Come Fall

by A. C. E. Bauer

  “Want some, too?” he asked.

  He was trying to smooth things over, in his own way.

  “No thanks.”

  She had no appetite at all.

  “What do we do?” she said.

  “Wait,” Ron said. “Dad said he’d call, and not to worry. They’ll be fine.”

  Not worrying was much easier said than done.

  The morning dragged. She went into Mom and Dad’s room and made their bed. She saw the little cradle, still unassembled, leaning against one wall. What were Mom and Dad going to do if the baby was born and there was no cradle?

  The phone rang around eleven—but it was just a kid in Jack’s play. Jack didn’t talk for more than five minutes, but what if he had been on too long? What if Dad was trying to call, at that very moment? What if Jack wasn’t paying attention to the beep that said a call was waiting?

  But Dad didn’t phone until half past noon. Ron picked up. “Dad!” Ricky and Lu ran to the phone. Ron uh-huh-ed and nodded and hung up—he didn’t give anyone else a chance.

  “No fair!” Lu said. “I wanted to speak to him, too.”

  “You’ll get to,” Ron said. “He’s coming home.”

  “What about Mom?” Jack asked.

  “She’s been admitted. They’re giving her drugs to prevent contractions. They expect her to be there for a few days.”

  “When will Dad be home?” Ricky asked.

  “In a couple of hours,” Ron said, “to get stuff for Mom. Everything is okay.”

  Everything was not okay. Mom was in the hospital—at least for a few days, Dad had said. With a month and a half left before her due date, what if the drugs didn’t work?

  Lu’s life seemed to be on hold. She had spent the morning waiting for Dad’s call. She spent the afternoon waiting for his return home. Around three, the van pulled into the driveway. She ran to the door.

  “How’s Mom?” she asked.

  “She feels fine,” Dad said. “Mostly bored.”

  How come Mom was bored when everyone else was so scared?

  “Can we see her?”

  “Of course,” Dad said.

  Lu helped Dad gather things for Mom: a novel, a notepad, the newspaper, a few extra clothes, some toiletries, her hairbrush. Lu rushed—she wanted to be at the hospital.

  “Slow down,” Dad said. “Mom’s not going anywhere.”

  They didn’t leave the house until some time after four.

  The hospital rules allowed only two visitors per patient, but they all snuck in anyway. The nurse assigned to Mom’s room didn’t seem to mind.

  Mom was hooked up to tubes and plastic bags filled with clear liquid. She wore a hospital gown that didn’t fit, and her hair looked a mess. But she lit up when she saw the family. Lu gave her a huge hug.

  “I love you, too,” Mom said.

  While Mom and Dad talked about housekeeping and phone calls, Ricky pressed one button after another, making the head and then the foot of Mom’s bed go up and down. Jack hummed a song from his play. Ron sat with Lu, next to Mom, watching Mom’s animated face. The nurse poked her head in.

  “Who pressed the call button?”

  Mom and Dad turned to Ricky, who squirmed.

  “I’m sorry,” Mom said. “It won’t happen again.”

  “No more buttons, young man,” Dad said.

  “Sorry,” Ricky said.

  He sounded it, too. Dad glanced at his watch.

  “It’s almost suppertime. How about I take you down to the cafeteria for some food?”

  “Yeah!” Ricky said.

  “Anyone else want to come?”

  Jack and Ron stood. Lu didn’t want to leave Mom’s side.

  “I’m not hungry,” Lu said.

  Mom looked from her to Dad.

  “Take the boys. Lu can share some of mine.”

  Dad hesitated.

  “I’ll make sure she eats,” Mom said.

  After they left, Lu didn’t know what to do. What do you tell someone who’s laid up in the hospital? Mom picked up her brush.

  “Can you brush my hair?”

  Lu was grateful for the assignment. She climbed next to Mom and began the slow process of untangling her thick hair.

  “How’s the house holding up?” Mom asked.

  “Okay.”

