It happened in the morning, three days before Thanksgiving. Kristina had been spending a lot of time over because Ginger wasn't able to take care of the children much anymore, and she'd been by Ginger's side when Zac couldn't be, and sometimes when Zac was. Kris was downstairs with Jenny as Zac went into the bedroom to wake a still sleeping Ginger.
"Ginger, baby, time to wake up." He shook her shoulder but she only lay there, limp. He paused. "Ginger?" He shook her again and she didn't respond. "Ginger!" He began to panic again and he put his ear against her chest, searching for a heartbeat. Upon finding none, his panic rose. "Ginger! Ginger, come on baby, you're still here. I know you're still here, wake up." He took her hand and she was cold. "Shit! Ginger! Ginger, wake up!"
Kris came into the room and Zac looked back at her, the glossiness of his shiny brown eyes all she needed. "Oh my God," she said and darted to the telephone. She called for an ambulance, the both of them unsure of what exactly they were supposed to do. Zac sat back and waited. He sat, waiting for something, waiting for anything, until finally the paramedics came and took Ginger away.
Zac was numb in the ambulance ride to the hospital. Everything had gone away and he was alone. Three paramedics were working on Ginger, lying stiffly on the stretcher, an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth and monitors attached to her. He stared lovingly at her, amidst the pain and panic of the others in the ambulance. Her heart monitor was flat line and the high whine of the machine blocked out the shouts, the questions, and the problems they were having trying to resuscitate her.
Zac walked numbly through the hospital and followed the team of doctors into the trauma room with Ginger. He waited, calmly and blankly near the doors, waiting for something to happen. The tears in his eyes were blocking his vision and he soon he couldn't even see his wife any longer. At 10:22 in the morning the doctors pronounced her dead. With a sincere apology, a doctor walked over to Zac and told him. "I'm sorry," he said to Zac. "She's gone. I'll give you a minute with her." Zac nodded and stepped up to his wife. He took her cold hand and everything that had happened in the last hour and a half hit him and the tears fell loosely out of his eyes. "Ginger�" he said, looking at his wife. He refused to believe what he was seeing. "Ginger, I wasn't ready. I still need you here. I wanted to say goodbye, I wanted to hold you and let you go in my arms�it wasn't supposed to happen this way. I love you�I love you so much." Kris and Taylor ran in, Taylor holding Christopher in one arm and holding Jenny in front of him with the other. Zac looked over at Kris. Kris put her hands over her mouth and shook her head.
"No," she whispered. "No�not yet!" Kris burst into tears and Zac walked away from Ginger and put his arms around Kristina. She cried. Zac, looking back at his wife, joined her.
When he got home he sat with Ginger's address book and the cordless phone in front of him. Jenny was quiet in the other room, lying down and watching television with Christopher, Kris and Taylor sitting on the couch with them. He was numb. He had been preparing for this feeling for months now, waiting for it and waiting for it and now that it was here he realized how unprepared he really was. He saw her dying in front of him, fading away with him right next to her, and yet he wasn't there when she died. He wasn't holding her when he died and that had made all of the difference.
Quietly and unknowingly he picked up the phone and dialed his home. The rings were slow and faint, but maybe he just had his mind on other things. He waited for an answer, for a moment hoping nobody would pick up.
"Hello?"
It was his mother.
"Hi," he said.
"Zac? Zac, honey, what's wrong? What happened?" Only his mother would know exactly what was wrong with him before he could even say two words. He probably wouldn't have to tell her what happened. She probably already knew. "It's Ginger," he said. "She�died this morning."
"Oh my Lord," Diana whispered. It was all she said.
"We've already planned the funeral for Friday, if you could come."
"Yes, dear, we'll all be there."
"Okay."
"I'll call you back once we get a flight," Diana said. "Goodbye, honey."
"Goodbye," he said. He calmly hung up the phone and opened the address book. He called everybody who was related to Ginger, or had anything to do with her and would like to go to her funeral. Halfway through these numbing conversations, delivering the news to person after person, Kristina came into the room.
"How are you doing?" she asked, sitting down next to him. He'd just put the phone down after calling someone who seemed to be Ginger's aunt of some sort that he had never met.
"I'm terrible," he admitted. "Absolutely one hundred percent terrible."
"Me too," Kris said. "One hundred percent terrible."
"How is Taylor?" Zac asked.
"He hasn't said a word all day." Zac nodded.
"And the kids?"
