“We have real work today. We need a real breakfast. Eggs and meat and bread. Hot, hot, hot.”
Ginger and Osbee looked at him and then at each other.
“That kind of breakfasththt ithn’t tho good for you,” Ginger said.
“Why is your speech strange?” he asked.
“She bit her tongue.”
“Ah. That was not very smart of you.”
Ginger frowned at Samuel and he smiled broadly.
“Hot breakfast, please,” he said, pointing to the stove. “I have to leave. I am itchy. I will await the children in the barn.” He walked by Osbee. “The coffee smells wonderful,” he added. Then he disappeared through the sunroom door, whistling a tune as he did so.
They both just stood there, still as stones.
“Itchy?” Osbee asked.
“Electrithity maketh him itch. We got bacon?” Ginger asked, opening the refrigerator.
“I don’t think I can get used to that,” Osbee said, nodding to the door.
“That maketh two of uth,” Ginger replied.
They made breakfast as ordered and after bundling the three children in winter clothes Osbee led them out the back door to the barn. Ginger wandered around the house with only one direction: the avoidance of calling her children out for the day. She was entirely uncomfortable pulling her kids out when they were not sick and she worked feverishly to justify their absence in her own mind. Finally, she called the school and mumbled something about a family matter. The school secretary’s voice was more than concerned, asking if there was anything anyone at the school could do. Somehow, being a war widow brought out a certain giving gentleness in some people and Ginger knew the secretary’s offer was rising out of that kind caring. Quickly, she thanked the woman and hung up the phone, a feeling of deep guilt lingering inside her as she showered.
Once washed and dressed, she sat down at her desk, gazing out her bedroom window to the covered bridge. The deep guilt of calling her children out for the day sank to an even deeper sense of internal betrayal. She was about to research homeschooling, but as she made ready to flip on her computer, she stopped. As a matter of choice, homeschooling was more than a betrayal to herself; it was a betrayal to Jesse.
Ginger had grown up in a place where the world, with all of its complexities, wandered in continuously. She attended public school, the education of which was far more than learning to read and write. It was how to get along with others of differing beliefs and ways. Her childhood was a kaleidoscope, giving her a certain adaptability of vision. She learned to accept others as they presented themselves, search for what was common, tolerate that which differed from her. She could approach anyone on the grounds of who they were, not who she needed them to be. She didn’t need to like them; she learned she just had to try to understand them. It made her sensitive and watchful and formed her into the excellent nurse she was.
On the other hand, Jesse had been raised in a private school where everyone held thoughts and beliefs similar to his own. The world was presented how it should be, not as it was. Differing ideas were filtered through teachers and his parents. But the older he grew, the more his nature could not fit the small world of his childhood. He likened it to confining a great rainstorm into the flow of a spigot. Such a thing was impossible and, true to that statement, he didn’t fit into his parents’ world.
When he went to VMI, it was less a spigot but still a confining flow. It wasn’t until he joined the army that he came face-to-face with the kaleidoscope of Ginger’s world. He stumbled often, trying to understand what it was he believed and what he did not, measuring his own sense of self against the whirling chaos of possibility. It took him a good ten years to come to himself.
From these differences, it was always understood that the Martin children would attend public school. The chaos of the world never unsettled Ginger, and Jesse wanted that for his children. So here Ginger was about to betray herself and Jesse, and the longer she sat there, the more her loss and the pain of it engulfed her. This was a decision regarding their children. This was something they needed to do together. Who was she to take Henry and Bea and Oliver away from their friends—away from the new kids they had yet to meet, away from this year’s teachers and next year’s teachers and those memories every child has of their school days?
“I can’t,” she whispered. “It’s not fair.”
