The Fireman's Homecoming

by Allie Pleiter

  And now, so did she. Distractions...

  “Extra time.” She sighed, looking around the folksy little coffeehouse. “I’d forgotten it existed. I’d also forgotten it only takes two seconds to get anywhere in Gordon Falls. I’m so used to leaving time for traffic.”

  “We don’t really get Chicago-brand traffic in Gordon Falls. You can count the streetlights on one hand. Ah, but come some of the holiday weekends, just watch how the locals grumble that you can’t park within a block of Tyler Avenue.”

  She gave a small laugh as she wrapped her hands around the large blue stoneware mug. She wore a dark purple nail polish and all those rings he’d noticed the other night. He couldn’t tell if the exotic spicy scent that wafted toward him was from her hair or the tea, but its uniqueness intrigued him. And that hair, that mass of dark curls tumbling around her shoulders—how had he not remembered Melba Wingate and that hair? “You were a freshman when I was a junior, weren’t you?” Clark had absolutely no remembrance of the teenage Melba. Sure, he knew her name—Wingate’s Log Cabin Resort had been a Gordon Falls staple for years before they’d finally closed up shop after Mrs. Wingate died—but nothing else about her. “What did you do after school?”

  Melba sipped her tea. “I went to design school in Chicago, and then got a job at a textile import house. I figured import-export was the perfect way to see the world. I got to do a few trips and was getting ready to go on a large-scale overseas buying expedition when things got...” Her eyes flashed up at him, then back into the mug. “...complicated. Work’s been really nice about the whole thing, shifting me to handle their online catalogue while I’m here dealing with...Dad.” She used a knife to cut her scone in half. A perfect, thoughtful cut. Artistic. “You?”

  Clark thumbed the name badge on his shirt pocket. “Two years of criminal justice at the local community college, but I was never the kind of guy to finish things, so I went into firefighting pretty much after that. I worked in Detroit for seven years until I came back here.”

  “The big-city fireman.”

  “Well, Detroit. Maybe not as big as Chicago, but it makes up for it in intensity.”

  She sized him up as she ate a bite of her scone. “I never pegged you for the kind to come back home.”

  It had to come up sooner or later. Clark sighed. He still hadn’t come up with a graceful way to answer comments like that. “It’s not a new story. Bad boy goes off to the big city to find new ways to be bad, hits bottom, comes home a changed man.” Clark pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking that sounded arrogant. “Or hopes he comes home a changed man. I’m still ironing out the kinks, as you already know.”

  She leaned back in the booth, finger running around the rim of her mug. “I think I remember hearing something about an accident. Was that the bottom you hit?”

  Calling that night an accident was like calling an earthquake a bump in the road. Talking about that point in his life was a four-hour conversation, not something for a quick morning coffee. It wasn’t the kind of thing Clark could share with just anyone, despite the warm look in Melba’s eyes. She was dealing with her life tilting in a different direction, and he knew what that felt like. Maybe that was why he felt so drawn to her. But she had enough trouble on her plate. Digging into his own mess with Melba Wingate was not on today’s menu—on this year’s menu—of good ideas. He drank down the last of his coffee and made a show of checking his watch—the only way he could think of to slip out of the oncoming conversation. “Yeah, well, that’s a story needing way more time than you or I have.”

  She peered at her half-empty mug and scone with only a bite taken out of it. “I should probably head on over to the hospital.” Her words lacked any sense of hurry whatsoever.

  Clark’s gut grew a black hole, and it wasn’t from gulping his coffee. He was leaving her hanging—again—and he knew it, but he also knew that the potency of that topic with this woman was a bad combination. He could not get so personal with her and keep it “friendly.” The goal here was to keep his focus on becoming the department’s new chief, and Clark’s terrible track record bore witness that any romantic entanglements would mess up the chance he had here in Gordon Falls. “No, stay, enjoy the sunshine. I just have to go... Appointment... Firehouse stuff.” He wanted to whack his forehead for how lame that excuse sounded. “Hope things go well for your dad.”

  Her smile was polite but hollow. “Me, too. It’s been a rough couple of days.”

  Clark made himself sit still a moment longer. “This is a good town, you know. People know your dad. They’ll want to help, so don’t be afraid to ask for it when you need it, okay? Barney knows everyone and Pastor Allen can have twelve casseroles at your house in under an hour—our deacons’ board is like a SWAT team.”

  He was glad that got a laugh from her. He wanted her to get connected—it was just better if it wasn’t to him. “I’ve been meaning to get settled in a church here.”

  With her words, a memory of high school Melba invaded his brain. A gawky, frizzy-haired teen girl heading up to the youth Bible study he used to make such fun of with his wild friends. How the world had changed for them both.

  Chapter Three

  “Okay, now, you’re settled.” Melba tucked the knitted afghan over Dad’s knees. He looked so old, the recliner’s worn cushions nearly swallowing his thin body.

  “What a lot of work getting up those front steps.” She couldn’t tell if Dad’s remark was in annoyance or admission. Did he have any sense of how frail he’d become? “When did we paint them that awful green?” He glared out the window at them, eyes narrowed in the expression of a man gloating over a vanquished foe.

