A Beautiful Fall (3 page)

“If you’re ready,” he said, “my truck’s outside.”

The airport’s hydraulic doors opened as Noel and Emma crossed out of the busy terminal to the open skywalk. Outside, a warm autumn breeze caught Emma’s hair and blew it wildly around her. She laughed.

“Guess I should have worn a hat too.”

“If you had, you’d be chasing it about now,” Noel said.

Emma enjoyed the South’s warmer temperature while the two made their way to Noel’s truck. Their small talk was blown away by the thunderous sound of a commercial jet taking off behind them.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you were saying,” Emma said.

“I said I officially graduated in May,” Noel said in a loud voice as the jet rocketed skyward. “I had one more class this summer to finish up my degree, and I’ve been home for about two weeks now.”

They walked across the open blacktop lot in the heat of a midday Carolina sun. It was obvious the yellow parking lines had just been painted.

“How does it feel?” Emma asked. “Coming home after four years away?”

Noel slowed down his pace. He peered over at Emma as if looking through her, and she almost turned away.

“It’s always good to come home, Miss Madison, I mean, Emma,” he said. Then the carefree look showed itself again like it was the one his face was the most used to. “It’s like one season is over, and a new, better one is just beginning.”

She smiled at Noel’s optimism and felt somehow that whatever season lay ahead for Noel, it would be a good one.

They stopped at the tailgate of an old royal blue Dodge Ram truck. It reminded Emma of the ocean and looked as shiny as a brand-new model just rolling off the assembly line.

“I hope you don’t mind trucks,” he said, pulling on the tailgate’s handle. It popped open with the sound of solid, well-engineered metal and lowered without a squeak. He loaded up Emma’s black canvas suitcase and closed up the back of the truck.

“Don’t let appearances fool you, Noel. I lived in Juneberry once too, you know, a long time ago.”

“I know. I remember.” Noel fished out the keys from his front jeans pocket and came around Emma’s side to unlock the door. She climbed up into the tall seat in Boston-meets-Juneberry style. Inside, Noel’s truck was as well kept as the outside. The interior dash housed a circular speedometer and fuel gauges. Emma noticed the original AM/FM stock radio next to it built into the dashboard.

“You’re strictly old school, aren’t you?”

Noel climbed in the other side.

“When improvements stop being made, the best things are all found in the past.”

He turned the key in the ignition and fired the engine to life. The truck roared with so much power that it startled Emma. She reached for her seat belt and clicked it around her as the truck rolled backward.

“Is this your truck, Noel?” Emma asked.

“Ever since high school. It’s been in storage at my mom and dad’s the last four years. Sadly neglected. Sorry if it’s running kind of rough.”

“Sounds mint condition to me.”

Thirty minutes later, they exited the new freeway and turned onto SC59, the old highway route to Juneberry. Emma watched out her window as the scenery shifted from noisy eighteen-wheel trucks and SUVs to quiet, wide-open spaces. Every cornfield they passed seemed to harvest its own crop of memories for her. It had been so long.

“Do you mind if I crack open the window? I love the way the pines smell out here.”

“Sure. When was the last time you were in Juneberry?” Noel asked her.

“The last time? I’d just graduated from college too,” Emma said, sticking her toe in old, forgotten memories for the first time in a long time. “I flew home to celebrate with my dad, thanking him of course, for the money he’d given me, making it possible for me to go to college in the first place.”

Emma’s voice trailed off, quieted by thoughts that she’d almost lost him, and an uneasy guilt that squeezed her. Her father had always loved her, but Emma had never come back.

“Your dad seems like a pretty great guy.”

“He is,” Emma said, thinking of how it would be when she saw him again. “He’s a great guy, a great father.”

Emma waded a little farther into her memory stream. Her mind drifted back to someone she once was.

“It wasn’t September when I’d returned the last time; it was spring. Around late May. Got picked up in an old truck that day too,” she chuckled. “Old Red. That’s the way he liked to get around when he was feeling his roots.”

“You mean that old red Chevy? I’ve seen him drive that classic around.”

Emma laughed.

“That’s my dad. He never throws anything away.”

