Ginger was stil able to get around without help when Jefferson took her up to the lake. It hadn't happened right away, but then the pain returned.

Ginger thought she had cancer because she could feel some sort of ma.s.s inside, unlike before, when she'd only had pain. Why hadn't they taken out the tumor when she'd undergone surgery, she asked Jefferson by phone. Ginger was stil at her parents' apartment, trying to get strong enough to go back to work. She refused to move back in with Jefferson, who was working ful -time, when her mother was home al day and could help her.

It was May before she agreed to go to the lake with Jefferson for a week or two. Away from the city, who knew, Ginger said, she might be 100 percent again. The d.a.m.n city doctors didn't know what they were doing. There was a bal of something in there, she could point to the exact spot, but she was d.a.m.ned if she'd go back to a cutter. That's al they wanted to do: cut, cut, cut.

She knew Ginger wel enough to see that she was in denial and that her anger at the surgeon came from fear, but she'd gone online and researched her condition. She had to agree that it sounded like a simplistic diagnosis, but she was no doctor. Maybe blood-pressure medication and getting away from stress was just what Ginger needed. It couldn't hurt.

As for being together, they hadn't talked about Ginger's little getaway, nor had Ginger been in touch with their friends. She had no clue what was going on inside that gorgeous head. They had only seen each other in luncheonettes near the Quinns' apartment on Sat.u.r.days, but they talked on the phone a lot, hours at a time some nights. With Ginger so removed, she was in ful seduction mode again and had no interest in going anywhere else to be with anyone else.

On the way to the lake, where Jefferson had taken no other woman, Ginger insisted that Jefferson let her do some of the driving. It might tire her too much, but it seemed important for Ginger to see herself without limits, so Jefferson stayed out of it. She watched Ginger's hands on the steering wheel now, her fingers as thin as they had been when she'd gotten together with her in col ege over twenty years ago. They'd lost the cla.s.sical station a while ago and were listening to an NPR blues show. These were a dancer's hands, deliberately expressive when Ginger moved them; stil as sculpture otherwise. Movement had always been Ginger's language as wel as Jefferson's; she wasted neither words nor motion. So they were quiet on the ride north. Five wordless hours by Ginger's side was more pleasure than five years with anyone else.

They hadn't been lovers for such a long time, hadn't even touched. Jefferson couldn't stop herself from sighing. She had messed up one time too many. She didn't like to think about the gap in her life between Ginger's desperate exit and the diagnosis that brought them together again. She'd cried about it in their doctor's office, while Ginger was dressing in another room. Dr. Fried had offered to prescribe something to make it easier to help Ginger through her recovery, while emphasizing that recovery wasn't certain with this il ness. Jefferson had always quit taking meds before, refusing to admit that her blue times were something she couldn't handle on her own. This time, she started taking Zoloft and could feel its buffering effect.

Ginger drove them out of Laconia and north along Lake Winnipesaukee. Jefferson noted al the changes since she'd last visited. The lakes region, once protected by the old money that had developed it as resort communities, was sel ing out to the condo-hungry and the manufactured-home retirees from Ma.s.sachusetts.

"There it is," she said. As always the pleasure of her first glimpse of the vast blueness of Lake Winnipesaukee licked right up through her innards like attraction to a new woman. One breath of this air and she seemed to breathe out the worst of her awful spurts of despondency.

"How far to Pipsborough now? It's been so long since I was last here," Ginger said.

Jefferson reached to Ginger, touched her gently, and pointed. G.o.d, she loved this woman stil . She could touch everyone else she cared about, but she'd ruined Ginger and her for touching, for much of anything. "We're on the outskirts. Go up over the hil . I was thinking that it wouldn't need much flooding to make Sat.u.r.day Lake part of Winnipesaukee. I wonder if global warming wil do something like that. Make the lakes region one big lake."

"Oh, I remember that restaurant. They forgot to thaw the lobster tails," Ginger said with a little laugh.