  She could almost laugh. Maybe it was better if Dad blamed the steps. “Two years ago. And the green’s not so bad.”

  “It’s all wrong. I liked them better when they were brown.”

  The most amazing details from way back would pop into his mind like that. The steps hadn’t been brown for almost ten years—they’d been beige before they were green. Melba took her father’s coat and hung it on the bentwood coatrack by the door. “Maybe we’ll paint them this summer.”

  “I’d like that.” The smile seemed to transform her father’s face, to roll back the years as it lit up his eyes. “I’m hungry. The food in there was lousy.”

  “Nutrition is boring,” Barney declared, waltzing into the room with two sizable slices of chocolate cake. “So I’m banning healthy meals for the rest of the day.” She winked at Dad as she put the fork into his right hand. For a while they’d thought he’d lost his appetite, getting surly at meals, until one supper he let it slip that he couldn’t remember which hand to use. Now Barney slid the fork into his hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Barney was amazing at helping Dad without making him feel “helped.” Melba had run out of ways to thank her.

  “Where’s your slice?”

  Barney rubbed her hefty stomach. “Already gone. Someone had to make sure it was up to snuff.”

  “You’re a doll,” Dad said behind a mouthful of cake. “Delicious as always.”

  Picking up her handbag, Barney tapped Melba’s shoulder. “I’ll be at church for the women’s committee till four. I’ll be back to check on you and put the casserole into the oven at five so you all can eat at six. You all call me if you need anything. Anything at all.”

  “We’ve got cake, we’ll be fine as can be,” Dad said.

  Barney smiled, but caught Melba’s eyes with a silent “You going to be all right on your own?” raise of one eyebrow.

  “Fine as can be,” Melba echoed, banning all sounds of worry from her voice. In truth, she was more than a little nervous, wondering if Dad’s fits of anger or anxiety would soon loom larger than she could handle. Looking back at him now, she saw just a happy old man eating cake in his favorite chair.

  * * *

&
nbsp; They passed the afternoon without incident, Dad napping while Melba formatted half a dozen digital catalogue pages for work and plowed through the pile of emails left unattended during the hospital stay. “I’ll need to learn to give myself wider margins on deadlines,” she wrote her boss, Betsy, in the email that submitted the catalogue pages, thankful that she’d had the cable company install wireless internet a week ago. “Life can get upended on a moment’s notice over here.” It annoyed her that the pages were a day behind schedule—usually Melba managed to get things in early. “On time is late for Melba,” Betsy used to joke. She doubted anyone would say that anymore.

  “Melba?” Dad’s voice startled her, it was so clear and strong.

  “Right here, Dad.”

  “It’s four-thirty, isn’t it?”

  She glanced at the clock above the kitchen table where she’d been working. “Four twenty-eight, to be exact.”

  “Aren’t I supposed to take one of those enormous pills now?”

  Melba pulled the huge, multi-compartmented pill sorter toward her—recently refilled with some new additions—and consulted the list. “Wow, Dad, you’re good. Yep, it’s one of those big yellow ones.” She filled a glass with water and brought him the pill with two others in the “Afternoon” compartment.

  Dad made a face. “These are monsters. They used to be small and white.”

  They did. His memory was still there, peeking out, holding on. “Well, Doc says you need a double dose for the next few weeks.”

  “Let him choke ’em down, then.” He slid the collection into his mouth, grimaced, then swallowed. “I might need more cake to ease the way.” Dad grinned up at her like a mischievous child.

  “You’ll spoil your supper.”

  “Fine by me.”

  He seemed so here, so alert and happy. “How about a cup of tea instead?” Some huge part of her wanted to sit with him right now and make him tell her all of whatever he’d begun to say back there in the hospital. Another part of her wanted to run, to put her fingers in her ears like a disobedient child, and pretend she’d never heard a thing. Mostly, she craved the connected gaze of his eyes, the true conversation he seemed capable of right now. The urge to hoard his salient moments, to stockpile his wisdom and affection, surged up until she bent over the recliner and gathered him in a fierce hug.

  “What’s this fuss?” His words spoke surprise but his eyes told her he knew what was behind her embrace.

  “I’m just glad you’re home,” she managed, blinking too fast.

  “You and me both, Melbadoll.”

  She laughed. “I think it’s been fifteen years since you’ve called me that.”

  “You told me you hated it back in high school.”

  “What did I know back in high school?”

  He laughed. It sputtered into a small cough, but it was a laugh just the same. Melba jumped on the tiny boost of courage it gave her. “Hey, Dad, guess who I ran into this morning from my high school days?” It felt safer not to start with Clark’s visit to the hospital room.

  “Who?”

  “Clark Bradens. It took me a minute or so to recognize him, he’s changed so much. I never thought he’d clean up his act. He’s going to be fire chief when George retires next month, right?”

  The mention wiped the smile from Dad’s face. “So they say.” He reached for the television remote.

