Autumn Blue (7 page)

The red-meat thing was not the reason she gave Jack the “Let’s just be friends” line two years ago. It had been more than
that. When Jack fell in love with her, she just panicked. Suddenly the fun and comfort of having a relationship with someone
of the opposite sex had drained away. He wanted a commitment. ’Til death do us part. It shouldn’t have terrified her; she
could see that clearly now. Jack was a good man. He was nothing like Dodge.

Besides, hadn’t she known from the start that Dodge Walker was a dangerous man?

She had met Dodge the winter of her freshman year. Sidney had grown up in Ohio, but came out west to attend Western Washington
University. It seemed like a good idea at the time. A grand adventure. If she had known back then what she knew now, that
a stranger named Dodge Walker would pop out from between a couple of those famous Washington State evergreens to reroute her
life forever, she would have stayed close to home and gone to OSU like most of her friends.

Sidney and her cousin Tara were stomping through a tree farm searching for the perfect Christmas tree for the lobby in their
dorm. It was dusk when a young man suddenly emerged between two firs, wielding a crosscut saw.

“Ladies, I couldn’t help overhearing your discussion. You need something big. Something all you college women can gather around
in your shorty pajamas while you paint your toenails.” He grinned mischievously and winked. “I’ve got the tree of your dreams.”
He walked away without looking back. They followed the dark and dashing stranger down a path of slushy snow between rows of
fragrant evergreens, both girls more intrigued by the salesman at that point than the prospect of a perfect tree. He eventually
stopped short of a nine-foot-tall alpine, surveying it from top to bottom, and whistled. “Trust me. They don’t make ’em any
better than this.” His eyebrows shot up and he flashed another cocky grin. Black curls fringed the edges of his wool knit
cap. His eyes were brown like coffee with the sun shining through it, and when they stayed fixed on Sidney too long, she felt
herself blush.

“I wouldn’t sell this to just anybody,” he said. “This baby took a lot of coddling, years of precision pruning. Look at the
symmetry. These branches are so level you could serve dinner on them.”

“The alpines are, like, $60, aren’t they?” Tara asked.

“What’s the matter? You don’t like it?”

She nodded. “Sure, but—”

“It’s yours then.” He gave Sidney a long and suggestive look, raising his saw. “It happens that I’m in a very good mood today.”

“Wow. Thanks. But it’s too big,” Tara lamented. “There’s no way we can tie that on the top of my Honda.”

Dodge had answered her without taking his eyes off Sidney. “I deliver.” He reached out to brush a snow crystal from her lip.

It made her angry whenever she thought back on it. Not that he, a perfect stranger, had the gall to touch her like that. Not
even when she found out after the tree had already been erected and decorated that Dodge didn’t work for the tree farm. He
had tossed the artfully sculpted evergreen into the back of his pickup truck, which was parked in a roped-off field-turned-parking-lot,
as if he owned the place, without so much as a glance over his shoulder toward the pay station in the barn. What irked her
was that she had fallen for his blatant seduction like the naive schoolgirl that she was. Blinded by infatuation.

Sidney gazed at the produce. She needed some things, but she couldn’t think of them now. Instead, her mind reasoned. She had
imagined flaws in Jack. She had let certain mannerisms bother her as a means of self-protection. How stupid was that? He had
been the very salve to heal her wounds and those of her children, but she had sent him away.

For all Sidney knew, Jack wasn’t even working today. If he wasn’t there, she would know this encounter, this reconnection,
was not meant to be. That would be that. From then on she would do her shopping in Ham Bone, where she knew her way around
the store and she could get the frozen blueberries home before they became a sloppy mess. She tossed a bag of fresh broccoli
into the cart and pushed it around the corner again, this time heading straight for the meat department.

Jack was nowhere in sight. The disappointment caught her by surprise. She stopped and stared into a cooler case of bacon and
sausages, not really seeing them. She was suddenly weary. It had been an emotionally wrenching day. Hadn’t it been enough
seeing her son thrown to the ground and hauled away by the sheriff? Driving frantically to the detention center only to be
kept waiting for hours? The attorney’s frankly pessimistic forecast of what was to come at the hearing? This whole idea had
been idiotic. She should be home now helping the girls get ready for bed.

