112 Ginger
112
Ginger
I’d had a hard day at work, had just given Leon his bath, and was making dinner when I remembered that Rhys’s new song came out today. I put aside the blender and wiped my hands with a rag as I ran to get my phone. I cursed myself for forgetting what he’d told me the day before. When I opened my music app, it was already in the top hundred. I held my breath when I saw the title. I recognized it. Years before, for my birthday, he had given me a song with the same name: “ Ginger .” I could feel my hands tremble as I hit Play. And I heard that familiar melody, the one I’d listened to thousands of times as I went to sleep curled up in bed, thinking of him, wondering what he was doing now…
But this time, there was something more, something different. His voice cracking, hoarse, in a bass tone that didn’t change even during the chorus. A voice talking about anchors, roses on solitary asteroids, Peter Pan, shared moons, a complicated girl, and a guy who wound up under a pile of rubble while she freed herself and turned into a butterfly.
I looked at the cover of the new album. It was called Ginger , just like the song. The name was surrounded by winding vines of flowers, which also enveloped the drawing underneath of a human heart, a real one, full of scars, some closed, some fresh, and the flowers had thorns next to the petals that were prettiest and shined brightest.
I listened to it again, in tears. It was perfect.
Leon pounded on the tray of his high chair.
“You like it? It’s Rhys…”
He gurgled something incomprehensible, but kept smiling while the music played in the house I’d rented some time back. I bent over, kissed his forehead, and went to find my laptop.