by Lisa Bingham
Through it all Ginny could only be thankful that James slept most of the time. She kept him in the main bedroom and prayed that he would not contract the disease, though he had already caught a slight sniffle. However, an examination of his body showed no rash, no spots, and Ginny comforted herself with the thought that he simply had a cold. She watched him closely, and each day she wished that she could take him someplace safe. Someplace free of sickness. But with the storm outside there was nowhere to go—no one would dare care for him. Not after he’d already been exposed to the disease.
Time fused in a melted ball of worry. In no time the house took on the smell of sickness. Blankets had been hung in front of the windows to keep out the light and protect the children’s sight from being weakened, but the woolen covers shut out any view of the outside world as well. It seemed that nothing existed beyond the stuffy rooms and the children’s cries.
As the days passed Ginny noted the mechanical way Orrin worked even as his features grew haggard. She knew he was thinking the thoughts that ran through her own head. The children were not getting better. They were getting worse.
Imogene seemed to suffer the most. Her body became gaunt, her skin white. The slightest touch caused her to cry. The only thing that seemed to comfort her at all was for Orrin to hold her in the rocking chair and sing in his off-key manner.
When the singing faltered one night Ginny looked up, fearing the worst. Orrin stared at his daughter with an expression of sadness.
“I remember the day she was born. She was a tiny baby. All pink and wrinkled. And I thought to myself that she was the ugliest creature I’d ever seen.” He swallowed. “Then Ida gave her to me. She opened her eyes.” His voice grew husky. “And I knew she was the most beautiful child on earth.”
With unaccustomed haste he rose and tucked Imogene into her bed. Before Ginny knew what he meant to do, he sped through the keeping room and yanked open the door, rushing outside.
A tight knot of concern settled in her breast. Though she knew she should stay, knew she should check on James, she hesitated only a moment before putting on a shawl and following him.
The wind blasted against her, stripping the warmth from her body. Following Orrin’s bootprints in the drifts, she rushed into the barn, slamming the door behind her. From the opposite end Orrin turned.
“What are you doing here?”
His tone was so forbidding, she nearly decided to go back to the house. But his face, his eyes begged her to stay.
“I suppose you’re happy now. They’re going to die.”
“I never wanted such a thing!”
“Didn’t you? You never loved my children. All you wanted was a home for your own child.”
“That’s not true! You know it’s not.”
“Do I?”
“I may not have loved them at first sight, Orrin Ghant, but I grew to love them through the little things. Like the way Grace eats dirt with a spoon. And the way Eunice can turn her tears on and off like a pump.” Her voice grew husky. “And the way Imogene pretends to be so big and tough when all the while she waits each breathing moment for your smile. How can you say I don’t love them?”
He opened his mouth, gulped, then gazed at the ceiling, fierce emotion gripping him.
Wordlessly she approached him. Hesitantly she reached out to hold him. She didn’t speak, didn’t scold. She merely took him in her arms and comforted him as if he were a child himself, not a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“They’ll be fine, Orrin. Nothing could ever daunt the Ghant gang.”
But as the words melted into the darkness Ginny could only hope her statement would come true.
They returned to the house some time later, Ginny holding Orrin’s hand and leading the way through the snow.
When they entered, the first thing Ginny noted was the silence.
The icy wind behind her seemed to settle into her very bones. She’d grown so used to the strident sound of Imogene’s breathing that the quiet was eerie.
Ginny moved forward, but Orrin remained where he stood. His grip tightened around her fingers, becoming nearly painful as he stared at the doorway to the children’s room.
Ginny released him and crossed the threshold alone, aware of Orrin behind her, his body stiff, his features strained.
She walked toward the trundle bed. Eunice and Grace slept fitfully. Ginny tucked the covers around their chins and turned.
Imogene lay still. So still. Only hours before the girl had been thrashing in the bed.
