Autumn Blue

by Karen Harter

  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.”

  8

  IT 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!”

  He didn’t mention the two episodes of lying flat on the lawn though very much alive. He did tell her in detail about his mole infestation, which seemed to concern her about as much as if he had said the sky was blue. She only looked over her shoulder at the damage through the picture window. “Well, yes. Look at that,” she said. “It’s a regular mole Disneyland.” And then she proceeded to tell him that Audrey Milhall was in town and how they hadn’t seen each other since their ten-year reunion but planned to get together on Friday night. Nicole’s football game was going to be out of town that night so Rita probably wouldn’t have gone to watch her lead cheers anyway, and Petie would be staying overnight with a friend. Dan could just fend for himself at home.

  “I haven’t seen the kids since Fourth of July,” he said.

  “Oh, Dad.” She patted his knee sympathetically. “You know, they’re teenagers now. Their lives are just so busy, what with all their practices and school events and friends. Dan says he’s thinking of installing a revolving door, the way they come and go so quickly. But you know Nicole has her driver’s license now. I’ll tell her to come on over here and see you sometime soon.”

  He put the paper on the lamp table and stood, stretching out his legs. “You tell her to bring her brother. I’ll take them out for root beer floats like we used to.”

  Rita’s lips flattened out. “Well, if you do that, let Nicole drive.” She sighed and paused long enough that he knew this was going to be something he didn’t want to hear. “About your car, Dad. About you driving it, I mean. I’m wondering if, at your age, you shouldn’t just park that thing for good.”

  “Confound it, Rita!”

  “Hear me out, Dad. It’s just that there was this story about older drivers on a news show, and the statistics are absolutely scary. You’d be amazed at how many of your peers are driving in imaginary lanes and running into telephone poles!”

  “So you think I’ve gone senile? Or blind?”

  “No! I just think your reflexes may not be all that they used to be, that’s all.”

  He began pacing the floor in front of her. “What are you really afraid of? That I might die? Well, so what if I do? So what if you come over here someday and find me in a heap on the kitchen floor because I ate corn dogs instead of shepherd’s pie and creamed peas? What difference would it make, as long as I don’t leave you with a mess to clean up? Who on God’s green earth really gives a hoot?”

  “Dad, you’re blowing this way out of proportion. I just want you to take care of yourself, that’s all.”

  “Maybe taking care of myself is not in my best interest! Did you ever think of that?” He strode to the front door and slammed it behind him. The first thing his eyes fell on was the cockeyed downspout on the trailer-house across the road. Rita came out and followed him all the way to the garage. He yanked his keys from his pocket.

  “What are you doing? Where do you think you’re going?
Dad, do not get in that car just to spite me!”

  He ignored her, unlocking the garage door and walking past the Lincoln, then pulled the metal ladder off its hooks on the back wall of the garage. The drawer of his red tool chest stuck at first, but gave way with a violent jerk that almost pulled it off its track. Millard gathered nails, hammer, and screwdrivers, anything he thought he might need, stuffing them into the leather tool belt that Molly gave him one Christmas and strapping it around him. His daughter watched silently from the open door, hands planted on hips. When he proceeded forward, the ladder in front of him like a battering ram, she backed away.

  “I’ve got some work to do,” he said.

  He felt her watching as he strode across the street. Though the ladder was somewhat heavy, he deliberately held it high, back straight, chin up. He might be pushing his mid-seventies, but he was not pushing up daisies. Give up his car! He’d sooner give up Sundays. Move to Haywood House! Pull a wheelchair up to the window and watch for Jesus to come again on the clouds. Wouldn’t that just sew everything up neatly for Rita and Dan? Dan, her real estate agent husband who kept getting market appraisals on Millard’s house, practically salivating as he told Millard that the value would go up now that the new supermarket and strip mall were going in down on Highway 12. Rita, no longer looking up to him, not so much as a glint of admiration in her eyes. He remembered how she used to beg him to twirl her in his arms, how proud she was of her daddy when he came to her school on career day. At her wedding she hugged him so tightly that he knew she had a hard time letting go. At what point had he become nothing but a worry and a burden to her?

  Millard lowered the ladder to the weedy flower bed at the far corner of Sidney Walker’s house and leaned it up against dirty, gray siding. He could see that it was a simple fix. All he had to do was reattach an aluminum strap meant to hold the downspout in place. With each step up the metal rungs, he relished the knowledge that Rita was still standing over there, holding herself back, biting her tongue. He would show her. He was still useful for something.

  It was not until he found himself staring through a bedroom window that he began to feel like a Peeping Tom. Was anyone home? His being there was really as much a surprise to him as it would be to anyone. It had not even occurred to him prior to that moment of frustration to fix the neighbor’s downspout, but here he was, peering into the window of a pink bedroom with two unmade twin beds. It was too early for the little girls to come home from school, and their mother was usually at work during the day. He glanced across the yard, dismayed to see that for once her oxidized red car was actually parked at the end of the gravel drive. Perhaps he should have knocked first.

  He would just get the job done and be gone. He knew Rita was still watching, whether from his driveway or in the house he didn’t know, but as sure as fleas on a stray dog she was fretting and fuming right now because he wasn’t sitting safely in his recliner, where he belonged. He placed a couple of nails between his lips and grasped the metal tube, hoisting it up toward the gutter. It was heavier than he’d thought. This was a bit difficult with only his left hand. He leaned to the left, his knees braced against the ladder. Stretching his right arm across his body, he pushed upward with both hands, his head tipped back awkwardly. At first the aluminum spout refused to match up with the mouth of the gutter. He grunted and adjusted his aim, blood draining from his head. There. Got it! He held it firmly with his left hand, fumbling for his hammer with the right, wishing for a third hand to pull a nail from his clamped lips.

