A Beautiful Fall (2 page)

“Are you able to come down here?” Samantha asked.

“I’d have to move some things in my schedule,” she said. “I’ll call the airport right away.”

“Emma, he’s in surgery right now. There’s a chance he won’t make it. Please, please hurry.”

“I’ll reserve a seat on the next flight out,” she promised. Going back home to Juneberry wouldn’t be easy, but what choice did she have?

“Let us know when you think you’ll be arriving, Emma. We’ll send someone to meet you at the airport.”

It was a short conversation, their first in forever. The cousins said their good-byes and Emma dropped her cell phone back into her bag. She accepted the disturbing news with an unnerving mixture of calm resolve and blind panic. Her world had been knocked off its axis.

She stirred from her daze to find Colin standing directly in front of her struggling to interpret the troubled look on Emma’s ashen face.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“My father’s had a heart attack. I need to get home right away,” she said. Her voice sounded lifeless, and her body felt numb. Colin’s reaction was decisive. He placed his hands on her shoulders.

“What can I do to help?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I need to book a plane ticket. I’ll need to call my office.”

“Listen, you call your office. Tell them what’s happened. I’ll contact the airlines and see how quickly we can get you out of the city. At least let me do that much.”

Emma nodded and Colin escorted her from the courthouse to the parking garage. As they walked in silence, she whispered a prayer, something she hadn’t done in half a lifetime.

“God, please let him live.”

The next hour was a blur. She managed to drive her car out of the parking garage and to her Back Bay townhouse without crying or getting stuck in midday traffic. She’d considered making a brief stop at the office to let her partners know she was going out of town for a couple of days, but instead decided to forgo everything else and get home as quickly as possible to pack.

Colin called her at home from his car to say he’d booked Emma a flight on United Airlines. He told her he would arrive in thirty minutes to take her to Logan.

Her father’s heart attack had cracked Emma’s world like the edge of a knife striking the hard shell of an egg. Her mind raced with fears of returning to Juneberry only to find she’d missed her chance to say good-bye, her chance to say how much she loved him.

Emma wheeled her large black travel bag out the front door of the three-story redbrick townhouse. Colin’s silver BMW pulled up out front, double-parked, and Emma began pulling her bulky suitcase down the dozen front steps. As she reached the sidewalk, Emma’s cell phone rang. She tilted the phone to glance at the name. CHRISTINA HERRY. The name toggled back and forth on the screen. Emma pushed the Call button.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Emma––it’s Christina. I’m
so
sorry. I don’t mean to intrude. Samantha just told me about your dad and that you’re flying out. I just felt like I needed to reach out and contact you.”

“No, no, it’s fine, Christina. I … it’s nice hearing your voice again. I just don’t know where to begin today …”

“I know, I know. You don’t have to say anything, but I just wanted to call and say if there’s
anything
we can do, please let us know.”

“Thank you,” Emma said, comforted by another voice from another world she’d allowed time and busyness to erase. “I really do appreciate it. I’m just in a whirlwind at the moment.”

“I know, and I’m praying for you and your dad. That’s all I wanted to say.”

“Thank you,” Emma said, then both women said good-bye.

Colin sprung open the small trunk to load Emma’s carry-on bag. The larger luggage he stashed in the space behind the seats.

“Any news?” Colin asked.

“No, that was a friend, an old friend from back home just calling to check in on me.”

Colin nodded his approval.

“Nice to know you’ve got friends when you need them.”

Colin didn’t say anything else. He roared the BMW to life, accelerating into busy midday traffic on route to the airport. Emma leaned her head back into the leather headrest, closed her worried eyes, and prayed a second prayer.

God, please let him live. Please let me talk to him again.

In record time Colin pulled curbside at Logan and helped Emma with her bags. The temperature had fallen, and the sky looked like it was about to rain.

“Thank you, Colin, for being here for me today,” she said. “Sorry, I don’t know what else to say. I just feel numb.” A uniformed police officer blew his whistle, commanding Colin to move his car. Colin opened his mouth to say something in the rushed moment, words of consolation perhaps, but all he could think to say was “Call me.” He climbed back in and gave Emma one last wave through the passenger window, then disappeared back into the river flow of airport traffic.