She laughed too, but remembered how cranky Ginger had been over the lobster. She'd slept out on the cold porch, leaving Ginger fussing in the bed in the then-unheated cottage. "Fine dining is not the lake's forte. That's why we brought groceries."

"And bakery. What did you get?"

"I went to that Austrian place on Ninth Avenue. They had the Viennese cake you like."

"Sure! The Sacher? With chocolate ganache?"

"That creamy icing."

"I can have al the chocolate I want, but you'l have to eat the icing, Jef, you poor thing. The doctor said fat-free food or die. You can't imagine, anyway, the nausea I felt when it happened. At least I know the symptoms now."

"Poor Ginger. I'm so glad, so glad..."

Ginger looked at her and gave a nod as she turned her eyes back to the road.

Jefferson pressed her hands together, words pooling just behind her tongue, enough words to drown her. She remembered where they were and said only, "Oh, hey. Go to the right after that frost-heaves sign."

Bad choice of landmarks, she thought. She hoped the cake wouldn't make Ginger throw up, as more and more foods seemed to. Ginger stil talked in terms of food sensitivities and al ergies, but Jefferson suspected there was a bit of food anxiety going on. She was talking about a macrobiotic diet. Was she afraid of s.e.x too? She longed to reach over and touch Ginger's hair as she always had, but she'd done it once and Ginger had flinched enough to notice. No, she'd hurt Ginger too many times to expect touch. But once. If they could make love once, she knew it would knit up some open sores. Could love ease Ginger's blood pressure? Strengthen other weaknesses in her arteries?

Then she remembered how long it had been since they made love. As she struggled to stop drinking, her mind wasn't on s.e.x. Ginger had never been much of an initiator. When Jefferson emerged from her fog, fil ed with energy and a new enthusiasm for life-how could she have missed the everyday pleasures of baking a cake, reading a big fat book, sitting through a whole Yankees game on TV and talking with Gabby about it later? Her body seemed to cry out for Ginger's touch, but Ginger, she realized, had always been sparing with her touches, and now-did Ginger like the sober Jefferson? Had it only been the inebriated, chemical y altered Jefferson she found attractive?

Ginger turned into the driveway to the Jefferson family's bungalow. The ground was al pine needles. Jefferson opened her window for the spicy fragrance. The sight of Sat.u.r.day Lake made her feel like she had arrived home. Ginger turned off the engine. Somewhere below them, far out on the lake, a boat was speeding. Otherwise there wasn't a sound. For several minutes, they sat in the car. Silence was a luxury after the city.

She looked over at Ginger and saw her eyes were closed. "Gi?" she said.

Ginger started, as if she'd been asleep, and smiled with her eyes stil closed. "So peaceful."

Jefferson instructed her, "Stay put. I'l carry things in and get a fire started in the woodstove."

Ginger stirred. "I'l help."

In her best gym-teacher's voice, a voice she'd perfected through decades of teaching and coaching, Jefferson repeated, "Stay put."

"Yes, teach," she agreed with what sounded like both resignation and weary pleasure.

Jefferson was surprised, and this was the first sign that she should be as worried as she was.

Later, she settled Ginger on the couch under one of her grandfather's old green army blankets, smoothing back her hair. She realized she was studying Ginger's face, looking for signs of il ness. She had to stop that. The blanket's smel brought back the feel of itchy warm wool on chil y New Hampshire vacation nights. G.o.d, she loved it here, especial y with Ginger, regardless of the reason. She pul ed the door quietly shut behind her, walked out from under the trees and down the sloped lawn to the lake. It was that golden time of late afternoon when sunbeams fanned like spotlights through the branches along the sh.o.r.eline. She sat on a boulder at the edge of the little cove, the sandy beach at her feet no bigger than the floor of a two-man camping tent, and listened to the lake water lapping at her toes. The summer people weren't up yet, it was too late for anybody but wild-turkey hunters, and the fishers seemed to cling to the ful rivers and streams in spring. The neighbors on one side, behind an old low stone wal , would return from Florida after Memorial Day. The year-round people on the other side were the town veterinarian and his wife/receptionist.

