The Fireman's Homecoming

by Allie Pleiter

  Dad picked up a fork and poked at the beige slab in questionable gravy. “Do they think I’ve already forgotten what real food tastes like?”

  Melba hated when he made those kind of comments—the ones that hinted he knew how far he’d slipped and how fast. Alzheimer’s at this age was bad enough, but to be aware of your own decline seemed too cruel for anyone. She wanted to run into the bathroom and sob but she plastered a smile on her face. “Think of it as incentive. Choke down the bad food so you can go home to Barney’s good cooking.”

  Dad smiled at the mention of the hefty woman who came every afternoon to tend house and fix him dinner. Barbara Barnes, or “Barney,” as everyone called her, had insisted on coming by daily even after Melba moved in. “Barney’s meatloaf,” he sighed, resigning himself to the penance of hospital turkey.

  She gestured like a game-show hostess. “And it could be yours if you just behave for one more day.”

  “I’ll share.” He hoisted the fork in her direction.

  Melba held up a hand. “No, thanks. I’ve got someone bringing me Dellio’s in a few minutes. I may even let you have a fry if you polish off your turkey.” It sounded so horridly parental, the unnatural role reversal of eldercare lamented by every book and friend.

  “Well, isn’t that dandy, you getting one of those cheeseburgers you like so much and leaving me with these mushy peas.”

  Melba sighed. She’d been a vegetarian for six years.

  * * *

  Clark checked his watch and winced. “You know, Plug, I need to ban the phrase ‘I’ll be right back’ from my vocabulary.”

  The firehouse dog offered a sympathetic woof that sounded far too much like “I told you so” before wandering off to the kitchen.

  Clark followed. “Hey, Pop? Do you know when visiting hours are over at the hospital?”

  “Eight,” came his father’s voice over the usual meal-time chatter from the firehouse dining room.

  It was seven-fifteen. An hour after he’d promised Melba Wingate he’d be “back in fifteen” with a meal from Dellio’s. Clark glowered at the pager fixed to his belt. “What? Do you have some kind of radar to know when it’s the worst time to go off?” Some days that little black device felt more like a ball and chain than lifesaving technology—especially when it signaled a false alarm like it had this evening. If he ever got his hands on the kid who pulled that fire alarm over at the high school, it wouldn’t be pretty. “Do you know if you can hear the siren over at the hospital?” It was a slim chance Melba heard the siren and realized he’d been called into duty, but it was better than her thinking him a jerk.

  Pop poked his head up from the pot he was stirring. He rarely went out on calls anymore, so he was in a red apron and holding a bowl of chili—it had become his role to ensure everyone got fed once they came in off a call. “I expect not. Folks need to get their sleep over there, you know. You want cheese on yours?”

  Clark grabbed his keys off a hook in the hallway. “I’ll pass. I was supposed to be somewhere an hour ago.”

  “You need to eat and they’ll understand.”

  Clark shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not so sure.”

  Pop sat back on one hip. “Who’s not going to understand a volunteer firefighter going out on call?” It was more of an accusation than a question. Chief George Bradens brooked no disrespect whatsoever where the Gordon Falls Volunteer Fire Department was concerned. Besides, Clark had made plans to have dinner with his dad even before the call. Before Melba.

  “I met Melba Wingate over at the hospital. Mort’s daughter. She looked in a bad way, so I told her I’d run and get her something from Dellio’s and bring it back to her so she wouldn’t have to leave her dad.”

  Some kind of weird shadow passed over Pop’s face. “She’ll get over it. She just hasn’t lived here long enough to remember what it is we all do around here.”

  “Maybe, but I feel bad.”

  “Well, you ought to.”

  “Even if I stop by Dellio’s first, there would still be a half an hour of visiting hours by the time I could get to the hospital. I’ll try a last-ditch effort in case she’s still there. You’ll still be here when I get back, right?” he called as he ducked out the door. After two seconds he circled back to add “Mort’s doing fine,” but not before he realized Pop hadn’t asked after Mort.

  Which was odd because Pop asked after everyone. Pop was like Gordon Falls’s universal grandfather, poking his nose into everyone’s welfare. He’d always thought there was something odd about the chill between those two, but then again he’d just stood Pop up for dinner. Again. So much for trying to prove to his father that he’d put his old, irresponsible ways behind him. Why was it he had such a gift for disappointing people? He put it from his mind as he thumbed through his cell phone to the listing for Dellio’s “call ahead and pick up” line.

