A Beautiful Fall (7 page)

Emma fidgeted in her chair. The sky outside the window over Michael’s shoulder looked bleak and colorless, the rain continued in a steady downpour, and the sidewalks were empty. They heard a crack of thunder.

“It’s really not the end of the story, Michael. There’s a lot you don’t know. I’ve had this conversation with you in my head so many times, but now that I’m here, it’s hard to put everything into words. I’m just sorry, and I want you to know that.”

Michael shrugged as if to say her words didn’t mean anything, or that it didn’t matter anymore. She wondered what he was thinking. Lazy summer days spent underneath a blue sky have a habit of sticking with you. Lying down together on the picnic blanket, holding each other and staring up at the sky in that wide-open country. Surely he remembered that. But how did that make him feel?

“That doesn’t tell me much about why, Emma. I thought we were in the middle of great story, and just when it really started to get interesting, I turned a page to find the rest of the book was blank.”

“I know,” she said, because this was exactly how the conversation always played out in her mind.

“You went to Boston without looking back, and I got myself to work building houses. Without digging through all the minutiae of how I picked myself up, wiped away the tears, and dusted off the heartache, there’s really not any more to say.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, again. “That’s not how I would do things today. There were reasons why I left that you don’t know about. I really don’t want to go into those, but they have nothing to do with you. It’s complicated. I’m trying to explain what I can here, but I don’t think it’s doing much good.”

“Do you remember that summer, Emma?” Michael asked, leaning back in his chair. His question brought many memories to mind, but one in particular. The Fourth of July barbecue, the smell of charcoal and lighter fluid, her dad grilling steaks in the backyard, setting up the net for a game of volleyball. The laughter and the water fight, and how good the picnic food tasted with just the three of them eating under the shade of the lonesome willows. The wide-open fields around the house were green and alive with acres of sweet corn. When the moon came out, she and Michael held hands and walked up to the big barn to sit together under the stars in near silence, accompanied by just a whisper of music from Old Red’s radio.

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, I remember it too. So I’m not going to be angry with you, Emma. Not after twelve years. I loved you too much to spoil your memory with bitterness, and I cherish my life too much now to try and settle up the past with nickel-and-dime words.”

Michael got up from the table. The rain outside had slowed.

“It’s like that old saying: You open the bird cage door, and the bird flies away. If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”

“Please, don’t say it like that. There was never any cage.”

“And there isn’t one now.”

Michael started to walk out of Meredith’s. He took one step toward the door, stopped, then turned back around.

“I don’t know if you feel some kind of guilt or remorse about the past; I just haven’t figured all this out. But I’ll tell you what, Emma, when you burn a bridge, you have to be prepared to live with some ashes. It’s just the way it is.”

Emma watched Michael walk out the door without looking back. A moment later, she followed, more convinced than ever of the mess she’d made. Samantha had wanted to know why, and Michael didn’t. It was a toss-up which one felt more unsettling. It had stopped raining completely. The streets of Juneberry were dotted with puddles, and the air crackled with the scent that comes after a heavy autumn rain.

Emma picked up her father’s prescriptions at Brown’s Drug Store, climbed back into Old Red, and set the package beside her on the passenger seat. Starting the truck, she switched on the wiper blades to clear off the last remaining drops of rain before making her way home.

Emma hurt for what she’d done to Michael. If only mistakes could be washed away like the rain. But she didn’t have a choice then, Emma reminded herself—not a serious one. After all, it wasn’t an error in judgment that caused her to leave. No more wrong than leaving a blue underwater world for the life-giving oxygen above.

Emma could clear it all up if she told them the truth––her father, Samantha, Christina, and Michael. She could just dig up the precious jewelry box she’d buried in the cool South Carolina mud and show them all what lay inside.

Her heart raced at the thought. Then she said the words out loud.

“I’m not that child anymore. I won’t be afraid any longer.”

On route SC59 between downtown Juneberry and home, Emma’s cell phone rang. She picked it up off the vinyl seat and answered it.

“Hello?”

“Emma? Hey, it’s Colin.”

