Here and Again (25 page)

“I hope that’s not Ester,” Osbee breathed.

Ginger picked up the phone before it could finish its second ring. “Hello?”

“Hello? Virginia? It’s Deanna.”

Who is it?
Osbee mouthed.

The nurse registry,
Ginger replied in kind.

“Virginia?”

“Sorry. Yes, Deanna. It’s me.”

“Franklin is asking for you tonight.”

“Uh, Deanna. I was needing to talk with you. I need to remove my name from the registry.”

“Really? Is everything all right?” Deanna’s voice held the same concern as had Mrs. Castro’s and Mr. Taylor’s at the school.

“Yes, yes. We just need to plant now and all hands are required.”

“Plant?” Deanna repeated.

“Yeah. I live on a farm.”

“Ah, that’s right. Well, do you think you could give us one more night?”

“I do—”

“They specifically requested you because there’s a Mr. Wolfe in acute who is asking for you.”

Ginger pulled air between her teeth and thought for a minute. This man had given her Ginger-cow, in the bartering of which he had said something was moving. Whatever it was that Samuel had so keenly sensed moving for 150 years was felt also by Jack, and when last she saw the man he was quite ill. In a very deep way, Ginger felt she owed him, because he was connected to her—and to what was moving. All she had to give in return were the tasks she’d been educated to perform.

“What’s the shift?”

Osbee looked over at her. A small crease passed quickly across the old woman’s brow.

“Same as the last one.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Thanks, Virginia. And then I’ll take you off the roll. Let us know, though, if you want to pick up some shifts now and then.”

“Will do. Thanks, Deanna.” She hung up.

Osbee didn’t look at her; rather the old woman continued to cut celery sticks.

“Jack Wolfe, the man who gave us the cow, is in the hospital and is asking for me. I have to go.”

Osbee nodded.

“This is my last time.”

Osbee looked over at her and said, “You know what is best, daughter.”

She placed the celery sticks in a glass of ice water and headed to the sunroom door to call everyone in for lunch.

As they ate, Henry quietly delegated the work that had to be done. The tasks given to Ginger were cleaning the lunch dishes and planting the garden. Thus she found herself wandering out to the barn, picking up a hoe and a rake, and exiting through Christian’s stall. The cow was nowhere to be seen in the barn. She wasn’t worried, though, as she was quite sure Henry knew where everyone and everything was. He was so like his father—an organizer, a planner, a leader.

The tidy planting boxes were lined up next to the snake-rail fence that encircled the first garden patch. They were wooden rectangles five feet long and three feet wide and in each of them the students from VMI had dumped beautiful black dirt, not Virginia clay. With her headache numbed by the aspirin, she began to rake. For a good while she worked, breaking up the soil and
smoothing it out. After that, she hoed small furrows in the dirt. The work with hoe and rake and dirt and sun rolled the war to the back of her mind.

When the soil was set, she planted the seeds that Ed Rogers had left. There were tomatoes and lettuce and peppers, as well as broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower. According to Mr. Rogers, they were a little late to plant for transplants, but this would have to do. Once complete, Ginger watered everything. The sun reflected gold as she closed the glass lids of the planter boxes.

Alone and unoccupied, she wandered back to Cedar Creek in her mind. It was Samuel there but it was Jesse’s eyes and the vision changed as if she were seeing her husband shot in a war so far away. She held her throbbing head, walking out behind the barn, past all the farm implements, which sat in their new home without purpose at the moment. She felt their pain.

Gazing toward the covered bridge, she spotted Ginger-cow and the goat far afield and, with them, Rooster and the chickens. She walked toward them and as she cleared the back of the barn she found Oliver, Osbee, and Henry fixing the chicken paddock. In need of an occupation to silence the battle in her mind, she headed out to round up the chickens and Rooster.

It was slow going for sure. It took the better part of the day to get them across the field and into the orchard. Oliver came to help with Rooster, holding his stick like a baton and motioning Rooster in the right direction. After all the fowl were back safely in their pen, Henry and Ginger went to fetch Bubba and Ginger-cow.

