Autumn Blue

by Karen Harter

  “I take Amilia every Sunday, but I haven’t enjoyed it in a long time. I kept hearing things I didn’t want to hear. Like you have to forgive others if you want God to forgive you.” He stopped at the window, his eyes searching the sky. “’Milia says God won’t ask us to do something we can’t do—with his help.” His eyes shot back to Tyson where he sat attentively, face upturned. “Do you believe in God?”

  “Yeah. I’m not stupid.”

  Sidney’s heart grew warmer by the second.

  “I don’t know how to fix us, Ty. But I’m suggesting we start by going to church together. Are you game?”

  “Will I get credit toward my community service hours?”

  Alex stepped back to the table. Ty’s chair had been scooted away from it, and Alex pulled his up and sat where their knees almost touched. “Yep. That’s what the program says. And maybe sometimes your mother and sisters will join us.” He glanced at Sidney, and she nodded, smiling softly.

  “Okay, I guess I’ll go,” Ty said.

  “I know you’re hurting,” Alex said. “Your dad has been beating you up for years, even if it hasn’t been physical before now. Those bruises go a lot deeper than the ones he gave you today. No one but you knows that pain. But you need to let it go somehow. What do you say we do whatever it takes to get free of the bitterness before it eats us alive?” Alex extended his hand.

  Ty sat motionless, his eyes fixed on the deputy’s. Then he lifted his hand, gripping Alex’s as if finally being rescued from certain drowning. They held their steady gaze.

  Sidney couldn’t move. The scene would be etched in her mind forever.

  Man and boy stood. “Why don’t you let me talk to your mom for a minute? You can wait outside.”

  Ty hesitated, glancing at the handcuffs on the table before stepping out.

  When the door closed behind him, Alex turned to Sidney. “Are you okay with all that?”

  She stared into his humble eyes. He wore the same stiff uniform, but it seemed to be filled with a different man—one that was soft and touchable. The wall at her back was the only thing holding her up. She nodded, blinking away tears. “Alex.” She inhaled deeply, hoping words would come. “You are a wonderful man.”

  “I didn’t mean to say all that. It just happened.” He gazed up toward the window. The afternoon light warmed his dark complexion, lit up the long fringe of lashes that shaded his brown eyes. He shrugged. “Funny. I suddenly saw myself in him. I didn’t want him to shut down like I have. He’s so young.”

  “You don’t sound shut down.” She smiled. “I see definite signs of life.”

  The tough, confident deputy sheriff stood awkwardly in front of her, his hands smoothing the sides of his pants as if he didn’t know what else to do with them. The vulnerability made him irresistible. “Yeah. I feel it,” he said. “Like something is about to change.”

  Their eyes held a long gaze, one that made Sidney suspect his heart might be pounding as loudly as hers. The silence was charged with unspoken words. Finally, he slipped his hand around her back and guided her gently to the door.

  30

  MILLARD OPENED ONE EYE. Rita was still there, gazing out the long window of his hospital room, her arms locked across her chest. He thought of feigning sleep again, but last time he had actually dozed off. For how long? He glanced at the clock: 6:30 P.M. “Shouldn’t you be home, cooking dinner for your family?” he asked.

  His daughter turned. “Not until we’ve had a little talk.” She pulled a chair up to his bedside, frowning at the goose egg that he could feel without touching the side of his head.

  He grimaced involuntarily as he tried to push himself up. The doctor had bound his rib cage tightly but the two cracked bones felt like broken spokes on a bicycle wheel jabbing his insides. A little talk? What had all that been preceding his nap? What more could she possibly have to say? Rita helped him up, propping pillows behind him. She sighed loudly, shaking her head. “Didn’t I tell you those people were nothing but trouble, Dad? I’m not trying to rub it in, honestly. I just hope you can see now that they’re not our kind. That man was crazy on drugs. You could have been killed!”

