A Beautiful Fall

by Chris Coppernoll

  Emma took a step closer to see.

  “I thought we might find that, since there are hardwoods running through most of the house.”

  “Won’t it be in bad shape?” Emma asked.

  Michael stood, nearly bumping into Emma. She took a step backward to avoid him.

  “We won’t know until we pull this carpet out, but sometimes the carpet works like a shield and the flooring can look better than you’d expect.”

  “Do you want to see the pantry now?”

  “Sure.”

  Emma and Michael walked to the back of the house and into the pantry.

  “Well, this is it,” said Emma. “It’s kind of an all-purpose room.”

  Michael looked in.

  “You’re right. There’s a lot of space in here, and I’ll check, but it doesn’t appear that the bedroom wall is load bearing. It shouldn’t be a problem knocking it out.”

  “Sounds like you’ll have your work cut out for you. Any ideas what a renovation like this would cost?”

  Michael looked at Emma. She was looking around the room—anywhere but at him. Their conversation had been all business thus far.

  “I don’t know. I’ll break down the costs for you. It shouldn’t be too expensive.”

  “Thanks, Michael.”

  “This a great house. How soon do you want me to get started?”

  “The sooner, the better. I mean … as soon as Dad agrees, of course.”

  “Well, we can get started right away if you want. Why don’t you give me a hand clearing out the furniture. Once that’s done, we’ll take some measurements and then I can draw up a design plan. That will help me with the estimate, too.”

  “I’ll get to work on clearing out the old closet.”

  o o o

  Upstairs in the quiet of his room, Will Madison prayed. As he knelt down at the side of his bed, he felt the warmth of his breath against the wool bedcovers. With eyes closed, he uttered softly worded expressions of thankfulness and supplication. He didn’t pray for his health, the heart inside his chest that had broken earlier that week. He didn’t pray for relief from the broken heart he’d carried for so long. Will Madison prayed for his daughter, the second of two women he’d lost.

  Hannah was the only woman he’d ever loved. They’d grown up together in Juneberry. At first, Will thought of their love as a game. He played the role of pursuer, wooing Hannah with his love antics in high school and through four years of college. She was full of beauty and life.

  During the fall of their senior year at Clemson, a group of friends and classmates were talking about what they might do after college. When Hannah mentioned the possibility of moving to California, the reality hit Will that he couldn’t live without her.

  By Thanksgiving that year, he’d asked Hannah to marry him, and over Christmas break, they wed. She never broke his heart until she passed away at the young age of thirty-four. His consolation prize? A five-year-old daughter named Emma who he’d raise as a single parent, with a single-minded hope of never losing her.

  Will steadied the wavering sound of his voice before the Lord; his gratitude showing in both words and tears. A decade of unceasing prayers had been answered after his heart stopped beating and he opened his eyes in a hospital bed to the beautiful face of his daughter.

  “Lord, You have brought her back to me …

  “Thank You for Your goodness. You are so kind to us.”

  The old man’s voice broke as he whispered his heart to His God.

  “I don’t know how long she’ll be here, Lord, but if there’s any way You could …”

  Will closed his eyes again, pressing out tears, quieting his voice. His prayer sounded selfish to his ears. How much more it must sound that way to God. He lowered his face to the bed, emptied himself of the illusion of control in his life. He thought of the heart attack that nearly took his life. A feeble yet sincere smile came to his lips. In a strange way, he was grateful for his heart attack. He would go through it again for a chance to see his daughter. Yes, God did indeed work in strange ways. He listened for, and heard, The Voice. The Silent Voice:

  “I am in control of all things.

  I am in control of you, and

  I have your best interests in mind.

  Rest.”

  Will Madison sat on the hardwood floor in his bedroom and leaned against the dark Shaker dresser, wiping tears from his eyes. He had confidence in an invisible God, certainty in unfulfilled promises. He drew in a calming, tremorless breath and pulled himself up to sit on the bed.

  “Lord, You are so good to me, an ordinary man. How can I ever repay You? I trust You, and I am Yours.”

  o o o

  Downstairs, Michael and Emma pulled the top mattress off of the bed, walking it in half steps out the narrow door, and down the hallway to the living room.

  “Tell me more about your life in Boston.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I dunno. Start at the beginning.”

  “Well, the beginning was a long time ago.”

  “Why Boston?”

  “Hmm, that’s a good question. I guess it sounded beautiful, a Northeastern city on the Atlantic Ocean. All that history. So different than … here.”

  “A complete change.”

  “Don’t take it personally.

  “I won’t. Please continue.”

  “Well, I went to school. I was proud of what I’d accomplished. There are a lot of smart people there—I felt intimidated at first. But then I realized this was a chance to push myself—to find out what I really could do.”

  “When did you decide to become a lawyer?”

  “It was in my third year. I’d seen all the law school students there on campus. Of course, my dad was a lawyer, and I just felt drawn to it. Maybe it was a bit naive of me, but I guess I really just wanted to help people. You know, give a few ‘Davids’ a chance to defeat the occasional Goliath.”