She poked at the scratches on the desk and wiped the dust off the top of her laptop. She leaned forward, then back in her chair. She opened the right drawer, riffling around the bottom of it; she retrieved a pencil and the empty envelope of an old bill. The pencil was obviously Oliver’s because it had been chewed up and the eraser was gone. Turning the envelope over to doodle, she caught her breath. There, in Jesse’s own handwriting, was a quote:
“Americans like to think of themselves as uncompromising. In fact, our true genius is that we compromise. Our entire government is based on it.”—Shelby Foote
Ginger stared at the writing—the tight, precise curvature of the letters, the tiny spots of ink where the pen halted before it was moved in another direction. When did he write this? What was he thinking about before he wrote it? What did he do after? But she knew what Jesse did. Maybe not right after, but sometime after. He answered a call to duty. And she? She waited for him to return. Their common ground, soldier and nurse, was to care for others—to put the greater good before their own. They understood each other through the need to serve. Their service was different and, in that difference, they had to compromise.
“Our entire marriage is based on it.” She touched his letters, running her finger around their curves, retracing Jesse’s tracks.
“Okay,” she said to the air. “But before I take them out of school, I’m going to ask them about it. It’s only fair.”
She waited for an answer—another message. Maybe another envelope would show up. Maybe the lock to the little gold key. Maybe another—
Quickly, she stood. “Not another ghost,” she said, sternly pointing up to Elysium.
She hurt but laughed a little to herself, leaving the computer and homeschooling at the desk. As she stepped to the stairs, she gazed out the staircase window. There, heading directly for her gravel drive, was an old International pickup truck hauling a livestock trailer.
“I know who that is,” she said excitedly and raced down the stairs. She swung the front door open and the cold air floated in to greet Beau, who trotted from the kitchen though the dining room, into the family room, and wound up standing next to Ginger. The trailer drifted slightly to the right of her driveway and stopped. The passenger door opened and out stepped Jacob Esch. He was dressed in jeans and a flannel coat and held his stomach tenderly.
“What are you doing here?” Ginger called down the hill.
“I brought the cow with Mr. Wheldon.”
“No . . . you should be in bed,” she said.
“I was released.”
“Yes. To go home to bed.” She frowned. This boy had no idea what was good for him.
The driver’s-side door opened and Joshua Wheldon stuck his head out. “Mrs. Martin, can yah please move yur truck?”
Beau glanced up at her as if waiting for the answer. “Just a minute.” As she went to shut the door, she saw Henry heading down the hill. Beau launched out the door and down the porch. “Henry?”
Her oldest stopped dead in his tracks.
“Can you help Jacob there inside and have him sit down, please?”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Martin.”
“Henry, please. Thank you.” Ginger shut the door with finality.
Rushing through the house, she slid into her rubber boots and Jesse’s coat, grabbed her car keys from her purse, and headed out the screen door. She found Samuel leaning against the walnut tree.
“Where is everybody?” she asked him.
“Working in the
barn and the summer kitchen.”
“I have to move the truck. The cow’s here. What’s in the summer kitchen?”
“A kitchen. It is used in the summertime to keep the heat out of the house. Hence its name.”
She stopped and looked at him. He breathed into his hands as if they were cold.
“Thanks. That clears everything up,” she said, heading to her truck. She giggled when she heard Samuel laugh quietly as she passed. Coming around the corner of the house, she found Jacob leaning on Henry as he walked up the gravel drive.
“Thank you, Henry.”
“I’m fine,” Jacob said.
She opened the door and repeated, “Thank you, Henry.”
Joshua Wheldon maneuvered the trailer around and backed it up the hill. After parking some twenty yards down the road, Ginger walked back home and climbed her drive, and when she reached the top of the hill, Mr. Wheldon opened the door of the trailer.
“Mornin’, ma’am,” he said.
“Good morning, Mr. Wheldon. I very much appreciate you bringing the cow.”
“That fence sure needs mending. Almost run over it.” He pulled the ramp down from the trailer.
She nodded, saying, “It’s never been built.”
“Posts are up.” He walked up the ramp. “Come ’ere, Ginger, my beauty.”