Jefferson had taken time off work to pick up Ginger. She had been afraid that Ginger would change her mind about coming up. She wished she could keep her here with her forever-which didn't promise to be a very long time-but she wanted Ginger near the city hospitals, and Ginger had gotten tight with one of her hospital nurses. Three of her old dance students helped with the housekeeping, while Ginger's many relatives from the outer boroughs kept her supplied with ca.s.seroles and stews and baked goods. Once a week Mrs. Quinn did her special "Ginger shopping" with the younger brother, who stil lived at home and carried the shopping bags of food. They got Ginger out for exercise and fresh air. If that meant walking to the nearest bench in the park and watching the Rol erbladers, dog walkers, and joggers rush by while Ginger and her mother, eighty-three, rested for the three-block trip back, that was fine.

Jefferson hated to cook and wasn't very good at it, so for the trip north she rented a car and stocked it the way Emmy and Jarvy always did: ordered a ham with scal oped potatoes and vegetables from Tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs to Go. The fragrance of the honeyed ham had made her long for dinner despite-Ginger laughing at how wicked she felt eating fast food-getting drive-through Dairy Queen for lunch.

The lake water was stil . The green trees, lawns, and white cottages that lined it were interrupted here and there with trees in various stages of maturing: hawthorns, hickories, maple, oak bunched together like femmes dressing for a pride dance. Wooden oars knocked against metal oarlocks as two kids in fleece jackets, col ars up, rowed an aluminum boat along the sh.o.r.e. She was chil y and needed a nap herself. She and Ginger could walk back down to the water tomorrow, in the bright of day. Inside, Ginger's flip-flops flapped.

It was five thirty that evening when Ginger said, "You snore now."

Her back was to Ginger as she hung her bomber jacket on a hook. She was glad Ginger couldn't see her smile. Ginger had been pretty loud herself.

Had Mitchel snored, she wondered, a dul pain entering the area of her heart.

She'd woken in the soft leather easy chair that had been her grandfather's, doing that-snoring through her nap. She turned to Ginger and explained, deeply embarra.s.sed, "It's this extra weight I've put on." Since she didn't sleep with anyone these days, she hadn't known. The truth was, she didn't even sleep with herself. A premenopausal insomnia had fal en on her, and lying awake through much of the night had become yet another problem to solve with an early retirement. She closed the curtain in the window next to her chair and pul ed the floor-lamp chain. The room was luminous with a warm yel ow blush. "Did I wake you?"

"No. I got chil y."

She sat up to tend to the fire.

Ginger startled her again. "I put more wood on."

Through the stove window she could see flames working at the wood. She wanted to hold Ginger, to make her warm. "I need to bring in a supply for the night."

Ginger picked up the book that she'd set facedown on her chest. Would Jefferson have time to finish it before Ginger-no, of course she'd finish.

After dinner she planned to read aloud to Ginger from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a book Ginger had raved about ten years earlier, one of the times they had tried being together again. She'd heard that laughter was healing. Could more laughter, or less cheating on Ginger, have prevented the aneurysm?

She rose quickly-before she did something crazy like put her arms around Ginger and keep her close forevermore-and grabbed the barn coat hanging at the door. Outside, she dragged the lake-chil ed twilight air in through her nose and pushed it from her lungs, hard. How did anyone get through the mishmash of hope and finality that was a brush with death? Would she talk about it? Would Ginger remain in denial and pretend it hadn't happened?

One minute she was thinking that maybe Ginger would get back with her, and the next she was imagining the world without Ginger in it.

Her father kept the wheelbarrow upended against the front row of wood in the shed. She slammed firewood with satisfying whacks into the wheelbarrow until it was piled high, then pushed it to the porch steps. Ginger opened the door for her and held it while Jefferson toted in armloads of logs.