  Chapter Two

  Clark knocked on the hospital room door even though it was partway open. “Better late than never, I hope.”

  The pile of snack wrappers on the side table by Melba made him wince. She looked worse than earlier, looking over her shoulder at him with weary eyes. Her father seemed to be dozing, his head turned toward the window and a blanket tucked up over his thin shoulders. He didn’t know Mort all that well, but it didn’t take a lot of familiarity to see the man was in bad shape. His thin, wiry body slumped without energy against the hospital bed.

  “That was a long fifteen minutes.” Her words were lifeless, as if she were too tired to be angry.

  Clark palmed the pager at his side. “Got a call. Normally I take cell numbers because this kind of thing happens all the time, but I didn’t have yours. Sorry I kept you waiting.”

  She pushed a strand of hair out of her face. She wore exotic, artsy jewelry on several fingers—the handmade kind with lots of colored stones—and a bulky gold band on one thumb. “It’s okay.” He looked past the dark brown curls to see red-rimmed eyes. She’d been crying.

  “No, it’s not.” He kept his voice soft as he walked farther into the room. “Hey, look, are you going to be okay? No offense, but you look like you need a lot more help than just a decent meal.”

  She took a deep breath and swept up the pile of wrappers into the trash can. “It’s been...a bit rough today, that’s all. Harder than I thought.”

  Even though his training as a first responder injected him into people’s moments of pain all the time, he felt this intrusion keenly. “What isn’t?” He placed the bag on the table, uncomfortable but still unwilling to leave. “Is he in pain?”

  “Just really confused. He wakes up not remembering where he is or why he’s here.”

  “Sounds understandable.” Her watched her pull herself wearily out of the chair. “You think he’ll be better once he gets back home?”

  It was the wrong question. “I’m sure he will.” Disbelief pushed a false brightness into her words even as fear leapt up in her eyes. “Thanks, I’m starved.”

  “I’m glad I made it under the wire. Another ten minutes and they wouldn’t have let me in. I’d have been forced to eat that giant fungus for you.”

  She managed a small smile that broadened when she opened the bag of French fries and the savory aroma filled the room. The half-eaten contents of the bag sitting on the seat of Clark’s car held testament to the truth that nothing in the world grew an appetite faster than the scent of Dellio’s fries.

  The aroma even roused Mort, who groaned and rolled his head on the pillow to face them. His ashen face startled Clark. It seemed impossible that the man in that bed was nearly the same age as his own robust father—they looked decades apart.

  Mort’s brows furrowed in confusion, staring at Clark as if he were a misplaced object. Melba walked over to touch her father’s arm, her whole body reacting to his wakefulness. Something dark and hard
flashed in Mort’s eyes, and he began to pull himself up off the bed. “What’s he doing here?” he snapped.

  “That’s Clark Bradens, Dad. He brought...”

  “How dare he come here?” Mort jabbed an accusatory finger in Clark’s direction. “You swore to me, Maria, you said you’d never...”

  “Dad, it’s Melba. Calm down, okay?” With a flash of a look in Clark’s direction, Melba pushed her father back onto the bed and hit the nurse call button.

  “Get him out of my home!” Mort yelled, and Clark backed up toward the door.

  “I’m sorry, he’s not himself.” Melba struggled to keep Mort from rising.

  Clark felt awful for not being able to help, but it seemed clear that moving any closer to Mort would just escalate things. “I’ll just go.” The nurse came in behind him as he ducked out of the room.

  “Go away and don’t come back!” Mort’s brittle voice called behind him.

  * * *

  Her father’s angry words still echoed in Melba’s head as she stared into her tea the next morning. The chill of them made her pull the afghan Mom had knitted for her first apartment tighter around her shoulders. Its blue-and-green design didn’t fit this house’s color scheme, but then again nothing from her Chicago apartment looked at home in this country bungalow. She was at home and out of place at the same time.

  The color clash was a mirror of her mood. Events felt confusing since last night, facts wouldn’t fit together in neat patterns, and life itself felt disjointed and tangled.