As the cow cleared the trailer door, a great rush of joy caught hold of Ginger. The cow was truly ginger-colored with soft, sensitive brown eyes that gazed around as she walked gently down the ramp.
“Ah, she’s beautiful,” Ginger said, a lump growing in her throat.
“She’s one in a million.”
Osbee, Jacob, and the children came out of the summer kitchen, smiling, mesmerized, as the cow sauntered toward them.
Bea put her left hand over her mouth and stepped forward, petting the cow’s nose with her right. “What’s her name?” she asked.
“Ginger,” Mr. Wheldon said.
Bea’s eyes popped wide and she flicked them over to her mother. There was a split second of silence and then Osbee and Oliver and Henry and Bea burst out laughing. Joshua Wheldon looked over to Jacob, who shrugged.
“My name is Ginger,” she said sullenly.
Then they laughed, too. Still snickering, all followed Mr. Wheldon with Ginger-cow toward the barn, every hand in the yard touching the soft, warm sides of her as if carrying a magical beast to its sacred home.
Suddenly, there was a sound. “Neaaaaaaaaah.”
Everyone turned around, and as Ginger’s eyes fell upon the open end of the trailer, the magic moment screeched to a sudden halt. Her smile disappeared. So did everyone else’s.
There, at the top of the ramp, was a three-and-a-half-foot dark gray billy goat with a little black beard and two nine-inch pointy horns. One eye had lashes of white, making it appear like it wore a monocle. It gazed slowly at the group with its copper caprine eyes as if devising some horrible end for each and every one of them.
Joshua Wheldon handed Oliver the cow’s tether and stepped forward. “Ya gotta take the good with the bad,” he said. “Unfortunately, ya got really bad here.” He untied the goat’s lead from the side of the trailer. “Ginger Martin, may I introduce you to Beelzebub the goat.”
It looked at her sideways with those copper caprine eyes, raising its lip in what appeared to be a wicked, wicked grin.
“Bubba for short,” he added.
July 2, 1862
Malvern Hill
Juliette, my love,
It is raining. The water stings my wounds. My body aches and my stomach hurts. Do not worry. I am but scraped—a tattering of flesh and fabric by ball and bayonet. I am hungry and tired. No deep wounds here and many of them on the mend.
I have been in the fight. As we made our way moving the length of the Shenandoah Valley in May, we marched in the shape of the letter “H”—two parallel lines with a transverse of the third, which is the road between Luray and New Market. Is it not true that opposite angles are equal? We marched and marched through mud and mountain, hill and haven. The more I marched, the more I fought and the more I fought, the more I could see as Jackson sees—precise, methodical, mathematical, cold. The arc of an angle, the ticking of time, and the opportune moment to move—victory assured.
We are not a cat. We are merely its paw, moving silently from one place to another and from nowhere, the claw unsheathes and we flail any before us. Then we recede and move again. Four hundred miles in a month we have marched and fought in this manner and for what? Always our paw is held hidden in the Shenandoah. The arm of the cat if but outstretched a little farther can scratch at Washington. In May, we were the cat to the Union’s mouse.
As I fought, all the while, I heard the bird and instead of the yell, I whistled back. I am the butt of many a joke, but then so is our commander. So I whistle and in that Valley of Death, I have come to know this bird. It is the Child’s Eye. Remember your child’s eye? There was a time when every day was new—the first time the scent of honeysuckle hung upon a heavy summer mist. The wonder of a chicken squawking as it fled your child’s hand. The caprine gaze of a goaty eye as it chased you to the kitchen door. A great black sky sounding a thunderous clap as it tossed giant balls of water onto far fields of wheat and then broke open like darkened glass, shedding golden light across the horizon. The drops of water shone like millions of tiny diamonds in that light upon the golden sheaths. The Child’s Eye wakes up in this world that God made, knows as a child knows that we are part of God, explores and learns and helps and then falls soundly to sleep within the love of God.