  She didn’t know what else to say. Mom shut her eyes as Lu pulled apart a set of snarls.

  “Am I hurting you?”

  “Nope,” she said. “It feels good.”

  Once the knots came loose, brushing was easier. Lu braided her hair down her back. Mom lifted her hand to feel the braid and smiled. Lu’s stomach tightened. The gesture was so familiar. It reminded her of when she was little and would watch Mom at the mirror, getting ready to go out. And here Mom was, stuck in such an awful place.

  “Mom—”

  She stopped. She stared at the brush.

  “It’s okay,” Mom said. “You can ask.”

  “Are you really all right?”

  Mom nodded.

  “I think so. I was becoming dehydrated, and there’s an imbalance in my blood. But…” She pointed to the bags and tubes. “They’re taking care of that.”

  “What about the baby?”

  Mom’s smile grew.

  “Hale and hearty. About five pounds already!”

  Lu didn’t know what that meant, but from Mom’s expression, she knew this was good news.

  “So you’re coming home?”

  “In a few days,” Mom said. “They took pictures of the baby. Want to see?”

  “Pictures?”

  “Ultrasound.” Of course. Lu knew about that. Sound waves were bounced off the baby, and a computer interpreted the image. “Take a look in my nightstand,” Mom added.

  Lu found several pieces of paper in the drawer showing the profile of a baby’s head. The background was black, and only outlines in white were visible. She noticed something strange in the baby’s mouth.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “That’s her thumb,” Mom said.

  The information didn’t make any sense for a minute. The baby was sucking her thumb in the womb? Her thumb? The baby was a GIRL?!

  “I’m going to have a sister!” Lu shrieked.

  Mom laughed.

  “Not for another month, I hope.”

  The car ride home was noisy but pleasant. Ricky talked nonstop about the EKG machine they had seen. The technician had explained to him how it worked.

  “It makes the coolest graphs,” Ricky was saying.

  Lu smiled. Nothing was as cool as the pictures of her little sister.

  25—Salman Page

  Bringing in the harvest

  Saturday evening, Tina returned from the hospital exhausted. She had spent the day with Ozzy.

  “He’s mad as heck,” she said. “Keeps saying someone tripped him. There’s just no reasoning with him.”

  She was ready to return to him Sunday morning. A brisk breeze blew billowing clouds across the sun. Tina paused in the doorway.

  “It’ll frost tonight,” she said. “Harvest what’s left on the vines, Salman.”

  Tina’s weather sense always amazed Salman. She hadn’t checked the TV. They didn’t have a newspaper. Yet she knew that it would frost. Salman no longer questioned the accuracy of her predictions.

  After having spent Saturday cooped up because of the driving rain, Salman didn’t mind this latest chore. His ankle had just about healed and he wanted to be outdoors. He began gathering the last of the tomatoes and peppers and squash. There were so many. He harvested for almost an hour when a call startled him.

  “Salman!”

  Lu waved to him from across the stream. Her cheeks glowed red. Salman’s heart leapt. He walked down to her.

  “Come on over,” he said. “I’m alone.”

  Lu hesitated but then crossed the stream over the stones.

  “I have news!” she said.

  Salman had never seen her this out of breath. She
must have run all the way.

  “What’s up?”

  “Mom’s having a girl! I’m going to have a sister.”

  Salman smiled. “For sure?”

  “I saw the ultrasound,” Lu said. “She’s really cute.”

  “That’s great!”

  Lu’s breathing slowed. She stared all around.

  “This garden is huge,” she said.

  Salman nodded.

  “I’m harvesting what’s left, before tonight.”

  “By yourself?”

  Salman nodded again.

  “That’s crazy,” Lu said. “You can’t do it all yourself.”

  Salman shrugged. What was there to say?

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Sure!”

  Salman found Lu a pair of gardening gloves that weren’t too cruddy and showed her where they kept the bushel baskets.

  “Just pick the nicest vegetables,” he said. “We’re not going to get everything.”

