~ Two ~

That’s the way it’s done
when you come from, way down south.

—JOSH TURNER

“Way Down South”

“Please return your seat backs and tray tables to the upright and locked position. We want to thank you for flying with us today, and welcome to Columbia.”

Emma peered through the plane’s oval window as the aircraft descended to eight thousand feet. Beneath the jet, the rural landscape resembled a miniature patchwork world of tiny full-leafed trees bursting with autumn colors. Tangerine, sunburst yellows, crimson reds––each popped with such vibrancy you could almost taste them.

It was unusual for Emma to fall asleep on a plane, but sleeping had done for her what worrying about her father could not. All her scattered thoughts and worries bouncing around inside her troubled mind had settled down. She took some degree of comfort in how smoothly things had come together to travel this far.

Robert Adler had called Emma as she stood in line to board the plane.

“Emma, I just heard the news about your father. I’m so sorry. Is there anything we can do?”

Emma exhaled some of the tension she felt.

“I don’t think so, Robert. I’m just trying to get down there and see what’s going on. I don’t even know how he’s doing right now.”

“Had I known sooner, I could have hired you a private charter. You wouldn’t have had to fool around with all that mess at the airport.”

Emma smiled at the care Robert showed. He’d always been there for her, opening career doors, pointing out the pitfalls along the way.

“That’s very generous of you, Robert. Fortunately, my plane’s scheduled to depart on time and I’ll be there shortly.”

She heard Adler’s grunt, his low-key way of imparting approval. His gruff, unshaven voice could intimate a kind of overbearing authority, even when showing charity.

“Emma, I just want you to know that you’ve got the firm’s approval on this, even though you’re leaving on such short notice. McCormick and I have already discussed it and concluded it’s a family medical emergency.”

Perhaps it was the daze Emma was in, but she couldn’t make out the tone in Robert Adler’s voice.

“Take a few days, even the rest of the week if you must. Go down to South Carolina and take care of your pa. We’ll all pitch in around here and cover your bases while you’re gone.”

“Thank you, Robert,” Emma said, taking his words, whether approval or permission, in their best light. Standing now at the front of the line, she handed the United Airlines agent her boarding pass. He scanned it under a red laser light and set it in a pile.

“Thank you, enjoy your flight.”

Emma smiled and nodded at the agent, still listening to Adler as she starting down the boarding ramp.

“Emma, I know this isn’t the best time to bring up work, but the sooner you can get things squared away and return to Boston, the better. I don’t want to rush you, but this situation with your father couldn’t have come at a worse time for the firm.”

In a small, cramped space outside the air-conditioned comfort of the airport terminal, Emma couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her mind was a million miles away from the office. Her heart was fixed on one man in a small town no one in Boston had ever heard of.

“I wanted to wait until the close of the Interscope trial, but I need to bring you in on meetings I’ve been having with Northeast Federal. You know all about them: nine hundred million in earnings last year. Most of it in health care. I’ve been courting NF for a very long time, but it suddenly looks like we’ll get a shot at representing them in part of their corporate litigation. Once they got wind of your victory this morning, they requested a face-to-face this Friday. My gut is they’ll want to close the deal. Emma, it’s imperative that you be present at that meeting on Friday.”

The plane continued its descent into Columbia Metropolitan Airport. Emma watched out the window, feeling the sensation of being pulled into all that color below. The conversation with Robert Adler played over again in her mind. She regretted having said she’d try to return by Friday, feeling coerced by pressure from work, but that was one of the sacrifices she’d made to play at the “A level.”

Emma had seen the firm ask its associates to put business ahead of family before. As a single woman and a partner in the firm, she’d even been in favor of the practice. The demand seemed reasonable for any ambitious law firm, but suddenly the rule seemed harsh and distasteful. Not least of all because she’d been placing her own career before family for most of the last twelve years. The regret stung.

Emma thought about Samantha and Christina, too. They would want to know why she hadn’t seen or spoken to them in the past twelve years. Both women deserved better friendship from her. Neither had a clue why it had been impossible for Emma to stay in Juneberry.