  Millard looked beyond her, remembering the events of that morning. Dodge Walker had been more than crazed. He had thrust a heavy oak chair above his head like it was cardboard with a savage, inhuman glare—pure evil, and it was fastened on Tyson. The man’s own son. No doubt, he could have killed the boy. He wondered what could possess a man to do that and then answered his own question. The devil himself. Rita rambled on, still in the process of not rubbing it in. He barely heard her. Tyson had seen the detachment on his father’s face, heard the snarl of twisted pleasure as he lay helplessly beneath the man. The boy’s tear-filled eyes had widened in disbelief as one mortally speared in the chest by someone who was supposed to love him. And that pained Millard more than the knot on his head or the bruises and broken bones.

  “Dad? Are you okay?”

  He swiped at the tear that had escaped from the corner of his eye. “I’m fine. They must have me on some kind of medication.”

  She shook her head. “Just Tylenol. Do you need something stronger?”

  “Why? Are you packing a bottle of bourbon in that big bag of yours?”

  She scoffed. “You don’t drink.”

  “Well, I’m thinking about taking it up.”

  There was a tap on the door and it opened slightly. Sidney Walker poked her head in tentatively. “Excuse me.”

  “Sidney. Come on in.” He gestured with his hand.

  “We don’t mean to interrupt,” she said.

  “You’re not interrupting anything.”

  Ty followed his mother into the room. Rita squared her shoulders, scowling at them as if they had conspired together to inflict the damages on her father that had put him in the hospital.

  “Hello, Rita.” Sidney dropped her eyes uncomfortably at Rita’s grim-lipped nod and stepped to the opposite side of the bed. She reached for his hand. “Oh, Millard. I’m so sorry about this.” She stared at the bump on his head, the gash that he could feel running from his lower lip to his chin, shaking her head sadly. She tried to speak but the words seemed to catch in her throat.

  Tyson planted himself midway between the door and Millard’s bed, probably frozen in Rita’s icy glare.

  “Don’t get all sentimental on me,” Millard said. “I’m not dying. I’ll be out of here by this time tomorrow. Sooner if I can find my pants.”

  “We’ll see about that, Dad,” Rita interjected. She glanced at Sidney. “He has broken bones and a grade-two concussion. I just hope there isn’t more serious damage that hasn’t shown up yet.” She raised her chin, fingering the loose skin at her throat. “These injuries would be serious for anyone, let alone a seventy-three-year-old man. This involvement with your family has been nothing but—”

  Millard reached for her hand, squeezing it hard. She defied his not-so-subtle signal to close her mouth, pulling her hand away. “No, Dad. It’s time I speak my mind. He’s too stubborn to admit it, but he’s too old for all this. I realize your family has . . . issues, but it’s time you work them out on your own. I’m sure there are social agencies—”

  “That’s enough!” A pain shot through his ribs. “My torso may be bound up but my mouth works just fine. I can speak for myself.”

  Rita recoiled.

  “She’s right, Millard.” Sidney’s head was dropped, her fingers kneading the turned-down edge of his sheet. “We’ve put you through a nightmare. You’ve given us so much.” She dabbed at her eyes. “And this time it could have cost you everything.” She lifted her head and ran her hand through the top of her shiny, sun-touched hair, which fell immediately back to drape on her shoulders. “Tyson said you saved his life. You’re our hero.”

  Millard scoffed but he knew it was true. At least he had saved the boy from certain maiming. He hadn’t meant to be a hero. It was merely reflex that made him dive into Dodge Walker before he could bring the weig
hty captain’s chair down on Ty’s body with what appeared to be superhuman drug-enhanced force. There hadn’t been time to talk himself out of it.

  Rita rolled her eyes and began stuffing her gloves and a small box of hospital tissues into her oversize bag. “I’ll call you later, Dad.” She nodded curtly at Sidney, ignoring Ty, and headed for the door with her coat over one arm.

  “All right, then,” he said.

  “Rita.” Sidney’s voice trembled. “Can we go get a cup of tea?”

  “Good idea.” Millard gave his daughter a look that he hoped she would interpret as a command. “Tyson and I could stand some time to talk, too, man to man.” He saw Rita’s chest rise and fall in one of her infamous sighs as she and Sidney left the room.

  As soon as the door closed, Ty was at the bedside, his face pinched with what appeared to be genuine concern. Millard patted the edge of the bed and the boy sat facing him, staring at the side of his head. “Man, I’ve never seen a bump that huge. What did he hit you with?”

