow emanated from little Henry’s room, and as she passed by in the hallway she could hear Jesse’s voice whispering to him in the rhythmic manner that meant he was reciting. Ginger tiptoed into the room and stood next to the chair where Jesse sat with Henry on his chest.

  “And our ghosts have been wandering in Elysium until we have learned to love the shade. We have no objection to revisiting the light.” He stopped, tilting back and forth in the rocking chair, burying his nose in little Henry’s scarce hair.

  “What’s Elysium?” he whispered to her. Ginger shrugged, her lip curling in anticipation of the comment that would now follow her silence.

  “What kind of education you get over there in the West?” Jesse chuckled, kissing Henry’s head.

  “What’re the islets of Langerhans?” she inquired.

  He laid his cheek on Henry’s head and shrugged.

  “What kinda education you get at that military institute?”

  They smiled at each other.

  “Henry Adams?” she added.

  “Our son’s name is Henry Adams Martin,” he replied.

  “No, what you were reciting?”

  Jesse nodded and dropped his head lazily on the back of the chair as he looked at her.

  “I reckon you never learned about sich,” Jesse whispered and buried his nose again in his little boy’s hair. He closed his eyes and Ginger knew, by the weight of the room, he was moving his mind, making adjustments inside himself to leave home—to leave the farm.

  They were young in their military life together, as this was their first vacation home from life in Fort Lewis. Jesse had been so carefree, wandering around the barns and fields with his new son, showing him all his boyhood haunts. Now was the time to head back to North Carolina, and the army and Jesse was shifting internally to do so. She imagined this was what he always had to do when leaving his grandparents, even as a boy returning home after each summer. She quietly crossed the wooden floor and put her hand upon Jesse’s head.

  “Not about sich or such,” she replied.

  “Elysium is the afterlife. The Elysian Fields are where all heroes of virtue go.” He stood up.

  “Heroes of virtue also come home and help their grandfathers in the cornfields.”

  Jesse deposited Henry into his crib, covering the little baby up with a purple crocheted blanket. He made no remark to her little jest as he gazed out the window.

  “The sky is so clear in winter,” he commented.

  “It is,” she replied softly, walking to his side.

  “I was thinking that the winter night sky is so transparent, so clear, it’s like we can see Elysium.”

  Jesse looked down at her, his eyes so shadowed she couldn’t tell if they were open or closed.

  He said, “Tonight, I think the stars look like glass broken on the table of Kronos.”

  “Who’s Kronos?”

  “The king of Elysium.”

  She could see her husband smile. He pulled her into his arms, facing her forward to the window as he slid in behind her.

  “The sky appears just so on the cold, moonless nights everywhere in the world,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Everywhere? How do you know?”

  “Because the Elysian Fields roll across the sky and the sky rolls everywhere.”

  “I see,” Ginger said, shaking her head. “Can we go to bed or was there further edification for me tonight?”

  “Shh. Listen. Wherever I am deployed, Ginger, remember—I send to you love across Kronos’s table.”

  His head lay
upon her left shoulder now and she turned, taking the full of him into her arms. “Is that how the glass was broken up there on his table? Someone sending love without a ‘Please pass this’ to the next person seated at the table?” she asked, gazing up into his shadowed face.

  “I said that’s what it looks like to me.”

  She kissed his neck quickly, sliding out of his arms and grabbing his hand. “Come on. Time for bed.”

  “Is everything all right, daughter?” Grandpa Henry called from downstairs.

  “What are you doing up?” Ginger asked.

  “He wanted a piece of your apple pie.” Osbee’s reply came from the direction of their bedroom.

  “Doesn’t anyone sleep in this house?” Ginger inquired, shoving Jesse into their room. “Good night to both of you.” Before either Henry or Osbee could answer, Ginger shut the door.

  “In bed,” she ordered, and obediently Jesse climbed in. Shuffling in the darkness around to the other side, Ginger pulled the covers down and crawled beneath them. The bedsheets were cold.

  “If you had gone to bed, the covers would be warmer,” she noted with a shiver.