  Michael smiled.

  They set the box springs next to the mattress in the living room and went back to the bedroom. Michael began loosening the long bolts connecting the headboard to the metal frame.

  “How’d you end up at Harvard?”

  “By accident, really. I met a Harvard law school professor while doing some volunteer work with inner-city families. He encouraged me to apply.”

  “Harvard law school.”

  “Yeah, I’m still not entirely sure why they ended up accepting me. Sometimes coming from a small town helps since they like a diverse student population.”

  Side by side, Michael and Emma lifted the antique headboard and carried it to the cluttered living-room floor. They set it down, gently leaning it against the sofa.

  “I’m sorry, Michael,” Emma said.

  “Sorry, for what?”

  “You know. For leaving to go to law school the way I did. I can’t really explain it further than that …”

  “You don’t have to explain everything, Emma.”

  “No, but … it wasn’t an easy decision.”

  “It should have been. How could you not go? Not everyone gets a chance to go to Harvard.”

  Emma pushed aside the thin, lacy curtain hanging on the bedroom window … like a bridal veil. The cold autumn rain continued to fall. Unraked leaves slept in scattered piles on top of the cropped green grass. She turned to face Michael.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Emma said. “Some choices are harder than they appear. You can never say yes to one thing without saying no to another. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said, stopping to look at Emma. “Everyone knows what that means, but the part I’m a little fuzzy on is what you had to say no to.”

  Emma gave him a “you ought to know” look, but
Michael didn’t budge. He stood there, waiting.

  “I had to say no to you,” she said, like the words had pained her to speak them.

  Michael stood unmoving for a moment, then walked over to Emma. Her arms were crossed to shut out the cold. He placed his strong hands on her shoulders, and she saw once again in his face the look of compassion and strength she trusted.

  “I loved you,” Michael said. “But you made the right decision. You were meant to go and do all the things you’ve done.”

  Emma spoke in tones lower than a whisper.

  “Don’t you ever feel a sense of loss? Like something that could have been wasn’t?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “But it drove me crazy. For my own peace of mind, I had to find another way of looking at things.”

  Emma cleared her throat.

  “Which was?”

  “That things happen in life for a reason. As hard as it was losing you, I still put it all in the plus column. I mean, why keep grieving?”

  Emma fell into Michael’s embrace in the light of the window. He took her in, and she wrapped her arms around his waist. They stood motionless in an embrace that said little more than “I remember.”

  Emma pulled away from Michael and touched at the corner of her eyes.

  “One of the partners at the firm has an old Rubik’s Cube he keeps on his desk. It’s one of those things you can’t help but pick it up and try your hand at, turning all the squares,” she said. “You try to twist sense out of the disorder. Have you ever played with one of those?”

  “Yes,” Michael said. “But I’ve never been able to put it in order.”

  “Me neither. And that’s exactly how I feel about everything. I’ve tried to turn the scrambled pieces round and round the cube until they all make sense, but they still aren’t in place.”

  “Emma, there are a lot of people still turning scrambled pieces round and round.”

  Emma closed her eyes, then hugged Michael again, enjoying familiar comfort in the strong arms of Michael’s friendship—arms that were once so much more. She rested her face against his chest.

  A moment passed. And then another. Then she stepped out of the embrace, gently.

  “What about you?” Emma asked. “Are you settled? What’s your Rubik’s Cube look like these days?”

  “I got lucky, I think. The puzzle I started with already had most of its pieces in place.”

  Emma smacked him on the chest.

  “Lucky you. So you earn your living by carpentry. What was left in the puzzle for you to unscramble?” She kneeled at the closet door to begin the work of unpacking the boxes of memories and uncertain treasures.

  “I’d rather not say.”

  Outside, the rain tapped mysterious Morse-code messages on stubborn leaves and ran rivers through the gutters.

  “Okay, don’t say,” Emma said. “So what makes things so good these days?”

  “I’ve got friends like Bo who I’ve known all my life. I know everybody in Juneberry. My parents still live here. I’ve worked on a hundred houses in town, so I guess being here makes things make sense even when it feels like they don’t.”

  “I guess some people find what they’re looking for in faraway places, and for others it’s right where they started,” she said.

  “Friends make the difference, Emma. There are some things we just can’t unscramble on our own.”

  Emma stood suddenly.

  “I think I’ll go check on my dad. Do you feel like a cup of coffee this morning?”

  Michael nodded, “Yeah, coffee sounds great.”

  Emma walked out of the room. Her footsteps tapped a hollow rhythm as she ascended the stairs.

  “You were the final piece of the puzzle,” Michael said to the empty room.

  ~ Eight ~

  The only thing that you’ve ever known is to run …

  but everybody needs somebody sometimes.

  —KEITH URBAN

  “Everybody”

  Christina’s writing schedule kept her inside her sunny white office with the large picture window and the incredible view of South Carolina. She promised herself breaks through the day—long walks through the hilly mountain trails helped provide balance when her speaking schedule took her away from home. Airports and shuttles, generic hotel rooms, and conference centers, those were her real workdays. Christina needed time on the mountain to counter balance time away.

