A Beautiful Fall (6 page)

“That was my other question. Do you know which pharmacy you’d like us to use to call in his meds?”

“Ah, probably Brown’s downtown on Main. I didn’t realize there
was
another pharmacy.”

“No, that’s fine. I can send them there. I’ll get everything together and see you at one o’clock.”

Emma set the old rotary phone receiver back on its hook.

“They’re discharging Dad today at one. I’ll have to make a trip into town for a few things before I pick him up.”

Emma rejoined Samantha at the table.

“Sorry for the interruption. What was the question you wanted to ask me?”

“It can wait,” Samantha said, feeling the moment had passed and that she’d have another opportunity to ask her. “You’ve got a lot going on this morning, but it’s nice to have you home, at least for a while. Do you know when you’ll go back?”

“I’m not sure. Probably Friday.”

Samantha got up from the table feeling a little wobbly legged. Friday was too soon.

“Well, I’d better let you get on with your morning,” she said, not knowing what else to say just then. “But if you or your dad need anything call us, okay?”

“I’ll be in touch whether we need anything or not, Samantha. It’s been good seeing you.”

Emma walked Samantha back to the door, and the two embraced again.

“It’s good to have you home again, Emma,” Samantha said in the doorway.

Emma thought to say it was good to
be
home again, but that was only half true. She settled for “See you soon” and waved good-bye, closing the door behind her. Emma had seen the question in Samantha’s eyes. She had almost asked it. It had balanced precariously on the tip of her tongue:
Why didn’t you ever come back, Emma? Why?

But the telephone had rung.
Saved by the bell
, she thought. Anyway, how does one shatter open their psyche over banana bread and tea? Or remove the lid from the pot, bewildering her cousin with “I was afraid.”

After Samantha left, Emma found the keys to her father’s truck on the post near the kitchen door, the same green Sinclair dinosaur keychain drawing her eyes to them. The sun perched high in the cloudless blue heavens, and the air was still plenty warm for late September. Emma crossed beneath the cluster of three weeping willow trees on the path to the barn.

The timeworn red barn, raised back when the original owner, John Barry, worked the farm, housed dairy cows on the ground floor and farm equipment on the second floor for its first fifty years. A sliding red door framed in white paint gave access to the top floor. When the Madisons bought the house, Will leased the land to a real farmer to grow corn, and transformed the upper level of the barn into something akin to an oversized garage.

Emma swung open the barn door, pushing its rusty wheels through their narrow track. Old Red, Will’s 1971 Dodge truck, looked right at home. The traditional farmer’s truck was in many ways just like her dad: strong and reliable. Christina had christened the truck “Old Red” during high school when it was Emma’s main mode of transportation around Juneberry.

She climbed up into the cab, peering through the dusty windshield. Emma turned the key in the ignition. She pulled open the choke, and with two quick stomps of the gas pedal, Old Red sprung to life.

“Attaboy.”

She wrenched the knobby black shifter into first gear and rolled the truck out from the barn. Emma felt exhilaration and freedom when she cruised down SC59 toward downtown Juneberry. She had the rural highway all to herself so she opened Old Red up, accelerating his speed to nearly 55 miles per hour.

Emma entered Juneberry through the long stretch of North Main Street locals call Canopy Row. Maple and oak trees lined both sides of the street and joined in the middle to form a natural tunnel. With the autumn leaves already committed to their color change, the effect was like driving through a living red and gold swirl. City fathers had planted the trees a hundred years earlier, and Emma had long suspected they’d had this tunnel effect in mind.

At the other end of Canopy Row, Emma steered Old Red through historic downtown.

It was down the sidewalks of Main Street where Emma had pedaled her bike as a young girl, making trips to the library, where her love of learning blossomed. It was on Juneberry’s downtown city streets that Emma and Christina cruised during high school, listening to country radio stations out of Columbia and laughing as they shook off the stress of AP classes. It was on these quaint Southern streets that she and Michael had strolled together that one blissful summer before she left for law school.

Michael Evans.

