Here and Again Read online

  Ginger didn’t look at him. She tried not to see him, tried to focus only on her white home up ahead. But inexorably her eyes were drawn to his feet, which were planted right next to her; they were not sinking, but simply standing upon the snowy mud. She froze, staring at his tattered leather boots. Glancing back over his path, she found not one of his footprints anywhere in the mud and snow.

  “How?” she whispered.

  “I want to go home, but something draws me back here. Are you calling me, Virginia Moon?”

  “Ginger!” A hand touched her shoulder.

  “No!” she screamed and, flipping over in the ditch, found Eloise Schaaf standing over her. Ginger blinked, closing her eyes tightly and opening them again. The silhouette of Eloise Schaaf bent toward her. Shuddering, Ginger leaned forward, away from the fence, looking up and down the road. Samuel was nowhere to be seen. There was only Eloise Schaaf’s pale yellow Ford truck stopped next to the ditch and Eloise herself hovering overhead.

  “Ginger. Are you okay?”

  “I—I—”

  “Come here.” Taking Ginger by the hand, Eloise lifted her from the snowy mud and together they walked up onto the asphalt. Reticently, Ginger looked over the truck. Samuel wasn’t there, either.

  “Wh-what happened?”

  “You hit your head?” Eloise asked.

  “My head?”

  “You were facedown in the mud. Come on. I’ll take you home.”

  Ginger turned around and found she stood exactly where she had been when she waved good-bye to Henry.

  “I ran.” She coughed, holding her right temple as Eloise led her around the bed of the truck to the passenger side. Opening the door, she helped her in. The car was very warm, as the heater was on full.

  “I’m muddy,” Ginger said, trying to climb back out.

  “It’s all right. We’ll clean it up when we get you home.” Eloise shut the door and trotted around the front of the truck. Though of the same age as Osbee, Mrs. Schaaf appeared to be older. Her hair was short and gray-white in color and she had it neatly set by a beautician every two weeks. Eloise looked like a grandma. That was very comforting at the moment.

  “I saw you slide in the mud,” Eloise said as she climbed into the cab of her truck. “You hit your head? It looked like it but I couldn’t tell. I was still coming around the corner.”

  Ginger held her temple. Engaging the engine, they drove toward Smoot’s farm.

  “You saw me fall?”

  “Don’t you remember?”

  “Did you see anyone else, Eloise?” She scanned the Creeds’ field and their dark gray house to the left and then the Schaafs’ trees to the right, looking for Samuel.

  “No. Just you. You okay?”

  Ginger shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  Pulling up the gravel drive, Ginger saw Osbee standing on the porch. Eloise stopped the truck and opened her door.

  “Osbee, help me with Ginger.”

  “I think I’m all right,” Ginger said quietly, opening her own door and sliding out.

  “What happened?” Osbee exclaimed. “You’re muddy.”

  “I fell.”

  “She hit her head on the fence,” Eloise added. Carefully, Ginger climbed the steps of the porch as she held on to Osbee’s hand. Once inside the house, they headed up to the second floor.

  “Can you make it?” Osbee asked, following her.

  “Yeah. I need to get out of these muddy things.” Stepping into the bathroom, she flicked on the light and looked in the mirror. She pulled her muddy brown hair up, and just where her ginger-colored roots were growing back in over her right eye, she found a small gash and a growing knot.

  “Here,” Osbee said, leaning into the small bathroom with a fresh pair of jeans, a clean sweatshirt, and neatly folded underwear.

  “I’m okay. Just a lump. I think I’ll take a shower.”

  “Eloise and I will wait.”

  Letting go of her hair, Ginger gazed over to Osbee. There was a red ribbon on the end of her braid.

  “Wait? Wait for what?”

  “We have an appointment in Winchester. But we’ll wait to see how you are coming out of the shower. Eloise said you took quite a spill.”