  “I believe it was his foot.” Millard chuckled. “Everything happened so fast; I don’t remember the exact order of events. Maybe I clubbed myself with that confounded rolling pin.”

  “No. You dropped it when he jabbed you in the ribs.” His face wrinkled. “Are the bones sticking out?”

  Millard pulled back the sheet, exposing his bandaged torso. “Nope. They say they’re just cracked. This is to hold them in place while they heal up. I’ll be as good as new in a few weeks.” He knew that the boy’s purple eye and the cuts on his face would soon be gone also. It was his lacerated heart that worried Millard.

  Ty held his eyes on the white binding. “I’m sorry . . . about everything. Sorry I got you into this whole mess.”

  “I’m not.”

  Ty glanced up.

  Millard tried to sink into a prone position without letting his face telegraph pain. Tyson pulled the extra pillow away. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time, son.”

  Ty’s brows drew together in disbelief. “What?”

  “I had a boy once.” Millard hadn’t spoken of him to anyone in years. “Jefferson. Jefferson Ray Bradbury.” He rolled his head toward the window. “I wasn’t a very good . . . No, I was a lousy father.” There. He’d said it aloud. It didn’t make him feel any better. In fact, the silence was thick. This was not the thing to confess to a boy whose own father had turned out to be such a disappointment. Still, his mouth opened again. “He was born with Down syndrome. Do you know what that is?”

  Tyson shook his head.

  “He was mentally retarded.”

  “Oh.”

  “A happy boy, though.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He was born with a weak heart and it finally just gave up on him. He died when he was only fourteen. We didn’t have any warning. One day he’s out playing in the fall leaves, throwing them in the air like $100 bills he had just won in the lottery. The next morning I find him cold in his bed.” Millard stared up at the stark white ceiling. “Still smiling. He died with a little smile on his face as if he had seen the angel that carried him away.”

  Tyson cleared his throat but didn’t speak.

  “I held him then. Picked him up and held him like a gangly baby.” He was embarrassed by the water welling up in his eyes and turned his head back to the window again, where he could see only the whitewashed corner of the hospital’s south wing lit by streetlights. “I hadn’t done that in a long, long time. But by then it was too late.”

  He felt a tentative touch as if a butterfly had landed on his arm. He still couldn’t look the boy in his eyes. There was more to be said. Maybe it was the painkiller that had unfettered his carefully concealed and guarded emotions, or maybe it was just time. Maybe the hospital was the perfect place to lance this festering wound and let it drain.

  “I’d always dreamed of having a son who was an athlete and a scholar. A fishing and hunting companion. A normal boy. I couldn’t take Jeff fishing. His line somehow wadded into a rat’s nest every time I turned around. When he miraculously hooked into a trout, he got so excited that he threw the rod into the water and splashed out into a strong current after the fish.”

  “Well, at least you took him fishing. That’s more than my old man ever did.”

  Millard didn’t mention that he had taken Jefferson out to the river only a couple of times, and that had been when the boy was nine. He had given up on his son. In all honesty, Millard had been embarrassed by his mentally handicapped son. Molly and the boy had come to watch his wrestling matches on occasion, but Millard cringed when she brought him down to the gym floor afterward. The coach’s kid. Laughing too loud, his head tipped back with that moronic, gaping, often drooling mouth. Millard had silently wished that his son were invisible.

  But Jefferson had loved his father with the devotion of a faithful dog.

  “I was too hard on him. I wasted the few years we had being disappointed by what he wasn’t, what he never could be.” His ribs inflicted a punishing stab as he sighed. “I was the retarded one. He was perfect all along.”

  Tyson had gradually let the full weight of his hand rest on Millard’s forearm. Millard reached across his body, letting his hand fall over the boy’s, looking him in the eyes. “I just thought you should know that about me. I’m no hero, so don’t set me up on some pedestal because I’ll only fall off.”

  “Nobody’s perfect,” Ty said, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat. “What did you mean . . . about me being the best thing that ever happened to you?”

