Here and Again (8 page)

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S
he wasn’t sure exactly why her truck decided to take her there, but at four thirty p.m. she pulled into the Henry Hill Visitor Center at Manassas National Battlefield. The parking lot was covered with snow, as was the gentle rolling plain of the battlefield that surrounded it.

Ginger turned off her car, imagining summer and heat and cicadas singing with a fife. Opening her door, she climbed out, tucked her cell phone and car keys in her pockets, shut the door, and locked the truck. The path to the stone bridge was to the right. It looped around the parking lot and headed east and then north. Instead of heading in that direction, Ginger walked toward the Henry House. She and little Bea had done very well that day waddling in that direction. Jesse had held Henry, talking with him about this and that artillery and regiment. Now, walking on the path with the world so quiet under its blanket of snow, she tried to remember his voice as he spoke with his boy—the manner of his walk, his back straight and shoulders square as he held Henry in his arms. Ginger stopped, closing her eyes at the memory of how beautiful Jesse was in that moment. She was so pregnant at the time, but her body stirred for him there, standing with little Henry babbling in his embrace.

She felt that same ache now—the ache that so often kept her awake at night. To avoid it growing stronger, she decided she should take a walk to the bridge, after all.

She opened her eyes. She froze. There on the far side of the Henry House she saw a lone man standing. His back was toward her and all of a sudden he jerked to a squat. Ginger frowned, standing on tiptoe as she gazed around looking for other people. There was no one else. There was just Ginger and the snow and the man squatting up ahead. Thinking she ought to check, for help always comes, she walked in his direction.

“Hello?” she called. In his crouched position, he slid to the left, ducking his head now and then like a frog crossing a lily pad.

“What in the world?” she mused, trotting now toward him. “Hey, are you okay?”

Suddenly the man stood, lifting a musket from the ground. Ginger stopped dead in the snow. He was wearing a butternut uniform and as he lifted the musket to his eye, he fixed its point upon something moving in the distance. He turned to the right, and as he came around, Ginger could now see the full profile of his face.

“Samuel?” she breathed. With a start, he pulled the musket from his eye and looked in her direction.

“Ma’am?”

Ginger jumped, spinning around to find a ranger standing at her back.

“Samuel,” she said, pointing behind her. But when she turned around, she found the field empty.

“Uh, no. I’m Richard. I just came to say we’re about to close.”

“Did—did you see where he—he went?”

“Who?”

“Samuel. He—he was standing right there.”

The ranger looked past her and then shook his head. “Sorry. I didn’t see anyone come with you. I must have missed him getting out of the car. Is he a little boy?” The ranger stepped by her and headed in the direction Ginger was pointing.

“N-no. No,” Ginger said, following the ranger toward the spot she had seen Samuel. “He must have been here. You having a reenactment?”

The ranger halted and turned around.

“A reenactment of what?”

“Of a battle here.” Ginger sped by the ranger, coming at last to the front of the Henry House. Maybe Samuel had gone around the side of the building.

The ranger guffawed.

Ginger spun on her heel and looked back at him.

“There were two battles here, ma’am. The first was fought in July and the—”

“The second was August. August 28 to 30, 1862, to be exact. I am well aware of the battles here, Ranger Richard. Thank you.” Ginger gritted her teeth, holding her next sentence behind them. What in the world was she so angry at?

“Sorry,” she said, gazing back to the Henry House. “I just thought I saw someone I knew.”

“No one is here but you.”

“You sure? Maybe he walked here. Maybe he hitchhiked and was dropped off somewhere else in the battlefield.”

“Ma’am, it is twenty-five degrees out here with four inches of snow. I’m pretty sure no one would be around the Henry House without driving in the entrance. No offense.”

Ginger stared at the place she was sure she had seen Samuel. There were no footprints, no signs of him crawling sideways in a ducked position.

“Four inches of snow?” she asked quietly.

“According to the weather report.”

Ginger stuck her hands in her pockets and gazed up at the Virginia sky. It was coming on to sunset.

“It’s about five o’clock, ma’am. The park is closing.”