Once the plane landed, Emma checked for new messages from the hospital. Her cell-phone screen blinked with one new message from Dena Johnson, an ICU nurse. She’d called during the flight, asking Emma to please contact her as soon as she landed.

“Hello, this is Emma Madison. Do you have—how’s my dad doing?”

“Miss Madison, I thought you’d like to know your dad is in ICU now. He’s awake and in stable condition.”

Emma stopped for a moment in the waiting area, covering one ear to hear her over the noise.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, closing her eyes where she stood, grateful for the news.

“Yes, he’s had quite a morning, but we’re continuing to monitor him, and he’s doing all the things we want to see. He’s been talking and he’s had some fluids. Are you in South Carolina yet?”

“Yes, my plane’s just landed.”

“Well, when you get to the hospital, just come up to the fourth floor, that’s where ICU is, and ask for Dena.”

“I will, thank you. Oh, and, Dena?”

“Yes?”

“Would you give my dad a message for me, please?

“Certainly.”

“Would you please tell my dad that I’m on my way?”

“I’ll make sure he gets the message. He’ll be happy to hear you’re coming. He asked if you were.”

“He did?”

“Uh-huh. He asked me if you knew about his condition. That’s when I told him you’d called. I think he was just wondering if you were able to come down.”

Emma appreciated the sweetness in Dena’s voice. She recognized the Southern strength. Dena probably could work a ten-hour shift on her feet at the hospital, dealing with life and death issues, then go home to dinner, husband, family, and laundry all without losing her marbles. She could have made Emma feel guilty, but she didn’t.

They said good-bye, and Emma slipped the phone back into her purse, breathing a sigh of relief. She grabbed the pull handle from her carry-on and continued her walk down the concourse toward the baggage claim. She whispered a barely audible prayer, “Thank You.”

Emma stepped onto the airport escalator. Halfway down, she saw him. He was someone Emma thought she might have known anyway even were it not for the plain brown cardboard sign he carried, bearing her name in black Sharpie. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been all of ten years old, playing a pickup football game in the backyard with his friends. Now, Samantha’s oldest appeared at the end of the escalator in full bloom: a lean, muscular, twenty-two-year-old college-football champion.

“Miss Madison?” Noel asked.

“Hi, Noel. Do you remember me?”

“Sure I do. Mom asked me to come pick you up.”

The fresh-faced grad had been leaning against one of the airport’s support pillars. He wore a pair of faded blue jeans that seemed long even with boots. The fall weather felt warm enough to wear his orange Clemson T-shirt, and his muscular arms were tanned below the sleeve. On his head he wore a straw cowboy hat that seemed to signify a youthful, free-spirited confidence.

“Sorry if this is a burden on you,” Emma said. “I’m sure you have plenty of other things you could be doing today.”

“Other things, sure, but nothing better,” Noel said as the two made their way toward the baggage carousel. “You’re probably eager to see your dad, Miss Madison. As soon as we see your luggage, I’ll get us on our way.”

“Tell you what, Noel, you call me Emma and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

Noel reached for the brim of his straw hat and tipped it slightly as if to say, “My bad.” By the smile on his face, Noel appeared to have not a care in the world. From behind them a loud red firehouse bell clanged, and the carousel started running its loop.

Emma pointed to a large black suitcase that matched her carry-on, and Noel reached through the crowd of travelers and snatched it from the moving conveyer belt.

“If you’re ready,” he said, “my truck’s outside.”

The airport’s hydraulic doors opened as Noel and Emma crossed out of the busy terminal to the open skywalk. Outside, a warm autumn breeze caught Emma’s hair and blew it wildly around her. She laughed.

“Guess I should have worn a hat too.”

“If you had, you’d be chasing it about now,” Noel said.

Emma enjoyed the South’s warmer temperature while the two made their way to Noel’s truck. Their small talk was blown away by the thunderous sound of a commercial jet taking off behind them.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you were saying,” Emma said.