The cow came easily. The goat . . . Well, Ginger decided he needed a tether with a chain to keep his whereabouts known and to prevent him from causing further mischief with visitors. When they came into the barn, it was four in the afternoon and, according to Henry, time for milking. Planting a stool next to
Ginger-cow for his mother, Henry began to teach her how to milk. She wasn’t very good at it and after about fifteen minutes his patience ran out. Nudging his mother from the stool, he took over and Ginger headed to the house.

Osbee was in the kitchen lighting lamps. They started supper, saying very little to each other as was their usual, comfortable way when working. Chicken and biscuits with mixed vegetables was the bill of fare and shortly after six all the children trudged in—filthy, smelly, and tired. Henry handed a bucket of milk to his mother and, following Samuel, he and his siblings went up for a bath. The look of confusion on Ginger’s face regarding the bucket of milk and its disposition caused Osbee to remove it from her hands, with a low mumbled direction to set the dining room table for dinner.

Gathering the plates and utensils, Ginger headed into the dining room. How long had it been since they had eaten together there instead of the kitchen? Was it Thanksgiving? Christmas? No—she had worked Christmas Eve. It was Thanksgiving. She set the table for six, as was always the way—for they left a plate still for Jesse—and wondered why exactly they were eating in the dining room. When Bea and her brothers came down, the look on their faces showed they were just as perplexed.

Shortly Osbee entered with a pitcher of milk and one of water.

“Ginger, my dear, we need one more service.”

They did? Counting six place settings, Ginger shook her head and was about to say the number was correct when Osbee added, “And if you’ll take a seat at the head of the table, please.”

“That’s Daddy’s spot,” Oliver said.

Osbee nodded and repeated, “Ginger, please.”

After pulling the extra plate, fork, knife, and spoon from the cupboard, Ginger slid her own plate down the table and placed
the extra one next to it. She moved a side chair into place and then reluctantly she sat down, the view from Jesse’s chair awkward and uncomfortable.

“Now I will sit in Ginger’s spot to the right and leave the new chair empty. Oliver, you will sit in Bea’s spot on your mother’s left. Henry, you sit in Oliver’s spot next to me, just to mix it up, and, Bea, you’ll sit in Henry’s spot, next to Oliver. And, Samuel, will you please sit at dinner with us? You will sit at the end.”

Startled, Samuel stood at attention, looking from one chair to another, his eyes wider than Ginger had ever seen them. Then he looked down at his disheveled, dirty clothes and shuffled uncomfortably from one tattered shoe to the other. Ginger smiled, leaning forward, placing her elbows on the table and resting her cheek on her right hand. He was so Southern. Could he sit at the table in his state of appearance?

Henry and Bea giggled at his awkwardness and quickly sat down in their new seats.

“Oliver,” Bea whispered and brushed her hand at him as if it would put him in his seat. He seemed confused, so Bea patted the chair next to her. With a shrug, Oliver sat down in his new spot on his mother’s left.

“Please sit, Samuel,” Osbee said as she went back into the kitchen.

He met Ginger’s eyes and was gone. All at the table let out a soft moan of disappointment.

“Wh-where’d he go?” Oliver asked.

“Maybe he’s changing,” Osbee said, returning with glasses and placing one at every plate, including Samuel’s.

“Can he change?” Henry wondered.

“I don’t know,” the old woman replied and stepped back into the kitchen.

As she came in with the chicken and biscuits, Samuel reappeared. He was now wearing his jacket, buttoned up neatly. The rest of his appearance was the same.

With both hands, he brushed the front of his coat to smooth it and then he sat down slowly as if the chair was going to up and run away from under him.

“You look fine, Samuel,” Osbee said reassuringly as she sat down next to Ginger.

He gave a nod as he looked around the table, adjusting himself in his seat. She watched his eyes move from person to person and when he finally rested his gaze upon her she peered back into the shadow of his soft brown irises. They had been so clear this day at Cedar Creek and though they were but shadows holding her within them, she felt she could still see Jesse there. She smiled a small smile and, in return, a matching smile appeared on his lips.