“You don’t think he went in there, do you?” She pointed to the door of the Henry House.

“It’s closed.”

She sunk her hands deeper into her pockets.

“I swear he was standing right there,” Ginger said, gazing at the ranger. The man shook his head, his brow furrowed in apology.

Slowly, turning now and then back to the place she was positive Samuel had been, Ginger made her way back to her truck. She opened the door. The smell of perfume, whiskey, and throw-up greeted her. She looked over at the ranger, who stepped back a little, his eyes squinting at her as he let go a small cough.

“Uh—not me. An Amish boy I found on the road.”

The ranger nodded. “Drive carefully,” he said.

“Sorry to have kept you out in the cold, Richard.” She climbed into her fragrant truck.

“Thank you for visiting,” he replied.

Engaging the engine, Ginger gave Ranger Richard an embarrassed wave and backed out of her parking space. She knew what he was thinking. She knew if she were in his shoes, she’d be thinking that same thing. But she hadn’t been drinking and she had seen Samuel.

She stopped at the entrance sign to Manassas and dialed Ed Rogers for directions. As he read them off, she scribbled them down in a small spiral pad. As she wrote, she gazed back at the parking lot and the Henry House, waiting to see if Samuel would emerge from somewhere. He did not. Ranger Richard, however, did, walking hunched over in his coat toward her truck. Hanging up quickly with Ed, she made her way down the road to the left and watched Ranger Richard swing the gate to the parking lot closed. He locked it with a large, heavy chain; its gritty metallic clang echoed after her. She shivered and, with a little, nervous laugh, called, “Scroooooooge.”

“You have labored on it since. It is a ponderous chain,” she moaned, trying to create Jesse’s ghostly impression of Jacob Marley herself. He had been so good at becoming the characters when reading at bedtime.

“He must think I’m nuts,” she said to herself in her side-view
mirror, and at the T intersection she took a left. As she drove, she ran Samuel’s image through her mind—his ducking movement, his profile, his eyes turning in her direction. She had been so startled by Ranger Rick that now she could not even remember if she saw Samuel’s entire face or if he had actually seen her. Having seen her, would he have not come over? And what was he doing at Manassas anyway? Last she saw him, he was in West Virginia, headed south to Laurel Creek.

She drove, wondering how Samuel could have been at Smoot’s farm, Franklin, and Manassas all in one twenty-four-hour period. Her rumination was disquieting to her. After a while she decided that it wasn’t Samuel at all at Manassas. It must have been someone who looked like Samuel. Ranger Rick was incorrect also. Some man was stealing across the battlefield in the snow. That’s just how it had to have been. It made sense.

She had nearly convinced herself of it by the time she hit her right blinker and bumped off the road onto a dirt driveway that led to Ed Rogers’s place. She stopped. Night was pouring across the sky at five p.m., the sun but a hazy pale blue-pink memory peeping through the trees to the west. The bare branches reached over the driveway, their spindly fingers shaking hands overhead. Shuddering, Ginger thought that maybe she should just turn around. Although winter solstice had passed two months earlier, she had neglected to remember that the days were still very short and that she would be heading to an unknown man’s house out in rural Virginia at night.

“Mr. Rogers,” she whispered.
Nothing bad can happen at Mr. Rogers’s house
.

She smiled anxiously at herself in her rearview mirror, took her foot off the brake, and, as she crawled down the dirt road, dialed home just to let Osbee know where she was—just in case.

Mr. Rogers

A
s Ginger drove from beneath the column of trees, floodlights switched on, bursting through her cab as if she were some secret service agent driving right into some great sting operation from which there was no escape. She pressed her brake and stopped the truck, blinking in the bright lights.

Placing her hand over her eyes, she peered out through the glare and found she was parked before a very large, old brick antebellum mansion. She was situated not at the front of the building but at its side. To her left, far over yards of trodden snow, she spotted two very large barns—one that seemed to date from the time of the house and the other much newer. Squinting, she could just make out a shadow passing between the older barn and the house. It was a golf cart and the person inside waved. As she flipped off her lights, several floodlights from the direction of the barns turned off. Now she could see that there, driving in the snow, was a woman clothed in a blue and white ski
coat and a blue scarf. She waved again. Ginger turned off her engine and opened the door.

