by T. Greenwood
It was the strangest feeling being out and about without anyone knowing where she was. Both liberating and terrifying. She entered the little diner, and no one even looked up at her as she made her way to a booth near the back and grabbed a newspaper someone had left there.
She had ten dollars in her pocket from her last outing to the market, and so she ordered enough food to feed an entire small family. She gorged herself on waffles and sausages. Even a small hot bowl of oatmeal with swollen sweet raisins. She read the newspaper from cover to cover. She could hardly believe all the things that were happening in the world. She felt like a time traveler who’d just realized they had zipped ahead into the future. Nuclear tests were being conducted by both Russia and the U.S. The Soviets were also busy launching spacecraft. Of course, that sort of news felt far away. Hardly affecting her life here in Massachusetts. It was easy to keep your head in the sand, she thought, when there were no waves crashing against that shore. But then she read the news article about the riots in Springfield and felt as though there was sand in her eyes as she read about the so-called Days of Rage in Chicago. Her woes seemed suddenly so small, her sense of injustice almost silly in the face of this. It (as well as the mountains of waffles) filled her with tremendous shame. What was wrong with her? Who was she to lament this life, this gift she’d been given?
Trying not to cry, she paid her bill and didn’t stick around for her change. She pulled her coat on and left. She walked until her legs ached and she felt her ankles beginning to swell, then she sat down on a bench in the park and allowed herself to weep.
As she made her way home, she thought about the time she’d threatened to run away as a little girl. She could hardly remember the reason anymore, but she recalled the same distinct need to flee.
It had been winter then, and she’d packed a backpack and put on her boots and her winter coat. Affixed her own scarf.
“I’m running away,” she’d announced to her mother, who shrugged and said simply, “Okay. Take this apple in case you get hungry.”
She’d opened the front door to a blustery twilit afternoon and walked across the small front yard to the front gate that separated her from freedom. She’d sat down at the gate, not quite ready to commit to her departure. She removed her mittens and pulled the apple out of her pocket. It was a perfect Red Delicious. Not one bruise on it and shined to a high gloss. She pictured her mother at the market, carefully selecting the apple from a bin, inspecting it for flaws. She imagined her rubbing a cloth towel across each piece of fruit before assembling them in the wooden bowl on the counter. Recalling this small gesture filled Ginny with remorse and sadness. How could she run away from this woman who, in her own small way, brought beauty to the world? A woman who nurtured her, who fed her when she was hungry?
She’d returned to the house, knocking on the door like a visitor, and thrown herself into her mother’s arms.
* * *
When she returned home and opened the door that autumn morning in Dover, Ab was waiting for her. He had poured her a cup of coffee and handed it to her, smiling. “Just needed some fresh air?”
And she threw herself into his arms as well, saying, “Thank you.”
Thirty-eight
September 1971
Outside the pickers’ cottages, Peyton happily stomped in the endless mud puddles. Lois had found an old pair of galoshes that once belonged to her son, Bobby, when he was little as well as a tiny yellow rain slicker. Peyton hadn’t been this content since they left Dover; he’d been out there for over an hour already.
She looked at her watch. Ab’s flight was due into Tampa in two hours, and Marsha was set to fly out in three. A changing of the guard, so to speak. They’d need to get on the road soon. Marsha had offered to drive this time, but Ginny said she could handle it. Marley had helped her procure a set of temporary legal plates for the Dart, and Marsha had given her driving lessons on the dirt roads that threaded through the groves. Ginny was legally allowed to drive so long as she had a licensed driver in the car with her, and eventually she’d just need to take a road test to get her license.
Marsha was sitting on the bed in the cottage they had shared for the last week while they waited for Lucy to stabilize enough to be discharged, the open envelope discarded on the threadbare chenille spread. Marsha had finally opened it, expecting a letter, and found, instead, three crisp one hundred dollar bills and a letter.
“What does it say?” Ginny asked.
Marsha had shaken her head, two fat tears rolling down her cheeks.