  “We as in you and Eloise or we as in you have an appointment and Eloise is driving you to it?” Ginger’s stomach turned. She felt sick.

  “Take your shower.” Osbee smiled brightly and shut the door.

  Ginger stood motionless for a minute, wondering if her nausea was from the bump on her head or from Osbee’s appointment. She shivered a little, which brought her mind back to her muddy state. Stripping out of her clothes, she climbed into the heat of the shower. It burned her extremities as warm water always does on cold skin and as she washed she thought of Samuel on the road. Perhaps he wasn’t really there. Perhaps she had slid, hit her head, and then passed out. He could merely have been a dream or something in her unconscious state. Did she not run? She remembered running, but when Eloise pulled her from the ditch, it was quite clear she hadn’t moved an inch closer to the house than where she had been when she waved good-bye to Henry.

  By the time she opened the bathroom door, freeing the steam to float away like a warm, friendly spirit, she was absolutely convinced Samuel was just a dream—a thought from Bea’s conversation left unprocessed by her sleep the night before.

  “How you feeling?” Osbee asked, standing at the top of the stairs to the right.

  Ginger rubbed her head. “Okay.”

  “Good. Go back to bed.” Osbee pointed to the bedroom. “You were up all day yesterday and you probably tripped because you’re still tired.”

  “I think I sh—”

  “Bed.” Osbee pointed again.

  “What’s your appointment?” Ginger asked as she obediently made her way to her bedroom.

  “Nothing for you to concern yourself with. There are biscuits in foil on the stove. Coffee’s all set to brew. Just press the button when you get up.”

  Ginger climbed into bed and as soon as she lay down Osbee drew the covers up under her chin.

  “Tucking me in?” Ginger smiled.

  “Someone needs to take care of you. You don’t do it yourself, you know.”

  “You always say that.”

  “It’s always true.” Osbee kissed the bump on Ginger’s forehead. “All better?” she asked, smiling.

  Ginger nodded.

  “Good. Sleep well.” With that, Osbee left the room, pulling the door behind her so that it was just slightly ajar.

  Ginger closed her eyes, listening to the two women talk quietly as they moved around the house. The front door opened.

  “No!” Osbee yelled. “Out!”

  “Come here, Beau!” Ginger called.

  “He’s an outside dog,” Osbee yelled up the stairs. The door burst open and in came Beau.

  “Have a good appointment,” Ginger said, taking her hand from beneath her covers and scratching the dog’s head.

  “Lie down,” she whispered, and as Beau slid to the ground next to the bed the front door closed. Ginger could hear more muffled conversation and laughter. The car doors shut and the engine turned on. The wheels crunched as they backed down the drive. All was quiet.

  Her eyes closed, her breath even, Ginger moved Osbee’s red ribbon across her mind.

  Something draws me back here.

  Ginger’s eyes popped open.

  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.

  She sat up. He was a dream. She was certain of it. Gazing out her window, she looked over in the direction of her orchard. There was the covered bridge—a covered bridge over a dried-up stream in the middle of a hairpin curve of the Shenandoah.

  “What use w
as that?” she whispered, and then shuddered.

  Picking up the phone next to her bed, she dialed home. Her clock read eight thirty a.m. It was five thirty a.m. on the West Coast. The line picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Mom?”

  “Ginger?”

  “Hey, sorry for calling so early.”

  “Tim! It’s Ginger!”

  “No. Don’t wake Dad.”

  “We’re up, honey. We’re taking inventory.”

  Another line picked up. “Ginny Moon,” her dad said, his voice quiet as it always was. “It’s early there. You just get off work?”

  “No. Day off.”

  “Good, good. What’s up?”

  “Um . . . I have a question.”

  “You need something?” her mother asked.

  “It’s kind of a crazy question.”

  “Oh, our favorite kind.” Her parents laughed together.

  “Hypothetically speaking. Hypothetically.” Ginger rubbed the knot on her forehead. Just a dream. She looked out at the bridge.

