Ginger's Heart (A Modern Fairytale, #3)(143)

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Both.” She turned the envelope over and opened it. Before she took the letter out, she took Gran’s hand and kissed it. “Thank you for this. Whatever it is, thank you for one last conversation.”

***

January 2016



Doll baby,

I am fading fast now.

So fast that I don’t always know you for the first few minutes you walk into my room, though your smile fills me with joy. And when I realize, “That’s your beautiful granddaughter,” I am filled with pride.

A long time ago, a beautiful little girl who knew two cousins asked me, “What do I do if I love them both?” and I answered, “Someday you’ll have to choose.” What I didn’t know was that your heart had already chosen. That day, so long ago, you’d already decided on Cain. Maybe you’d been born loving Cain. It doesn’t matter why or how you started loving him. He was your heart’s desire from the beginning, and I was frightened for you, and I wondered if the compass in your heart was broken.

A few years later, you came to see me, so excited that he’d asked you to a dance and desperate for me to love him as you did. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t give you my blessing because I didn’t trust him. I believe my exact words went something like this: “I’m not saying he’s bad. But I am saying if there’s a good man hiding in there, I’d surely like to see him before I tell my only granddaughter that she’s betting on the right horse.”

Not long after that, he broke your heart.

It was a confirmation that everyone was right about him—Cain Wolfram wasn’t a good man. And I was glad when he went away and you seemed to switch your affections to Josiah.

Except that you didn’t.

Your heart—that little lion heart that had always roared with love for Cain—still loved him, and—I confess, doll baby—I hated him for his hold over you because I still couldn’t see any good in him.

And yet the longer he stayed away, the more I lost my strong, brave girl. You became a shell of yourself, Ginger. Without Cain to love, I think you forgot who you were. And over time, I became desperate for his return. I wanted him to come back and breathe life into you like Adam did for Eve. I thought to myself, Yes, Cain might break her again, but at least she’ll be alive to feel the pain.

Except that Josiah died.

And part of you seemed to die with him.

Cain will be angry with me for telling you that he came to see me a month after Woodman’s passing. I knew who he was right away—his unusual blue eyes were singular in Apple Valley parish—but I couldn’t imagine why he was visiting me, and to my everlasting shame, I was cold to him and asked him to leave.

But he was persistent. At first he came with flowers—hothouse bouquets from the grocer—until I told him that wildflowers were my favorite, and after that, he always brought me wildflowers. Sometimes he’d bring a hammer and nails and fix something in my room. Once he brought a long fluorescent light bulb and fixed one of my ceiling lights. Another time he patched a broken tile in my shower. He worked quietly, silently, saying nothing, asking for nothing, letting his actions show me that he wasn’t the person I thought he was.

After a week or two, I finally asked him why he kept coming around. He stopped working and fixed those blue eyes on mine. “Ginger,” he said, simply. “I want to know her, to understand her, to love her the way she needs me to. I want you to tell me everything I need to know to make her happy because Woodman’s gone and someday you’ll be gone, and when y’all are gone, it’ll be up to me to make her happy. And I was hoping you could help get me up to speed.”

I thought long and hard about his request, doll baby, but in the end I didn’t give him any advice at all. I just told him to be himself. What he didn’t know, and I did, was that you’d loved him since you were small. He didn’t need to do anything different. He didn’t need any advice. He asked me over and over again, “What do I need to do to make Ginger happy, Miz Kelleyanne?” And every time I said, “Be yourself, Cain Wolfram.”

Cain was being himself when he decorated my room for Christmas, as he continued to do little things to make my room more comfortable, as he read to me from The Christmas Box, and built the bookcase that held it. He was himself when he told me all about his new business, when he bought a townhouse he hoped you’d love, and when he hired you to come work for him. He was himself, giddy with hopefulness, when he told me that you were falling in love with him again. He was himself tonight—the night before they’re putting that damned tube in my throat—showing up here with flowers in his hand because this is where your heart was hurting, so this is where he needed to be.

Here is what I know:

You were right, doll baby.

The compass in your heart was never broken.

Somehow you must have known that there was a good man hiding inside Cain Wolfram. I didn’t realize it at the time, but you were always betting on the right horse. Seeing my beloved granddaughter come alive again over the past few months has been the greatest blessing of my long, happy life. It has given me, and this old, tired body, permission to say good-bye.

Josiah and I are gone, and I know you will miss us.

But Cain is left standing, and I promise you, doll baby, he is the man you always loved, the man you always knew him to be. Trust your heart. It was never broken. It was always whole, and it was always right.