“He wants me to come home,” Marsha said. “He wants to marry me.”
“He proposed?” Ginny asked. “Is that what the letter says?”
Marsha nodded her head.
“Well, why not? He loves you, obviously. Sending his brother all the way down here just to make sure you got here safely. You said he’s a good man, Marsh.”
Marsha took a deep breath and studied the bills in her hand, the letter.
“What else does it say?” Ginny asked again, confused.
“It says there’s enough here for a plane ticket home,” Marsha said. “Or to pay to have the procedure done.”
“What?” Ginny asked, stunned.
“It’s legal in North Carolina. He gave me the name of a doctor, an address.”
Ginny had no words. The idea that Gabe had given her this gift of a decision rendered her speechless.
They walked out onto the porch and sat down in the two cane rocking chairs. Peyton had stopped puddle stomping and was making mud pies out of dirt and water in some old pans that Lois had given him.
“What’s it like?” Marsha asked. “Being a mom?”
Ginny felt her chest swell. “It’s amazing. It’s awful. It’s too much, and it’s too little.”
“That is not helping things,” Marsha said.
“It makes me feel completely powerless,” Ginny added, thinking of her empty arms as she left the hospital that morning after Lucy was born. “But also more powerful than I’ve ever felt before.”
When she’d hung up the phone with Ab that night at the hospital, her body had been electrified. That pervasive hum and hiss inside her now. Buzzing. For nearly an hour, she’d felt as if she were carrying a current. She felt illuminated, everything suddenly somehow clarified and bright.
“So I should say yes?” Marsha asked. “Keep this baby?”
“That is your decision to make,” Ginny said. “Just like Gabe says. Your choice.”
Thirty-nine
September 1971
“You sure about this?” Ginny asked as she hugged Marsha good-bye at the curb, where the Dart idled.
“Yes,” Marsha said.
“Call me when you get home,” Ginny said, tears stinging her eyes.
“I will,” she said.
Marsha had bought the airline ticket to Boston with the cash Gabe had given her. No stopping in North Carolina. No procedure. Marsha wasn’t entirely sure about the marriage proposal, but she figured she had plenty of time to decide on that.
“Thank you for everything,” Ginny whispered into her curls. “I love you.”
“Love you too, Gin,” she said. She leaned over into the back window, offered Peyton a high five. Then she stepped away from the car and grabbed her suitcase. “Okay, kiddos! Catch you on the flip side!” she said cheerfully, despite her tears, and slipped through glass doors.
Ginny got back into the driver’s seat and wiped at her eyes. When she looked up again, Ab was emerging through another set of doors. He looked bedraggled in a pair of wrinkled trousers and a button-down shirt, tie and hair askew, as though he’d been sleeping in his clothes since Ginny left.
He spotted Ginny right away, and a smile spread across his beleaguered face. In the backseat, Peyton was leaning out the open window, waving and hollering, “Daddy!”
Ab jogged to the curb, set down his suitcase, and threw open the back door, hoisting Peyton up into his arms. Ginny’s chest felt tight, her heart he
avy.
Ab leaned into the open passenger window and said to Ginny, “Do you want me to drive?”
Ginny shook her head and smiled. “It’s okay. I can do it.”
“All right, back in you go,” he said, delivering Peyton to the backseat again, along with his suitcase, before opening the passenger door and climbing into the car.
“Hi,” he said as he settled in.
“Hi.”
He reached over and took her hand, kissing her knuckles, and Ginny released the breath she’d been holding since she’d spotted him.
“You ready?” she asked, pulling her hand away to grip the wheel. A Cadillac was behind her, impatiently trying to inch into her spot at the curb.
* * *
She parked at the visitor lot at the hospital and led the way as Ab and Peyton straggled behind. Peyton was talking Ab’s ear off, stopping to show him all the various amusements afforded by the hospital along the way: the ambulances parked out front, the gift shop with its balloons and rows and rows of candy, the elevator with its glowing buttons.
