Jack and Ginger (Sacred Heart Coven Book 3) (9 page)

She knew there was more room on the sofa, but it was where her father always sat. She tried to convince herself her choice was because she liked to put her feet up on the arm rest, but that was a lie.

It was bad enough that her marriage to Roger was a lie. She didn't even want to know how many falsehoods he fed her over the years. He clearly wasn't happy. But the questions still plagued her: for how long and was there ever a point when he was happy? And for that matter was she?

Ginger tried to remember what it was like when they first met. Was there a time when he looked at her like it was the first time he had seen a sunset? She remembered him holding her hand in the car when they first started dating. She was always nervous that he should have two hands on the wheel.

So how did things go so wrong? Ginger wondered who had changed, or was it that neither of them grew so they became bored of one another. Had life become so monotonous? He got up and went to work and then the gym, she got up made three square meals and did the cleaning. The weekends consisted of yard work and movie night with an occasional bottle of wine. In the beginning they did these things smiling at each other, in the end they worked with their backs to each other.
 

She wondered if maybe the marriage dissolved because there was another woman. The idea that she was sleeping with him while he was sleeping with another woman or man for that matter disgusted her. She was never one to sleep around or to not use protection before she was married. She thanked the heavens that she didn't catch anything from him.
 

Ginger was at a point emotionally that she knew it didn't matter if he was with someone else. She didn't feel like he was anything worth holding onto let alone fight for. Maybe if he had been a more supportive and attentive husband she would have felt different.
 

Her eyes were heavier than her heart. She rolled over and tucked her knees into her chest. Ginger didn't want to spend her time thinking about what could have or should have been with Roger. The truth was that it was over. She pressed her eyes tight together and a tear forced its way from the outer crease.
 

If she was so tired, why couldn't she calm her mind enough to fall asleep? She'd had a very exciting day and wanted to be free to rejoice in the excitement. The harder she tried to be thankful for the positive things, the more her mind drifted to dark places.
 

The tightness in her chest grew. In an attempt to soothe away the pain her leg started to bounce up and down. She felt like the harder or faster she bounced her leg the longer she could hold off her tears that were threatening to unleash. If only the extra energy she was exerting would have wiped her out enough to drift off to sleep.
 

Ginger inhaled a long breath trying to cleanse away the dirtiness she felt thinking about her ex-husband. Instead she took in the scents around her, her father's scents. It took her back to when she was a little girl and he would rub her back at night when it was time to get tucked in.
 

She wished that he were there; he always had an open ear for her. Even though there were things that weren't appropriate for her to share with her dad, she always knew she could. He never once judged her, even when she was making a decision that wasn't the best thing for her.
 

Ginger wished he knew that she was single again. Even though it had been an emotional roller coaster for her since her divorce came at the same time as his passing, she thought that he would be glad she wasn't married to Roger anymore. On the flip side he wouldn't be happy to see her in so much pain. She knew that if he was watching her, his heart would be breaking for her.
 

The thought of him hovering over her with his hand on her back, crying tears of her sadness was the last straw. The tightness in her chest coiled up into her throat depositing a knot that stung with each attempt to swallow. The muscles tightened between her eyes and her shoulders pushed up to her ears.
 

Her tears didn't fall, they poured out of her. Silent moans echoed in the corners of her mind. Her body rocked back and forth with each heave of her chest. She tried to imagine what her father would say to her.

She could almost make out the sound of his voice, if only it wasn't the first thing people forgot.
 

You are stronger than this, my sweet ginger snap. You don't need me to tell you that you are strong enough. You are enough and more. You don't need someone else to prove your worth they should only validate it.

Ginger could almost taste the warm cup of tea loaded with milk and sugar, just like her father would make her when she was feeling down or ill. It brought a small smile to her face and the rocking subsided.
 

Ginger's eyes burst open as her heart thumped hard against her chest. At some point she had drifted off to sleep. She wasn't sure how long she had been down for, she assumed it hadn't been much.

It wasn't long enough to fall into that deep of a sleep. A bleeping sound woke her in such a way that her adrenaline amped up her blood flow causing her heart to gallop. Ginger wasn't sure what the noise was, but her first concern was the smoke alarm. She got up so quickly that she felt like she was going to black out.

Since the bleeping was clearly not a loud smoke alarm she sat down for second to regain her composure. As soon as her heart slowed she got up to get herself a glass of water. Chances were the beeping was her phone or the computer. She wasn't in the mood to look.

Ginger's eyes felt swollen from her unexpected crying episode. She lifted her fingers and patted them around her right eye feeling how puffy they were. When she looked over at the clock she was surprised to find it was only twelve thirty. It felt like it was the middle of the night.

She grabbed a box of tissues and dried her still damp face. Ginger's failed attempt at sleeping had her mind and feet wandering though the condo. Her heart yearned for her father so she decided that she would search out the next best thing to having him there with her.
 