“Your elbows are on the table, Virginia Moon,” he said quietly. She popped up in her seat and quickly she put her hands in her lap.

“Their good manners are from their father?” Samuel inquired.

Henry, Bea, and Oliver snickered.

“I did say that,” Ginger noted.

“We’ll give thanks tonight,” Osbee said, folding her hands before her and bowing her head. Everyone followed. “Thank you for the food and for each other,” Osbee began. “Thank you for the love and peace we have in this house. And thank you . . . thank you for Samuel, who stood with me today when I thought I was alone, standing with me like family. We are grateful he finds a place at our table. Amen.”

“Amen,” was the response.

“Samuel?” Bea lifted her glass and handed it toward her mother for milk.

“Yes, Bea?”

“Why are your buttons all different?”

He thought a minute and laughed softly. “That, Bea, is a story. It starts when I was heading to war.”

“Please pass your glass, Henry,” Ginger said.

December 14, 1862

Fredericksburg

My love, Juliette,

We sit in ranks upon Prospect Hill, the dawn seen through thick fog as a drop of blood falling into water—a diffuse pink glow on the horizon. It will rise into the heavens as it did yesterday, taking with it the mist and leaving a harrowing view of what the day will bring on the field below. If this battle follows the many others before, the Union defeat will now proceed with a careful withdrawal. Cowardly is my only word for it. Why fight and withdraw? We are armies; our purpose is to fight, but with each withdrawal, we simply prolong this war, with mounting dead and the people, over whose fields we battle, reduced to eating what we leave behind under our feet. I’m afraid there will be no one left to celebrate or mourn the conclusion of this war on either side. It worries me deeply. So we wait as messengers ride up and down these hills and order us to hold position.

The battle yesterday was horrendous. Here on Prospect Hill, the Union broke through our line after achieving the top, but we countered and drove them back. By the end, we figure the losses nearly equal on both sides—4,000 to 5,000 each. I moved with the bird’s call, causing my own Lieutenant, Fletcher Hallings, to be hit in the arm. He rests next to me even now, the deep wound in his upper arm bandaged tightly. How he is going to fire his musket with the rising dawn is a quandary, but he will not leave my side.

The fight on the hill next to us, Marye’s Heights, was a one-sided victory.
Seven assaults were pushed back with 9,000 Union soldiers dying afield as the sun set. We sat in the darkness, death sounding around us as if the earth itself hurt from holding the weight of such agony and let forth the deep, soulful moan of a mother’s loss all night. In answer, the sky came to life, a gentle stream of spectral color flowed across heaven. Never have I seen such and those around me whispered in wonder that it was God celebrating our victory.

But they do not see with their Child’s Eye. I do. The earth keened for her lost children as heaven above opened, showing us the fires and candles of Kronos’s Hall reflected in his raised glass as he greeted the victorious dead into Elysium. I have been convinced I alone see with my Child’s Eye and so did not share my view, as surely a war of words would break out in the dying night between my men and me.

Hope came, though, in the likes of a messenger from Marye’s Heights. It seems a man, a solitary South Carolinian, sat behind the stone wall at the base of the Heights. He was as close as any who were there from 9,000 dying men crying for help, for water, for death, separated by nothing more than a pile of stone. My love, this singular man crested the wall as the Northern Lights streamed above, risking his own life to bring water to the dying—to answer the call for help.

As the messenger relayed the story, many men cursed him for helping the enemy. I held my tongue, for I now know another in this war sees with their Child’s Eye and there is no explaining such to those who do not. I gazed over to Fletcher and found his face bright and full of hope at the news from Marye’s Heights. He met my eye and darkened quickly, but I winked and smiled. In response, he smiled, chuckling a little even as he was in pain from his wound. With Fletcher, we count three who see with the Child’s Eye.

There is no evidence this war shall ever end yet I have found hope, for I know now of others who seek to right all of this wrong. I know one who will, against orders, act to make right. My journey has become less lonely, for I have found comfort and companionship in others here. I have found a moment of joy as I travel to you.

