The Journey Home (19 page)

BOOK: The Journey Home

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The car pulled up to the inn at the corner of Oak and Sugar Maple. The passengers came from Parsippany, New Jersey, but they could as easily have come from Boston or New York or Dayton, Ohio. They could even have flown in from Heathrow the night before.

The leaves were the reason that people came, whether it was for an overnight diversion or to settle for decades, raising generations of others who would remain nearby. The hundreds of miles of coastline, the dramatic topography, the distinctive architecture, and the Revolutionary-era history
were all attractions, all contributors to a sturdy economy and buoyant property values. But the signature of the Connecticut River Valley was its October leaves.

Few places in America or, in fact, anywhere in the world, were capable of presenting a fall palette as varied and vibrant as this one. The warm, wet springs, the moderate summers, and early autumn days drenched in sunlight and crisped by cool evenings conspired to urge the trees into gaudy displays of color. The yellows of the hickory. The bronzes of the beech. The purples of the sumac. The oranges of the sassafras. The scarlets of the maple and the oak. The leaves were an industry here, the vehicle that filled every town in the area for the entire month with “leaf peepers,” traveling from places where nature didn't provide such a rich visual bounty.

The visitors stayed in places like the Sugar Maple Inn in Oldham, Connecticut. The Sugar Maple opened its doors 32 years ago after Joseph and Bethany Gold drove up from Long Island and decided to stay in Oldham the rest of their lives. It was known regionally for the magnificent dinners it served, the homemade cookies and chocolates it left for every guest, and the artisan quilts that adorned each bed. But Joseph had been gone four years now and Bethany had joined him in the summer. The Gold children, all of whom still lived in Oldham, made the painful decision to sell the Sugar Maple to a syndicate that operated country inns all along the Eastern seaboard. It would officially change hands November 1.

And so as this month began, the Golds prepared for the last days of the physical centerpiece of its family. October was always a meaningful month to them, on occasion even a momentous one. But none could have possibly anticipated just what this October would bring.

Certain threads would fray and certain binds would
loosen. Unspoken words would be uttered at last while things that needed to be said would be withheld. Tradition would be honored and the past would be rejected. One heart would beat for another's for the first time, while one heart would stop beating forever. And a message would be delivered that was essential to all who heard it.

All before the last of the leaves came to ground.

Leaves
goes on sale in September 2010. Please stop by my website,
www.michaelbaronbooks.com
for a longer excerpt when we get closer to publication.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

The Story Plant
The Aronica-Miller Publishing Project, LLC
P.O. Box 4331
Stamford, CT 06907

eISBN : 978-0-984-19058-4

Visit our website at:

www.thestoryplant.com

First Story Plant Printing:
May 2010

BOOK: The Journey Home

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