“Colin?”

“Yeah, you sound surprised. How is everything down there?”

“Everything’s fine,” she said, adjusting to one far-off world intruding into another. “Thanks for checking on me. Are you at the office?”

“No, I’m in my car. I just bought a new cell phone.”

“I thought you just bought a new cell phone in July?”

“I did, but I didn’t like it. This one’s a PDA, but it still feels like a cell phone, plus it plays video, too. So tell me, what’s going on with your father?”

“There’s good news. He’s coming home today.”

“That is good news. The sooner he’s home and settled in, the sooner you can get back where you belong.”

The signal from Colin’s phone was remarkably clear. It sounded like he was calling from across the street.

“I’ll need to keep an eye on him for a few more days. Sorry to employ such an old cliché, but I’m taking this one day at a time.”

“Those old clichés work for a reason. How are you doing with all this?”

“That’s a good question. In lots of ways, I prefer the law. Its a lot harder when you have to humble yourself and make things right with people.”

“What?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m not making sense. There’s a lot on my mind, I guess.”

“Couldn’t you bring in a home-care nurse?”

“No, it’s not that. I was referring to a much older story.”

“Do I detect some history?”

“Maybe.”

Emma turned Old Red onto Mills Road, or as Christina always called it, “Madison Avenue.” Just a half mile more and she’d be home.

“At least you’ve got your friends. Someone to talk to about it, right?”

“Right,” she said, as if her talks with Samantha and Michael that morning had both gone well. “It’ll all work out.”

“I want you to know I’m here, Emma. I mean, if you need anything. I’m just now pulling into my building. I know from experience that the signal goes out when I’m underground so I’m going to let you go.”

“Thanks for calling, Colin. I appreciate you checking in with me, and I wouldn’t mind talking again sometime if you …”

Emma listened for a few seconds until it was obvious the line had gone dead.

~ Six ~

Every time I hear a buddy say
he’s put lots of dust and clay
between him and yesterday,
I get the fever.

—B
ILL
A
NDERSON

“I Get the Fever”

The elevator doors opened and Emma stepped out onto the fourth floor at Wellman Medical. The hospital didn’t feel so foreign anymore after being there most of the day before. Dena Johnson greeted Emma.

“He’s all ready to go home.”

“You do good work around here,” Emma replied. “I had no idea he’d be coming home so soon. It’s quite a relief.”

Dena made her way around the open end of the crescent-shaped workstation. She was dressed in another cheerful smock, this one a Tweety Bird print.

“He’s been chomping at the bit to get out of here, but the process is actually going faster than normal. Usually a patient’s moved off ICU before getting released, but it worked out in this case just to release him home.”

“Dena, I’ve been so delighted with the care he’s received, both from you and his doctors. I don’t know how to say thank you.”

“You’re welcome. He’s been a great patient. Wish they could all be that way.” Dena smiled, then paused before continuing. “Do you have a moment?”

“Sure,” Emma said. Dena led her away from the nurses’ station to a private corner in the hall.

“I don’t know why, but I really feel moved to share something with you. I was on duty yesterday when you’re dad was admitted to ICU. He was my patient, and I got a chance to talk to him. I just thought you should know that the minute he knew you were coming in from Boston, his condition rapidly improved—not just his demeanor, but his body’s response to treatment as well. I know it was a sacrifice for you to drop everything and come down here. I just thought you’d like to know, from a medical standpoint, I think your being here really made a difference.”

“Thank you for telling me this. My dad has always been there for me, but I can’t say I’ve always been there for him. This was a wake-up call.”

Dena nodded that she understood. She had a father too.

“Well, let’s go get him and let you take him home.”

Dena moved Will downstairs by wheelchair to the front entrance, brushing off his protests that he could walk, and staying with him until Emma brought the Cadillac around to pick him up. She’d decided to bring the good car since it was easier to climb into than Old Red.

“I can get in by myself,” Will protested. “I could drive this car if I had to.”

“Oh, that reminds me, Mr. Madison,” Dena said. “Remember, no driving for a while. Doctor’s orders.”

