Autumn Blue (28 page)

“Oh, heavens, no. Nephew. His sister Carmen’s boy. Her husband, Paul, is a merchant marine. He’s gone for months at a time
so Alex fills in for him sometimes.”

A wave of relief washed through Sidney at that news.

“I hear you were there with a man.”

Sidney almost choked on her tea. She walked over to the sofa facing Amilia and sat, though she had promised herself she would
not linger. “Did Alex tell you that?”

Amilia shrugged innocently. “It came up in conversation. Would you like to tell me about him?”

Sidney was usually comfortable with Amilia, but for some reason this felt awkward. “Well, his name is Jack. We dated a couple
of years ago and we’re seeing each other again.”

“Is he the answer to your prayer?”

“Well . . . yes. I mean, I think so. My kids need a man like him. He’s great with them. Always playful, upbeat. He’s like
a kid himself, really. Always has to be going somewhere, doing something. Especially sports. He loves any kind of sport.”

“Is he good to you?”

“Oh, sure. He’s a nice guy. Nice to everyone.”

Amilia rocked gently in her chair without speaking.

Sidney’s eyes wandered to the useless TV console beneath the window. Curled brown fern leaves were scattered around plant
pots and some had fallen to the floor, commingling with dust bunnies. She would have liked to help clean the area before moving
the new chest in, but the men were too busy to move furniture right now. Besides, she had to go.

“Are you in love with him?”

Sidney’s head jerked back to Amilia. This series of blunt questions had her rocking like a weighted punching bag. How dare
Amilia ask such a question? They had known each other for only a few weeks. Her cheeks were suddenly warm. “I think . . .”
She looked at a spot above Amilia’s head. “I think it’s too soon to know.” Why did she say that? She was only waiting for
Jack to pop the big question. The sooner he was a steady fixture in her home, the better—ideally before Dodge moved back to
town. Although she was seriously doubting that her ex-husband would really follow through with what may have been one of his
fleeting whims.

“Good answer,” Amilia said. “Be careful about trusting yourself. Sometimes we ask God for something and immediately get busy
trying to answer our own prayer. If you feel yourself sinking, chances are you’ve taken your eyes off the Lord.”

Tears came to Sidney’s eyes. She tried to blink them away, staring at the last inch of tea in her cup. She had been treading
water for days, fighting to stay afloat, all the while telling herself that she was walking on water. Her faith had not been
in Jesus. It was all riding on Jack. And then he had kissed her. She had lain awake thinking about that moment for the past
two nights.

She hadn’t felt a thing. It was like ordering pasta primavera and being served a greasy burger on a bleached white bun.

She lifted her head. “Amilia, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

The wise woman in hunter garb smiled softly. “Practice. Listen and obey. You’ll see. And every time you see how your prayer
is answered, your faith will grow stronger.”

Sidney smiled, remembering the faith of her mother. “I think I need to spend a lot more time with you, Amilia.” She stood,
gathering their teacups. “But right now I’d better get to the soccer game in progress.”

As Sidney returned from the kitchen, she heard a loud shout from outside. It was an alarming cry, spraying adrenaline through
her veins like fireworks. Amilia frantically pushed herself up as Sidney rushed to the front door, throwing it open. Outside,
Enrique lay on the cold grass, his hat lying upside down on a nearby shrub. Tyson scrambled up the porch steps, breathless.
“Call 911!”

Sidney spun around, but Amilia was already punching the number into her phone.

“What happened?” Amilia’s hands were shaking and she missed the numbers the first time.

“Enrique had a heart attack or something. He just doubled over. He’s grabbing his chest.”

Sidney looked around helplessly. Alex was at his father’s side. She grabbed a blanket from the back of the sofa and ran down
to the yard, but Alex was already scooping his father into his arms. “Hang on, Pop. Let’s get you in where it’s warm.” Sidney
walked alongside, draping the blanket over Enrique and tucking it between him and Alex’s chest. “Can you find an aspirin?”
Alex asked.

She ran to Amilia’s medicine cabinet, scanned until she found a small bottle of Bayer, then rushed to the kitchen for water.
She returned to where Alex had laid his father on the sofa, passing him a single pill. Amilia hovered over them, leaning heavily
on her walker. Her knuckles were white. Sidney caught Tyson’s eye and gestured toward an armless chair against the wall. He
brought it quickly, awkwardly helping the woman transfer her weight into it. Sidney took her hand as the siren at the volunteer
fire department across town began to blare.