  They worked side by side. Not only did the picking go faster, but Salman filled the bushel baskets higher since he now had someone to help him carry the load. And Lu was there—solid, quiet company. He watched her saw off a large Hubbard squash from the vine, comfortable using the work knife he had lent her. She had strength and coordination.

  “What are you going to do with all these veggies?” she asked.

  She had perched the Hubbard on the top of the basket they were carrying together.

  “Eat them,” Salman said.

  She laughed. He laughed, too, seeing the mounds accumulating in the trailer.

  “Tina will can them first,” Salman explained.

  They emptied the basket and walked back to the garden.

  “She’s your foster mother?” Lu said.

  “Yup.”

  “You get along with her?”

  For a split second Salman wanted to change the subject. His instincts told him to keep quiet. But this was Lu. His d.b.

  No, he corrected. His friend.

  “She’s okay,” he said. “It’s Ozzy I have trouble with.”

  “Ozzy?”

  “Her husband.” Salman paused. “My foster father.”

  The words tasted strange on his tongue.

  And then, as they gathered rows of late beans, Salman told Lu about his first few weeks with the Royals, his night spent in the root cellar, how Ozzy watched everything Salman did, everything he took, made Salman feel like a thief.

  Lu glanced at the trailer.

  “I wouldn’t want to meet him,” she said.

  “Don’t worry. You won’t.”

  He told her how Ozzy had been hospitalized.

  “Wow,” Lu said. “And my mom’s in the hospital, too.”

  “Ozzy’s in the veterans’ hospital. He can’t walk yet.”

  Lu avoided his gaze. She was embarrassed by her fear, Salman could tell.

  “How is your mom, anyway?”

  Relieved at the new subject, Lu told Salman everything that had happened in the last day.

  “She says she’ll be okay, but she didn’t look right.”

  “No one looks right hooked up to tubes,” Salman said.

  “Yeah … But it’s more than that. I’m not exactly sure. We see her again, later this afternoon.”

  Lu and Salman had harvested almost two-thirds of the garden when Salman’s stomach began growling, hard.

  “Want some lunch?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  Salman felt a little uncomfortable letting Lu into the trailer. She had been in it earlier, of course, to drop off the baskets, but now he was asking her to sit down.

  “How about cooked tomatoes and rice?”

  “Okay,” Lu said.

  He dug out the ingredients from the fridge and threw them into a pot. Within a few minutes they were bubbling.

  “Smells good,” she said.

  Salman filled two bowls.

  “Let’s eat on the stoop.”

  Although the air was cool, the sun warmed him, and the steaming bowl heated his hands. There was just enough room on the step for the two of them to sit side by side. Salman felt Lu’s warmth, too.

  “It’s a good thing you came,” he said. “I’d never have finished this on my own.”

  “The work feels good,” Lu said.

  It did.

  Salman washed the bowls, and they returned to harvesting. They were among the rows of summer squash when Lu paused and stared at the trailer. Salman reached down for a large zucchini.

  “Have you ever had a real family?” she asked.

  Salman froze momentarily before cutting the squash from the vine. Why was she asking him that?

  She seemed to have asked herself the same question, because she shook her head and quickly began picking again.

  “You don’t need to answer….”

  “It’s okay,” Salman said.

  Lu had told him about her mother and her sister-to-be and her brothers and her friends. She had shared herself, without his asking, giving of herself—time, advice, help—every time he saw her. And she had never asked for anything in return. Maybe he could trust her with Emolia Brown.

  Salman placed another zucchini in the basket and straightened.

  “There was a woman, once. My first foster home. I stayed there till I was almost six.”

  “She was family?”

  Salman thought for a moment. He had called her Mama, and she had called him “my little boy.”

  “She’s the one who chose my name.”

  “You mean Salman?”

  He nodded.

  “She said that there was this great Indian writer with that name.”