They raced past the green Juneberry city-limit sign, population 8,000. It had been so long since she’d been back, she felt like the sign was saying, “Welcome home, Emma. Welcome home.”

“We’re getting close, Emma,” Noel said. “My mom asked if you wanted to go to your dad’s first, or go straight to the hospital?”

“Hospital,” Emma answered, and Noel veered the truck right at the fork, under the railroad tracks where the road was still one lane. The road curved through neighborhoods of houses old and new before bending at the first traffic light. They were in the commercial district on Juneberry’s west side, and Emma could see the hospital in the distance.

Within minutes they pulled into the parking lot at Wellman Medical, the small community hospital that had served the community for years. Bantam, especially by Boston standards, the five-story facility housed a first-rate emergency room, an eight-bed ICU ward, two respectable operating rooms, and three floors of inpatient beds. Will Madison could have done a lot worse.

“I know he’s in ICU,” Emma said, as they left Noel’s truck and made their way toward the hospital. “But I don’t know exactly where that is.”

“I’m sure we can find it. There’s usually someone at the information desk in the lobby where we go in,” Noel told her, as if he visited the hospital all the time. Just as Noel described, a cheerful seventy-something woman sat at the welcome desk ready to greet them.

“Hello, may I help you?” she asked.

“Yes, my father was admitted this morning. His name is Will Madison, and I believe he’s in the Intensive Care Unit.”

“Are you Emma?” she asked, looking up. The woman wore a plastic nametag attached to her pretty red sweater. On the top it read, VOLUNTEER, and below was her name, Beverly.

“Yes,” Emma answered. Though she lived in Boston, the real location for the fictional bar from the TV show
Cheers
, it had been awhile since she’d been somewhere everybody actually
did
know your name.

“I’m Beverly Williams, a friend of your father’s.”

The woman stuck out her hand and shook Emma’s with a congenial welcome. She tilted the screen in front of her and read it through her bifocals.

“You’re right. He’s in ICU, but you’ll have to check in at the nurses’ station on the fourth floor before they’ll let you see him. Just a second, I’ll write you a visitors pass.”

Beverly collected two visitor passes from behind the desk and filled in their names with a blue ink pen. Emma noticed the slight tremble in her hand when the pen wasn’t in motion.

“They’ll know which room he’s in. That information isn’t listed on the system’s computers.”

She handed them both their passes.

“Thank you.”

Beverly leaned in over the front counter and pointed down the hallway to her left.

“You’ll want to go down this hallway and take the second left. Elevators will be on your right. Go up to the fourth floor, and you’ll open up right at the nurses’ station.”

“Thank you, Beverly.”

“Oh, it’s my pleasure,” Beverly said, giving her a carefree smile, just like Noel’s. “Your father is the sweetest man. I was so sorry to hear what happened.”

“I’ll make sure to tell him hey for you,” Emma said.

“You do that,” she said.

Noel and Emma turned the corner and walked down a polished marble hallway, listening to the click of their steps, seeing their reflections beneath them as they walked. They entered the elevator, which they found waiting with its doors open, and pushed the button for the fourth floor. Slowly the doors closed and they felt the small, enclosed space creep upward. Emma closed her eyes, feeling emotionally frayed and physically worn. She’d run an East Coast marathon to get there since that morning. Ever since the mystery phone call had jarred her awake, reminding her that Juneberry had been more than just a dream. Only the one thing mattered now. She wanted to see her father.

The elevator doors opened on the fourth floor directly in front of the nurses’ station. Emma approached the two women working behind it.

“Hi, my name is Emma Madison, and my dad was admitted here this morning … Will Madison?”

“Hi, Emma, I’m Dena. Your dad has told me all about you,” she said, in a way that conveyed he was doing well. “I know you want to see him. He’s right down there in room C.”

Noel took a step backward, giving Emma space to see her dad privately.

“I’ll just stick around out here,” he said.

Dena put aside the folder she’d been charting and led Emma down the hallway. The 5'2" woman gave off an inexplicable feeling of comfort in her powder blue scrub pants, spiffy white tennis shoes, and a basic white smock with teddy bears on it.