  Millard chuckled. “You know what my life was about before you shattered the monotony? The daily crossword puzzle and keeping my old chair warm. Spent my days staring out the window, watching life like it was a movie with no plot. Poisoned dandelions for excitement. That cursed mole showing up was almost a blessing. Gave me something to think about beside my obituary.” He grinned. “Then you came along.”

  “Yeah.” Ty’s brows lifted his face into a mischievous look. “And the plot thickened.”

  “Next thing I know I’m out working with concrete again, hopping freight trains in the middle of the night, teaching history and English. I thought I was all used up. But you’ve made me feel useful again.” He tried to take a deep breath, but his ribs cut it short. “You’ve brought out feelings I didn’t know I was capable of anymore. If I didn’t care so much about you, I don’t think I could have done what I did.” He chuckled. “If you told me a few months ago I’d be diving into a brawl with a lunatic—” He stopped himself. “Sorry. He’s your dad. I shouldn’t talk about him like that.”

  Ty huffed, his eyes narrowing. “He’s not my dad. Never was. You can call him anything you want.” The boy pulled his hand away and looked down, toying with his fingernails. “You’re the closest thing to a dad I’ve ever had.”

  Millard caught his breath. He tried to speak, but couldn’t. He squeezed Tyson’s hand and the boy looked at him, saw the tears welling up in his eyes.

  For a moment neither of them spoke. Millard was surprised to see Tyson’s mouth clamp tightly as if he too was trying to suppress tears, but to no avail. They ran down his bruised face as his lips began to quiver.

  “Your sisters call me Grandpa. I’d be proud if you would call me that, too.”

  Tyson nodded. He stretched the short sleeves of his black

  T-shirt to his face, swiping at his eyes. “Maybe we could go fishing sometime.”

  Millard’s heart burst like a small, hard kernel of popcorn into a soft cloud. Imagine the possibilities. He willed his bones to knit together swiftly, to be strong. There was so much to live for. So much love to give.

  31

  PROPPED ON A TABLE in the far corner of Millard’s living room was a hand-hewn coffin. It was a tiny casket made of pine, surrounded by flickering candles. The corpse held a small flower in one big, fleshy hand, and on its furry head just above a piglike snout was the paper pilgrim hat that Sissy had made at school.
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  Being Irish, and claiming to be the authority on wakes, Red, the barber, proposed the first toast. “To Digger the mole. May he never dig his way out of hell.” Glasses and bottles clicked all around the room.

  Rebecca frowned. “That’s not very nice.” She was the one who had woven the little geranium stem between the humanlike fingers, stating that the mole had just been doing what God created it to do—in which case Red was surely wrong about Digger’s present whereabouts.

  “And may he have left no relatives behind in Ham Bone,” Millard added.

  “Okay, Ty and Millard,” Sidney said, waving them into position. “I need a shot of the two of you with Digger.”

  They posed, one on each side of the deceased, tapping the necks of their root beer bottles together. Millard wore a red plaid hunter’s cap, flaps down. Ty had borrowed a similar cap for the occasion. “Millard, you look an awful lot like Elmer Fudd,” Sidney said.

  “That’s not the worst thing someone ever said about me.” They grinned proudly, playfully jabbing at each other while she and Micki snapped photos. Millard let out a boisterous laugh, flinching slightly, his hand going automatically to his right rib. He was still wrapped tightly beneath his clothes, but to Sidney’s relief his doctor said he was healing nicely.

  “Okay, now hold up the trap and the notebook.” Tyson sighed deeply as if annoyed by this request but immediately reached down for his science-project folder, holding it slightly forward and open to the front page, where the big handwritten “A+” was sure to show. Just below it, also in red, the teacher had printed “WOW!” Millard held up the steel plunger trap that the two of them had built in the garage using a modified design from a sketch Ty found on the Internet.

  She clicked several shots and then picked up her half-full cup of licorice tea and leaned against the living room wall. Around the corner in the open dining room, Dennis and Andy filled their plates with food. Being potluck and three days after Thanksgiving, the main entrees were turkey casserole, turkey sandwiches, and Amilia’s turkey enchiladas. Sidney had made a brussels sprouts and garlic salad and zucchini muffins. At least the muffins seemed to be moving well. Alex was the only one she had seen so far with brussels sprouts on his plate.