  Emolia had had to explain that she meant Indian from India. She had pulled out a map of the world to show him. That was the day he learned that perhaps his parents, too, had once come from there. And from then on, in the piles of books she borrowed from the library, she always had a few about South Asia.

  “She said maybe I’d be a writer, too,” Salman added.

  He remembered sitting on her lap as she read him one book after another—books filled with colors and people and animals and even make-believe. “You’ll write one of these books someday,” she had said. And he believed her.

  “Was she Indian, too?”

  He shook his head.

  “African American.”

  He couldn’t recall her face anymore—but he never forgot her dark brown eyes and her large, warm arms, where he knew he was safe and loved.

  He never had a South Asian foster parent. The state had placed him with white folks, brown ones, tan—from everywhere but India. He had wondered, growing up, how things would have been different if, just once, his foster parents had come from that part of the world.

  “What happened to her?” Lu asked.

  “She died,” Salman said.

  One day, after Emolia had dropped him off at kindergarten, a big truck hit the car she was driving. The semi’s brakes had failed. The driver had tried to avoid her and couldn’t. But Salman wasn’t able to say those words. Not even to Lu. They still hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” Lu said.

  “Not your fault.” He went back to picking vegetables.

  “Wasn’t your fault, either.”

  Salman shrugged. But somewhere inside, he knew this was true. He looked at Lu. She was staring at him with a soft smile, as if to say, “You really are okay, you know.” He averted his eyes but couldn’t help smiling, too. Having Lu there, sharing part of him with her, felt good.

  Soon after, Lu told Salman she had to leave.

  “Meet you for lunch tomorrow,” she said. “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He was sorry to see her go. He felt lonely now, without her. Odd, since he hadn’t felt lonely before she arrived.

  He was lugging in the last basket when Tina pulled up in the pickup. She cut the engine but did not come out. Salman put the basket down and waited. A minute passed. She wasn’t coming out. Salman
reached down to lift the basket once again when he heard the click of the truck door opening. Tina seemed to drag herself out of the cab.

  She had been crying. Her eyes were ringed in red, and she blew her nose before approaching him. She lowered her hulk onto the stoop, the same spot where Salman and Lu had shared lunch.

  “Ozzy don’t want you.”

  She said this with surprise. Salman’s heart sank. Of course Ozzy didn’t want him. Why didn’t she know? Why did she have to go and tell him?

  “It’s been eating him up inside, he says. You underfoot.” She shook her head. “I think it’s just that he’s so low ’cause of his leg. When he can walk again, he’ll come ’round.”

  Tina patted Salman on the cheek, to reassure him, he assumed.

  “You’ll see. He’ll come ’round.”

  Salman knew better.

  26—Puck

  Calling a bluff

  The queen wore the golden circlet on her perfect wrist. She rubbed its surface with a thumb, her only sign of distress.

  “Tell me, Puck, has Oberon expressed any feelings for the boy?”

  A strange question, I thought. And a dangerous one, I wagered.

  “He dislikes him.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “For the boy’s sake or mine?”

  I thought for a moment. Oberon had never said anything in particular about the boy, other than he disliked him because of the queen’s attention.

  “Yours, milady.”

  She nodded.

  “Yet he has sent me an unusual message, Puck.”

  I waited. The queen would tell me in time. I didn’t relish the knowledge.

  “He has asked me to bring the boy to our world—to join our court.”

  “To destroy him?”

  “No.” She said this flatly, with certainty. “The message was clear. He swore no ill will. He wishes to provide the boy with the education of a prince—one the child deserves given my affections for him. The king would do him no harm, now or ever.”

  This was so absurd, I laughed.

  “I do not see the humor, Puck.”

  “The boy is almost fifteen human years old. He is tall and hints at a beard. He has lost that innocent beauty of children which we so treasure. Even with the grace you have bestowed him, he would lay mockery to all we hold dear at court.”

  What possessed me? But it was all truth. Human babes and young children are fine companions. But almost-men? It would be an insult to Faery!