Fall Again

Fall Again

by Ragan Sutterfield

The morning was never so bright as after the storm. The sunlight came
trickling down through the big white oaks and shivered emerald on the
gravel driveway, little pools among the shadows. Elijah Addis breathed
deep, tasting the delicious air of fall coming in after the rain. It
would be warm in the afternoons still, but now the air was cool and
felt like a breath on the skin.

Elijah sat down carefully on the porch steps. He winced at his knees
and hips, and as he sat he stretched his legs out across the steps,
being careful not to spill his coffee. He held his cup close to his
face, with his elbows on his knees, and his back bent slightly. As he
sipped, he let the air gurgle over the coffee, tasting it like
wine.

Elijah looked out, the blur of green and sunlight mixing with the blue
and white of the sky. Across the drive he saw the outline of the fence
and behind it the brown of the fallow field. A meadowlark trilled from
the grass and Elijah listened, holding the sound in his mind and
letting it resonate like an echo.

Ruth was moving about inside. He heard the gentle clatter of dishes and
water as she put the breakfast things away; the quiet sounds of her
voice as she talked to Beth. Beth seemed to be settling now. The long
torrent after her marriage split up, the rage and gasps, seemed to be
over. Now she took long walks in the evening.

Elijah turned his cup up and sipped the last of his coffee. He set it
down on the porch and leaned back against his hands. A tiger
swallowtail settled on the butterfly bush beside the porch, moving its
wings slowly. Elijah watched it; he leaned forward and saw the
butterfly uncurl its tongue and sip nectar from the late summer
flowers. The monarchs were migrating now. They moved south over the
fields in the hundreds, like small orange and black kites. The way they
floated on the breeze, he felt like they traced the paths of
souls.

He bent carefully, picked his mug up from the porch, and rose from the
steps with a wince. He walked slowly around the house to a small wooden
shed in the back. He opened the door with the rusty creak of hinges; he
hadn't changed them in the forty years since he built the shed, and now
they were worn but steady. In the sunlight, he could see the lines of
spider webs stretched out across the room. He did not go to the shed as
much anymore, he was too weak to use most of tools, but still he liked
to come there-it had a feeling-the space and pleasure of work.

On a rack beside the door he had three fishing poles and below it a box
of tackle. He chose one of them; an ultra-light Beth had given for a
birthday years ago. It was a good pole for small mouths, and from the
feeling of the air they would be biting today.

He picked up the tackle box and carried it and the poll around the
house and set them in the back of his truck. Elijah moved carefully and
slowly up the stairs of the porch. He felt out of breath. He set down
his coffee cup and stood panting. He could feel the air in his lungs
moving in and out, and his heart beating quickly. He breathed deep
several times, and tried to slow his breath. He stood against the door
and waited as his breathing eased. He could feel his heart
calming.

Elijah steadied himself and went inside the small, white washed house
and walked down the wood paneled hall into his bedroom. He stood before
the dresser and looked into the heavy mirror that hung above it. His
eyes were bright and deep blue. He rubbed his hand through his white
hair, and felt its thickness. Elijah turned his head and looked himself
in the eyes, he sucked his cheeks in slightly, making his face
thinner-Ruth had always laughed at him for that, his mirror face. He
studied himself, the deep crevices and lines of his face, the wrinkles
that stretched out of his eyes and around his mouth, marks of
laughter.

Elijah slipped his watch off over his hand and set it in the small
wooden chest on the dresser. It was a Swiss watch, a gift from his
uncle after the first war. It was silver with a small shield at the end
of the hour hand that was white with a red cross and stars. He never
knew what that shield meant, whose family or nation's it was, but he
had looked at it thousand times. He had never been without it.

The window was open to let in the cool, and the drapes rustled in the
wind. Elijah looked out of it, and the light came blue through the
muslin, the white of it splitting through the middle, falling on the
floor. He closed the lid of the chest over the watch and walked back
down the hall into the kitchen.

"I think I'll be going fishing now," he drawled to the two women
sitting at the table. He bent carefully to each of them and kissed
their foreheads.

"Have a good time daddy," Beth said.

"Be careful Elijah. Will you be back for lunch?" Ruth asked.

"We'll see," he said, "I love you both." Elijah turned and left. He
felt a sadness welling up. But he breathed deep and calmed
himself.

"I'm going fishing now," he said quietly.
He climbed onto the vinyl seat of the old Ford. It smelled of
upholstery, with the faint scent of earth. The speckled shadows of
raindrops on dust fell across the dashboard and seat. The keys were in
the ignition and Elijah started the truck with its sputtering roar. He
backed onto the road with the crunch of gravel and started
forward.

Big clouds played in the sky-animal shaped clouds and clouds of
abstract grandeur. Elijah turned onto the highway and drove slowly with
his windows down; the smell of clover and fresh cut hay fields was
strong in the air. He could feel something like a storm coming-his
joints ached. The big clouds floated in the early fall blue and high
above he could see about fifteen black vultures soaring, twisting like
a kettle in the air. They were migrating now too-butterflies and
vultures, warblers and thrushes-a thousand colors going south.

He was nearing the bridge, white concrete breaking from the blacktop.
Elijah slowed the truck, his wind tussled hair settling. He pulled onto
the gravel shoulder that stretched on several yards behind the green
road sign. "Point Remove Creek," it read. This had been his childhood
creek, the place he'd shared with its fish and trees, with the other
animals that came to hunt and play and live here. No other cars were
parked on the gravel shoulder. He was alone in the morning.

Elijah turned off the engine and listened to the slow tumble of the
pistons. He felt warm even in the cool. Elijah lifted his hand and put
the soft skin of its back against his forehead. His joints ached and
his breaths felt short. His body was like a fever.

He held his hands together; he felt their wrinkled, soft skin-one hand
with the other. They were white almost transparent with the dark marks
of age. He looked at them-they trembled. He thought of Anne and Ruth.
They were probably drinking tea together now or walking behind the
house in the cut field. He was glad that they were not here.

Elijah felt the pulse of his wrist. It was not the pain he had thought
would come. It was his rhythm, the beats he could not place. The slow
trickle of darkness was beginning behind his eyes. He breathed
deep-gasping. He struggled. Elijah opened his eyes wide; he looked up
through the windshield. He could see the big clouds racing in the
September wind. They moved and seemed swallowed in the blue. And then
he saw a red-tailed hawk, moving on the thermals and currents, fast
toward the south. Its wings were lined with white and dark. It was a
common bird that could never be common. It caught a thermal and circled
rising on the heat. Its wings were forward, and spread wide and
muscular-every feather standing out in definition. It turned and spread
its tail. It flashed copper in the sun.