Sweet heaven, don’t let her die, Ginny prayed, thinking of the man in the other room. She reached out to touch Imogene’s cheek. The skin was cooler than it had been, but not overly cool. Not…
“Orrin!”
Imogene grumbled at the sound.
“Orrin, come here! The fever has broken.” A sound that was half laugh, half sob burst from her throat. “She’s going to be fine. Fine!”
Orrin stared at his daughter from the doorway as if he feared Ginny’s news was not true. But when Imogene’s head rolled upon the pillow and she mumbled an unintelligible mishmash of words, he wilted in relief.
“She’s going to be fine,” he echoed. He swept Ginny into his arms. “She’s going to be fine!” Laughing, he whirled her in a tight circle, burying his face in her nape and laughing. “They’re all going to be fine. All of them!”
She clasped him tightly around the neck and savored the strength of his embrace. A relief as heady as his own shuddered through her veins, and she drew back, smiling.
His gaze flicked to her lips.
It had been months since Orrin had touched her. She needed his kisses, his caresses. She needed him. Her fingers tightened into his shoulders.
“Ginny,” he sighed. His desire warred with his pride. Slowly he lowered her to the floor. “Ginny,” he said again, just before his lips took her own.
She surrendered to the embrace. An embrace that was passionate and fierce. His arms encircled her waist like steel bands, holding her, rocking her even as she clung to him, matching each searing caress with one of her own.
The newly stoked passion pounded at the gates of pride and indifference, threatening to level their defenses beneath an onslaught of sensation. And then, through a haze of emotion, Ginny heard a single breathless word.
“Daddy…”
Orrin retreated with obvious regret. Then there was a hint of remembrance, a glimmer of pain. His arms dropped.
Ginny turned away before the rest of the emotions could return as well: indifference, anger, hurt.
“I need to check on James,” she said huskily. Gathering her skirts, she hurried away from him.
The adjoining bedroom was quiet and still, and she leaned against the door she’d closed behind her. Her body still thrummed with the sensations that Orrin had aroused simply by kissing her. Her arms wrapped around her ribs, and she fought back a wave of defeat. Until Orrin found peace within himself she would have to find a way to endure his silence.
A determination settled within her. Somehow she would find a way to make Orrin love her again.
Straightening away from the door, she felt the first measure of hope she had experienced in weeks. And all because in that one unguarded moment Orrin had shown her that he still cared.
Moving toward the cradle, Ginny chuckled in delight If Orrin still loved her, he would not be able to ignore her for long. And by that time James would have won his heart. Orrin had been so attached to the child those first few weeks, she felt sure that the man’s stubbornness was only a temporary thing. After all, who could resist James when he smiled?
Yes, Orrin would love James. And soon the entire ordeal would be over and forgotten.
Ginny tiptoed toward the cradle, pleased with how well James had behaved the last few days. He’d endured the crisis with baby cheer. And though she hated to see him ill, his cold had resulted in his taking frequent naps, allowing her the time to help Orrin.
Now, however,
she needed to hold him. Needed a moment alone with her son.
Feeling only a second’s guilt at waking him, but rationalizing he’d already slept too long, she bent over the cradle. James rested on his back, his face burrowed beneath the edge of the blanket. She smiled in motherly indulgence and reached out to touch him.
He didn’t stir.
Once again she shook him, ever so lightly. “James?”
The baby didn’t respond, so she drew the covers away, then reached to scoop him from the cradle.
She paused. A chill seemed to twine around her heart.
“James?” she whispered. Hoarsely. Disbelievingly. She began to tremble. Her breath clawed at her throat. All coherent thought fled from her brain.
His face was still and cool. A bluish color stained his features and his lips.
“James, answer Mama.” She rubbed his stomach and his feet. His tiny toes were cool, and she pushed his dressing gown aside in an attempt to warm them. Then she froze. Trembled.
He was so pale. So pale.
Except for the red rash staining his stomach.