  “Come over here,” he said, his arm slithering through the blankets and wrapping around her waist. He pulled her beneath him, leaning his face closer for a kiss.

  “We’re going home to Fort Bragg and then we’ll be back here next vacation. And this Kronos person and his table can just do without you ’cause that corn is gonna come up and Grandpa Henry will be waiting for help.” She waited.

  “Okay,” he replied.

  “Fine,” she said, turning to face him. She found him hovering over her, staring at her through the shadows.

  “I will always return here,” he said softly.

  She touched his cheek.

  “To my orchard,” she whispered. She couldn’t hear it, but she knew he was laughing quietly as he kissed her neck, for his body gently quaked in her arms.

  “And Henry,” she added.

  “And Henry and your orchard and the corn,” he agreed, and then she kissed him.

  •••

  There was no alarm. There was the smell of bacon and a door opening. It was just light outside and without so much as a courtesy to Regard, Ginger flung the covers off and jumped out of bed.

  “Wait!” she yelled.

  “We’re gonna miss the bus,” Bea called up the stairs.

  “I’m coming,” Ginger replied, shimmying into a pair of jeans and sliding a sweatshirt over her head. Quickly, she grabbed a pair of socks and stuck her feet into them as she headed down the stairs.

  “Don’t kill yourself, Ginger, my dear,” Osbee said. The old woman appeared at the bottom of the stairs holding Jesse’s coat and her rubber boots.

  “Why didn’t you guys wake me up?” she asked, pulling on her boots.

  “You didn’t sleep at all yesterday,” Osbee replied, offering the coat.

  “Yeah, but we’re together on this. We have to walk to the bus.” Ginger put the coat on and stepped outside. Though she was shocked by the cold, having just flung herself out of bed, Ginger had a sense that it had warmed up a bit from yesterday. Henry and Oliver were waiting for her on the porch, looking at their bikes. Bea was already down the drive.

  “Wait, Bea!” Ginger called and, motioning to her sons, skipped down the front steps. They had to walk briskly to catch up to her daughter.

  “You see my bike, Mama?” Oliver asked, his backpack bobbing up and down as he trotted to keep up.

  “I did.”

  “Grandma and Grandpa brought each of us one. Mine and Bea’s have the training wheels.”

  “I saw that.”

  “I don’t need training wheels,” Bea announced over her shoulder.

  “Yeah, you will,” Henry said, adjusting Oliver’s backpack a little so it would stop bouncing so much.

  “Will not,” Bea replied.

  “We’ll see when the snow clears a little more,” Ginger said. “Maybe she’ll need them. Maybe she won’t.”

  “I need mine,” Oliver said, taking his mother’s hand.

  “Yes, you do. So, what’s your favorite part of Harry the Dirty Dog?” Ginger asked, looking down at her youngest. She knew, of course, that Oliver’s favorite part of that story was lying in bed with his brother, having it read to him.

  “When he slides down the coal chute,” Oliver said.

  “That’s a good part.”

  “I like that his name is Harry,” Henry said. “Harry can be my name, too.”

  “Henry is not Harry,” Bea said.

  “It is, too. Daddy said King Henry was known as King Harry, too.”

  “But Henry’s your name and you are not a king,” Bea replied.

  “But I can be called Harry just like you’re Bea and Mama’s Ginger.”

  “Oh.” Bea stopped.

  As they passed her, Ginger looked back. Her daughter’s eyes were closed.

  “‘The gentler gamester is the soonest winner,’” she said and, opening her eyes, began to walk again.

  “Yep,” Henry said.

  Ginger shook her head and gazed up, wondering if Jesse was sitting at Kronos’s table laughing at all this. Most kids could quote Harry the Dirty Dog or some other children’s story at eight years old. Ginger supposed only a child of Jesse Martin’s could quote Henry V with any accuracy. At that thought Ginger gazed down to Oliver.

  “You know anything from Henry V, Oliver?” she asked.

  Oliver shrugged.