“Mrs. Rogers?” she called.

“Ginger!” the woman said, laughing a little as if the name tickled. “Ginger Martin. I am so happy to see you. Jesse spoke of you so often.”

Ginger slid out of the truck and shut her door.

“Ed is in the barn. Are you cold? Hungry?” the woman asked, stopping the golf cart and climbing out. She walked up and shook Ginger’s hand. “I’m Lorena. Would you like to get the tractor parts into the back of your truck first?”

“I grabbed Chick-fil-A on the way here, thank you. Um—maybe I should get the parts first.”

“Good. Good. Ed is pulling them from his vast supply,” Lorena replied, rolling her eyes. She adjusted the hood on her head and said, “Climb in.”

“He has a lot of tractor parts?” Ginger inquired as she scooted onto the golf cart seat.

“Without the buildings hiding everything, we’d look like a junkyard.”

Ginger laughed quietly, holding on to the side of her seat as they traversed the yard to the nearest barn.

“Ed was trying actually to buy that tractor from Jesse, you know.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“My husband is a collector of farming equipment. Has been all his life. Now that he’s getting older, he seems to be narrowing his assortment to mainly tractors. Miracle!”

She laughed as she veered left. “That one of your husband’s is quite a collector’s piece,” Lorena added.

“Is it?”

“Hmm. Ed was trying to exchange for it.”

“Exchange what?”

The golf cart stopped. “Well, for one, the horses. Ed had those so he could use his horse plows. He’s done with that, so we put an ad in the
Army Times
and here comes Jesse. VMI and everything.” Lorena grunted as she slid out of the cart.

Ginger followed. “Ed went to VMI?”

“Oh, sure. And he teaches there now. Jesse and he loved to talk to each other in Latin. They’d talk up a storm when he’d visit.”

“That was one of Jesse’s favorite classes,” Ginger said, wondering why she had never heard of Ed Rogers. “Was he a professor of Jesse’s?”

“No, no. He was career military, actually. He didn’t start teaching until 2000. After retiring.”

“Ah,” Ginger replied as she followed Lorena into the barn. Upon entry, Lorena came to an abrupt stop. Ginger nearly ran into the back of her. Peering over the woman’s blue and white shoulder, Ginger’s eyes widened. The barn looked like a huge bulk superstore, with metal scaffolding on both sides of a large dirt aisle. Stacked two high, various farm implements were displayed as if for sale. All was tidy and clean in the bright fluorescent lights overhead. Ginger whistled quietly.

“I know,” Lorena whispered, gazing over her shoulder at Ginger. “It’s an obsession out of control. This is just the equipment and parts barn. The newer one farther out is where he keeps his tractors.” Lorena shook her head, her hood falling back to show her short salt-and-pepper hair.

“I suppose Henry’s Child would fit right in here,” Ginger noted.

“Who’s Henry’s Child?”

“Oh—the tractor. We call it Henry’s Child. It was his baby.”

“I bet. Very rare, that one. When Ed found out Jesse had it, he tried to give the horses away for free. Took him around the barn here. Showed him all the equipment that could be worked with the horses. But your husband said he only needed Penny and Christian for his kids and he couldn’t sell the tractor.”

“No, I suppose not.” Ginger looked down at her toes, her stomach rolling as she thought of Osbee and Ester and Hugh and papers signing away her husband’s dream.

“So, here we are—a barn half filled with horse-drawn farming equipment and no horses.” Lorena giggled. “Story of my life.”

Ginger didn’t smile. She just kept thinking of Bea and the tractor and flying away to Seattle.

“Ginger?” Lorena touched her shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I think Osbee’s going to sell the farm, though, so maybe Ed will get Henry’s Child, after all. I suppose Jesse would like that.”

“What do you mean, sell the farm?”