But once the elevator doors closed and Ginny pressed the button for Lucy’s floor, Peyton grew quiet.
Lucy’s roommate, the little boy with the two broken legs, had been sent home, and so Lucy was, for now anyway, alone in the room. Still, the curtain dividing the two beds was drawn, though Ginny could see the silhouette of a nurse on the other side, hear her cooing at Lucy, who had, in only a week, become one of the favorite patients in the pediatric ward.
“Oh, Mrs. Richardson!” the nurse said, her hand fluttering at her chest as she emerged from behind the curtain. “You startled me. Well, hello, Big Brother!” she said to Peyton and then smiled at Ab. “And you must be Lucy’s father?”
Ab’s face betrayed his surprise at the ease with which this association had been made. But he nodded.
Ginny tried to think what must be going through Ab’s head. She’d had two long weeks with Lucy, with their daughter. And in that time, she’d become familiar with every aspect of her personality. But Ab had not seen her since that night nearly two years ago; he had never even held her. Never smelled the milky scent of her breath or touched the silky curls on her head.
Surprisingly, it was Peyton who spoke first after the nurse excused herself.
“Come see Lucy,” he said, grabbing Ab’s hand. “Come meet my sister.”
* * *
Ab stood at the foot of the bed where Lucy was sleeping, her dark lashes brushing the tops of her round cheeks.
Ab ran his hand across his face and looked anxiously at Ginny.
Ginny nodded. Go ahead.
Ab sat down in the chair by the bed, facing Lucy, and slowly, he reached for her tiny hand. At his touch, Lucy’s eyes fluttered open.
Ginny held her breath, hoping she wouldn’t be afraid. Ab’s cheeks were shadowed by neglect; he clearly hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. Not quite a beard, but still.
Lucy tilted her head and studied him as he smiled at her. Remarkably, she didn’t seem afraid. “Mumma?” she said, looking to Ginny, as if to ask her permission or maybe just for her assurance.
Ginny nodded. “This is your daddy, Lucy.”
Lucy smiled and coughed, though the rumble in her chest wasn’t nearly as deep and ominous as it had been when Ginny brought her here. But Ab visibly tensed and then leaned over and touched her hair. Ginny watched everything in him soften, the hard plane of his shoulders, the severe furrow of his brow. All of it, melted. Like cold, hard butter left in the sun. This was the effect Lucy had, Ginny thought. She softened people. She took away their sharp edges. She made people, Ginny included, better.
* * *
Ab and Ginny left Peyton sleeping in the cottage after he had fallen asleep that night and walked out into the orange groves. The air was muggy and dense, and everything smelled of citrus.
Ab’s hands were deep in his pockets, his shoulders slumped forward. He didn’t seem defeated, exactly, but humbled.
“Your father wants us to just go home,” she said. “To forget about the school.”
“I know,” Ab said.
“He’s still planning to defend Willowridge in the lawsuit.”
Overhead, the skies had cleared, the hurricane now sweeping westward across the Gulf. Wreaking its havoc elsewhere. Above them, a swirl of constellations.
“He only agreed to help us regain custody if I promised not to go to the press about the school,” she continued. “About what I saw with my own eyes. About the way those children, our child, are being treated.”
Desperate and scared, she’d agreed to Abbott’s terms, but with each day that passed, each hour, she felt the guilt of this becoming a heavier and heavier burden. How many parents had relinquished their rights to their children? How many did not have the financial resources she and Ab had? How many had no luxury of choice?
“You need to choose,” she said, summoning the courage, the words she’d been too afraid to say for years now. “Between your father and your family. You’ve done your penance, Ab. He may never stop blaming you, but you need to stop blaming yourself.”
Forty
October 1, 1971
The gates to Walt Disney World opened at 9 A.M.
Theresa and Brenda worked with a girl at Weeki Wachee who’d gotten a job as a Disney “hostess” nearly a year earlier, leading tours of the Walt Disney World Preview Center. Now that the park was opening, she’d been asked to stay on and work as an ambassador. She was able to procure free passes for opening day.