Your devoted,

Samuel

Jar of Clay

T
he moon was out. Its cool glow lifts the world from the deep, sorrowful shadows of the new moon. Dark and despairing in its separation from the warm light of its mother, the sun, the new moon drifts in darkness, gravity causing it to endlessly fall toward earth as if seeking comfort in the blinding black void in which it moves. Earth forever pushes the moon back the way an elder sibling pushes away a pestering younger one when the mother is gone. But the moon by its nature can only be selfless and small and as its mother, the sun, touches it once more, it exhales softly in gray and white over the earth, eternally sharing with its elder sibling the joy felt in their mother’s glow.

Lying on her side, Ginger found the world beyond her window bright against the darkness of her room. The window should have been shielded from her eyes by the shoulder of her husband, but he was not there. Instead, her view was inside her mind, held back then with Samuel on an autumn field in the violet hour of Virginia
with tumultuous war raging around them. She couldn’t shake the vision and her head throbbed as it rested upon her pillow. Weary though she was, no sleep had come nor would it. The alarm on her cell phone was going to sound shortly and she was going to get up for work. She couldn’t wait. Work would close her mind’s eye.

She reached across the bed to the empty space where Jesse had once lain. It was cold and smooth, untouched for so long. Brushing it as if it were his back, she felt Samuel enter. Without a warning, she began to sob quietly, uncontrollably until the soft gray-white light beyond the window was but a blur.

“I see you,” he said.

“I saw you die,” she whispered, her chest heaving the emptiness beneath her hand.

“No,” he replied adamantly as he sat behind her on the bed. “No, you did not, Virginia. You did not.”

“The gun fired behind you.”

“It did not hit me.”

“I was there.” She gasped.

“You were there, Virginia Moon, but you were not then. As I am here but am not now. I did not die upon the field of Cedar Creek.”

She inhaled as if to catch her breath from a long run.

“I moved to hold you, thinking you had come from beyond to fetch me and I was ready to die. So close you were to me. And the bloody bullet missed.” He chuckled dryly, a small hint of anger rising in his voice. “It hit another.”

“Another?” she whispered.

“Yes. I was yet living after Cedar Creek.”

Ginger reflected upon the eyes staring at her in the violet hour so long ago—one hundred and fifty years ago. A bullet fired but Jesse had not died. Samuel yet lived.

“I saw my husband there,” she said.

“Where?”

“In the violet hour of Cedar Creek.”

A hush fell over Samuel. Ginger felt it as palpable—as if Samuel were physical.

“He was in your eyes,” she added. “He died.”

The hush grew in weight, pushing against Ginger’s body, putting pressure on her chest. She inhaled against it.

“Tell me, Virginia Moon. How did your husband die?”

Ginger exhaled, inhaling just at its end, for she knew to exhale completely would crush her beneath the ethereal weight in the room. Back then—back then—doors of the car in the drive shut with finality. Gazing out the window, two men had walked up to the porch and she quickly stepped outside, refusing them the courtesy of a knock.

“He fought across someone else’s land far away.”

“Where?”

“It doesn’t matter really, does it? He always said once war starts, it’s always wrong because there are always innocents everywhere in the cross fire. Any soldier that has been in the fight knows this. It’s why so many of them have trouble when they return. But if a war is started by another, someone must fight. Jesse felt that to serve one’s country was the highest duty—to protect family and country. Most people who become soldiers feel the same. Sometimes the president, the commander-in-chief, asks soldiers to do things they do not agree with. But they are people of duty and follow the command without question. They have taken an oath to do so. It is what they are trained to do. In times like these, Jesse said one cannot fight against the wrongness of war. One can only resist it by doing one’s duty—by finding the right where it can be found among all the wrongness.” She softly
guffawed. “That convolution never really made sense to me until two men walked up to the porch here a year and a half ago.”

“How did Jesse Day Martin die, Virginia?” Samuel whispered.

“He and his men were fighting in an area of small streets and two-story buildings. The battle was hot and they were in a tight place and so were ordered back. As they made their way under fire, they came to an intersection. To the left was a man crouched flush with a wall, holding two little boys and a little girl. His neck was bleeding.