Ginger started at the sound of the man’s voice. It was gentle and very Virginian but something in its inflection made her straighten her back. Glancing in the direction from which it came, she found a tall, thin man in a black fleece coat, jeans, and black rubber riding boots. He was very tidy with silver hair and a square jaw and eyes the lapis color of Virginia’s sky. She said nothing, finding her voice had completely surrendered and ran AWOL—taking up hidden residence in her left thumb under the intensity of those piercing blue eyes.

“What do you mean, please?” he repeated. In his hands, Ginger saw one large piston. She wished she could grab it and run.

“It’s time to plant,” Ginger said hoarsely. It came out sounding to her more like a cough.

“It is almost,” he agreed. Not a muscle moved in his body—not even a twitch in his eye. Only his mouth moved.

“There’s only Osbee and me and we can’t farm. The other men in the area have been doing it for us since Jesse last left and—well, he’s—” Her voice broke, but she did not look away. She couldn’t.

“We’re sorry for that,” Lorena replied. “We feel his loss also.”

The woman’s arm wrapped around Ginger’s shoulder. This time, she didn’t shrug it off. Nor did she cry. She simply stood, held at attention before Ed Rogers.

“That land is for Jesse’s children,” Ed said quietly.

“I know,” Ginger replied. “But Osbee has to make her decision.”

“Did you tell her to keep it?”

“It isn’t mine to tell her. It’s hers to say, now that Jesse’s gone. I have reminded her that he wanted his kids to grow up there. She just thinks it’s time.”

Ed looked down at the piston. Ginger let go a sigh of relief. Man, did he have a way about him. She was sure she wouldn’t ever have passed any class he taught.

“I don’t suppose you know how to put this piston in?” he said, musing at the little metal rings that encircled it.

“No.”

“Well, I have always wanted to see it. I’d like to come get Henry’s Child going again. Would you allow that?”

He gazed up at her, his eyes and demeanor having noticeably softened.

“I would be very grateful.”

“Good. Let’s get some coffee.”

He motioned to the barn door through which she had just come, and together they all walked back to the golf cart. To Ginger’s relief, Lorena drove, so it was next to her that she sat, with Ed very quietly facing the other way.

“Uh, how long have you lived here?” Ginger said, trying to break the silence of the trip.

“Since I was married, thirty-seven years ago. Ed’s lived here all his life.”

“My family’s been on this land since 1799.”

Ginger leaned her head to the left, looking back at Ed. “That’s when Jesse’s family settled where they are.”

“Yes. Jesse and I spoke a great deal about that. It was quite far there, Prince William County to the Shenandoah in those days. We thought maybe they met each other in the war, but the Smoots fought for the North and my people fought for the South.”

They pulled up to the side of the house and came to a stop.

“We didn’t suppose our families knew each other.” Ed slid off the back of the cart and walked to Ginger’s truck.

“Come. Have coffee before you go. Sure you’re not hungry?”

“Thank you. Just coffee.”

Ginger followed Lorena in through the side door. The hall in front of her had high ceilings and a wooden floor, the planks of which were wide and obviously original.

“The kitchen is just here.” Entering through a door, Ginger found a large, very modern kitchen. It was obviously not original except for the huge fireplace that stood on the back wall. It held within it a small fire, but as Lorena poured coffee, Ed came in and tossed two logs upon it. They cracked and popped, firing shots of joy as they came to life.

“This used to be a back parlor,” Ed said. “The original kitchen is downstairs, but Lorena refuses to carry the food up the stairs when we have dinners.”

Lorena guffawed. “Milk and sugar in your coffee, Ginger?”

“Just milk, please.”

“The kitchen, as he calls it, is a brick cave used in olden times.
Who can cook anything in darkness? Besides, his mother never had to cook in it.”

“Who cooked?”

“We had a cook,” Ed said, unzipping his coat. Ginger thought him very handsome as he took the cup from his wife and handed it to her.

“I was so terrified when Ed brought me home to meet his folks. This house is so huge and imposing from the outside, but when I entered, it became so much smaller. There is such grandeur built into the outside of these old mansions.”

“Architecture for another era, Lorena. It was meant to be imposing.”

“I never wanted to live here, but Ed inherited and so here I was. With a cave for a kitchen.”