Orrin stepped out of his daughter’s bedroom and rotated his shoulders. He was tired. So tired.
At first he thought he imagined the soft sound he heard coming from the other room. Ginny. Humming.
His brow creased, and a pang of something akin to yearing struck him to the soul. He hadn’t heard her hum in weeks.
He stepped softly toward the threshold, not wanting to startle her. The sweet sound of her lullaby was clear, true, like the heart-tugging lament of a whippoorwill. And like the whippoorwill’s song, it held a hint of sadness and untold longing.
For several moments he stood outside the doorway, his back pressed against the wall, his eyes closed, listening to the sweetness of her melody.
How he’d loved her.
Loved her still.
His chest ached as if it were being crushed. He’d been wrong. So wrong.
Pushing himself away from the wall, he stepped through the doorway. “Ginny?”
She looked up, and he paused, dread filling his veins. Her eyes were bleak, empty.
“He’s so cold. I can’t seem to w-warm him.”
Orrin could barely force himself into the room. After a few steps he stopped. He saw the bluish tinge of the infant’s lips and the way his lashes lay like dark fringe against the dullness of his skin.
“Will you help me warm him?” she asked beseechingly. “Please? He’s so cold…”
Chapter 20
They buried him in an old well, because the ground had grown too hard to dig a grave.
For the next month, at least two or three times a week, Ginny would bundle up in her warmest clothing and walk the two miles to the site. There, as she stood next to the bleak, hidden shaft, Ginny thought it ironic that after she had fought for so long to provide a home for her child, he would not even have the comfort of a proper grave. Instead James had been laid in a simple pine box that had been lowered into the empty shaft and covered with rocks and snow.
Now, weeks later, as Ginny stood over the nearly imperceptible rise of land near the banks of Eden Creek, she thought about the unfairness of life. The birth of such a tiny little thing should never have inspired so many emotions. Billy’s greed. Orrin’s indifference.
And her overwhelming guilt.
Ginny looked up, staring dry-eyed at the river, which lay trapped in its bed of ice. But she didn’t cry. She couldn’t. Her emotions were hollow. Empty. Like the old well.
No. Like the old well had been.
It amazed her that after all that had occurred, her pulse could continue beating and her lungs could continue breathing. Sometimes, when she thought back over the last few weeks, she expected to wither into dust. But nothing happened. Nothing but the ache of her chest, the pain of her soul. Life went on. The sun rose and set. The moon was nibbled away by giant mice—only to reappear again, whole and untouched, like a perfect round of cheese. And she wondered when—or if—she would ever feel again.
Orrin fared no better. He followed her every move with haunted eyes, but he didn’t speak to her, didn’t reach out to her. Sometimes she would lie awake for hours listening for the sound of the creaky board outside the bedroom door. But it never came. Instead, late at night she would hear the main door open, and the squeak of Orrin’s boots as he walked out of the house and into the snow.
She didn’t know where he went.
But it really didn’t matter.
Not anymore.
Ginny’s hands smoothed the snow around the wooden trap of the abandoned well as if it were a marble gravestone. Then, without speaking, without tears, she opened her fingers and pressed a tiny scrap of foil into the snow. Her wedding ring. The one from the macassar bottle. Orrin had never managed to have her gold band altered, and now it seemed fitting that she leave the foil substitute here. With James.
Standing, she walked away, knowing that she could never look back. If she did, she would never find the courage to go on.
Orrin drove toward the Carrigans’ house, leaning low over the railing of the sleigh, urging the horse on and praying that Ginny was there. Late afternoon shadows were already beginning to stretch across the snow, marking each passing hour with cold finality.
He brought the vehicle to a skidding halt, and the front door flew open. Ida stepped onto the porch, a frown of concern creasing her brow.
“What in heaven’s name?”
He stood in the sleigh. “Ginny. Is she here?”
“No. I haven’t seen her since the funeral.”
