The Window

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. Craggy mountains were blanketed in trees. Wild honeysuckle grew in patches, and deer, much freer than Ginger, munched on grass. It could have been the backyard of her home, a hundred miles away. It might as well have been a million miles, though, for it was a very different world here, in the Godly kingdom of Heritage. Here, she was stuck. She felt like the walls were closing in on her, and the window only made it worse by giving a tantalizing view of a life outside these four walls.

There had once been other windows in this small house, in the kitchen, living room, and bathroom. They had been covered up with wood to keep out rain and the draft. “This is an old house,” Courtland said, apologizing, the day he brought her home. “It was all I could afford, and I am blessed I have it. I mean, we have it. Most office workers here rent.” He put his hands in his pockets and looked down. It was shameful to work in an office here. Ginger didn’t really understand why. Something about not working with your hands. “Anyway, I was hoping to buy new windows. I didn’t expect to get a wife so soon.” He blushed and went into the kitchen to turn on the coal stove.

He had bought her at an auction, alongside pieces of furniture and cattle. She was third of twenty young women who stood on a wooden block. A husky, bearded man called out their stats:

“White female, aged 17, captured from war in Birch County, Southland,” he yelled from a podium. “Healthy with all her teeth and no visible disease. The doctor has declared her prime childbearing material. Bidding starts at $1.”

There were shouts of $2, $10, and then, finally a voice from the back. “$100.” There were oohs and aahs as she was led from the stage to Courtland, where her hands were unshackled. $100 seemed like a very low price for a human being to Ginger, but she later learned that it was a small fortune in Heritage, the price of a plot of land.

She and Courtland were ushered into a small room where an elderly man was officiating the marriage in front of her. The bride was a 14-year-old Ginger knew from her church as Bessie. Her groom was a white-haired man who beamed as if he had shot the prize deer at the county fair. As Bessie and her groom turned around to leave, Bessie reached out to hug Ginger.

“I don’t want to go with him,” she cried.

“You’ll be fine, dear” a woman with grey hair said, and pushed Bessie towards her groom. Ginger would later learn this woman was Jeanie Porter, wife of Pastor Greg Porter, who was marrying the couples. Before Ginger could say a word, Bessie was out the door.

The ceremony lasted only a couple of minutes. Ginger was asked her name. When she said Ginger Miller, she was stopped. “You take your husband’s name now. You will be Ginger Adams,” said Pastor Porter. As they turned to go out the door, Jeanie Porter congratulated them. “You’ve got a good one,” she said, as she winked.

Courtland did seem like a good man. Not at all like someone who would buy a captive wife. He hadn’t touched her except taking her hand, and that was when she had instinctively handed it to him. “I want you to be comfortable,” he said. “There’s no rush of anything. I have no problem waiting for as long as you need.”

Mrs. Sherry Roberts thought it was a problem. She was the “wise woman” who had been brought in to oversee Ginger’s “cleaving” time, a period of a month where she could not leave the home, but was to learn to be an obedient wife. “It is the wife’s job to please the husband physically,” she said.

It was just one job Ginger wasn’t doing right. She wasn’t good at cooking, cleaning house, or scrubbing laundry on a board. “Your mother did a poor job teaching you,” Mrs. Roberts said, shaking her head.

“My father did most of the housework in my home.”

“Well, that’s why. Men aren’t to do such work,” Mrs. Roberts said, shaking her black curls. “Someday you will realize how blessed you are to be here in Heritage, where men act like men and women as women. You are blessed to have a good husband, too, who shows so much mercy towards you. Most men wouldn’t.”

They had weekly “cleaving meetings,” when Mrs. Roberts, her husband, who was called Pastor Roberts, Courtland and her met, prayed and discussed her progress. At least Pastor Roberts, Mrs. Roberts and Courtland discussed it; whenever two members of the “team” were there, Ginger was not to talk out of respect for those people in authority over her. During the third meeting, Ginger learned that her cleaving was being extended at least one more month. The couple had still not come together, a sign that the wife was not doing her job of being desirable for the husband.

“I told her I would wait,” Courtland said.

“You just did that because you have a kind heart, kinder than most men, and won’t demand what is rightfully yours,” Pastor Roberts said. “She needs to step up and act like a wife.”

Ginger couldn’t imagine spending another month in that small house. She feared she would go crazy. So that night she came to Courtland naked, while he was sitting on the couch, idly reading the town newspaper. She took his hand and tried to put it on her breast, but he recoiled, and took a blanket off the couch, covering her.

“You don’t find me desirable?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t have bought you if you weren’t desirable,” Courtland said. It was the first time she had heard him use the word “bought.” “You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. But this isn’t right. You don’t truly want it.”

“I need more of a view than the window,” Ginger said. “I feel like I’m going crazy here.”

“Maybe we need to take matters into our own hands,” Courtland said. He went to the closet and got out a white sheet. “That Mrs. Roberts may be mean as a snake, but she’s not so smart,” he said. “My blood or yours?”

“What?”

“There must be evidence of blood to prove a marriage consummation. But blood can come in many ways,” Courtland said. “Mine will work.” He spread the sheet across the couch, then took out his pocketknife. He cut his finger, and smeared blood on the sheet. “I think it’s supposed to be about a teaspoon,” he said. That should work. Can you get me a towel?”

The next day, Mrs. Roberts beamed when she saw the sheet. “Finally, Ginger has become a real woman,” she said.

“Great, so her cleaving will end Tuesday,” Courtland said.

“Oh, heavens no, she needs at least two more months,” Mrs. Roberts said.

“You said it would just be one more,” Ginger said, putting her hand over her mouth as soon as the words came out.

“See, that shows why she needs more time,” Mrs. Roberts said. “She is still disobedient to those in authority.”

“I can’t do this,” Ginger said, after Mrs. Roberts left. “Just one window.”

“I wish I had the money for more, hon,” Courtland said. “But I don’t.” As he took Ginger’s hand, she saw a tear in his eye.

Two nights later, Ginger sat in the bedroom, looking out the window, as the wind howled.

“It sounds like a tornado,” she said, as she went into the living room.

“We don’t have tornados in Heritage,” Courtland said, barely looking up from his newspaper.

“Not in Southland, either. But that is what it sounds like. I saw a video about it in my science class.” She cringed as she thought about how she had been a typical high school student just a month earlier.

There was another gust of wind. Courtland jumped. Instinctively, Ginger embraced him. Suddenly they were kissing, awkwardly and clumsily, but kissing and touching each other. Ginger closed her eyes, giving into strange emotions that flooded her.

When she opened them up, the wood on the windows were gone. So was the front door, and a wall. The world was open to the night sky. The mountains were barely visible in the midst of the wind, rain and darkness. So were other small houses, Huge sheets of rain piled into the house, covering the floor.

Ginger and Courtland held each other, sheltering each other from the weather. In that instance, Ginger somehow knew that she wanted to live, here with Courtland, even if it was a harsh, unfair world. It was a world, and it was up to her to make new windows to survive it, even if it took storms.