  On a break from her writing and the rain, Christina walked her quarter-mile driveway through the woods to collect letters from her mailbox on SC59. As she walked the long road, crunching red pine needles under her feet, Christina embraced the morning. She engaged her creative literary mind to wonder whether it was possible for forests to be haunted. The trees seem so endless, like watchers of town history. Silent and mysterious, she imagined the forest keeping a collective record of all the people it had seen pass through. All good woods, she decided, seemed a little haunted.

  Christina thought Emma might be the keeper of a mysterious secret too, a woman haunted by the memories of things seen and heard. It had always seemed just a little odd how Emma had run off to Boston and not been heard from since. Christina had spent enough time ministering to women to know the kinds of issues that made them run. She pledged to be there for Emma if her hunch bore out.

  Duke, Christina’s four-year-old golden Lab, ran up ahead to the front yard. Overnight, all the maples in Christina’s yard had succumbed to the change of season and let go of their leaves. Duke played in a drift of red beneath the dozens of trees in her yard.

  Christina’s thoughts turned to Bo. She wondered if he’d ever let her completely into his life. She’d known he was the one since the early months of their dating. Bo was wild, but he was also faithful and kind. Rugged and untamable, but Christina held no desire to constrain him. His energy was like the spinning blade of a helicopter. He was a machine of great strength able to lift, drive, and build. She saw herself as a stabilizer in his life, the secondary blade necessary to make flying possible.

  At 5'2", the thirty-four-year-old strawberry blonde wondered if men really took her seriously, even with all of her success. Christina was cute, and doubtful most men could see her beyond that. Until she met Bo. He’d become her best friend. After two years of dating, he’d yet to pop the question, but that had nothing to do with Christina. She knew what tied his hesitation toward marriage. She prayed daily for the Lord to bring healing so Bo could be whole, and she could find home.

  At noon, Duke’s barking clued Christina that Emma had found her place nestled among the trees. Christina looked through the glass front door to see Old Red chugging up the long, winding drive.

  “Christina, your place is so beautiful,” Emma said, climbing out of the truck. “And so remote. I feel like we’re in the mountains.”

  “Well,” Christina said, “you are.” She gave Emma a long hug. “How are you?”

  “I’m good,” Emma said, revealing that she was still in transition from the hectic pace of travel and family illness, and the calm restoration of small-town living.

  “Well, come on in. Let me show you around.”

  Christina pulled on the glass front door. It opened with a swooshing sound and snapped shut behind them.

  “Oh, Christina. Your house is amazing!”

  “Thanks, I love being out here. It’s become a part of me.”

  They walked through spacious rooms decorated with beautiful architectural details and exquisite furniture, and bathed in natural light.

  “This is wonderful.”

  Christina showed Emma to the kitchen. A window from floor to ceiling showed the mountain view and the elevated back deck.

  “I thought the same thing when I decided to build out here. I just love being surrounded by nature.”

  �
��You probably hear this all the time, but you’ve really done well for yourself.”

  “I can’t take any credit. Behind everything you see is a story of God’s grace.”

  “I see.”

  Emma stood on the opposite side of the marble countertop island while Christina put the last touches on lunch.

  “So tell me about your place in Boston.”

  “I live in an old brick townhouse in Back Bay. It’s a three-story place and I’ve got my bedroom on the top floor because that’s where it’s the quietest.”

  “Sounds exciting. Do you like it up there?” Christina asked.

  “Yeah, there are lots of great restaurants, theaters, museums, things like that. It’s where my work is.”

  Christina laughed.

  “It’s like I’m a little bit country, you’re a little bit rock and roll.”

  Emma smiled.

  “I guess. So, you’re a writer? What are you writing?”

  “Oh, that is so the number one question writers are asked.”

  “Sorry to be so cliché.”

  “No, you’re not.” Christina laughed. “It’s just that it takes months to write something, even longer to edit, and only two days to read. The book I’m writing now is called Four Seasons. It’s about thinking of life in terms of seasons. You know, spring is when we’re young and everything is new and life’s all about fun. Summer is when we come of age and we work hard to get where we want to go. Fall represents the season when we reflect on our lives and wonder if we made the right choices. If we’ve chosen to travel the right roads.”

  “Winter must be when there’s a little snow on the roof,” Emma kidded.

  “Yes, and when you want to find yourself inside with someone, warmed by the memories you’ve created over a lifetime.”

  “Sounds lovely.”

  “Thanks. I set aside time for prayer every morning to ask God what He wants me to say. This past springtime was so busy. I was traveling all the time. Fall is so beautiful on the mountain. The world feels like it’s slowing down and tidying up its business before a long winter’s slumber.”

  “I have to agree, Juneberry looks beautiful this time of year,” Emma said. “In a way, it feels like a time to tie up loose ends, settle accounts, however you want put it.”