She could still remember the warmth of their hands together as they walked downtown. She could still remember the feeling of “just perfect” that defined those moments together. But that was a long time ago.

Emma parked Old Red in front of Ace Hardware on Main, across from Brown’s Drug Store. The tall neon sign out front bearing its name hadn’t changed. She wondered if they still lit it up at night in the summer. People seemed happy then just to eat an ice-cream cone from Baskin-Robbins and stroll up Main Street window shopping.

A gust of wind pinned Emma’s collar up and whipped her hair around her face as she crossed the street. She pressed open the glass door at Brown’s Drug Store with ease and stepped inside. A bell jingled as the door swung open. She saw a familiar face at work behind the counter.

“Miss Emma Madison. How are you today?”

“Eric Brown? I haven’t seen you since high school.”

Emma approached the elevated counter where Eric worked as a second-generation pharmacist.

“Been right here. Are you still up in, New York, Boston, someplace like that?”

“Still in Boston. I just came back to see my dad.”

“Yeah, sorry to hear what happened. How’s he doing?”

“Much better thanks. He’s coming home today. In fact, have you gotten a call from Wellman Medical? I’m supposed to pick up some prescriptions.”

“Yes, they just called. I can have them ready in about thirty minutes.”

“Okay, great. I’ve got just enough errands in town to fill that time. I’ll be back to pick them up.”

“They’ll be ready.”

Emma exited the front door of Brown’s and walked to the curb to recross Main Street. Another strong gust of wind blew. She looked up to see storm clouds appearing from out of the west, and the grainy sky meant that rainfall was looming.

As she crossed Main on her way back to Old Red, Emma noticed a white Chevy truck parked behind her. A sign stenciled in black on the driver’s-side door advertised a local business:

Michael Evans Construction
Carpentry • Roofing • Repair
803 …

A man wearing a red and black flannel shirt, blue jeans, and brown work boots walked out of the hardware store carrying a roofing bundle. He lowered the shingles from his shoulder letting them fall into the back of his pickup truck. As the roofing shingles fell away from his face, Emma got her first good look at the man.

“Michael?” Emma said, surprised to meet him on the street.

He turned in Emma’s direction and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Emma Madison,” he said, walking around the side of the truck. “I wondered if it was you driving Old Red.”

They shook hands in a cordial greeting, touching them once again on Main Street, but in a way so different than before.

“Yep, it’s me.”

“Someone mentioned you might be back in town. How’s your dad doing?”

“He’s good. I was just picking something up from the pharmacy for him. How are you?”

“I’m good,” Michael replied, his expression matching his words. Emma motioned to the door sign on Michael’s truck.

“Looks like you’ve got your own company now.”

Michael grinned. “It’s just me and Bo Wilson. You remember Bo?”

“Yes, of course. I can just picture the two of you building Juneberry houses together.”

Michael’s face was sun-painted, rugged, and tan. Probably from pounding nails all summer long in the hot South Carolina sun.

“Still up in Boston?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Still in Boston. I’m a part of a law firm there.”

Michael nodded.

Still in Boston … part of a law firm there.

That was their story in a nutshell, reviewed in its entirety in just a few precious seconds. The love, the breakup, the move, and a career far away in a big-city law firm.

“Well, you did it,” he finally said. “You chased your dreams and you caught ’em. That’s something to be real proud of.”

The first drops of rain dripped onto their clothes. Emma looked up again to find that the once-blue sky was rapidly changing to a high-altitude landscape of billowing silver.

“And you’re building houses,” she said, ignoring the rain.

“One at a time,” Michael said. “We’re working on the old Macintosh place up on the hill right now. Putting up a new roof.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Am I keeping you?” Emma asked.

Just then the skies opened up. A spirited gust of wind struck sideways as thick pellets of rain fell from the heavens. Instinctively, Michael reached out to Emma and pulled her beneath the safety of a nearby shop awning.

“Not anymore. Once the rains come, we have sense enough to climb off the rooftop. How long are you here for?” he asked.

“Probably until Friday. I just wanted to make sure my dad’s okay.”