  Henry snickered and prompted his brother. “The dolphin king.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Oliver grinned. He stopped and lifted his right fist to the sky. “‘But tell the Dolphin I will keep my state, be like a king and show my sail of greatness when I do rouse me in my throne of France.’”

  Oliver beamed up at her as he took his mother’s hand once more. Bea skipped by, giggling. Watching it all in wonder, Ginger smiled as her daughter went past them, for she hadn’t heard a giggle from Bea in over a year. Now Oliver could quote Shakespeare at five if prompted by his older brother. Perhaps things were settling back to an odd shape of normal. There was a hope.

  “The bus!” Bea yelled and took off running. Henry was right on her heels and Oliver, shaking free of his mother’s hand, brought up the rear.

  “Wait up!” he whined.

  Ginger stopped where she was and watched them board the bus. Henry stopped at the door, letting Bea go in before him. That was just as Jesse had taught him to do. Then up came Oliver, and Henry helped his little brother reach the bottom step of the bus. That was just as she had taught him to do. Henry smiled broadly and waved at her as he climbed aboard. She waved back. The bus doors closed behind him and she thought to herself how lucky she was to have them all.

  Ginger didn’t move as the bus pulled away. It headed down the road and when it had nearly disappeared over the rise, she waited for the heaviness to return as it had done for a year and nine months. Today, it did not. All that filled her mind now was Oliver and his Shakespearean quote. She chuckled. She lifted her right fist to heaven.

  “‘But tell the Dolphin I will keep my state, be like a king and show my sail of greatness when I do rouse me in my throne of France,’” she said. A crow cawed in reply from a tree far off in a field on the Creeds’ farm.

  “The word is not ‘Dolphin.’ It is ‘Dauphin,’” a voice said behind her.

  Spinning on her heel, Ginger turned and at the sight of him stumbled back, tripping in the ditch and hitting her head against the Creeds’ fence. Her heart came to a full and complete stop.

  “Good morning, Virginia Moon,” Samuel said softly.

  Chapter 8

  Heaven and Earth

  Samuel stood still, cap in hand, his uniform, hair, and bedroll exactly as it had been the last time she had seen him. Her mind fl
oated inside her skull, having no direction or anchor, completely disconnected from the cold and morning light as she looked at him. Confused electrical signals flashed across her gray cells, trying to make sense of him. Why had he come back? How? Was he a crazy man? A weirdo? She tried to believe something of him. But there was neither belief nor sense. There was only the fear of a strange man returning to her family.

  “Virginia Moon?” His eyes grew narrow with a look of sincere concern.

  Without a thought, she slid toward Smoot’s farm, her back firmly planted on the Creeds’ fence.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Ginger shook her head, moving sideways up the fence as if climbing a horizontal ladder. She needed to get away from him, unsure what he wanted or why he was back.

  “Are you well, Virginia Moon?” Samuel was sidestepping, his face never turning to look where he was going, his eyes fixed upon her. They were soft and brown just as they had been when he stood upon the fallen tree.

  A scream wound its way up her trachea, climbing into her throat. She shook her head again.

  “You’ve hit your head. Let me help.” He reached out his hand.

  “No!” Ginger screamed, and in that second her floating mind found anchor in her feet, which then realized it was time to move, and fast. Cold from standing in the water of the ditch, they jumped from the sinking mud, racing next to the fence toward the house.

  The house. So far in the distance. So white. So warm. Was she coming any closer to it? She could hear her own scream as if it were someone else’s terror far away. Running now, she was slow, the weight of her own muddy feet hindering her speed. She wasn’t sure she was even moving.

  Suddenly, Samuel was at her side and his nearness caused her to trip over her own heavy feet and fall down into the muddy snow.

  “Virginia, you are afraid.” His voice was gentle, nearly a whisper.

  “Going home.” She breathed, struggling forward on her hands and knees, the snow and mud seeping into her jeans and jacket. Her eyes gazed desperately at her white house on the little rise ahead.

  “I have been trying. There is a bridge now across Laurel Creek and I have endeavored to cross it twice. I enter but find myself exiting through your bridge in the orchard.”