“I said I officially graduated in May,” Noel said in a loud voice as the jet rocketed skyward. “I had one more class this summer to finish up my degree, and I’ve been home for about two weeks now.”

They walked across the open blacktop lot in the heat of a midday Carolina sun. It was obvious the yellow parking lines had just been painted.

“How does it feel?” Emma asked. “Coming home after four years away?”

Noel slowed down his pace. He peered over at Emma as if looking through her, and she almost turned away.

“It’s always good to come home, Miss Madison, I mean, Emma,” he said. Then the carefree look showed itself again like it was the one his face was the most used to. “It’s like one season is over, and a new, better one is just beginning.”

She smiled at Noel’s optimism and felt somehow that whatever season lay ahead for Noel, it would be a good one.

They stopped at the tailgate of an old royal blue Dodge Ram truck. It reminded Emma of the ocean and looked as shiny as a brand-new model just rolling off the assembly line.

“I hope you don’t mind trucks,” he said, pulling on the tailgate’s handle. It popped open with the sound of solid, well-engineered metal and lowered without a squeak. He loaded up Emma’s black canvas suitcase and closed up the back of the truck.

“Don’t let appearances fool you, Noel. I lived in Juneberry once too, you know, a long time ago.”

“I know. I remember.” Noel fished out the keys from his front jeans pocket and came around Emma’s side to unlock the door. She climbed up into the tall seat in Boston-meets-Juneberry style. Inside, Noel’s truck was as well kept as the outside. The interior dash housed a circular speedometer and fuel gauges. Emma noticed the original AM/FM stock radio next to it built into the dashboard.

“You’re strictly old school, aren’t you?”

Noel climbed in the other side.

“When improvements stop being made, the best things are all found in the past.”

He turned the key in the ignition and fired the engine to life. The truck roared with so much power that it startled Emma. She reached for her seat belt and clicked it around her as the truck rolled backward.

“Is this your truck, Noel?” Emma asked.

“Ever since high school. It’s been in storage at my mom and dad’s the last four years. Sadly neglected. Sorry if it’s running kind of rough.”

“Sounds mint condition to me.”

Thirty minutes later, they exited the new freeway and turned onto SC59, the old highway route to Juneberry. Emma watched out her window as the scenery shifted from noisy eighteen-wheel trucks and SUVs to quiet, wide-open spaces. Every cornfield they passed seemed to harvest its own crop of memories for her. It had been so long.

“Do you mind if I crack open the window? I love the way the pines smell out here.”

“Sure. When was the last time you were in Juneberry?” Noel asked her.

“The last time? I’d just graduated from college too,” Emma said, sticking her toe in old, forgotten memories for the first time in a long time. “I flew home to celebrate with my dad, thanking him of course, for the money he’d given me, making it possible for me to go to college in the first place.”

Emma’s voice trailed off, quieted by thoughts that she’d almost lost him, and an uneasy guilt that squeezed her. Her father had always loved her, but Emma had never come back.

“Your dad seems like a pretty great guy.”

“He is,” Emma said, thinking of how it would be when she saw him again. “He’s a great guy, a great father.”

Emma waded a little farther into her memory stream. Her mind drifted back to someone she once was.

“It wasn’t September when I’d returned the last time; it was spring. Around late May. Got picked up in an old truck that day too,” she chuckled. “Old Red. That’s the way he liked to get around when he was feeling his roots.”

“You mean that old red Chevy? I’ve seen him drive that classic around.”

Emma laughed.

“That’s my dad. He never throws anything away.”

They raced past the green Juneberry city-limit sign, population 8,000. It had been so long since she’d been back, she felt like the sign was saying, “Welcome home, Emma. Welcome home.”

“We’re getting close, Emma,” Noel said. “My mom asked if you wanted to go to your dad’s first, or go straight to the hospital?”

“Hospital,” Emma answered, and Noel veered the truck right at the fork, under the railroad tracks where the road was still one lane. The road curved through neighborhoods of houses old and new before bending at the first traffic light. They were in the commercial district on Juneberry’s west side, and Emma could see the hospital in the distance.