Inside, Emma felt a strange sense of urgency. Maybe it was guilt or some feeling of remorse, but she wanted an opportunity with Michael to set things right. She wanted to talk with him again. Maybe this unexpected trip back home would provide just such an opportunity. After all, she wasn’t the twenty-two-year-old girl who fled Juneberry twelve years earlier. She was stronger now.

“Michael, I’d like to talk to you sometime when you’re free. Do you need to get back to work?” she shouted over the nearly deafening noise of the rainfall. Michael rolled his eyes up at the rain. It was a comedic gesture to point out impracticality of working outside in so much water.

“Not if I don’t want to.”

“Well, I’m sure not driving anywhere in this.”

“Have you had breakfast yet?” he shouted over the sound of the rain hitting the aluminum awning.

“I’d love to have some coffee.”

The rain blew sideways in sheets down Main Street. Puddles formed in an instant, rivers poured into gutters and flowed through drains. Car wipers changed from off to heavy, and pedestrians fled for cover.

“We’ve got that … if we can just make it to the bakery.”

Emma watched Michael as he scouted the driest path to Meredith’s Bakery, a block away. It startled her when she realized
she knew what he was thinking
. Michael was working out how to protect her from the rain. His protection, it had always been there that summer, maybe even before.

“If we keep on this side of the street,” he said, “we’ll do all right.”

They took off in a bolt. It was like running inside a car wash. At Third Avenue, Michael pressed a guiding hand gently against the center of Emma’s back to prevent her from slipping. Back beneath the safety of the canvas awnings, Emma smoothed the rain away from her face, and pulled back her hair. They had managed to stay surprisingly dry.

The last twenty feet to the front door of Meredith’s was entirely uncovered. Raindrops the size of gumdrops splashed in on them from all directions. They reached the bakery doors dripping wet.

“Made it,” Michael announced.

Emma laughed. “The last time I was this wet, I was underwater.”

Meredith’s Bakery had already responded to customer requests by turning on the heat early into September. They stood in front of the glass counter where the blower blasted out its dry heat. Soon their clothes were dry and their skin warmed.

“I’ll find us a table,” Michael said.

Emma watched him walk away, around the corner, and out of sight. Staring through the bakery glass at Meredith’s world-famous sticky buns, she wondered if the words would come. Could the star attorney from Adler, McCormick & Madison find the right words to explain how she’d become a missing person in the lives of those she loved? There was a second option, of course. It occurred to her as she stood there in the front of the blower watching Michael come back to her from the other room. She could avoid unearthing the whole mess and leave again just as she had before.

~ Five ~

Surprise, your new love has arrived
Out of the blue clear sky.

—G
EORGE
S
TRAIT

“Blue Clear Sky”

The inside of Meredith’s Bakery brimmed with the smells of sugary cinnamon and fresh-baked, oven-warm breads. The atmosphere was inviting and cozy, a dry homey shelter where patrons could find warmth in more ways than one. The exposed brick interior, hanging wicker baskets, and homespun wooden tables and chairs welcomed them like family. Despite the rains, or maybe because of them, the midmorning crowd was light, and the continuing downpour outside almost guaranteed it would stay that way.

Michael had picked out a table in front of the large window in the main dining room. He rejoined Emma as the woman behind the sales counter was telling her about the day’s specials. They ordered coffee and a large sticky bun to share. Michael paid, left a dollar in the tip jar, and carried their food back to the table.

He was the same as she remembered him. If there were any differences, it was in ways that seemed to only improve his looks. Michael’s twentysomething physique was now the broad-shouldered look of a fully developed man in his midthirties. He wore a day’s stubble on his face, a perk of being his own boss. He was no longer a young man with lots of growing up to do—this Michael was the picture of confidence and strength.

“I wondered if I’d see you,” she said finally, when it felt like someone should say something. “On the plane coming down here, I mean. I didn’t know if that would be a good idea or not. I just thought,
What if?
I wondered what I’d say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he told her. “It was a long time ago, and I don’t want you to feel like there’s anything that needs to be explained. I assumed you just did what you had to do. End of story.”