She walked down the hall to his room where she knew he had a box of pictures stored in back of the walk-in closet. She knew she would need to get rid of all of the clothes that she was stepping over, but hadn't had the heart to get rid of his things yet.
 

She located his metal strongbox that contained all of his important documents. She squished her lips to the side making a face at the box before she used it as a step stool to reach the top shelf in the far corner of the closet.
 

Ginger pulled down an old beat up cardboard box, it was a little bit heavier than she expected and almost dropped it on herself, but she managed to brace herself against the rack of clothes behind her. She took a deep breath, exited the small space and proceeded to sit on her father's bed. She sat there and stared at the box for a few minutes and wondered if it was the right decision to open it; she was already hopelessly sad and lonely.
 

She touched the outside of the box; the box might've been as old as she was. It had little bits of water stains on the side, there were rough spots where the inside of the corrugated board shown through on one side of the box. There was even a crayon drawing of a small cat next to a house, a little girl and her father. Ginger really didn't remember drawing it, but she knew it had to have been hers.
 

Times in Ginger's life may have been up and down; good and bad, but most of her memories of her father were happy ones. Even when she thought back on things that were not so great at the time seemed trivial now. There were countless times she and her father had not seen eye to eye on things; she knew now it was because he had her best interest at heart.
 

Ginger knew her father didn't approve of her marrying Roger, but she thought she was in love and everything seemed so perfect at the time. Although there was a little part of her that always felt like she was disappointing her father. She had felt like he just didn't understand, perhaps he understood a lot more than she realized.

Ginger took a deep breath and unfolded the flaps of the top of the box. It was filled with an assortment of pictures, most stored in zipped sandwich bags. Some were in the old paper envelopes with the tiny strips of developed film. Packages of school pictures from when Ginger was a little girl were stacked up along the inner wall.
 

Ginger hadn't been in that box in a really long time. It amazed her how many pictures her father had actually collected over the years. There was a part of Ginger that wanted to go through every single picture, but it was creeping up on two o'clock in the morning and she was getting tired, but she couldn't help herself from at least sorting through a few.
 

Ginger reached down inside and shuffled around some of the envelopes until she picked one at random. She decided to choose one picture and keep it with her, but the rest would have to get put away to look at another day. She felt like the one she chose would be like a small little present from heaven to help her feel closer to her father. She opened the envelope and the first picture was one of her and her father by the lake fishing. Ginger wondered who had taken the picture. It was almost always just Ginger and her father, perhaps maybe he had asked a stranger that day to take their picture or maybe he had a friend with him that Ginger just didn't remember.
 

Ginger estimated that she must've been roughly nine years old in the picture. Her hair was blowing in the wind looking half curled, half straight, and very disheveled. Ginger envied the other girls at school when she was young because their hair was always long and often tied back into braids.
 

When Ginger got older one of her friends taught her how to French braid her hair. She never forgot the time she spent with that girl, she had just transferred in from Brooklyn. Ginger didn't have a mother growing up to take care of little things like that. Her dad tried to put her hair in pigtails sometimes, but to Ginger, there was something magical about having your hair braided, something that she just didn't have as a little girl.
 

Braids or no braids she could see the happiness in her eyes and the love on her father's face. There was something timeless about the way he looked down on her while she held the fishing pole in her hand. It looked like he must have sorted through the pictures; there were pictures of worms and pictures of her casting off, pictures of him casting off, there were even a few pictures of the dock they stood on and a peanut butter and fluff sandwich. Ginger giggled to herself; her dad must have let her use the camera.
 

She shuffled through the images until she found her favorite, she pressed it against her chest and closed her eyes to try and remember a time before she became an adult. She let a small smile grace her face and kissed the photograph. She sealed up the envelope and put it back in the box. Instead of trying to attempt to put the heavy box of images back up in the closet she just pushed it to the corner of the room. Ginger knew she'd be back to it soon enough, there were lot of pictures to go through. She made a mental note to head over to the craft store to grab some photo albums.
 

Although Ginger was getting older she still had hope that she would have a family one day, maybe a little girl or a little boy that she could tell stories to about what a wonderful grandfather they had. And be able to show them the pictures of all the things that they did together.

Ginger took her one image and decided to head back to the couch. While she was walking back down through the hallway she heard the computer bleeping again. Ginger assumed it must have been her dad's friend Jack. He seemed nice enough, but she also got a little strange vibe about him always messaging her father or perhaps it was just strange that her father had never mentioned Jack before.

As she rounded the corner she heard her stomach growl, she glanced over at the computer and debated whether or not to respond. She was hungry so maybe it wouldn't hurt just to chat a little bit and have a snack. Ginger went into the kitchen and grabbed a bag of pretzels sticks and a jar of hazelnut and chocolate spread and poured herself a glass of milk. She took her snack and her picture and sat down in front of the computer. She propped her picture up to gaze upon it while she sat there.