Within minutes they pulled into the parking lot at Wellman Medical, the small community hospital that had served the community for years. Bantam, especially by Boston standards, the five-story facility housed a first-rate emergency room, an eight-bed ICU ward, two respectable operating rooms, and three floors of inpatient beds. Will Madison could have done a lot worse.

“I know he’s in ICU,” Emma said, as they left Noel’s truck and made their way toward the hospital. “But I don’t know exactly where that is.”

“I’m sure we can find it. There’s usually someone at the information desk in the lobby where we go in,” Noel told her, as if he visited the hospital all the time. Just as Noel described, a cheerful seventy-something woman sat at the welcome desk ready to greet them.

“Hello, may I help you?” she asked.

“Yes, my father was admitted this morning. His name is Will Madison, and I believe he’s in the Intensive Care Unit.”

“Are you Emma?” she asked, looking up. The woman wore a plastic nametag attached to her pretty red sweater. On the top it read, VOLUNTEER, and below was her name, Beverly.

“Yes,” Emma answered. Though she lived in Boston, the real location for the fictional bar from the TV show Cheers, it had been awhile since she’d been somewhere everybody actually did know your name.

“I’m Beverly Williams, a friend of your father’s.”

The woman stuck out her hand and shook Emma’s with a congenial welcome. She tilted the screen in front of her and read it through her bifocals.

“You’re right. He’s in ICU, but you’ll have to check in at the nurses’ station on the fourth floor before they’ll let you see him. Just a second, I’ll write you a visitors pass.”

Beverly collected two visitor passes from behind the desk and filled in their names with a blue ink pen. Emma noticed the slight tremble in her hand when the pen wasn’t in motion.

“They’ll know which room he’s in. That information isn’t listed on the system’s computers.”

She handed them both their passes.

“Thank you.”

Beverly leaned in over the front counter and pointed down the hallway to her left.

“You’ll want to go down this hallway and take the second left. Elevators will be on your right. Go up to the fourth floor, and you’ll open up right at the nurses’ station.”

“Thank you, Beverly.”

“Oh, it’s my pleasure,” Beverly said, giving her a carefree smile, just like Noel’s. “Your father is the sweetest man. I was so sorry to hear what happened.”

“I’ll make sure to tell him hey for you,” Emma said.

“You do that,” she said.

Noel and Emma turned the corner and walked down a polished marble hallway, listening to the click of their steps, seeing their reflections beneath them as they walked. They entered the elevator, which they found waiting with its doors open, and pushed the button for the fourth floor. Slowly the doors closed and they felt the small, enclosed space creep upward. Emma closed her eyes, feeling emotionally frayed and physically worn. She’d run an East Coast marathon to get there since that morning. Ever since the mystery phone call had jarred her awake, reminding her that Juneberry had been more than just a dream. Only the one thing mattered now. She wanted to see her father.

The elevator doors opened on the fourth floor directly in front of the nurses’ station. Emma approached the two women working behind it.

“Hi, my name is Emma Madison, and my dad was admitted here this morning … Will Madison?”

“Hi, Emma, I’m Dena. Your dad has told me all about you,” she said, in a way that conveyed he was doing well. “I know you want to see him. He’s right down there in room C.”

Noel took a step backward, giving Emma space to see her dad privately.

“I’ll just stick around out here,” he said.

Dena put aside the folder she’d been charting and led Emma down the hallway. The 5'2" woman gave off an inexplicable feeling of comfort in her powder blue scrub pants, spiffy white tennis shoes, and a basic white smock with teddy bears on it.

Emma followed without speaking. It was like she was passing through the antechamber of a sacred church. Dena walked with light steps. Emma felt weighed down with the mounting anticipation at seeing her father.

Dena stepped through the doorway of room C.

“Will, you’ve got a visitor.”

Emma entered his room slowly, taking in the sight of her father for the first time in forever.