  “Hypo-theti-cally,” her father repeated.

  “How would you get rid of a ghost?” She shut her eyes tightly, cringing at her own words. Ridiculous. The line was silent. Eight thirty-one a.m. Eight thirty-two a.m.

  “Monica, baby?” Her father’s quiet voice sounded like he was speaking through a megaphone after such silence.

  “Yes, Tim?” her mother replied.

  “Did our most practical, pragmatic, no-nonsense daughter just ask us how to get rid of a ghost? Did I hear that right?”

  “I think so. Did we hear you right?”

  Ginger grimaced at her bedcovers. She offered no answer.

  “Ginny?”

  “Yes.” A one-word reply was all she’d give them. Somehow, this felt as if she were back in dance class, submitting to their view of the world.

  Her father chuckled.

  “You have a ghost, Ginger?” her mother asked.

  “Hypo-theti-cally,” her father whispered through his gentle laughter.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tim, shh. What makes you think you do?”

  Ginger thought of what made her think she did. If she said any of it, she’d feel like an idiot. “Do either of you know how to get rid of a ghost? Surely you have an answer amidst all that spiritual stuff in your store.”

  “The answer depends on the ghost,” her father said. “Hypothetically speaking, is it a nice ghost or a mean ghost?”

  “Nice.” The answer popped out of her mouth so fast, she tripped over her own tongue. That’s all she was going to say. One word.

  “Didn’t need to think about that answer, Monica, baby,” Tim said.

  “Well, that’s a relief, Ginger.”

  “The simple answer, the one that might be most helpful, is simply to tell the ghost to step into the light,” her father said.

  The light. How many times had she heard that statement? Not only from her parents, but in many a bad movie.

  “What light?” she asked.

  “The light of eternity, Ginny. The Universal Mother. The Creatrix. The Alpha and Omega.”

  “The ghost sees it,” her mother said, interrupting her father. “You can’t see it and neither can I, so I can’t explain it to you. Just tell the ghost to look for the light and then head into it.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Well, it should be all. How are the kids?”

  Ginger gazed up at the ceiling. Ghosts to children. Her parents’ way of looking at things could move fast like that. Their stream of consciousness ran ethereal and ephemeral at the same time. There was no separation. Heaven wasn’t elsewhere. God wasn’t elsewhere. To them, they were walking inside of God and God was walking inside of them.

  “Good. They were quoting Shakespeare on the way to the bus stop this morning. Even Oliver. I didn’t really know how much he had learned before Jesse . . .” Ginger trailed off.

  She hadn’t really talked to her parents about Jesse since the funeral. The memory of the funeral simply made her homesick. She’d rather speak of anything but that cold gray day. Cold and gray just as it was this day.

  •••

  Ginger stood, the triangle of the American flag held tightly to her chest with her right arm and little Oliver, just three and a half years old, sleeping on her left shoulder. The flowers on all the arrangements fluttered in bright colors like butterflies suspended in a wire mesh, unable to light and fly away. Osbee held Henry, who still sniffled, in her right hand and Bea, utterly quiet, in her left. The Martins walked away in the distance, speaking with the army chaplain who had given the service. The grave was covered. The sky was gray. Seagulls cried overhead.

  Ginger looked over at Osbee, who met her eyes. She gazed back to the Martins, wearing black like crows waiting to swoop down and steal the last of the provender from the starving.

  “Ginny Moon.” Ginger’s father was at her side on the left. Crushing pain seized her body at the sound of his voice.

  “We have to let him go now,” he said. “We have to go now.”

  Ginger nodded. Gazing down, she found her father’s hand out and in it were two small abalone shells.

  “Great men are remembered,” her father said, walking over to Henry and Bea. “Next time you come to Seattle, we’ll take you to a great Native American chief’s grave. A great leader. His name is Chief Sealth or, as the white people call him, Chief Seattle.”

  “Like the city?” Henry asked.