“Jesse motioned his men on and he himself disobeyed orders, turning down the street to help the man. His soldiers were . . . well, his men, and three of them disobeyed his orders and followed.”

Smiling at the night, she added, “He always said you get what you teach, don’t you? Anyway, two of them cleared the corner before snipers began to fire overhead. The third held the corner, offering cover fire. One of his men was shot in the head before he got twenty feet. The other reached Jesse, who handed him the girl and a boy. Jesse grabbed the other boy and tried to lift the man. He pushed him away, motioning down the street. Thirty yards on the other side was a door that was cracked open and a woman desperately waved them to come. So my husband and his soldier ran down the open street toward the door and just as they let go of the kids, a bomb exploded.”

Ginger watched heads and arms and body parts fly in the violet light of Cedar Creek. Her breath grew heavy, full of hurt.

“Did the children live?”

“I don’t know. The soldier covering them ran into the street and was shot. The rest of his troop returned and came on. None would ever agree to leave anyone behind. Jesse was unconscious when they got to him and he died on the way out.”

“I am sorry, Virginia Moon.”

“I’d be mad, you know. Really pissed off at him for not looking after his own, but I know what he saw.” She rolled over and looked up into the shadows of Samuel’s eyes. “He saw himself—just a man trying to get his babies home. There but for the grace of God go I, so to speak. We all judge a situation that someone is in with how we think we’d react. Truth to say, very few of us are willing to lay down our lives for another, no matter how we think we would. A soldier, though? That is exactly what they choose to do when they sign up. They leave their spouses and children and try to stay alive though their lives aren’t theirs to keep or throw away any longer. Their lives belong to their service. So Jesse saw a father with children struggling on a street beneath a rain of bullets. There was no other choice really but to help because it is wrong for children to be subjected to gunfire. That is the wrongness of war. Jesse had to make a decision to make this right somehow because he cared—cared for the man and his children as he cared for his own. Bullets don’t care. People do.”

“He is a great man, Virginia.”

“No. No, he was not. He was a just man, Samuel. Every man isn’t great. Every soldier isn’t a hero. But sometimes in your life, you’re faced with a choice and it makes you. That choice made him. Jesse was a good, honorable man. But he was a great father.”

The hush in the room lifted a little as Samuel reached out his hand and brushed a tear from her cheek. His touch was not upon her skin, but she did feel it.

“I can feel you, Samuel.” Her voice was shaky as she reached for his hand in disbelief. “Your touch.”

“And I feel you, Virginia Moon. Your loss.”

“Y-you called my name, there on Cedar Creek. You knew it then.”

Samuel shook his head. “No. I saw upon a summer’s night, as I wrote to my love, a ginger moon. Autumn’s moon rising in July as I held a picture of you standing next to me in my hand.”

“I was there,” Ginger replied. “In Woodstock. What happened to our picture?”

Samuel nodded and said, “I sent it away, not sure of what—who you were. Not sure what you meant. You were there but not then. And the moon and our photograph left me out of place. Ginger moon was simply a name I gave for that feeling—being out of place.”

“But I
am
Ginger Moon.”

“I know that now.” Samuel chuckled.

“I’ve been without a root, Samuel. Out of place. I’m not so out of place now.”

“No?” Samuel dropped his hand and gazed out the window.

“And neither are you.”

“But I am. Perpetually between my beginning and my end.”

“Samuel,” she said, “I’ve been empty since Jesse died. I have lived in the acoustic shadow for over a year.”

He looked back at her and, though his eyes were shadow, she knew he wept.

“Now I’m with you, Samuel. And I will be right here until you find your end—until you can go home.”

“Home to my love, Juliette Marie. She was beautiful beyond words. Kind and sweet.”

“And you love her still.”

“Beyond words. But she was then. And I am now.”

“You’ll find your way back to her, Samuel. I know it. I believe you’re halfway home.”

“Am I, Virginia Moon?”

“Yes. I’m sure of it.”

The alarm on her phone sounded quietly and Ginger reached over to the bed stand to turn it off.

“I do hope so,” Samuel said, standing. Without another word, he exited through the bedroom door.