She thought she might as wel get enough for Sat.u.r.day night too and went back to fil the wheelbarrow again, gentler with the wood this time. When she returned, Ginger was sweeping up fal en bark and log dust, as she had dozens of times before when they'd spent time in New Hampshire. Why did Ginger have to get sick? Had al Ginger's shut-down feelings corroded her arteries? If only Ginger could let go, be loving and cuddly like she'd been at first, before she'd opened the school, back when she stil had dreams of performing, when the world was fil ed with promises instead of late-night bookkeeping, parental demands, kids' fickle attendance, al the bottom lines of being grown that had robbed them of the childhood of their love. Ginger got too serious on her.

She berated herself. It wasn't Ginger's fault, but her own. Al the heartache she'd caused final y burst open inside Ginger and almost kil ed her.

Jefferson didn't sleep much that night. A splinter in the palm of her hand throbbed. Every time she woke up from the discomfort her brain got back on the why-Ginger track, with links to the it's-al -my-fault siding and the Ginger's-going-to-beat-it station stop. Instead of getting up to serve Ginger breakfast in bed as she'd planned, she didn't awaken until the sun was high outside her bedroom window and Ginger sat on the porch wrapped in the army blanket, sound asleep, quietly snoring, a mug and a saucer with a smear of cream cheese and some poppy seeds from a bagel on the porch rail. The smel of coffee had not wakened her because Ginger was sticking to herbal teas, which were better for her blood pressure. They'd brought a whole braid of garlic because that was supposed to be good too, and they had to replace salt. Ginger was adding brewer's yeast to everything but the chocolate cake.

It was noon by the time they strol ed down the hil . Gentle, regular exercise, like walking or swimming, had been prescribed, and Ginger had to avoid going out in very cold weather, which they'd be unlikely to get on a spring morning. She found herself monitoring Ginger for signs of pain.

"I wish I could bottle this day," Ginger said. "It's the perfect mix of balmy and breezy, sun and shadow, blue and green. And I feel wonderful!"

Hope washed into Jefferson's heart. The surgery had worked! She touched Ginger's hand with a quick, soft gesture. "We can get the canoe out of the boathouse and paddle to Two Oar Island."

At Ginger's nod, she ran back up the hil for the key and grabbed bottles of water, chocolate bars, some almonds, and beach towels, stuffing it al in a rainbow-striped beach bag. Ginger helped slide the canoe into the water, but Jefferson wouldn't give her a paddle. "Pretend you're Cleopatra on the Nile."

"Sure. Complete with a built-in asp."

"Don't talk that way."

"I need to face it, Jef."

She held out the wrist where she wore her plastic hope bracelet. "You don't need to a.s.sume the worst."

"Okay, I won't. From here on out," Ginger said, "you can cal me Miz Sunshine."

She felt like a flower yearning toward the sun. She would love Ginger back to superb health if it could be done. Otherwise what good would it have been to final y have learned to be faithful? Faithful unto death was not her idea of happily ever after. "Would you prefer I park on the shady or sunny side of the island, then, Miz Sunshine?"

"Surprise me."

She smiled. How long had it been since Ginger had chal enged her with that phrase? Her heart wasn't the only place hit by a flood of hope this time.

She hadn't brought Ginger north with designs on her body, but an invitation wouldn't be unwelcome. She wanted desperately a last cautious, beleaguered lovemaking. She pul ed the paddle through the water steadily, rhythmical y, remembering Ginger's scent, the give of her flesh under Jefferson's fingertips, that incredibly stimulating narrow tuft of red hair she loved to play with.

The little island was shaped like two crossed oars. She drew around to its sunny side and entered the V between the oars, aiming at a sandy patch.

This cove was a sacred place. She'd motored out here a lot the summer before col ege and been back several times over the years. There was plenty of tinder and it was easy to find fal en limbs for a little fire.

