***
As she hurried down the sidewalk, with the early October sun beating down on her back, Ginger reviewed the rest of this week’s appointments in her head: today’s cake tasting at Southern Belle Confections, check. This evening’s dance lesson at the Winston Schultz School of Dance, check. Tomorrow she and her mother were meeting with the caterer again, and on Friday she was meeting Woodman and his groomsmen at Tanner’s Tuxedos to finalize their rentals before the monthly firehouse dinner, at which she and Woodman always lent a helping hand.
They were a pair now, she and Woodman—the de facto prince and princess of Apple Valley: junior members at the country club, volunteers at every firehouse social function, and regulars at the Valley View Presbyterian Church every Wednesday for bingo and every Sunday for services. It was the life that Ginger had always imagined for herself, and yet, inexplicably, Apple Valley had started to feel increasingly small to her since her engagement, and as her wedding approached rapidly, the town she’d always loved felt downright confining.
“Cold feet,” she muttered, checking her watch and scrunching up her nose when she realized she was running late.
After her heart surgery, her mother had hired a tutor who’d taught Ginger at home for the ensuing ten years, but from the time she was twelve, she’d begged and pleaded to attend public school. Her mother had always refused her wishes, reminding her that she was safest at home. Finally, a few weeks before her sixteenth birthday, Ginger had walked from the farm to Apple Valley High School, gotten the forms for enrollment, filled them out, and presented them to her parents. Only then had they relented, and she’d enrolled in tenth grade. Sadly it was too late. Cliques had been cast, relationships formed, and Ginger was an oddball whom no one really knew.
After high school, she had to fight tooth and nail to get her parents to agree to pay for her LPN and RN degrees. Her mother wanted her to go Asbury University in nearby Lexington, where she could have studied youth ministry or French, but Ginger had stayed firm in her desire to nurse, and her parents had finally acquiesced, under the condition that Ginger continue to live at McHuid Farm under their watchful eye. She, in turn, had moved out to her Gran’s empty cottage, which had made her mother fuming angry, though technically, Ginger reminded her, she was still living on the farm.
These would have been small victories in someone else’s life, but in Ginger’s, which had been under the oppressive eyes of her parents since her early childhood, they felt huge. They felt like proof that she was growing up and looking for a life of her own.
But now? Stopping work and getting married to her parents’ chosen mate at twenty-one? Suddenly she felt like the six-year-old girl with a broken heart all over again. Small and helpless, at the mercy of her parents’ decisions and control. Something about her life right now felt like giving up, felt aimless, and it scared her that when she got married, she’d just disappear a little more.
Of course, Woodman had an answer for that. He didn’t want her to disappear. Aside from being his wife, he had another job all laid out for her, and just last night they’d had another little tiff about it.
Rolling away from her, he’d sighed, pulling off the condom and tying a knot in the end before throwing it in the trash. With his back still to her, he said, “Any idea when we might stop usin’ these, darlin’?”
It wasn’t the first time he’d asked, but she had noticed that as their wedding approached, he asked with increasing frequency.
“What? Condoms?”
He turned to her, putting his hands on his naked hips and raising his eyebrows.
She averted her eyes from his naked body. Turning onto her back, she reached under the covers for her pajama bottoms and pulled them back up to her waist. “I’m not ready to start a family.”
“Gin, you’re twenty-one. I’m twenty-four. We’re gettin’ married in two months, and between my pension and paycheck, we’re more’n comfortable.” He reached down for his boxers and pulled them on, sitting on the edge of the bed and twisting to face her. His voice was gentle. “We’ve got this sweet little house. You’re not workin’ anymore. You want kids, don’t you?”
Sure she did. In a roundabout, someday sort of way she wanted kids, but not yet. She wanted to go back to work, maybe even travel a little—have a little fun together before they were tied down forever.
“Not yet.”
Woodman sighed, lying down on the bed and pillowing his hands under his head. “Everyone expects us to start a family right away.”
She clenched her eyes shut. Everyone expected them to date. Everyone expected them to get engaged. Everyone expected her to quit her job. Everyone expected her to marry Woodman. Now kids?