Ginny had caught a ride to Disney World with Brenda and Tony, who were planning to start the long drive north but figured they’d go too and see what all the fuss was about before heading out.
Ab had returned to Dover while Lucy finished up her stay at the hospital. She was there for another week after she had a bit of a relapse, and they’d had to start back at square one with treatment. Ab had offered to stay, but he had clients waiting, his father waiting. He called each night to check on Lucy. On Ginny. And he felt something shifting, tectonic plates slipping. Little by little.
After they parked, the group took the monorail from the parking lot to the park entrance. Ginny held her breath nearly the whole way, Lucy on her lap, Peyton peering awestruck out the window, looking at the world below as it whizzed by. When the monorail cut through the Contemporary Resort Hotel, they were delighted as guests peered up at them, pointing and waving.
At the park entrance, she purchased two caps with mouse ears: a plain black one for Peyton and a Minnie Mouse one with a red-and-white polka-dot bow for Lucy.
“We’ll meet you back at the castle at five o’clock?” Tony said. “Maybe grab some supper, and then we can head to the airport.” Marsha had given the old Dart to Brenda and Tony to make their trek to Vermont. They would drop Ginny and the kids off at the airport before starting their long journey home.
“Sure,” Ginny said.
Ginny studied the map they’d given her at the ticket booth. Peyton and she peered at all the places on the map: Frontierland, Fantasyland, Adventureland, Cinderella’s Castle, Tomorrowland.
She put Lucy in a stroller to make things easier, and she seemed content, her eyes wide as she took in the elephant-shaped topiaries and the bodies of water around them. It really felt magical, she thought. This world made for children. Devised of children’s dreams.
When they got to Tomorrowland, Peyton pointed to the Skyway that would lift them high above the earth, carrying them over the park to Fantasyland, where the map promised that there would be a Peter Pan ride.
They climbed inside the bucket, like a gondola, really, and lifted up into the air. Both children were thrilled as they lifted off—though Ginny’s heart stuttered in her chest.
“Mama!” Lucy said, pointing one chubby finger at the sky, though there was nothing there, not even a cloud. “Moon,” she said with certainty. And just as she was about to correct her, Ginny realized that Lucy somehow understood, even without being able to see it, that
the moon was there. Would always be there.
Forty-one
October 2, 1971
When they stepped off the red-eye flight, bleary eyed and exhausted, Ginny didn’t see Ab anywhere. She squinted into the bright lights of the airport, straining to see his face among those waiting for her fellow passengers’ arrival.
Where was he? When she’d called him and told him she was ready to go back to Massachusetts, he’d purchased the tickets, sent them overnight to her at the orchard, promised he’d be there to greet her at the airport. She’d stayed in Florida while Lucy was released from the hospital, not wanting to risk traveling until she was well. She’d needed the time, too, to think about what she should do. She and Ab had a lot to talk about still.
Her heart stopped when, in the distance, she spotted the pale pink Chanel suit and matching lipstick. A distinct scowl on her powdered face. Not Ab but Sylvia, waiting for them at the gate.
Ginny hoisted Lucy onto her hip and gripped Peyton’s hand tightly. She had half a mind to turn around and get right back on the plane, take it wherever it was going. Instead, she marched up to Sylvia, filled with a rare resolve.
“Where’s Ab?” she asked, figuring if she wanted a direct answer she’d better be direct herself.
“He asked me to come get you,” she said. “Hello there, children.”
“It’s Saturday. Is he at work?” she asked, feeling suddenly duped, infuriated that while everything in her world had changed, nothing in his had. Perhaps agreeing to this was a terrible, terrible mistake.
“Just come along,” Sylvia said tersely.
They followed Sylvia and her clickety-clackety heels to baggage claim, where they retrieved their meager belongings.
* * *
As far as Ginny knew, Sylvia didn’t drive, yet there was no taxi waiting outside. They made their way to the parking garage and to a Lincoln she recognized as Abbott Senior’s.