Will Madison lay in a sterile hospital bed with an oxygen feed underneath his nose. An IV line dripped clear fluid down a long, transparent tube into his right thigh. He raised his hand slightly and slowly off the bed to wave.

She stood at the doorway watching him. How much older he looked to her, a mixture of passing years and the survival of a sudden heart attack.

“Hey, Dad,” Emma said to him in a tone as soft as fleece. She tiptoed into his room, finding a place by the side of his bed. She reached over the metal safety railing that ran the length of his bed and took hold of his hand.

“You came,” he said, in a voice as dry as an old Western movie. A satisfied smile eased up in the corners of his mouth.

“Yes, of course,” Emma said, wrapping her other hand around his. “How are you feeling?”

“Better than I was at breakfast,” he smiled, trying to settle her nerves with humor. “I’m okay, darlin’. They were able to get in there and fix the problem in no time flat.”

Emma leaned in closer, speaking softly to him.

“I got here as quickly as I could.”

“I know you did.”

Will squeezed her hand.

“Emma,” Dena said, checking the IV drip and writing in Will’s chart. “I’ll be at the nurses’ station if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” Emma called out to Dena over her shoulder.

Emma took a closer look at her dad. His hair was matted, pressed against his chiseled face like salt-and-pepper doll’s hair. His cheeks were red, not as a result of his morning heart attack, but from working outdoors around the farm: his favorite summer pastime. She looked into his coast blue eyes. They radiated intelligence and light … and exhaustion.

This wasn’t the time to unravel a complicated past. She squeezed her father’s hand again.

“I’m here, Dad. I’ll stay with you until you get well.”

She smiled and marveled at how the small, simple expression put her dad at ease. She watched him smile too, just before those intelligent eyes turned down for sleep. The South Carolina lawyer, a man the governor called “The Advisor,” lay frail and silent beneath a thin, cream-colored hospital blanket. Only the fragile, regular bleep of his heart monitor broke the silence.

Emma returned to the nurses’ station.

“Dena, I want to thank you for taking such good care of my dad.”

“That’s what we try to do around here. That’s why they pay us the big bucks.”

Emma grinned at the remark, more than a little relieved that her dad was all right.

“Dena, can you tell me anything about the sort of treatment my dad required?”

“I can tell you he was treated in the ER. They were going to do the procedure in the OR, but Dr. Anderson decided that the treatment could be performed on your father there. He’s the surgeon who inserted the stint, and he’ll be able to answer more of your questions.”

“Do you know when Dr. Anderson will be in again?”

“He usually visits patients early in the morning before scheduled surgery. I know he’s scheduled tests today to determine the extent of any heart damage, but as far as long-term prescribed medications and that kind of thing, you should probably talk to Dr. Anderson.”

Noel approached the nurses’ desk.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think so. He seems to be doing fine, which is a huge relief.”

“Praise God.”

“Yes, absolutely,” Emma said, knowing that it could have been a much different outcome.

Emma turned her attention to Noel. He’d been so kind all day, but it was time to let him go. Emma wasn’t used to depending on others.

“Noel, I think I’m going to stay here awhile. You probably should get on with your day. I’m sure you have a lot to do.”

“I can stay,” he told her. “I mean, I can just stay in the waiting area. I don’t want to get in your way or anything, but you don’t have a car. So, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just stick around.” He joked, “Who knows, you might get hungry for a Snickers bar. I’m the only one of the two of us who knows where to find the vending machines.”

Emma laughed.

“You’re really something, Noel. I once asked a taxi driver in Boston to stay outside an office building while I ran in to pick something up. I was back downstairs in less than two minutes, but when I got outside, the taxi was nowhere to be found, and I was paying him money.”

“You forget, this is my vacation. What better way to chill than to hang out here? It’s quiet. Besides, I’ve got a good book out in the truck. I’ll just bring it in.”

They looked at each other for a moment without speaking. She knew she needed him and that it would be better if he stayed. She also knew the sacrifice he would be making.

“Well, thank you,” Emma finally said.