She pul ed the boat onto the beach and helped Ginger out, gratified that Ginger let Jefferson help her, sad that she needed help. Today they sat, skimming rocks, Ginger talking little, as if she was too tired even for words. She told Ginger about work, how she missed the new equipment and decent playing fields that had gone with a private education, including for the girl athletes, but her students needed her so much more she had no regrets about the path that got her to them. They'd mobbed her last September, two tel ing her that they'd only come back to school because they liked her cla.s.s so much. She had hopes of convincing a few to try col ege.

"Why is it that the teachers liked by students are always the ones b.u.t.ting heads with the administration?" she asked.

"Jef, you've always been in trouble no matter where you taught."

She scoffed. "That was because I kind of had attendance problems. Since I stopped drinking, I seem to, I don't know, get al contrary when they tel me what to do. It's like they're in it to make themselves feel more important, not to teach the kids."

Ginger closed her eyes and smiled. "I'm glad I had enough saved to indulge in this long vacation."

"And health insurance through your group."

"It's almost time to go back to work so I don't lose it. Not to mention that there are so many people on our waiting list for cla.s.ses I may never get to al of them teaching til I'm eighty," Ginger said, with a sad look on her face.

"And you wil ," Jefferson said with a smile of certainty. There had been al kinds of cancer in Ginger's family, but only one uncle who had, as her parents put it, dropped dead. They'd never known the cause for sure, but now thought he must have had what Ginger was having, this aneurysm thing. The family saw one another through the tough times and went back to work. Her father and brothers thought they were invincible. Ginger liked to say that anyone who had survived her mother, a stiff, pert-looking, sharp-tongued woman, had to be invincible. Her father, as good as his word, had snuck into their retirement fund to get Ginger the rest of the seed money she'd needed to b.u.t.tress Jefferson's investment, to start her dance school. When Mrs.

Quinn found out, she went and stayed with her sister's family in Woodside for six months, leaving her husband and her bachelor son to cook and clean and shop for themselves. For sure Ginger had inherited her mother's unbreakable wil .

On the trip back to the Jeffersons' house the afternoon breeze broke the water into a mil ion moving facets of light, like diamonds floating everywhere.

They didn't speak and there was no sound but wooden paddle and water. Although it felt more like she was stirring a thick pudding than pul ing through water, she knew it was she who was stirred up. The Jefferson place came into view, set like a monument in its nest of great cedars, balsam firs, sugar maples, and white pines at the top of the green slope of lawn. The sight always made her think entering heaven could not feel better.

The cottage, real y too large for a cottage, but that's what her family had always cal ed it, was freshly painted white with a screened-in front porch and gray roofing. It had two bedrooms, although in the summer, Jefferson usual y used the cot on the porch. The sun would wake her, its rays reaching between the trees to touch her face and eyelids. If she had to define happiness, it was a place, this place, for her. Finches and sparrows sang early morning songs.

Whenever she came up here she wondered why she lived in the city, but of course she knew why. The lakes region was short on gay life. There were no Cafe Femmes softbal teams to coach. No gay friends she'd known forever.

She guided the canoe into the boathouse and held it steady while Ginger climbed onto the wooden walkway that lay between Mr. Jefferson's powerboat and the racks where they stowed the canoe and the kayak. She attached hooks and touched the switch. Pul eys hoisted the canoe out of the water. She rol ed the lake door down, then hurried out the dry door and locked it. Ginger sat on the brown wooden bench, her long hair wavy, thick, stil mostly copper against the shade of the pines. Jefferson stood before her, offering her hands to pul Ginger up.

Ginger seemed to hesitate at the bottom of the hil as they reached it, caught her breath, and started up. Jefferson lagged a half-step behind, slowing herself to Ginger's decreasing pace. They'd gone about two-thirds of the way when Ginger stopped, swaying in place. Her voice was thin when she said, "Jef. I can't. I can't make it up this little hil ."