He fought the desire to swear aloud as panic clutched him. “She’s gone.”
“Now, Orrin, she probably just went for a walk.”
“I haven’t seen her since early this morning. I only noticed an hour ago that one of the geldings was missing from his stall. She’s taken a carpetbag, some clothing, and a quilt. James’s quilt. The one the ladies made for him just before”—his voice became rough—“just before he got sick.”
Ida grew pale, and her chin trembled a moment before she pressed her lips together. “You’d best be on your way to Ogden. I’ll send Walter to your place to pick up the children.”
“Ida, what if she—”
“Go. The way that girl is achin’, she won’t be thinkin’ of time or comfort. You’d best find her before she freezes to death.”
At Ida’s words Orrin felt a new stab of concern. It would be dark soon, and the canyon was no place to be traveling once the sun went down.
He was about to leave when he paused and reined the gelding around to face the woman on the porch. “Ida?”
She had been on her way inside.
“Thank you for being Ginny’s friend. Our friend.”
Her chin wobbled noticeably, but Orrin didn’t stay. Instead he perched on the edge of the seat and slapped the reins against the horse’s rump. He had to find Ginny. He had to make amends. He could only pray that he hadn’t waited too long.
Because he didn’t think he could live without her.
It was nearly dawn when Orrin found his wife huddled at the train station. She sat on the same bench where months before she had threatened to leave him unless he agreed to haul her baggage up to Eden Creek. This time, however, there was a stoic set to her face, which was bare against the bitter cold. Except for the carpetbag at her feet she appeared completely unprepared for any kind of journey.
He approached her slowly, not wanting to startle her. Ginny stared past the frost-kissed rails as if she would bolt at the slightest sound, but she didn’t seem to sense his presence, even when he stood close enough to touch her.
“Ginny?”
She made no sign that she’d heard him.
Orrin reached out, but before he made contact Ginny said, “I won’t go back.”
The words were low and firm, completely free of emotion.
“I know things are difficult right now, but…” He stopped when Ginny fixed him with a piercing look. Ginny had
changed during her stay in Eden. She’d left the girl behind. Now she was a woman.
“Do you hate me so much? So much that you would leave without saying good-bye?”
“I don’t hate you.”
He swallowed, yet the tightness in his throat didn’t ease. When he spoke his voice was husky with emotion. “Then how can you go?”
Ginny stared at the rails once more. “How can I stay?” Her words were filled with quiet acceptance. “I’ve hurt too many people to be forgiven.”
“Ginny.”
“I can’t stay,” she said again. “I can’t stay and listen to the wind.”
“I don’t understand.”
Ginny’s voice shook, but she fought to remain calm. “If I thought you would ever forgive me, I’d stay. But you’re a proud man, and I understand that you can never…” Her words trailed away. “They didn’t even bury my baby, Orrin. It’s so cold. I can’t bear to stay here and listen to the wind knowing my son is so cold.”
His heart ached in his breast. He fought against the emotions that gripped him so that he couldn’t speak, couldn’t think.
“Our son,” he whispered.
She glanced at him in confusion.
He bowed his head and mauled the brim of his hat with his hands. “Our son,” he stated, more strongly this time. “I was wrong, Ginny. So wrong. I never should have said those things to you. I never should have treated you that way.”
He found her watching him with dark gray-blue eyes. Eyes the color of a summer sky just after a storm.
“There’s something you never knew, Ginny. Something I could never tell you. Jesse, my first wife, left me for another man,” he said slowly, each word torn from his very soul. “Then she divorced me. The tombstone in back of the house is a sham. I was too proud to admit to anyone what had really happened. Even to my own children.”
“I know.”
He looked at her in surprise. She’d known. She’d known he’d failed his first wife. She’d known how he’d fought to salvage his pride.
And it hadn’t mattered.
Shame weighed heavily on his conscience. This woman had been willing to forgive past mistakes. Why hadn’t he forgiven hers?