Emma followed without speaking. It was like she was passing through the antechamber of a sacred church. Dena walked with light steps. Emma felt weighed down with the mounting anticipation at seeing her father.

Dena stepped through the doorway of room C.

“Will, you’ve got a visitor.”

Emma entered his room slowly, taking in the sight of her father for the first time in forever.

Will Madison lay in a sterile hospital bed with an oxygen feed underneath his nose. An IV line dripped clear fluid down a long, transparent tube into his right thigh. He raised his hand slightly and slowly off the bed to wave.

She stood at the doorway watching him. How much older he looked to her, a mixture of passing years and the survival of a sudden heart attack.

“Hey, Dad,” Emma said to him in a tone as soft as fleece. She tiptoed into his room, finding a place by the side of his bed. She reached over the metal safety railing that ran the length of his bed and took hold of his hand.

“You came,” he said, in a voice as dry as an old Western movie. A satisfied smile eased up in the corners of his mouth.

“Yes, of course,” Emma said, wrapping her other hand around his. “How are you feeling?”

“Better than I was at breakfast,” he smiled, trying to settle her nerves with humor. “I’m okay, darlin’. They were able to get in there and fix the problem in no time flat.”

Emma leaned in closer, speaking softly to him.

“I got here as quickly as I could.”

“I know you did.”

Will squeezed her hand.

“Emma,” Dena said, checking the IV drip and writing in Will’s chart. “I’ll be at the nurses’ station if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” Emma called out to Dena over her shoulder.

Emma took a closer look at her dad. His hair was matted, pressed against his chiseled face like salt-and-pepper doll’s hair. His cheeks were red, not as a result of his morning heart attack, but from working outdoors around the farm: his favorite summer pastime. She looked into his coast blue eyes. They radiated intelligence and light … and exhaustion.

This wasn’t the time to unravel a complicated past. She squeezed her father’s hand again.

“I’m here, Dad. I’ll stay with you until you get well.”

She smiled and marveled at how the small, simple expression put her dad at ease. She watched him smile too, just before those intelligent eyes turned down for sleep. The South Carolina lawyer, a man the governor called “The Advisor,” lay frail and silent beneath a thin, cream-colored hospital blanket. Only the fragile, regular bleep of his heart monitor broke the silence.

Emma returned to the nurses’ station.

“Dena, I want to thank you for taking such good care of my dad.”

“That’s what we try to do around here. That’s why they pay us the big bucks.”

Emma grinned at the remark, more than a little relieved that her dad was all right.

“Dena, can you tell me anything about the sort of treatment my dad required?”

“I can tell you he was treated in the ER. They were going to do the procedure in the OR, but Dr. Anderson decided that the treatment could be performed on your father there. He’s the surgeon who inserted the stint, and he’ll be able to answer more of your questions.”

“Do you know when Dr. Anderson will be in again?”

“He usually visits patients early in the morning before scheduled surgery. I know he’s scheduled tests today to determine the extent of any heart damage, but as far as long-term prescribed medications and that kind of thing, you should probably talk to Dr. Anderson.”

Noel approached the nurses’ desk.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so. He seems to be doing fine, which is a huge relief.”

“Praise God.”

“Yes, absolutely,” Emma said, knowing that it could have been a much different outcome.

Emma turned her attention to Noel. He’d been so kind all day, but it was time to let him go. Emma wasn’t used to depending on others.

“Noel, I think I’m going to stay here awhile. You probably should get on with your day. I’m sure you have a lot to do.”

“I can stay,” he told her. “I mean, I can just stay in the waiting area. I don’t want to get in your way or anything, but you don’t have a car. So, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just stick around.” He joked, “Who knows, you might get hungry for a Snickers bar. I’m the only one of the two of us who knows where to find the vending machines.”

Emma laughed.

“You’re really something, Noel. I once asked a taxi driver in Boston to stay outside an office building while I ran in to pick something up. I was back downstairs in less than two minutes, but when I got outside, the taxi was nowhere to be found, and I was paying him money.”

“You forget, this is my vacation. What better way to chill than to hang out here? It’s quiet. Besides, I’ve got a good book out in the truck. I’ll just bring it in.”