"We can do it together," Jefferson replied, al hope rol ing back down the hil side, like a golf bal after a weak chip shot. Ginger had been so strong -why was this happening? "Or else," she joked, "I'l stick you in the wheelbarrow!" She put one arm around Ginger's waist, the other under her elbow, so that she pushed and supported and steered. Resting a few feet on, she looked to the treetops and asked the G.o.ddess, her higher power, the universe -whatever-to give Ginger back her life, but she knew now, as they started their last awkward dance uphil , that Ginger was a step away from being whol y spirit. The touching they were doing at this moment was nothing like any she had felt before with Ginger, only with Glad.

That night she lay in bed on the porch with two army blankets over her sleeping bag, yearning for Ginger. She wanted to crawl into bed with Ginger, who slept inside, and have Ginger hold her, hold her and maybe say something soothing or how sorry she was to have gone off to look for happiness in the wrong place when Jefferson came home to her once and for al , how she'd miss al the years they could have had together now, how she'd miss Jefferson and longed to stay, stay, stay, and then Jefferson would rol out of Ginger's arms and hold her and say, but we have now, we have this minute, this night, and maybe tomorrow for perfect closeness, as close as I've ever been to you, to anyone, as close as I'l ever want to be with anyone, and I can carry this time al the rest of my life and feel I've lived and loved wel .

But she never crawled into Ginger's bed and Ginger never held her, never held her at al the way she'd longed for her to. Had Ginger been ready for that al these years and Jefferson not there to receive it? Ginger was her heaven, her afterlife, her universal love. Ginger had only been able to love her by staying through it al .

On a drive the next day she told Ginger she had enough years with the school system and planned to retire. Whether she helped Ginger to live or to die, these last days or years would be Ginger's and Ginger's alone. A long time ago Ginger had told her she wanted her ashes spread here, under the pines. She would ask Ginger to stay at the lake with her, sel the dance school and live off the interest. Maybe they both could find some peace by the serene water while Ginger was alive. After that, wel , she would have planted the shadow of the flower that was Ginger at the lake.

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

To Jefferson's surprise, Ginger agreed to stay. She wasn't ready to sel the school, and it paid her enough that she felt she was contributing to the household. Jefferson mailed in her resignation; her young subst.i.tute was a good teacher and wanted ful -time work. They went back to the city once a month to see the doctor and so Ginger could claim she was teaching part-time and managing the business long-distance. Those trips wiped her out.

It was as if Ginger was preparing herself for a final stil ness and the quiet of afterward. She slept a great deal, of course, and when she was awake, Ginger lay motionless a lot of the time. She wanted no music and seemed perfectly content to walk slowly to the bench overlooking the lake on the cooler summer mornings. She said the green lawn and the blue lake water soothed her. Every night, Jefferson went to bed excited about their walk to the bench.

She enjoyed every moment with Ginger; loved looking at her, loved helping her, loved making her life better, loved Ginger's touch when she held on to Jefferson's arm. How many more moments would they have?

At Ginger's insistence, she cal ed Webbers, the local funeral parlor, in case. Ginger had explained what might go wrong post-surgery-loose st.i.tching, not enough of the artery resected, a new aneurysm. If that happened, Ginger said, she might go very quickly. Russ Webber came out and made arrangements with them. Al Ginger wanted was to be cremated before her parents got hold of her body and buried her in a box with some priest mumbling over her. Ginger had sent a copy of the paperwork to her brother Joseph and told him to say she loved them, but Mom and Dad were not to stop Jefferson from carrying out her wishes.

Only once had the subject of Ginger's time with Mitchel come up.

"I'm sorry I caused you pain," Ginger had offered. "I never had s.e.x with him."

She nodded. "I thought-"

"Oh, please. I could smel his men on him."

Her mouth fil ed with the taste of bile, and she got so hot she could feel sweat at her hairline. She could say nothing, only shook her head.