  “I’m...” she searched for the right verb as she stroked Pinocchio, the fat tabby who’d been their pet since Melba was sixteen “...tumbling into a new life today, hm?” Tumbling seemed like the best word. Tumbling was something set in motion not by her, but by things beyond her ability to control. Tumbling didn’t imply control or direction—and she felt like none of those were in her grasp today. Pinocchio merely purred and pushed against her hand, the universal cat gesture for “more, please.”

  “Dad’s coming home today. You’ll get plenty of petting soon.” Pinocchio was one of the few things guaranteed to calm Dad down when he got confused. Pinocchio and music. Melba had loaded Dad’s favorite record album—a collection of old hymns played on the piano—onto her digital music player so she could play them for him in the hospital. She had it playing now. It was nice to have the music cue the long-remembered lyrics in her head—“Great is Thy Faithfulness” was a good message for someone thrashing their way through a huge life shift.

  When she heard the cuckoo clock downstairs in the living room announce 8:00 a.m., Melba shook off the afghan and hoisted Pinocchio from her lap. Resolutely, she walked downstairs. Face the day head-on, Melba girl. Bright April sunshine filled the kitchen from the window over the sink. Melba let the light soak in, a welcome counterbalance to the cloudy way her soul felt today. Cued by the music, Melba sang the hymn’s reassuring words as she loaded her breakfast dishes into the twenty-year-old dishwasher and spun the funky little dial to hear it gurgle to life.

  Am I gurgling to life? Or about to drown?

  Barney was sitting at the kitchen table making a shopping list when Melba came back downstairs dressed and showered. With a lopsided grin, she nodded toward the dishwasher. “You paid for that, didn’t you?”

  Melba had to laugh. “I’m used to living in an apartment building where you can run the dishwasher and the shower at the same time.” She mimed a shiver. “Brrr, but at least I’m wide awake now. I don’t suppose they have decent chai tea at the supermarket here, do they? I need better caffeine these days.”

  Barney laughed. She was a hefty, jolly woman, the kind whose eyes sparkled and whole body jiggled when she laughed. “Lipton’s about as exotic as they get down at Morgan’s Finer Foods, darlin’.”

  Melba added Stop at Karl’s Koffee and get some decent tea to her mental list of “Dad Coming Home Tasks.”

  “Coming-home day,” Barney said as she opened the door and surveyed the empty fridge. “Glad of it, too. I don’t like to think of your dad holed up in one of those cold, harsh hospital rooms. He needs his things around him, you know?”

  “He does, I know.” Half of her was glad Dad was going to be discharged today, but the other half of her was anxious, even with Barney’s offer of extra help. “Dr. Nichols just called the fever ‘a bump in the road,’ but I’m worried. He seemed to...” she searched again for the right verb “...unravel in a way he hasn’t before.” It seemed a better way to put it than “I think he blurted out a deep dark secret about me,” which was what the back of her mind had been yelling at her all morning despite every effort to ignore it.

  “Hey,” she called over her shoulder as she stuffed papers into a purple batik tote bag, “did Dad ever blurt stuff out at you...say things you’re not sure he meant?” It didn’t come off as casually as she tried to make it sound.

  She felt Barney’s hand on her shoulder and almost resisted turning, afraid she’d be unable to stop herself from crumpling into a tearful heap on the big woman’s shoulders. “It’s not him talking, child, it’s the disease. Don’t you dare take it personal when he gets mean like that.”

  Melba swallowed, unsure whether to be glad Barney half mistook her real question. “I know.”

  Barney pointed at her. “Do you know how glad—how well and truly glad—he was to know you were coming home to him? How much that meant to him? Means to him?”

  “It means as much to me. He acts like it was this big sacrifice on my part, as if he has to make it up to me every waking moment, but I chose to come back. I would never have chosen not to come.” She blinked back the tears that threatened. Over the last two days it felt like she’d spent more time swallowing back a sob than she spent breathing. She tugged what proved to be the last tissue from the box on the kitchen table.

