Hovering there beside Mary Jane, Ginger has the oddest feeling. Looking at the girl feels as though she is looking at herself. She feels exactly as the girl looks: confused, helpless, frantic. They are the same person, she feels for that second. Both of them in love with someone they could never really have.
“Can someone tell me about Luke Crowley?” the girl calls, and her words linger in the air like the sound of glass breaking.
* * *
A few days later, Ginger walks Thunder, her parents’ dog, around the block. He is old and takes his time, and she feels selfish because the walk is more for her. He looks up at her every so often, his eyes earnest with the cloud of cataracts, as if he’s asking, Can we finish up now? Christmas is in three days, and the houses have lights wrapped around posts and lit trees in the windows. The neighborhood is quiet, almost lifeless. She then hears the sound of hammering in the distance, at a house being built a block away. It is cool but not cold, and there is no wind. She wants wind. She wants the wind to blow her face hard enough to bring tears.
There was always a part to Luke she couldn’t touch, and now he is at Lucatelli’s Funeral Home in a closed casket. Viewing tonight, funeral tomorrow. “Couldn’t they wait until after the holiday?” her mother said. “Jesus, what’s the rush?”
At the hospital, his dying face was bloodied and broken. She remembers looking down at his fingers, and his right hand was still so perfect. Untouched by what had happened. The right hand he had used to scramble eggs for her. The right hand that touched her face. The hand that slid the ring on her finger. She wanted to kiss his fingertips the way she’d always done, but she stayed in the background while Mrs. Crowley and Mary Jane said goodbye and then the girl named Hannah placed her head on his chest and sobbed. “I love you,” she said. Ginger wondered how long they had known each other, and if Luke loved her back.
Ginger had stayed behind, her eyes red, hand over her heart. Their group was led away before she could have any time with him. Did she imagine someone would leave her alone with Luke? She had no role, and she didn’t want to ask for one. True, the Crowleys had called her to come, but someone had also called Hannah. Why hadn’t she run to him earlier that night?
He wouldn’t have been home anyway.
But she had run to him in a different way. She ran to the hospital as fast as she could, leaving poor Ahmed behind in the car. Ahmed who nodded solemnly and waved goodbye.
* * *
The funeral home smells like carnations and floral ferns. Ginger hears music playing dimly in the background and realizes it’s old tapes of Luke and his band. Mary Jane’s idea, no doubt. She will have to ask Mary Jane for a copy. In the lobby there are poster boards with pictures of Luke as a baby, a boy, a teenager, and a man. Luke in a high chair looking at a piece of birthday cake, his hair so light and sandy; Luke young and in his karate outfit; teenage Luke in his basketball uniform shooting a basket; the four Crowleys at the Jersey Shore posing in front of a roller coaster. A recent one of Luke holding his niece in a backyard. She realizes she is looking for a picture of her with Luke. She doesn’t see herself anywhere in his story.
Mrs. Crowley’s grip is strong when Ginger approaches her. “Oh, Ginger,” she says, and pulls her down to sit. Mary Jane and her husband are on the other side talking to a group of kids Luke went to college with. Mrs. Crowley slides an arm around Ginger’s back and it feels good to be next to her. “Ginger, Ginger. What are we going to do?” Now Ginger stares straight ahead at the dark coffin. A spray of yellow roses and snapdragons on top. Yellow. His favorite color. Ginger remembers a faded yellow sweater he had: a rip in the sleeve, a bleach stain near the bottom. How good of his mother and sister to remember yellow.
“I’m so sorry,” Ginger whispers to Mrs. Crowley.
“You’re a dear girl.” Mrs. Crowley’s face is washed out. Still so pale even under the makeup. She wears a starched dark jacket and skirt. A ruby brooch. Ginger thinks she should stand, more people are coming. A husband and wife in black wool coats, the wife clutching a folded handkerchief. She looks at them and starts to rise. “Stay, please,” Mrs. Crowley whispers. Ginger stays next to the woman who was never her mother-in-law. The woman who shook her head at Luke so many times. But Luke could lighten any dark mood of hers. He could poke holes in her seriousness. Mom, you look like Annie Oakley. And no matter how stony-faced she was, she would start laughing.
Ginger can see the cost of love on her tired face, and something about this brings her relief and joy. Did Luke know?