She sighed, hugging herself against the chill of the refrigerated display case, too consumed by hopelessness to move on. She
was all alone with nobody to help. Nobody but God. She wished she knew Him like her mother.

Her mom had the kind of faith that expected miracles and got them. Like the time she emptied out her wallet for a homeless
woman while shopping in downtown Cleveland and then realized she didn’t have bus fare to get back home. She had just shrugged
and smiled. “The Lord will provide.” Sidney and her sister were hungry. Their mother led them back to the bus stop and they
waited. Then out of the blue, there was their neighbor, Mrs. Sanford, coming out of the florist shop. A neighbor, from way
out in the suburbs! They all piled into her big Cadillac, and Mrs. Sanford, delighted with their company, had insisted on
springing for dinner on the way home.

When things like that happened, Mom was not surprised. She just cast a glance and a wave to the sky. “Thank you, Jesus!”

“Excuse me. Have you decided yet?”

The woman startled her. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Sidney pushed her cart out of the way. “How long was I standing there?”

The middle-aged lady laughed. “Well, long enough to plan a few menus, I suppose.”

Now Sidney laughed. “I was off in la-la land. It’s a good thing you said something. I might have kept you waiting until they
turned the lights off on us.”

“Sidney?”

She whipped her head around. “Jack.”

“I’d know that laugh anywhere,” he said. He was pushing a tiered cart laden with beef. The other shopper placed some sausage
links in her cart and moved on. The first thing Sidney noticed was his tan. Her eyes flitted to his hand. His ring finger,
along with the others, was concealed inside yellow disposable gloves.

“How are you? You look great, Jack.” He really did. He was pretty buff for a guy who ate beef and potato chips and greasy
fried chicken. He wasn’t terribly short, but Sidney remembered feeling a little uncomfortable around him when she wore high
heels.

He smiled, a little cautiously. “Thanks. You’re as pretty as ever yourself. What are you doing in Dunbar? Did you move?”

“I moved, but not out of Ham Bone. We’ve got a house now—well, a double-wide mobile home anyway. It’s got a big yard and backs
up to a wood full of cedar and firs. I can’t see moving out of town as long as the kids are in school. We have good schools.”

“Yeah. That’s what I’ve heard. How are the kids?”

“Good. Growing like they’re standing in fertilizer.” This was not the time to tell him that Ty was locked up. “So what have
you been up to? Do you still fly model planes?”

He swiped at his nose with his rolled-up sleeve. One of the things that had annoyed her back when she was looking for reasons
not to fall in love. “Not much. I started building one about a year ago, but there it sits, unfinished. I played baseball
on the Traders Market team all summer; we took second in the tournament. Now I coach peewee football.”

“Good for you. You were always great with kids.”

There was an awkward silence. She thought she should fill it before the “What are you doing in Dunbar?” question came up again.
“I’m really glad to run into you, Jack. I’ve missed you.”

“You have?”

She looked him square in his blue eyes. “Yes. I’ve actually been thinking of you a lot lately.”

He stared at her blankly. Oh, crap. He
was
married.

“I mean, we had some good times, didn’t we? My kids sure liked you. Do you have any kids of your own yet?”

He wheeled his cart across the aisle and began stocking beef roasts in the cooler case. “Nope.” He glanced back at her as
if reading her face, then went back to work.

Had she been dismissed? It seemed, if she had any dignity at all, like a good time to wrap this conversation up and head for
the dog food aisle. “Well, I can see you’re busy—”

“Why did you break it off with me?”

His question shocked her. She had expected only small talk. Her eyes were riveted on the back of his head while his arms swiftly
packed roasts as if they were sandbags and the river was about to flood. “I don’t know. I can’t even remember anymore.”

He straightened and looked at her like she had just broken out with a highly contagious rash. “You can’t remember? I think
at the time you said something about incompatible goals and a bunch of other ethereal reasons that never made a lick of sense.
Not to me, anyway.”

“Jack, I—”

“Sorry,” he said, giving his head a quick shake. “Never mind all that. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

A man with a child on his hip walked up to Jack. “How can I help you, sir?” Jack asked.