“Here you go, Pop. This will thin your blood. Lift your head a little.” Alex took the water glass from Sidney’s hand. Enrique
gasped, turning his head away. “Pop, you’ve got to get this down.”

“
Mijo
,” the old man’s voice was raspy. “
Juramelo antes que me muera.
”

“You’re not going anywhere, Pop.” Alex forced the aspirin between his father’s cracked lips and brought the glass to his mouth.
Water spilled down his chin. “Swallow it.”

Sidney couldn’t tell if the pill went down. Veins stood out on Enrique’s dark hand as he clutched desperately at his chest;
his face twisted in pain.

“
Perdona a Ernesto
,” he rasped.

Who was Ernesto? Pardon him for what? Sidney wondered.

“I don’t want to talk about this now! We’ll talk tomorrow. Did you swallow the pill?” Suddenly Enrique’s face relaxed. “Pop?”
Alex cried, shaking him slightly.

The eyes fluttered. “Promise me,
mijo
.” His voice was so weak.

“I’ll do anything you say, Pop. I promise. Just stay with me. Stay with me, Pop!”

The muscles in Enrique’s lined face slowly relaxed even more. His hand went limp and slid from his chest. Sidney’s breath
caught in her chest. Amilia gasped, falling forward and dropping her head on her old friend’s shoulder as all signs of life
drained from him.

The sirens grew louder. They were coming down Digby now. Tyson, who had been standing off to one side, backed away. His eyes
were wide and troubled. He had never witnessed death before. Sidney gave him a straight-lipped smile through her tears. Ty
inhaled deeply before turning bravely toward the front door to wave in the aid car.

Alex moved the limp body to the floor and began performing CPR. His back was to Sidney as he attempted to breathe life back
into his father’s lungs. He raised his head, murmuring, pleading in Spanish between sharp compressions of Enrique’s chest.
The only word Sidney recognized was
Papa
. Amilia bent over one lifeless hand, which she held to her lap, stroking it like a sleeping cat while silent tears ran down
her ruddy cheeks.

The emergency crew swept in, relieving Alex and displacing Amilia to another chair as they dropped their equipment to the
floor. Sidney placed her hands on the older woman’s shoulders, watching and praying as technicians hooked up a heart monitor
and other devices, turning away when shock paddles were applied to Enrique’s chest.

When they had done all they could do, Alex stood tall, following the gurney out the door. He paused to glance back at Amilia
where she sat rocking silently in her chair. A long look of understanding passed between them. “I’ll stay with her,” Sidney
said.

He looked at Sidney without a sign of recognition, his features like chiseled stone. It was the face of the deputy who had
once stood ominously on her porch, sending shivers down her spine. Now she understood. It was just a mask. A hard mask to
hide his pain. She wanted to touch him, to brush the dried concrete spatters from the hair at his temples, but she knew at
that moment in time he could barely even see her. “Alex, I’m so sorry.”

He nodded gravely before turning to head down the steps. He crossed the yard to the driveway next door, where his patrol car
was parked, and ducked inside. The blue lights began to flash as he backed out, but he must have changed his mind. The lights
went dead and he followed the ambulance bearing his father’s body down Digby Street.

I
T WAS WEIRD
,” Ty said, sweeping a trowel across the top of the wet concrete. “One minute he’s gibing us about doing a bad job on his
sidewalk, and the next minute he just croaks.”

Millard frowned. He too was on all fours, smoothing a section of the sidewalk that was to run between Amilia’s pink house
and the gray one next door. It didn’t make much sense to finish the project now, he thought. After all, the guy wouldn’t be
passing this way again. But it seemed important to Tyson, who had called Millard immediately after the ambulance had taken
the deceased away. Now they were fighting the elements to level and smooth at least the section that had already been poured
before it dried. “That was the way it was with Art Umquist down there at the hardware store. I went in to get a mole trap
from him one day, and the next day he was gone.” Millard had regretted his little tirade about the price of mole traps ever
since. At least he could have asked about Art’s wife and kids before he let the battered and poster-plastered door of the
store slam behind him. “Art and I used to fish and hunt up in these mountains.” He sat back on his haunches, scanning the
hills and stretching his achy back. “Death is a fact of life, they say. I guess you just can’t take anybody for granted. They
might not be there when you turn around.” With Molly he’d had some warning because of her sickness. He knew death was coming
for her, but still its arrival had hit him like a truck barreling through a red light.