  “They named the city after him. I brought this picture of his grave. Look.”

  Ginger gazed down at the picture that her father held out to Henry and Bea. A medium-sized white stone obelisk stood in the middle of a cemetery next to a small white church. It was an unassuming headstone and could be missed. It could have been anyone’s grave but for the huge wooden catamaran suspended over it. Colorful paintings adorned its sides and all about the headstone were seashells and candles and other mementos left by various pilgrims. Ginger shut her eyes, remembering the peaceful quiet of Seattle’s grave and the misty Puget Sound all around. Where she stood now, she could hear traffic and planes. She could hear the Martins talking. There was no lapping water. There was no peaceful silence.

  “What are those?” Henry asked.

  “Those are canoes his people put over him. It was how his people marked where he was buried. Maybe where Seattle is, he needs the canoes.”

  “He needs canoes in heaven?” Henry asked.

  “Never know. See all those seashells?”

  Ginger felt her mother’s arm wrapping around her waist. She opened her eyes.

  “Yeah.”

  “People leave those for him. They put things inside for him. See. I’ve brought some so we can leave these for your daddy.”

  “I don’t have anything to put in it,” Henry said, his voice tight with sudden worry. Bea hadn’t moved. She didn’t say a word.

  “It’s okay. I brought water from the place where Chief Seattle is buried. From right there.” Her father pointed to the picture.

  “We’ll put this water in the shells for your daddy, okay? So he can know we remember him as a great man.”

  Henry nodded and took a shell. Her father offered a shell to Bea but she didn’t take it. She didn’t move. Glancing over, Ginger found her dad was offering her the shell. She took it from her father as she handed her mother the flag and stepped to Jesse’s grave. She started to cry, tilting her head on Oliver’s little back as she bent down. Together, she and Henry knelt on the grass, setting the shells next to the place where Jesse’s headstone would be. Her father came over, opened a small glass bottle, and handed it to Henry.

  “Just half, so your mother can fill the other shell for Bea.”

  Ginger felt as if she could die. Just lie down right ther
e next to him and die. There was nothing left inside and nothing hurt so entirely. She knelt, watching her son pour water into the seashell.

  Lie right here. She touched the edge of the dirt her husband was buried under and as she reached for the glass bottle from Henry she felt a tap on her shoulder. Holding her breath, Ginger looked up and found Bea standing next to her, just as she hoped she would be.

  “That’s my shell,” Bea said. Ginger nodded and scooted over as she offered the bottle of water to Bea. Her daughter didn’t take it.

  “Daddy might mistake that for Lethe river water.”

  Cocking her head, Ginger glanced up at her daughter.

  “What’s that mean, Bea?” Ginger’s mother asked.

  Bea didn’t answer. Instead, she knelt down and looked into the empty shell. “Looks like rainbows in there,” Bea said.

  “It does,” Ginger’s father replied.

  Ginger said nothing. She wept softly.

  Bea looked up at her mother and back to the shell. Then she reached up with her index finger, took a tear from Ginger’s cheek, and dropped it in the shell.

  “That belongs to Daddy,” she whispered.

  •••

  “Ginny Moon, where did you go?” her father called.

  “Sorry. Sorry. I’m here.”

  “Not to worry,” her mother said. “I’m glad the kids are remembering their father. What a thing to have Shakespeare given to you for memory.”

  “Yes,” Ginger agreed. She watched Oliver standing with his hand raised to heaven and smiled.

  “How’s inventory going?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “Good, we think. We’ll be done soon anyway. Then it’s just balancing it against the books.”

  “Wish I was there to help. I love inventory.” She did, too. Inventory meant finding all the little things hidden, buried, and forgotten in the crevices of the shop.

  “You always did. Maybe next year you’ll be here and the kids can help.”

  Ginger rubbed the knot on her head, feeling happy at the thought of having Henry, Oliver, and Bea help take inventory and then incredibly sad at not having Osbee around.