So when walking the Valley of Death, I hear this bird and hear life exquisitely. I can see as Jackson sees, with a man’s eye. The precise movements of the muskets, the feinting of bayonets are but gears in the machine of war. But all the while I whistle and see so clearly with my Child’s Eye the sky as blue and the tiny grass under my feet. I see a man at the end of my bayonet, but cannot meet him Child Eye to Child Eye. His eyes are on mine and as I take his life from the beautiful world that God created in love, I know I have closed forever the possibility of seeing through his eyes. And as I battle, I pray those eyes open to a honeysuckle summer day with a black sky shuddering as it opens and sends a single finger of light dancing over great golden fields of wheat that shine like a million tiny diamonds. I pray he settles peacefully in the love of Elysium.
So I sit here in the rain, scratching this letter, aching from the battle and the day of digging graves upon Malvern Hill. I love my aches because I can see with my Child’s Eye. I am yet walking within the love of God even as I hunger. And just moments ago, someone said they heard Jackson, as he sat his horse above Port Republic, watching two lines converge to an acute angle, the arc of which exploded in war, saying, “He who cannot see the hand of God in this is blind, sir, blind.” It caused me to burst out laughing, the howl of which echoed across the fresh graves of the dead. The others looked at me with a sideways glance and so I have settled into this letter. My love, I see with Jackson’s eyes the cold, mathematical precision of war. But this is the Eye of Man and it is the Hand of Man. It is what I hear that gives me pause. The bird sings, bringing me back to the joy of my Child’s Eye and I know, as this Hand of Man falls where it will, God sorrows. Utterly.
Your devoted,
Captain Samuel E. Annanais
Chapter 17
Homeschooling
Joshua Wheldon brought the goat off the trailer. Everyone backed away except Beau. He stood about as tall as Bubba and they eyed each other, taking full measure of size and strength. It was the goat that looked away first, at which point Beau’s tail, having frozen in place at the sight of Bubba, wagged slowly. Ginger wasn’t sure if they were friends, but she was quite sure Beau had made more peace with the goat than anyone else in the yard.
As Bubba and the cow were taken into the barn, Ginger did not follow
. She stood separate and alone, watching the procession. Jacob Esch, who yet leaned upon Henry’s shoulder, began to speak to Bea and Oliver regarding the care and keeping of a cow. His voice was soft and sure, with a slight accent that betrayed his upbringing. He was not English. He was not a Yankee. He was Amish, no matter how lost Ginger knew him to be, and in that moment she realized that he would be staying. She gazed over as if waking from a warm dream and met Osbee’s eyes.
“Bea and I have cleared the room on top of the summer kitchen. Mostly it was the old lamps from the house. Their glass chimneys are now in the kitchen sink, soaking.”
“Probably need to go get fuel for them.”
“I think so. New wicks, also.”
“Osbee?”
“Yes, daughter?”
“Osbee, isn’t this . . . weird? People just showing up with what we need?”
The old woman chuckled. “No. It’s unbelievable.”
Ginger nodded, looking around in search of Samuel. He wasn’t there.
“I’ve got to clean the room over the summer kitchen. It’s dusty and the mattress up there needs to be unwrapped. Hasn’t been slept in since Jesse was a teenager.” Osbee grinned as she pulled her braid forward. There was no red ribbon any longer. “Should have sheets for it somewhere,” she continued as she walked to the sunroom stairs.
“We need anything else from the store?” Ginger inquired, following the old woman to the house.
“Not that I can think of,” Osbee replied, holding the door.
Ginger leaned into the sunroom, picked up her purse, and headed down the gravel drive toward her truck. As she walked, she took out her phone. Regard, who was lying on the fence rail at the end of the drive, yeowed as she passed. “Be right back,” she replied absently as she dialed her parents.
The line picked up. “The Ginger Moon,” her mother said in greeting.
“Yes, it is,” Ginger answered.
“Tim! It’s our daughter,” she yelled.
Another line clicked. “Ginny Moon! What’s up? The ghost settled now?”
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