Ty got quiet on him for a while, their screed scraping the top of the gritty mixture and making a sound like long, slow strokes
of sandpaper. Sissy and Rebecca were playing beneath the trees in the adjacent yard. Millard had picked them up from their
soccer game on his way to help Ty. Cute kids. They had nearly chattered his ears off between the sports field and Digby Street.

“That would just suck to have someone in your family die.”

Millard glanced over at the boy. “Yes. It does.” He had hated the term when he first heard Ty speak it, instructing him that
it was an offensive perversion of the English language. But at the moment he couldn’t think of a phrase more suiting. “It
really sucks!” He was surprised by Tyson’s laugh. The boy grinned at him like he had just gone up a notch or two in status.
Well, hell’s bells. If that was all it took, he should have taken up shallow street slang a long time ago.

The little girls ran up, pinching multicolored leaves together at their stems. “Look what we made,” Rebecca said. “Fans.”
They fanned their faces, Rebecca like a haughty queen and Sissy as if her face were on fire.

“Oh, beautiful,” Millard said. “Look at all the bright colors. Yellow oak, red maple, green rhododendron.”

“They’re for Amilia,” Sissy said. “To cheer her up.” Sissy leaned against Millard’s shoulder and surveyed the concrete project.
“You guys are doing a good job.”

Millard chuckled, exchanging a glance with Ty. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Yup.”

The next thing he knew, her pudgy fingers were playing with his hair. “I can see your skin all over. You don’t have much hairs
on your head.”

He thought to pull away or to stand. It felt strange having someone touch him in such a personal way.

“I wish you were our grandpa, Mr. Bradbury.”

Rebecca plopped onto the cold grass beside them. “Me too. Our grandpa died when we were little. Ty remembers him but we don’t.
Mom has pictures of him, though.”

Millard stared at the fan in Rebecca’s hand. Living and dying leaves overlapping in a truly beautiful design. His boy, Jefferson,
died on a cold fall day like this. The leaves always made him remember. They were lovely now, but soon they would be brown
and mottled, tapped down by winter rains into the soil beneath the trees. Dead for a season. But new life would come in spring.
Molly was gone, yet he knew in his heart she still lived. She knew God. She and Jefferson had prayed together every night.

At that moment he wondered if they were up there in heaven, still praying for him. He had thought it was his autumn—but it
was beginning to feel more like spring. He glanced at Tyson, who was still working the top of the sludge while regarding the
conversation with apparent interest. The boy had thought to call him. “I need your help,” he had said. Millard couldn’t recall
the last time someone had needed him prior to the Walker family’s invasion of his safely structured life. He let his arm reach
around little Sissy’s back and gave Rebecca a wink. “Well, I suppose we could pretend I’m your grandpa.”

“Then what should we call you?”

Millard pushed himself up from the ground to relieve the burning sensation in his knees and rolled his head to stretch a cramp
from his neck. “Well, let’s see. I’m not your
real
grandpa. I suppose—if it’s all right with your mother—you could call me Grandpa Bradbury.”

“Can I write my name in the sidewalk, Grandpa Bradbury?” Rebecca asked.

He chuckled. “That’s probably not a good idea, seeing as how this is not our sidewalk.”

The front door opened and Sidney stepped down from the covered porch with a tray in her hands. She was such a pretty girl,
Millard thought once again. Funny—she had not struck him that way when they first met. He had thought her cheekbones were
too prominent, her nose a little sharp. But those green eyes of hers, whether laughing or crying—and he had seen a lot of
both—were mesmerizing. She was intelligent, too. That young man Jack had better get his head in the game, and Millard wasn’t
thinking football. Judging by what had come out of the guy’s mouth during that Sunday afternoon and evening together in the
Walker home, he had never read anything more literary than the sports page. A woman like Sidney was bound to weary of that
real soon.