“So, if ever I was to eat, I had to build her this kitchen. And then we rebuilt it. And rebuilt it. And—”

“Stop,” Lorena said, handing him a cup. Ed mouthed to Ginger,
And rebuilt it.

Then he smiled and Ginger grinned happily back, for his was a small smile without showing any teeth, but warm and kind. She hadn’t thought he ever smiled, but there, on his face, was clearly an event that must happen often as told by the lines about his eyes and cheeks. His demeanor, though, would not lead one to believe it was true.

“Cold and imposing, but welcoming and warm on the inside. Like Edward here,” Lorena said.

“That’s how I thought of Jesse at first, too. Cold and imposing,” Ginger said.

“He saw your name badge and the freckles like stars on your face and knew he was going to ask you out,” Ed said.

Ginger nodded, chuckling. Stars on her face. Stars all over
her body. Why hadn’t she heard of Ed Rogers if he had heard that of her?

“That’s why I asked Lorena to dance, too.”

Ginger furrowed her brow and sipped her coffee.

“Have you never heard that song?” Ed asked.

Ginger shook her head, having no idea what he was talking about.

He cleared his throat a little and began to sing: “
The years creep slowly by, Lorena. The snow is on the grass again.”

His voice was tenor, every note hit true, and he finished a single verse, then stopped. Ginger wished he would finish, but thought his song, like his smile, seemed not to be given easily.

“That is a beautiful song,” Ginger said.

“It has several verses. A very beautiful love song. I heard a friend of mine introducing Lorena to another man at a USO dance. There she was—the woman in the song—soft brown hair, soft brown eyes. My heart beat so heavily I couldn’t swallow. It took me two hours to slide in beside her. She was dancing with everybody, but I finally saw my chance, took her hand that night, and haven’t left her side since.”

He touched his wife’s right index finger.

“And rebuilt my kitchen?” Lorena asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Again and again,” he replied, smiling once more. He gazed in Ginger’s direction. There was a silence then. A quiet that seemed forever. Then, as if from a great distance, he said, “I have three daughters, Virginia, but if ever I had a son, I feel so surely he would have been like Jesse. He loved as I love. I feel your wound deeply just as I feel my own.”

Ginger didn’t reply. She stood holding her breath in the light of his smile. There were no tears to shed. There was not a cry
peeling from her empty place. There were simply two souls sharing a loss. He looked down at his coffee. Ginger did also.

“I should be going,” she said, breaking the solemnity of the kitchen. “I should try to get home before Osbee puts the kids to bed.”

She placed her cup on the counter. “Thank you for the coffee.”

“We are so happy to have finally met you,” Lorena replied, slipping her arm inside the crook of Ginger’s elbow. “When Ed comes to fix the tractor, may I join him? I’d like to meet Osbee.”

“Please,” Ginger said. “I’ll be home tomorrow, but have to work the following two days. My next day off is Sunday.”

“Would afternoon be all right?” Ed asked, opening the side door for them.

“Sure. Anytime,” Ginger replied, stepping out into the snowy darkness.

“Very good,” he said. Following his wife, who still held Ginger by the elbow, he came to the truck and opened the door. The smell drifted out. Ginger could smell it from where she was walking, but if Ed smelled it, he made no sign.

“I had a run-in with an Amish boy last night,” she stated, though no one seemed to be asking. “On my way to work I found him curled up in a ditch, drunk and freezing. He threw up in my cab as I drove him to the hospital.”

“Oh, is he all right?” Lorena asked.

“Well, he left, so I suppose so.”

“How is an Amish boy in West Virginia?” inquired Ed.

“According to another nurse, he’s on that teenage thingy the Amish do.”

“Rumspringa,” Lorena offered.

“That’s it!” Ginger declared, climbing into the truck. “I’ve been trying to find that word all day.”

Ed smiled as Ginger settled into her seat. She looked at him, waiting for the door to shut. He smiled ever so slightly more.

“Thank you for letting me get the doors,” he said. Gazing into his eyes, which were as bright blue in the floodlights as they had been in the kitchen, she realized this had also been a discussion he must have had with Jesse.