Noel Connor’s friendly gesture wasn’t merely a small-town custom, although it was in a small town that Noel had learned to practice the art. Noel’s kindness sprang up from the marrow of his bones. Character had been fused into his DNA.

“I’m just going to the waiting room to collect my thoughts for a while,” Emma said. Noel nodded, the brim of his hat tipping as he watched Emma walk off.

The rest of the day was a slow haze. Emma sat for hours in the wooden chair next to her father’s bed. She held hands with the sleeping man, sharing a one-sided conversation with the man who had raised her. Finally, Emma herself had fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep.

o o o

In the fourth-floor waiting room, Noel Connor sat, still reading his book, settled into the same chair where Emma had last seen him.

“You’ve been here all this time?” Emma said, shaking her head in disbelief.

“It’s a good book.”

“I owe you big-time, Noel, and don’t try to talk me out of it.”

Noel closed his book.

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s awake, and seems to be doing a lot better. Says I’m the one who needs to be getting some rest.”

“You ready to go to your dad’s house?”

“Yes, I’d really like to get settled in.”

They left the hospital the way that they came, past Beverly’s welcoming center, now dark and vacant for the night. Outside, the orange sun was descending behind the tree line with a faint smoky pink sash trailing behind in the clouds.

“My mom left your dad’s house keys with me,” said Noel. They seemed to have taken care of everything. Conversation was easy with him. The day’s events bonded them into kindred spirits. “She didn’t know if you’d have any, so I’ve got some for you.”


“Yes, I’ll be needing those,” she said, feeling like someone who’d needed assistance at every turn.

“She’s the one that found him, you know.”

Emma felt like a sleuth picking up details here and there about what had happened that morning. “How frightening for her. I’m just glad she was there checking up on him.”

Noel’s Dodge hummed down Junction Road as the last ounce of daylight dripped into night. Emma gazed out the window, exhausted and hungry.

Twenty-four hours earlier, she’d been preparing for trial. She left the office late for a steak dinner with Colin at Abe & Louie’s before going to bed on the third floor of her townhouse where the muted sound of taxis lulled her to sleep.

Somewhere in her weary mind, a thought rattled again in its little tin cup. Who would be the first to ask her, “Why didn’t you come back?”

Noel switched on his headlights to drive the rest of the dark country two-lane. Soon, he pulled onto the gravel horseshoe drive and shifted the stick on the steering post to Park.

“Here are the house keys. Do you want me to help you get some lights on?”

“The porch light’s on. I think I’ll be okay,” Emma said.

She swung open the truck door, and Noel got out to unload her luggage. The evening moon gave the farmyard a silvery tint. It reminded Emma of all the nights in high school when she, Christina, and Noel’s mom, Samantha, had packed up or unloaded their cars in this drive. Always off on some new adventure, or coming back late from a sunny day at the lake.

“Noel,” Emma said, turning around from her route to the front door.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks,” she said. “For everything.”

He gave her one more nod of the plain straw hat, and Emma dragged her bags up the grassy walkway illuminated by the truck’s high beams. At the top of the stairs, she pushed open the heavy oak door and waved Noel on.

Emma walked in and clicked on the entryway lights, peering up the red-carpeted staircase of the hundred-year-old house. It looked weirdly the same as it had when she was in high school. The same family pictures on the walls, younger faces in outdated clothing, looked out through glass and frame. She climbed the long staircase to her old bedroom, toting both suitcases, keeping her mind off the thing she feared most about being alone in the house.

Emma switched on the golden bedside lamp in her old bedroom and sat on the checkered quilt. She barely possessed the strength but managed to shower and change into her pajamas before crawling into a familiar canopy bed. She hadn’t eaten much that day, just some pretzels and orange juice on the plane, but Emma felt too exhausted to care.

Emma snuffed out the bedside lamp and lay in the still beam of moonlight stenciled across her comforter. In the murky twilight before sleep, she chased away the absurd feeling that she wasn’t alone in the house and thought of the question one last time: Who would be the first to ask, “Why didn’t you come back?”