“Those steaks over there look a little flimsy. Got any man-size cuts in there?”

Jack rummaged through the packages on the lowest shelf of his cart, producing two thick steaks with white fat borders. “Look
at the marbling in these babies.”

“Ah, beautiful. Thanks,” the man said as he tossed them onto his frozen vegetables and walked away.

Jack returned to his work.

“Are you married now, Jack?” There. She said it.

He lined up stew meat in a neat single-file row. “Nope.”

Well, he certainly wasn’t making this easy for her. “Jack, it’s possible that I might have been an idiot back then,” she said
to his back. “That’s not a definite, you understand, so don’t quote me on it, but the thought has entered my mind.”

He turned and a smile twitched at the corner of his lip. “Funny,” he said as he cocked his head. “I had the very same thought.”

I
T TOOK ONLY
a few seconds when Millard awoke the next morning to remember that this was no ordinary day. Throwing off his blanket, he
slid into his slippers, hastily wrapped a blue plaid bathrobe over his cotton undershirt and briefs, and, after a stop in
the bathroom, headed straight down the hallway toward the front door.

He was surprised when the door did not fly open with a twist of the knob. The dead bolt. In his anticipation he had almost
forgotten about the armed hoodlum who lived across the street. Millard had even double-checked the window latches the night
before to assure himself that everything was secure. Sure, the kid was supposed to be in jail, but that didn’t mean some wishy-washy
judge hadn’t merely slapped the kid’s hand and let him out again. Millard twisted the bolt free, a flutter of excitement overshadowing
any trepidation. In his mind he already saw his furry little marauder lying belly-up on the lawn, tongue hanging out and cheeks
bulging.

A tip from Red, the barber, yesterday while Millard had his hair trimmed had saved him the $39.95 that Art Umquist down at
the Hardware and Sporting Goods would have charged to special order a mole trap. Highway robbery! And the contraption might
not get there for three to six weeks! A mole could drag the thing by its hind leg all the way from Milwaukee faster than that.
But for less than a buck, Millard had bought the one thing moles couldn’t resist, despite the fact that it choked them to
death: Juicy Fruit gum.

What he saw brought instant tears of fury to his eyes. A word escaped his lips that he had not used since taking a bullet
in the wing of his F-86 Sabre over North Korea. Millard bolted down the concrete steps, tripped on the
Winger County Herald
, and suddenly began a running dive that landed him face-first on the spongy lawn.

For a moment he just lay there. His heart was pounding too fast, his world spinning out of control. It occurred to him that
this was the second time in two days that he had been this intimate with his land, lying prone like a subject before his lord.
Worse yet, like an old man who could no longer stand on his own two feet. The thought of the latter, and especially a fear
of the neighbor lady catching him in this position again, propelled him upward to his bare knees, and then with a labored
grunt to his feet. He pulled his bathrobe together and retied it, took a deep breath, and turned to survey his formerly perfect
lawn.

The mole’s new tunnel branched off from the first, meandering toward the apple tree, where it stopped abruptly beneath the
overhanging limbs. Must have bumped his noggin on a root, Millard thought. He stepped gingerly forward, peering at the fresh
pile of earth. He stooped, brushing the dirt aside until he could see the new hole. Nobody home as far as he could see. Yesterday’s
tunnel seemed undisturbed, the dirt piles having dried out a bit under the sun. He reached down and felt through the soil,
pulling out two perfect rectangles of Juicy Fruit gum.

THAT AFTERNOON
the crossword puzzle might as well have been in Swahili. Millard just couldn’t get it. Every time he stared out the window,
which was how he normally concentrated on a word clue, his eyes went to the jagged scars on his lawn. He tried looking beyond
them, but that landed his gaze on the eyesore across the street. That downspout hanging there was an ominous sign. Once one
house in the neighborhood went to pot, it wouldn’t be long before others followed. The inversion of keeping up with the Joneses.

Rita stopped by. She cheerily congratulated him for eating most of his frozen dinners during the past week but compensated
for the positive note by complaining that he should have called if he had planned to be gone all yesterday afternoon. “I didn’t
know where you were, Dad. For all I knew, you were lying in a ditch somewhere or flat on the kitchen floor, dead!”