  A shrill scream sliced the air. Millard jerked backward as if stabbed in the chest. The downspout fell from his grip, clattering against the side of the house. He grabbed for the ladder, fighting an immediate case of vertigo.

  The bedroom window slid open. “Oh, Mr. Bradbury! It’s you. What are you doing? You nearly scared me to death!”

  Sidney Walker had no idea who was nearly scared to death. His fingers clenched the ladder as if rigor mortis had already set in. Millard forced one hand loose and held his palpitating chest. “I didn’t mean to . . . I mean I wasn’t . . . your downspout. I was fixing your downspout.”

  “Oh.” She cocked her head. “Well, God bless you. I’ve been wanting to fix that, but I didn’t have a ladder. Just a minute.” The window slammed shut, and seconds later she came out the front door and down the steps. “Let me help you with that.”

  There were some advantages to being old, he guessed. If he were a younger man hovering outside her daughters’ window, Sidney would surely have called the sheriff. The sirens would be howling their way up Boulder Road from town right now. She helped him push the downspout onto the funnel of the gutter and held it in place while he nailed the strap to the siding.

  “I thought you would be at work,” he said. “Didn’t notice your car there until I was already up on the ladder.” He backed down the rungs and lowered the ladder to the ground.

  “Well,” she said with a sigh, “something came up today. I had to make a bunch of phone calls. Would you like to come in for some iced tea, Mr. Bradbury?”

  He should be tending to his mole problem. He had a new plan of attack and was sure it would get better results than the Juicy Fruit gum. He glanced over his shoulder toward his neat, white ranch-style house. Rita’s car was still in the drive. She didn’t normally stay this long. What was she waiting for? To give him a good scolding, that’s what. “I think I’d like some tea,” he said.

  Millard followed Sidney into her house. The place looked surprisingly cheery and a lot cleaner than one would suspect, judging by the outside. Quite tidy, really, with matching curtains tied back with fancy rope braids, an elegant cloth on the dining room table, and a huge bouquet of dahlias and daisies (which she certainly didn’t cut from her own yard). A painted coffee table held stacks of neatly folded clothes. He wandered to a wall of framed photos while Sidney commented from the kitchen on the nice Indian summer they were having and how she hoped it would last. The pictures were of her children from newborn to missing teeth to the awkward school photos where their front teeth looked too big for their faces. There was a mustached man in the family shots up until the boy looked to be maybe six or seven and the girls were still babies. Sidney cradled an infant or toddler in each of the poses, her thick, dark blond hair and big eyes almost too intense for her slight frame. The next portrait in line showed the father conspicuously missing, a blank spot where he belonged, almost as if they were expecting him to show up any second and breathlessly take his spot next to their mother, his hand resting as it had before on the shoulder of the dark-haired boy. A normal-looking boy he was—actually quite handsome, with wide brown eyes and long, dark lashes.

  “That’s Tyson,” she said, noting the photo that held his gaze. She passed Millard a tall, cold glass. “My precious jailbird.” She went to one of the chairs, motioning him to do the same. “Please sit.”

  “He’s still doing his time, eh?” Sidney had given him a brief update on her son’s situation when they had met at the mailbox on Saturday. He lowered himself into a chair.

  She nodded grimly. “His sentencing hearing is tomorrow. That’s why I didn’t go to work today. I’ve been talking to his attorney. She says the judge could try him as an adult, because the charge is a felony, and he could get up to five years.” At that she teared up. “Tyson is like a wild creature. He just can’t stand to be indoors for any length of time. He likes to take his sleeping bag and sleep out in the woods sometimes, all by himself.” She sighed. “I can’t bear the thought of him in that cage one more day.”

  “Have they let you talk to him?”

  “Yes. He’s terrified of jail. That’s why Ty bolted from the school counselor’s office the minute he reached for the phone to call the sheriff. He’d been camping out down by Sparrow Creek the whole time he was runaway. The day he was arrested, he had sneaked up to the window of my office through the back alley just to let me know he was all right. He said he missed me,” she said with a half smile. “But
someone thought he looked suspicious and called the sheriff. A deputy apparently got there in about two seconds flat.”

  She hadn’t touched her glass to her lips, but twirled the liquid gently, watching the ice cubes go around and around. Neither of them spoke for what seemed like a long time. Millard thought he should say something but couldn’t come up with anything appropriate.

  “He’s so angry,” she said. “It’s like he’s got a fire smoldering inside him, and it doesn’t take much to fan it to flame.” She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. Well, I do know I’m at work a lot. I wish I could be home when my kids get out of school.” She glanced up at her son’s childhood photo, the one where he held a caramel-colored puppy on his lap, boy gazing at dog and dog at boy in mutual admiration. She shivered, pulling her sweater around her, though it was a mild September day. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” She sighed. “I’ll find out tomorrow morning at his hearing, I guess.”

  Millard glanced nervously out the window just in time to see Rita’s car pull out of his driveway across the street. The blue Chevy cruised slowly past, his daughter no doubt straining her eyes to see what he was up to, wrinkling her forehead the way she did whenever she disapproved. The coast was clear now. He gulped down the last of his tea and set his glass on the coffee table next to a folded pile of washcloths. “Well, it probably won’t be as bad as all that,” he said, searching his mind for a Perry Mason episode to justify his statement but coming up blank. “You just get a good night’s sleep tonight. Things have a way of looking better in the morning.”

  He stood slowly, thanking her for the iced tea.

  “Here I’ve gone and spilled my guts to you again.” She smiled through teary eyes. “I guess you remind me a little of my dad. I used to confide in him about everything, but I don’t have him anymore. He passed on a few years ago. Anyway, I haven’t even asked. Did you solve your mole problem?”