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.
Hold on to each other, and know that I am standing beside Amy and Josiah, celebrating your happiness from heaven.
Your devoted,
Gran
***
Tears wet the precious paper, so Ginger folded it carefully and slipped it back into the envelope, then laid it gently on the bed so she could hold Gran’s hand with both of hers.
“Thank you, Gran. Thank you.”
“She couldn’t write anymore,” said her father from behind her, holding out a steaming cup of coffee, “but she was lucid. They were her true thoughts, Virginia Laire.”
“On Thanksgivin’,” she said, searching her father’s face, “when you sent me down to Klaus’s place with the pie, you knew. You knew he was visitin’ Gran.”
Her father nodded. “More importantly, I knew he was bringin’ you back from the dead.”
She held the warm paper cup in her hands. “I guess he did.”
“I was never fond of Cain. Didn’t trust his wild ways. But he grew up into a fine man, Ginger. I’d be, well, that is, someday I’d be proud to call him my son.”
“Daddy,” she whispered, chiding him gently. “We’re not there yet.”
“Furthermore, I was wrong to let your momma shelter you so much. Woodman was a good man, but Cain is strong. He changed the whole course of his life to be worthy of you, daughter. He loves you somethin’ fierce. Always has, I reckon. Always will.”
“I know,” she said, managing a small smile. “I know he does, Daddy.”
Her father sat down at his mother’s feet and looked at her face, which looked peaceful, like she was sleeping soundly. “She was somethin’, huh? Always had to get the last word.”
I am celebrating your happiness from heaven.
“Yes, sir,” said Ginger, turning to look at Gran’s lovely face for the last time. “She was somethin’.”
Thank you.
***
After the Wrights took Gran’s body away, her father headed to the Apple Valley Diner to get some breakfast before heading home. She joined him there, pushing her eggs around her plate and thinking about Gran and Woodman and Cain. Once upon a time, they had been the three most important people in her life, and now two out of the three were gone. And although that notion should have made her feel terrifyingly lonesome, she found that the person she missed the most was not Woodman or Gran, but Cain. She longed for him with a desperate pang of self-pity, wishing he would suddenly appear and wrap her in his arms so she’d feel strong and whole.