“But when you go,” Ginger whispered, “I think I will hurt.”

“So will I,” his voice softly replied.

Ginger climbed out of bed and slid into her slippers as she opened the door.

“I know how to make coffee, Samuel. Just not without electricity, which, I may add, we are now not using out of deference to you.”

He laughed softly somewhere unseen as she passed Bea’s door.

“Because you are here, but are not now,” she added, stopping at the top of the stairs and gazing out to the road washed in moonlight, glistening like a river.

“I am here, not now,” he agreed.

“As I was there, but not then.” She didn’t really understand that. It was like Jesse’s rightness in the wrongness of war statement and she thought she’d need to wait until something happened to make it clear. She shivered.

“We are together, Virginia Moon, somewhere without form, like the emptiness within a jar of clay. The jar is missing, but the purpose remains.”

Ginger looked through the crack in the door and saw Bea on the bed and the boys bivouacked on the floor.

“They worked hard yesterday,” she noted.

There was no answer.

She made her coffee, packed her lunch, and by the time she was dressed and out the door her headache had dissipated into a muted pain. She didn’t see Samuel again until she drove down the
lane and looked back in her mirror. There he stood, at the end of her driveway, motionless in the moonlight. There he would stay to watch over things until her return.

Before she entered the freeway, she stopped for gas and, while there, entered the little convenience store. She picked up a Three Musketeers bar and with her gift tucked away from the heater she drove down Highway 81, through Harrisonburg, and headed west. The moon drew black lines across the gray asphalt as she climbed through the trees to Franklin. There was no snow, not even a hint in the shallow trenches at the road’s edge, and Ginger tried to remember a time when the winter had gone so completely in so short a time. She wondered if it would return, one last blast of snow on its way out.

As she rounded the next bend, her headlights flashed on the sign that read “Oak Flat”
and she shook her head remembering Samuel and Jacob and the scent of vomit in her truck. The smell was there still, though just a hint now, a secret that the backseat kept from the front. She laughed a little to herself, recalling how she’d yelled at Samuel to get in the truck. That was less than two weeks ago. There was no way she would have guessed then that she’d be here now, farming with her children. Life just changed for her with the turning of the season.

Her headlights flashed again on something up ahead and Ginger slowed down. She stopped abruptly.

“I cannot believe it.” She breathed, her lips pulled tight across her teeth. She put the truck into park without turning it off, opened her door, and stepped out.

“Is that Jacob Esch?” she asked, pointing to . . . well, Jacob Esch. His left arm was flung over another boy’s shoulder and together they were stumbling in the ditch next to the road.

“Yea-ha,” the other boy replied, clearly intoxicated.

“Who are you?”

“Eli—Eli Beiler.”

“You and Jacob have been drinking?”

The boy giggled. “A little.”

“Well, Eli-Eli Beiler. Did you know Jacob just had his appendix out and is on pain medication?”

“No, he’s not.”

“He’s not?” Ginger cocked her head.

“Makes him feel funny.”

Closing her eyes, Ginger shook her head, hoping that when she opened them somehow the two boys would be gone. She put both her hands on her hips and opened her right eye. Nope—the boys were still there.

“Where are you two going now?” she asked.

“Back to Mr. McLaughlin’s farm up there in Oak Flat.”

“What’s there?”

“Our beds.” Eli laughed.

She sighed, saying, “Get in. I’ll drive you.”

“Ah! Thank you, ma’am.” As Eli struggled out of the ditch, carrying the deadweight of Jacob Esch in his arms, Ginger opened the back door.

“It’s not as cold as it’s been,” he said as he dumped Jacob into the backseat.

“How much have you guys had?” She twisted her nose at the thick smell of alcohol that rolled off them.

“Not too much.” He giggled again as he shut the door.

“Has Jacob thrown up?” Ginger opened the door to the front passenger seat and then walked around the front of her truck.

“Uh, yea-ha. He didn’t have hardly anything and he threw up.”

She smiled brightly. “There’s a blessing.” Backing up, she turned the truck around and headed back to Oak Flat.

“May I ask your name, ma’am?”

“I am Mrs. Martin.”