A cold blast of wind hit Emma as she wheeled her suitcase to the outside check-in. She walked through the automatic sliding doors, patiently stepped through the paces of airport security, and finally made her way down the concourse, dragging her black carry-on bag to the gate. Somewhere on her long walk through the concourse, between the bright lights of the Hudson News & Books and warm aroma of the Pizza Hut, the irony of her trip finally dawned on her. She was rushing back to Juneberry, a place she hadn’t wanted to set foot in for the past twelve years.

~ Two ~

That’s the way it’s done
when you come from, way down south.

—J
OSH
T
URNER

“Way Down South”

“Please return your seat backs and tray tables to the upright and locked position. We want to thank you for flying with us today, and welcome to Columbia.”

Emma peered through the plane’s oval window as the aircraft descended to eight thousand feet. Beneath the jet, the rural landscape resembled a miniature patchwork world of tiny full-leafed trees bursting with autumn colors. Tangerine, sunburst yellows, crimson reds––each popped with such vibrancy you could almost taste them.

It was unusual for Emma to fall asleep on a plane, but sleeping had done for her what worrying about her father could not. All her scattered thoughts and worries bouncing around inside her troubled mind had settled down. She took some degree of comfort in how smoothly things had come together to travel this far.

Robert Adler had called Emma as she stood in line to board the plane.

“Emma, I just heard the news about your father. I’m so sorry. Is there anything we can do?”

Emma exhaled some of the tension she felt.

“I don’t think so, Robert. I’m just trying to get down there and see what’s going on. I don’t even know how he’s doing right now.”

“Had I known sooner, I could have hired you a private charter. You wouldn’t have had to fool around with all that mess at the airport.”

Emma smiled at the care Robert showed. He’d always been there for her, opening career doors, pointing out the pitfalls along the way.

“That’s very generous of you, Robert. Fortunately, my plane’s scheduled to depart on time and I’ll be there shortly.”

She heard Adler’s grunt, his low-key way of imparting approval. His gruff, unshaven voice could intimate a kind of overbearing authority, even when showing charity.

“Emma, I just want you to know that you’ve got the firm’s approval on this, even though you’re leaving on such short notice. McCormick and I have already discussed it and concluded it’s a family medical emergency.”

Perhaps it was the daze Emma was in, but she couldn’t make out the tone in Robert Adler’s voice.

“Take a few days, even the rest of the week if you must. Go down to South Carolina and take care of your pa. We’ll all pitch in around here and cover your bases while you’re gone.”

“Thank you, Robert,” Emma said, taking his words, whether approval or permission, in their best light. Standing now at the front of the line, she handed the United Airlines agent her boarding pass. He scanned it under a red laser light and set it in a pile.

“Thank you, enjoy your flight.”

Emma smiled and nodded at the agent, still listening to Adler as she starting down the boarding ramp.

“Emma, I know this isn’t the best time to bring up work, but the sooner you can get things squared away and return to Boston, the better. I don’t want to rush you, but this situation with your father couldn’t have come at a worse time for the firm.”

In a small, cramped space outside the air-conditioned comfort of the airport terminal, Emma couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her mind was a million miles away from the office. Her heart was fixed on one man in a small town no one in Boston had ever heard of.

“I wanted to wait until the close of the Interscope trial, but I need to bring you in on meetings I’ve been having with Northeast Federal. You know all about them: nine hundred million in earnings last year. Most of it in health care. I’ve been courting NF for a very long time, but it suddenly looks like we’ll get a shot at representing them in part of their corporate litigation. Once they got wind of your victory this morning, they requested a face-to-face this Friday. My gut is they’ll want to close the deal. Emma, it’s imperative that you be present at that meeting on Friday.”

The plane continued its descent into Columbia Metropolitan Airport. Emma watched out the window, feeling the sensation of being pulled into all that color below. The conversation with Robert Adler played over again in her mind. She regretted having said she’d
try
to return by Friday, feeling coerced by pressure from work, but that was one of the sacrifices she’d made to play at the “A level.”