  Barney smirked and grabbed the grocery list from the table to add “tissues x 3” to her list. “There’s too many youngsters would have chosen not to come, you know. Kids who bolt when life gets hard or messy. Life is hard and messy, I tell my Jake all the time.” She cupped Melba’s cheek like a doting grandmother. “The wise among us know you live into the hard, live into the mess, because running from it never works. It always comes and finds you.” Barney waved her hands as if shooing her words like flies. “As if you need any such sermon on a day like today. How about I make sure there’s a chocolate cake waiting for you and Mort when you get home? Jake’ll tell you there’s no healing power like that of a wise mama’s chocolate cake.”

  Melba started to decline, and then decided a wise mama bearing chocolate cake was no gift horse to look in the mouth. Not today. “Just get some skim milk to go with it?”

  Barney scowled a bit, obviously thinking anything “reduced fat” was an abomination of nature. The woman put whipping cream in her coffee, and was probably the reason Dad managed to keep most of his weight on when so many other of Dr. Nichols’s patients dropped pounds. “And yogurt, if you don’t mind,” Melba added, remembering the full bag of fries she’d put away with glee last night. “Anything with ‘light’ on the label will do.” She needed to get running again or her waistline would soon succumb to the ravages of the Barney Meal Plan.

  “Call my cell when you know what time you’ll be coming home. I’ll make sure Jake swings by in case we need some of my son’s manpower to get your dad up the steps.”

  Dad unable to get himself up his own front steps. The thought struck a cold note under her ribs. She grabbed the keys to her Prius and applied a smile to her face. “It’ll be okay, Barney, I’m sure it will.”

  “Well, you know what they say.”

  Melba stopped with the door half-open. “What do they say?”

  “It’ll all be okay in the end. And if it ain’t okay yet, well, then it ain’t the end yet either.”

  Oh, no, Melba thought, it’s just the beginn
ing.

  * * *

  Clark caught sight of Melba as she walked down Tyler Avenue, Gordon Falls’s main street, toward the corner that housed Karl’s Koffee. He was glad she looked a bit stronger. He rushed across the street to tap her shoulder. “Hey, Melba, hi. Look, I’m really sorry about last night.”

  “You shouldn’t apologize—you didn’t do anything other than bring me dinner. I’m sorry Dad hauled off at you like that. I think maybe he thought you were someone else.”

  “I knew it wasn’t about me. But being an hour late with your food? That was all me.”

  “Yeah, but you already apologized for that.”

  There was still so much weariness in her eyes. “That’s some tough going with your dad. Is he coming home anytime soon?”

  “I’m heading over there in a bit. Yesterday afternoon Dr. Nichols said he would probably come home today, but...” She shrugged while he pulled open the door to Karl’s for her. “It’s so up-and-down, you know?”

  No, he didn’t know. Pop was still as sharp as a tack and going strong at fifty-four, and while Mom’s diabetes had taken her life too soon, it had never been the sort of drawn-out trauma Melba had ahead of her. “That memory-loss stuff seems so hard to handle.”

  “Most times it’s not so bad but you...well...” She blinked, and took a deep breath. “You caught him at his worst.”

  Clark felt an unwanted tug toward Melba and the huge burden she carried. He was always a softie for a damsel in distress, only now was absolutely not the time. Now was supposed to be all about his new job at the department, about making things right with Pop. Still, every lecture he’d given himself about professional focus couldn’t stop the invitation from coming out of his mouth. “Buy you a cup of coffee?”

  She looked up at him as if the thought of someone doing something nice for her were a foreign custom. “You don’t owe me.”

  “I know.” Now it was he who shrugged. “But if you were heading for Karl’s I’m guessing you could use one.”

  She gave him a slip of a smile, just enough of a hint to let him know her full-blown grin would have distracted him for hours. Cut that out, Bradens. You promised no female distractions. You get sidetracked and stupid when a woman enters the picture, and too much is on the line here. She ordered a scone and some odd chai thing—soy milk and other strange ingredients—and surprised him by asking for a china mug instead of a to-go cup which made him feel obligated to do the same. It felt like cheating on his “no female distractions” policy when he slipped into the booth by the window—she obviously thought he’d meant a visit when he offered to buy her a drink, not just the purchase of a beverage. And it’d be rude to refuse, right? Sitting down for coffee. A friendly cup of coffee. Between friends. When was the last time he’d done that? He didn’t even know Karl’s would serve in actual mugs, and he lived here.