Dena shut the passenger-side door and waved them off before heading back inside the hospital. Emma pushed the button, and Will heard the Cadillac’s automatic door locks bolt shut.

“Ugh, what a sound.”

“You don’t like that?”

“After being cooped up in a hospital bed for a day and a half, no,” Will said, a rare agitation entering his voice. “Sorry, hon. I’m just not a sit-around kind of guy. The doctor wants me to change all the foods I eat, and now I can’t even drive my own car.”

“And … you have to buckle up your seat belt too. Sorry, Dad.”

Will made a sound like he was chewing on aspirin.

“I think once we get you home and settled we’ll both feel better.”

As smooth as ice, Emma rolled the Cadillac away from the covered loading zone, and minutes later they were on Stoney River Road taking the scenic route around the lake. In ten minutes, Will Madison would be back in his own house where he belonged, but what then? Emma’s twelve-year absence from the Madison farmhouse spoke clearly that it wasn’t where she thought she belonged. The uncomfortable silence inside the luxury sedan spoke volumes.

“It’s good to see you home,” he said, breaking the silence. She nodded. It was one thing to treat a heart attack, quite another to treat a wounded heart. Emma glanced down at her father’s ringless left hand. She was keenly aware of what it meant to grow up without a mother. The memories she had of her mom were a thin scrapbook with no entries past the age of five. She’d turned those yellowed pages over and over again in her mind. She wondered if he had a scrapbook filled with memories of the wife he’d loved and lost. Did he wish it were not Emma bringing him home but Hannah?

“Don’t worry about me,” he said.

“What? I’m not worried. I’m happy you’re coming home. You’ll be more comfortable propped up in your easy chair.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Emma parked the Cadillac close to the side porch. She walked around the car and helped her father walk into the house. She hooked the car keys next to Old Red’s on the key post by the door.

“How long can you stay?” he asked.

“I haven’t planned my return flight yet. Probably Friday.”

“Trips are always like bookends,” he said. “The first one’s called ‘coming home,’ and the other one’s called ‘going back.’ They’re always inseparable.”

Emma threaded her arm though her father’s, helping him to walk into the dining room, and on into the comfortable living room. She’d always loved that room. Recessed white bookshelves filled with everything from history books to novels to framed photographs and souvenirs. The decor hadn’t changed in the time she’d been away. A colonial plaid sofa lined one wall, bordered by dark pine coffee and end tables tinted in ebony. Magazines filled the caramel-colored V-shaped rack on the floor next to his reading chair. The house smelled like spiced cinnamon. That was her addition.

“How’d you get the house to smell like this?” he asked.

“I thought it’d be nice to come home to. It’s something I picked up in town.”

Emma settled Will into his reading chair in front of the television, fishing the remote control from the top drawer of the table next to him and setting it on his arm rest.

“Are you hungry?” she asked him.

“Starved. You wouldn’t believe what they had me eating in there.”

“I’ll make some lunch,” she said.

On her trip into town to pick up her father, Emma had noticed the “We’re Open” sign in front of the Whitfields’ Orchard. She’d purchased a half-dozen Golden Delicious apples. Emma collected them from the Cadillac, emptied them into a stainless steel colander, and set them to rinse in the sink. On the countertop was a wooden cutting board and a set of kitchen knifes sitting upright in a block. Emma clutched the wooden handle of the paring knife with wet hands and pulled the first apple out to slice it in half. She quartered it, removed its dark brown seeds, then sliced each of the quarters once more.

A sharp flash of recognition pierced Emma, a memory so vivid and real she almost cut herself with the edge of the knife. Water continued flowing from the tap, making a staticlike noise as it cascaded over the apples. Emma stood there, frozen. Snapshots of decades-old images of her mother, Hannah Madison, standing at the kitchen sink cutting apples flashed before her eyes.

Her hands trembled as she relived the visual memory, seeing her mother standing at the sink, from the viewpoint of a child’s eyes.

Emma laid the knife on its side. She could almost sense her mother’s presence in the room. Inexplicably, she spun around suddenly just to confirm she was alone.