Emma had seen the firm ask its associates to put business ahead of family before. As a single woman and a partner in the firm, she’d even been in favor of the practice. The demand seemed reasonable for any ambitious law firm, but suddenly the rule seemed harsh and distasteful. Not least of all because she’d been placing her own career before family for most of the last twelve years. The regret stung.

Emma thought about Samantha and Christina, too. They would want to know why she hadn’t seen or spoken to them in the past twelve years. Both women deserved better friendship from her. Neither had a clue why it had been
impossible
for Emma to stay in Juneberry.

Once the plane landed, Emma checked for new messages from the hospital. Her cell-phone screen blinked with one new message from Dena Johnson, an ICU nurse. She’d called during the flight, asking Emma to please contact her as soon as she landed.

“Hello, this is Emma Madison. Do you have—how’s my dad doing?”

“Miss Madison, I thought you’d like to know your dad is in ICU now. He’s awake and in stable condition.”

Emma stopped for a moment in the waiting area, covering one ear to hear her over the noise.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, closing her eyes where she stood, grateful for the news.

“Yes, he’s had quite a morning, but we’re continuing to monitor him, and he’s doing all the things we want to see. He’s been talking and he’s had some fluids. Are you in South Carolina yet?”

“Yes, my plane’s just landed.”

“Well, when you get to the hospital, just come up to the fourth floor, that’s where ICU is, and ask for Dena.”

“I will, thank you. Oh, and, Dena?”

“Yes?”

“Would you give my dad a message for me, please?

“Certainly.”

“Would you please tell my dad that I’m on my way?”

“I’ll make sure he gets the message. He’ll be happy to hear you’re coming. He asked if you were.”

“He did?”

“Uh-huh. He asked me if you knew about his condition. That’s when I told him you’d called. I think he was just wondering if you were
able
to come down.”

Emma appreciated the sweetness in Dena’s voice. She recognized the Southern strength. Dena probably could work a ten-hour shift on her feet at the hospital, dealing with life and death issues, then go home to dinner, husband, family, and laundry all without losing her marbles. She could have made Emma feel guilty, but she didn’t.

They said good-bye, and Emma slipped the phone back into her purse, breathing a sigh of relief. She grabbed the pull handle from her carry-on and continued her walk down the concourse toward the baggage claim. She whispered a barely audible prayer,
“Thank You.”

Emma stepped onto the airport escalator. Halfway down, she saw him. He was someone Emma thought she might have known anyway even were it not for the plain brown cardboard sign he carried, bearing her name in black Sharpie. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been all of ten years old, playing a pickup football game in the backyard with his friends. Now, Samantha’s oldest appeared at the end of the escalator in full bloom: a lean, muscular, twenty-two-year-old college-football champion.

“Miss Madison?” Noel asked.

“Hi, Noel. Do you remember me?”

“Sure I do. Mom asked me to come pick you up.”

The fresh-faced grad had been leaning against one of the airport’s support pillars. He wore a pair of faded blue jeans that seemed long even with boots. The fall weather felt warm enough to wear his orange Clemson T-shirt, and his muscular arms were tanned below the sleeve. On his head he wore a straw cowboy hat that seemed to signify a youthful, free-spirited confidence.

“Sorry if this is a burden on you,” Emma said. “I’m sure you have plenty of other things you could be doing today.”

“Other things, sure, but nothing better,” Noel said as the two made their way toward the baggage carousel. “You’re probably eager to see your dad, Miss Madison. As soon as we see your luggage, I’ll get us on our way.”

“Tell you what, Noel, you call me Emma and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

Noel reached for the brim of his straw hat and tipped it slightly as if to say, “My bad.” By the smile on his face, Noel appeared to have not a care in the world. From behind them a loud red firehouse bell clanged, and the carousel started running its loop.

Emma pointed to a large black suitcase that matched her carry-on, and Noel reached through the crowd of travelers and snatched it from the moving conveyer belt.