A Little Hope(34)

Ginger had stayed behind, her eyes red, hand over her heart. Their group was led away before she could have any time with him. Did she imagine someone would leave her alone with Luke? She had no role, and she didn’t want to ask for one. True, the Crowleys had called her to come, but someone had also called Hannah. Why hadn’t she run to him earlier that night?

He wouldn’t have been home anyway.

But she had run to him in a different way. She ran to the hospital as fast as she could, leaving poor Ahmed behind in the car. Ahmed who nodded solemnly and waved goodbye.



* * *



The funeral home smells like carnations and floral ferns. Ginger hears music playing dimly in the background and realizes it’s old tapes of Luke and his band. Mary Jane’s idea, no doubt. She will have to ask Mary Jane for a copy. In the lobby there are poster boards with pictures of Luke as a baby, a boy, a teenager, and a man. Luke in a high chair looking at a piece of birthday cake, his hair so light and sandy; Luke young and in his karate outfit; teenage Luke in his basketball uniform shooting a basket; the four Crowleys at the Jersey Shore posing in front of a roller coaster. A recent one of Luke holding his niece in a backyard. She realizes she is looking for a picture of her with Luke. She doesn’t see herself anywhere in his story.

Mrs. Crowley’s grip is strong when Ginger approaches her. “Oh, Ginger,” she says, and pulls her down to sit. Mary Jane and her husband are on the other side talking to a group of kids Luke went to college with. Mrs. Crowley slides an arm around Ginger’s back and it feels good to be next to her. “Ginger, Ginger. What are we going to do?” Now Ginger stares straight ahead at the dark coffin. A spray of yellow roses and snapdragons on top. Yellow. His favorite color. Ginger remembers a faded yellow sweater he had: a rip in the sleeve, a bleach stain near the bottom. How good of his mother and sister to remember yellow.

“I’m so sorry,” Ginger whispers to Mrs. Crowley.

“You’re a dear girl.” Mrs. Crowley’s face is washed out. Still so pale even under the makeup. She wears a starched dark jacket and skirt. A ruby brooch. Ginger thinks she should stand, more people are coming. A husband and wife in black wool coats, the wife clutching a folded handkerchief. She looks at them and starts to rise. “Stay, please,” Mrs. Crowley whispers. Ginger stays next to the woman who was never her mother-in-law. The woman who shook her head at Luke so many times. But Luke could lighten any dark mood of hers. He could poke holes in her seriousness. Mom, you look like Annie Oakley. And no matter how stony-faced she was, she would start laughing.

Ginger can see the cost of love on her tired face, and something about this brings her relief and joy. Did Luke know?

When people pass through, Mrs. Crowley says, “And you remember our Ginger, don’t you?” and no one says no even though many probably have no idea who she is.

Ginger keeps her hands in her lap. “I thought about him so many times. I saw him at the toy shop before your granddaughter’s birthday.”

Mrs. Crowley nods. “He said he was going to take a ride over to your house to visit the dog.”

“Really?”

“But he chickened out. I said, Go. Go. I kind of wanted to drag him over there. He never felt worthy, of so many things.” She shakes her head.

Ginger imagines Luke pulling up to her parents’ house, and she feels warm and relaxed all of a sudden. Thunder barking his familiar bark, wagging his thick tail and running toward Luke, smelling his hand. He would remember Luke. What would Luke say? “Hey, buddy. Been a while.” She would stand on the porch. Maybe the late fall sun would be glowing through the trees. She would invite him inside. Why couldn’t they fix what they lost? What does she do with all this now?

She holds Mrs. Crowley’s hand. “Can I visit you when I’m home again?”

“I would adore that, darling.” More mourners are walking up to the casket. Their hands leave fingerprints on the dark wood as they touch it respectfully. One woman bends down to smell the yellow flowers, and Ginger imagines Luke’s expression. The way he would lift his eyebrows. The way he’d shake his head.

She stays next to Mrs. Crowley and keeps thinking of him coming over to her house that day in October. What if he had? What if he hadn’t chickened out, what if she hadn’t? What if she watched him from their porch, and he walked across the grass and smiled at her, and she smiled back, and right in that second, in that second that never happened, they would fix all this.

Wouldn’t she have been able to help him? Wouldn’t she give anything to have that day? She can picture the scene so easily: the bare trees, the excited dog. Her mother and father inside watching the news. Luke’s ripped jeans and ragged sweater. His easy smile, his carefree laugh. His straight teeth, occasional freckle, the mole on his neck.

Right now, next to this woman with her perfect posture, her carefully worded responses to every person who bends down, Ginger is glad she came. Her parents sit in the back talking to a retired teacher her mother knows. There is a line out the door. Customers of the dry cleaning place, friends of the family, that seamstress lady, musicians Luke knew: Murph, Chucky, Jimmy—their faces shocked and frowning, all sweetly wearing their old Luke and the Killers shirts. Neighbors, aunts and uncles. She wonders about his last concert. What was the last song he sang?

Mrs. Crowley holds her hand, and Ginger’s mind keeps slipping back to that imaginary day, Luke pulling up to her house. It seems so simple now. Why didn’t he?