"Christopher is oblivious and Jenny is sitting with Taylor. She really doesn't know what's going on," Kris explained. "So who have you called so far?"
"Just about everyone directly related to Ginger from A through M." Kris nodded, looking at the address book.
"Do you want me to call the rest?" Kris asked. Zac shook his head.
"No," he said. "No, it gives me something to do and right now I really need something to do."
"All right," Kris said. "I'll let you do that." She got up and kissed Zac's cheek. "We'll get through this, Zac. Don't you ever think otherwise." Zac nodded.
It didn't hit him what exactly had happened until Zac went upstairs that night to an empty bed. He got in and looked over at Ginger's side of the bed and sighed. Turning off the light, he allowed himself to suffer quietly, facing his first night alone.
The funeral took place on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Many of the people showed up on Thanksgiving and prepared a meal for Zac and the family, but Zac was still not into it. He'd stopped talking, like Taylor, and only spoke when it was really necessary. Kris tried to convince him into giving a eulogy at the funeral but he didn't want to. He was afraid of breaking down in the front of that many people.
Zac sat in his empty house with his children, dressed in a black suit. His coat was on the couch, the top two buttons of his shirt unbuttoned, his tie undone and his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He was falling apart and everyone noticed, but no one wanted to say anything.
Kristina walked into the room, wearing a black dress, and sat down next to him. He put his head against her shoulder. "Are you going to be okay through this?" Kris asked.
"I don't know," he said.
"Well I'll be right next to you," she said, putting her arm around him. "And Taylor will be right next to me."
"All right," he whispered.
"Everything's going to be all right," she told him. "Once all of this is over, you're going to get you a nanny�I'll do it if you want me to�and you're going to go back to work. You're going to pick your head up and you're going to look on the bright side of things. Rosemary may be gone but you have her children, you have her memory, and you have all of her things. She's not in pain any longer."
"I know."
"We're going to get through this, Zac," she said. "And I'm going to be right here next to you. Me and Taylor. We're just down the street whenever you need us." Zac sat up and gave her a smile.
"You don't know how much that means to me," he told her.
"Of course I do," she said, returning his bleak smile. "You're doing the same for me." Taylor walked in.
"We have to go," he said. Zac stood up, picked up the newly one-year-old baby boy on the floor and got Jenny up. Jenny took her father's hand and they walked out to the car. Taylor seemed to be the only one fit to drive, so he did. Zac sat in the front with him while Kris sat in the back with Christopher and Jenny. Zac had his head against the glass the entire way to the church and didn't say a word. There wasn't much to say.
Ginger's casket was white, like she had wanted, and there were dozens of Ginger's favorite flower around. There were photographs of a young punk Ginger, Ginger when she met Zac, Ginger and Kris, Ginger with baby Jenny, Ginger with baby Christopher� Zac had to look away. It was already too much for him and the funeral service hadn't even started yet.
"I don't know if I can do this, Kris," Zac said. "This is too much." Kris pushed Zac into a pew.
"Just do it, Zac. This is important." Zac sighed and went into the pew. He sat Jenny down first next to his mother then sat down himself. His mother put her arm around her granddaughter and Zac closed his eyes, waiting for the service to end. The sooner it was over, the sooner he could return to quietly suffering by himself in his home.
The service started and Zac didn't really pay attention. He knew he should have but he didn't really want to. Acknowledging the service meant acknowledging the fact that Ginger was really gone and he wasn't ready to do that. Kris held his hand through most of the service, and when it was over, Zac left quickly and quietly. He took his children with him, laying a sleeping Christopher in the bed and letting Jenny run to her room and play. Jenny wasn't entirely sure what had just happened, but she had a clue. She would learn in time. It wouldn't be long before she began to wonder where he mother was, and Zac wasn't looking forward to telling her that she wouldn't be coming back.
Wandering aimlessly around the house, he was overwhelmed at how many things reminded him of Ginger. Everything did, even the things he'd purchased before she came to stay with him. Everything had Ginger's scent on it, everything had her loving touch and her memory living in it. He had photos of her around, happy photographs that he longed to return to.
It'd happened too fast. She still had three months left. She wasn't doing well, though, and everyone knew it. She wasn't doing as well as she should have been and Zac was beginning to wonder if she did that on purpose. He was sure she wanted to go before she entered the painful stage of her death, and she did. She wasn't in a lot of pain, she wasn't unhappy. She was happy. She was very happy. He wished he could say the same for himself.
Sighing, he went upstairs and went to bed. He was comfortable there.