Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(110)

Gran’s eyes rested tenderly on Ginger’s face, scanning it as though for remembrance. “T-tell me . . . ’bout C-Cain.” She paused, watching Ginger’s expression carefully. “Y-your d-daddy . . . told me . . . he’s home n-now.”

Ginger took a deep breath and lay back on the bed beside her gran’s petite frame. “He is.”

“And?”

“I . . .” Ginger sighed. “I don’t know, Gran. Cain . . . Cain and me are so mired in old . . . grievances and hurts and anger. I hated him for years. I hated him when he came home in October. But then . . .”

“H-hate is . . . real c-close . . . to l-love, G-Gin.”

Tears sprang into Ginger’s eyes because she’d been learning this truth, day by day, since Cain had been leaving her alone, at her request. She missed him. She missed him something awful.

She turned onto her side, resting her head on Gran’s pillow and speaking into the papery skin of her grandmother’s neck.

“But th-then . . .?” prompted Gran.

Ginger swallowed. “He’s like a paper cut, comin’ into my life and openin’ up a painful wound that doesn’t bleed, but I’m aware of it all the damned time because it’s deep. And then it heals, and when it does, I miss it. I miss the stingin’ of the cut.” She inhaled sharply. “I miss Cain.”

“B-but he’s . . .” Her grandmother paused. “Isn’t he . . . r-right d-down there . . . in V-Versailles?”

Ginger nodded.

“Then you d-don’t . . . have to m-miss . . . him, d-doll baby.”

“But I don’t know how to be friends with him, Gran. We were friends when we were children, then I was in love with him, then I hated him. Now? Now I don’t know where he belongs. And honestly I’m thinkin’ he doesn’t belong at all. I don’t want to care for Cain, Gran. I don’t want to care for anyone. Just you and Momma and Daddy. And that’s it. Carin’ about someone . . . hurts,” she sobbed, burrowing her forehead into her gran’s neck.

“It sh-shouldn’t,” said Gran, reaching over to run a trembling hand through her granddaughter’s hair. “L-lovin’ someone . . . shouldn’t . . . h-hurt so b-bad.”

“But it does,” she whispered. “Every day.”

“Woodman,” murmured her Gran, still stroking her hair. “But that’s . . . l-losin’, not . . . l-lovin’.”

“What’s the difference?” Ginger sighed, closing her weary eyes. “If you love someone, you could lose them. It’s a risk. You’re openin’ yourself up to hurt.”

“Or . . . t-to joy.”

Joy. Something Ginger didn’t feel like she’d known for a million years.

A while later, when her grandmother’s hand stopped moving, Ginger knew she had fallen asleep so she put on her coat and wound her scarf around her neck. Leaning close, she kissed Gran’s cheek, then slipped quietly from the room.

It wasn’t too cold outside so she left her car in the parking lot and walked into the little town center of Apple Valley, breathing in the fresh winter air and trying to make sense of everything.

Her heart, which was coming to life again—felt more, wanted more. Like the buds that break through the earth in early spring, there was energy spent and work involved in coming back to life, and Ginger felt it. It was tiring and frightening, but she couldn’t seem to stop it: the longer Cain stayed away, the more she couldn’t think about anything but Cain. Being around Cain comforted her and made her feel alive. But being around Cain came at the price of confronting the loss of Woodman. It wasn’t possible to have the former in her life without reconciling the absence of the latter.

If she wanted Cain, she needed to start the process of saying good-bye to Woodman.

It shouldn’t have surprised her that her feet stopped walking suddenly in front of Woodman’s house, but it did. Her breath caught as she turned and looked at the little house he’d purchased with so much hope and cared for with so much love. There was a little For Sale sign on a post just inside the white picket fence, and Ginger watched it swing back and forth in the light winter breeze.

Over a month ago, Mr. Woodman had stopped by the McHuids’ with two boxes for Ginger, and her father had brought them over that evening. She’d asked him to place them in her front hall closet and hadn’t opened the closet door since. She didn’t even know what they contained—some clothes, maybe, her running shoes, a nightgown, a few toiletries. Because her own house had been so close, she’d never left much at Woodman’s, opting to shower and dress at her own house most days. But there would be things, of course. Leftover things that would remind her of the life they’d shared.

Placing her gloved hand on the white gate, she unlatched it and pushed it open, stepping into the courtyard that Woodman had tended so lovingly. He’d planted flowers along the footpath she walked on now—they’d be bright and vibrant in a few months—and two cheerful flower beds in front of the porch. She stepped up the three stairs and onto the porch, where they’d rocked side by side many a Sunday evening. The paint was still as bright white as it had been when Woodman painted it, and the ceiling was still sky blue, just as she’d suggested. Putting her hand into her purse, she found the solitary key still at the bottom and pulled it out, placing it in the lock and twisting. The front door opened easily, and Ginger stepped inside, where thousands of memories bombarded her with enough regret to make her tears finally fall.