  She couldn’t help herself. She wanted to know what had caused the strong reaction to Clark’s visit at the hospital. “What’s he like?”

  “How would I know? I don’t see that boy.” He turned on the news and turned up the volume. The conversation had been declared over. She wasn’t really surprised that Dad had said “that boy” with the same tone people had used to refer to Clark in high school. Usually around the phrase “stay away from that boy.” Clark was no hero back then.

  Melba was opening her mouth to try again when Barney pushed open the back door. “Lord, save me from church committees!” she declared as she shucked off her coat and set her handbag on the table. “A lot of good may get done, but a whole lot of not-good creeps in around the edges. Some town gossips ought to just hush up and stay home.”

  Melba left her dad to his television news and leaned against the kitchen doorway. “Tough day at the office?”

  “Talk, whisper, talk. And then they wonder why the young people leave this town.” Barney shook her head. “We’ve known for two weeks since the town council meeting, but the yammering hasn’t stopped yet. You’d think there’s never been a second chance given in the whole wide world the way some of them went on about Clark Bradens this afternoon. Ain’t too many of us could stand up to judgment by who we was in high school.” She gave out a trio of disapproving tsk-tsks as she moved the casserole dish from the fridge to the oven.

  “Clark Bradens? Why’d he come up?”

  “Some folks want to throw him a nice party when George retires and he takes up as fire chief. I say it’s a fine thing to celebrate a son coming home like that. Others, well...they don’t see it that way. All they can see is a young high school punk coasting on his papa’s coattails. Honestly.” Melba wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “How many years has it been, and since when isn’t a man allowed to grow up and get it right?”

  “Who says he’s grown up and gotten it right?” Melba could hardly believe Dad was standing behind her. He’d gotten up out of the recliner all on his own?

  “He seemed nice enough to me.”

  “When’d you meet him?”

  Dad was fine, Dad wasn’t so fine. It was like living on an emotional Ping-Pong table. “I just told you I ran into him this morning.” Her frustration ran away with her better sense, because she heard herself add, “You yelled at him last night when he brought me food in your hospital room.”

  “I couldn’t have yelled at him. He’d have no business visiting me.”

  “I just said he was bringing me food. I met him in the hospital cafeteria and he offered to get Dellio’s for me but a fire alarm made him late.”

  Dad shuffled into the kitchen and plopped himself down on the nearest chair. “He’s going to be fire chief.” He did not say it like a person pleased with the idea. In fact, his words had a “there goes the neighborhood” tone.

  Melba started to say “We just talked about that,” but shut her mouth in resignation. Instead, she caught Barney’s eye over her father’s head, and they shared a split second of silent concern.

  “Did you really holler at that boy? Or rather, since he is older than your daughter, did you really holler at that man?” Barney asked.

  “I just said I didn’t yell at that Bradens boy,” Dad snapped.

  “Have the world your way, then.” Barney huffed. It was what she said whenever Dad’s version of the world didn’t line up with reality. Melba hoped she’d someday acquire the ability to let it roll off her the way Barney did. “Get on out of this kitchen, you grumpy old man. Dinner won’t be ready for another fifty minutes.”

  Melba reached out to help her father out of his chair, but he brushed her off. With considerable effort, Dad pushed himself up and shuffled, grumbling, back to the recliner. She stared after him and shook her head. “Should I be glad he’s moving around, or annoyed at his mood?”

  Barney laughed and pulled a package of brown-and-serve rolls out of the freezer. “Both.”

  Melba got a cookie sheet out of the cabinet and took the package from Barney. “He really did haul off at Clark in the hospital room,” she said quietly as she broke apart the rolls and arranged them on the cookie sheet. “It was scary, actually. Came out of nowhere. He yelled at Clark like they knew each other.”

  Barney leaned back against the counter. “You know George Bradens and your father have never gotten along—not for a long time, anyway. Too easy to get a flood of bad water under the bridg
e in a small town like this. I heard they were close when they were younger.”

  A thought struck Melba. “Clark looks a lot like his dad, doesn’t he?”

  “With all that Bradens red hair, I expect he does. I ain’t ever seen a photo of young George but I can picture it easy enough.”

  Melba moved closer. “Dad kept thinking I was Mom last night. Do you suppose he thought Clark was George, thought it was back then?”

  “Could be.”

  “The question is, then, what could have happened in the past that made Dad so angry at George?”

  “Who knows?” Barney nodded in the direction of the living room. “But take care, hon. Sometimes it don’t pay to dig up past hurts like that.”

  Too late, Melba thought. The digging’s been started for me. Only I don’t know if Dad realizes he’s the one who picked up the shovel.

  * * *

  Melba pulled on her robe and padded downstairs like a woman about to face the noose. She’d been up half the night, her mind a storm of questions about what her father had said at the hospital when they’d been alone. She’d tried to put it out of her mind, knowing Dad didn’t want to talk about it. Help me let it go, she’d prayed nearly hourly since Dad had come home, but to no avail. With the thin pale rays of dawn came the realization that it could no longer be avoided.