When the Leaves Stop Falling

Chapter 3

Austin Edwards paced his office in the upstairs apartment above his bookstore for the third hour in a row. He hadn't been able to look at the pile of paperwork on his desk since his sister Serena had called last night. His whole life he'd been prepared for "the" call, hoping technology would mean it would never come.

But it did. He felt the panicked tremor almost before the phone rang out a piercing scream next to his bed, waking him from a reoccurring dream he'd had since childhood. Closing his eyes, he retrieved the dream image from memory, as it always calmed him.

The small, delicate hands of a young woman brushed over the top of a headstone next to his mother's in the cemetery. Blonde--almost white--hair caught in the breeze as she dropped her head in mourning. Her slim figure was wrapped in a short black dress, neither seductive nor plain, and every time Austin dreamed of her, he felt some unknown emotion that couldn't be put to words. She never spoke in the dream, never moved, except the brushing of her hand along the cold stone in front of her. He'd always wake before she could turn her head, leaving him grasping at air and desperate to see her face.

Austin always thought of this dream woman as an angel, something his mind conjured to help him through the loss of his parents at a young age. Especially because the image of her was always graveside. Like a relapse of film, the dream never morphed or changed. Not once.

Except last night. In his dream last night, she'd spoken. "I'm coming," she'd whispered, her voice riddled with grief and lofting on an echo.

He didn't know if she'd been talking to the grave or to him, but a fullness consumed his chest until his eyes welled. He used to stay up all night, praying God would make him sick instead of Serena. Child-like tears gone to waste.

Perhaps the woman was an angel, the one who'd lead his parents to Heaven, and was now waiting on Serena.

The guilt came, as it always did, rising in his gut and spreading. He was healthy enough to survive his sister twice, and she wouldn't live to see thirty. He had a forever kind of vision in his mind of Serena, lying in the cool long grass, laughing, watching him play as a kid. Her wild brown curls would spill around her head like a halo. That's how he always saw her, young and happy. Most times, Jake had been with them, climbing trees or swinging the baseball bat.

Jake had to know she was sick, had to be told. Jake and Serena may have broken up when she'd left for sunny California, but she was a part of him still. Her and Jake been friends since the beginning, as kids, and soul mates since they were old enough to understand attraction. Austin had seen the inevitability of them coming together even before they had. Between the long stares and the smug grins, they hadn't hidden their mutual attraction well. How moot it was now that at first he didn't care for his sister falling for his best friend.

Last night she'd made him promise not to tell Jake, that she would do it. Austin didn't like it, not one bit, but he would respect her wishes. He always did. He could never tell Serena no.

But Grams? That was another story. He was telling her tomorrow night. He thought there was something very wrong with informing your grandmother, over cornbread and fried chicken, that the baby she'd raised was dying.

Austin paced to the window to glance out at the night, at people wandering the main street in town, as he tried to ignore the phone that had been demanding his attention all afternoon and evening. He didn't want to deal with anyone.

Beginning to focus his weary mind back to work on the shipments for his store, to stay sane, he picked up the phone and forced a pleasant greeting.

"I've been trying to call you all day." Jake's slightly angry tone had Austin flinching.

"Sorry, I've been doing paperwork."

"I finished the tables you wanted and the rocking chair."

Jake had been doing some new furniture pieces for the renovations of his book store. Jake was good at building things. "Great. When can you bring them by?"

"Tomorrow, if you want."

"Make it before four. Grams is making dinner."

"Okay. How's the remodeling going?"

Grateful to be thinking of something else, Austin leaned back in his chair and rubbed a large hand over his short dark hair. "Good. The shelves are up in the sitting area. They just need to be stained. I bought new books for them. The damn shipment on the cappuccino machines isn't here yet, but the divider wall is finally in place for the gift shop."

"Sounds like it's going okay, then. Want help staining this weekend?"

"Yeah, that would be good."

He knew it would get done faster and done right if Jake did it anyway. He made a mental note to tell the contractor he was no longer needed.

"How's Grams doing?"

Austin was glad Jake wasn't in front of him to see his grim expression. "Good. You know her. She loves the summer for her gardens. She never stops." Austin thought she wouldn't be good for long after his news, and immediately felt the remorse for having to keep it from his best friend.

"How's Serena?"

He always asked. Austin used to wonder if it was out of politeness or genuine concern when Jake asked about his sister. After awhile, Austin knew better. Jake still loved her. He always had and always would, making it ten times harder to support Serena's request. Jake never got over her leaving.

"She's coming home," was all he could think of to say.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. The silence saying way more than words ever could. Before Austin could fill the void, Jake cut in with a solemn question, more rhetorical than anything.

"Is she now?"

Austin shuffled the papers on his large mahogany desk Jake had built for him, uncomfortable with the silence. In all their years as friends, they've never had an uncomfortable silence. He prayed his lifelong friend wouldn't ask why. Why the silence and why Serena was coming home.

"For how long?"

Austin rubbed his eyes, red from tears last night and fatigue. He eyed the picture on the corner of his desk. The one of the three of them in the old field behind the house, arms around each other, laughing. It almost make him smell the lilacs now.

"For good."