Emerson's Home

Chapter One
The man sat on the front steps of his house having his morning coffee and watched the painter setting up his easel and paints. He could understand why someone would choose to set up in that spot, looking out to the mountains beyond. The scene had invited many to capture its image over the years be it through painting, photography, or even sitting and tattooing the scene in their memory. However, this man he didn’t recognize and wanted to introduce himself so he made his way down his front lawn and across the street to the stonewall.
“Hello there, young man,” the man greeted.
A bit startled, the painter jumped. “Oh, hi.” The man noticed that the painter’s hands shook quite a bit and he wondered how he could paint with such a condition.

“Somebody, um, somebody … in town said this was a real nice spot and that…that…” he stumbled, “that the owners wouldn’t mind if I sat for a bit.” Everything about the painter shook. He seemed nervous, but the man couldn’t tell if anxiety caused the shaking or something else.
“Sure, not at all,” he reassured. “I’m biased, but I think you can’t find a prettier spot in all of Vermont.” They both looked out over the large sloping field down to where the trees started, seeing just the tops of them as the woods started below the sightline. The autumn colors had begun to come alive and the morning sun sparkled off each leaf and the morning dew. In some spots it looked as if the trees had little lights shining from within. The horses grazed in the morning sun that began to warm the air as the two men made small talk, then said their good-byes to go about their separate business. The man turned around to engage in one last effort of conversation, “You know what they say, ‘Vermont isn’t just a state…it’s a state of mind.’” After getting little response from the stranger he made his exit. “Well, you have a lovely day for it today. Best of luck to ya’.”
“Thanks,” the painter said and the man couldn’t tell if sarcasm hid somewhere behind his voice as he turned his attention to his task with diligence rather than pleasure.
Toward the end of the day a knock echoed through the house, sounding strange. People didn’t knock up here; they just walked in. As the man rounded the corner toward the foyer, he saw the painter standing at his front door with the setting sun behind him.
“Well, hello again.” He opened the screen door to welcome the painter in, but he stayed outside. The painter’s shaking continued, but he seemed a bit more at peace than this morning. “You seem like you had a good day,” the man commented.
“Yes, thank you.” But then the painter’s nerves flared up again. “I’d like you to have this, that is, well, if you’d like it,” he fumbled. He held up a painting done at a different time and location, but still an attempt at the beautiful vista that any of Londonderry offered.
“Well, that’s nice,” said the man, quite sincere. “But that’s not necessary if you’re collecting them to sell or anything.” He didn’t want to take away a man’s livelihood.
The painter chuckled. “Oh, no, I’m just doing this to…” he trailed off, then came back, darker. “It’s fine, really. I’d like you to have it.”
The man took the painting. “Well, I thank you,” and looked closely at what the painter had done. “That’s a real nice picture. Mighty nice.”
“Yeah,” the painter grumbled, but began to pick up his bags. “Thanks again.” They shook hands, and parted company.

CHAPTER 2
“You’ll kill yourself on that thing one day!” Emerson heard her mother yell to her as she flew through the air on her swing. She watched her mother walk down the back porch steps balancing the laundry basket on her slightly bulging belly. Emerson knew just watching the swinging motion, so high up with its long, swooping passes, could make her mother’s morning sickness come back.
“Don’t swing so high,” Linda added, but Emerson knew that her mother didn’t really mean it. At eight years old, Emerson LaMonica loved to sit on her swing at her grandfather’s farm. It hung forty feet from an old maple tree letting her fly in long slow arcs high into the air. This wasn’t the first time her mother had expressed her apprehension over the height of the swing. The pregnancy had only brought out the panic more lately. Well, that and the countless times Emerson did fall off the thing and just about everything else up here on the farm. More scrapes and bruises than her mother wanted to count, two broken toes, three broken fingers, and one broken wrist. She was surprised her mother didn’t put her in a big plastic bubble to roll around in, protected from all the spills Emerson took.
“I’m fine, Mom!” Emerson yelled, as she gave the swing another pump so she could see over the barn at the top of the next run. The foliage of the woods beyond the barn had just reached its peak. The late afternoon sun made them glow in reds, oranges, and yellows inviting all to come to the forest. Emerson loved this land, loved this farm, loved her life. The cast on her wrist had come off two days ago. Finally free from the crusty, brown plaster cast (and the itching), Emerson began hounding her mother the minute they left the doctor’s office to come up to the farm so she could swing and ride her horse.
“When’s Dad coming?” she yelled as the swing came down to earth on its path.
“Soon,” Linda answered. “So you better get off that swing and finish up the chores Empa left you in the barn because Daddy will be here any minute to pick us up.”
Emerson kept the slow passes of the swing going, her face lifted up to the fading sun. Her grandfather came out of the barn and watched the typical scene unfold.
“Hi, Empa!” she yelled. As a toddler, when she began to talk, “Grandpa Emerson” came out “Empa” and he remained Empa forever.
“Get your butt down off that swing there, Sonny, or I’ll call the fire department back with the ladder truck to take that thing down.” As a volunteer fireman, he and the rest of the department had spent a Saturday morning rigging the ropes up on the first branch, which happened to be forty feet in the air. She knew he would never take down her swing, but she would comply with Empa. Emerson was just about to drag her feet at the bottom to prepare for a landing when the town fire siren went off. Not the noontime bell, but the call for all the volunteers in town to get to the station, and as always the three turned their attention to the distant noise for a moment. Emerson stopped pumping and let the swing sway.
“Say a prayer, Emerson,” her mother said, as always. Empa propped his shovel on the nearby fence and returned to the barn to pull out the truck. The blue lights of a volunteer flashed from the globe on the dashboard as he drove away.
“Come help me fold the rest of this laundry before your father gets here, please,” her mother said with a more serious tone than earlier. Emerson hopped down off the swing, long before it had come to a full stop. She could tell that her mother still had prayers for the unknown victim going on in her head. She helped with the laundry then ran to the barn to finish settling the horses and other animals for the night.
Afterward, with the sun just about finished for the day, Emerson and her mother sat on the front porch waiting for their ride. Linda sat in the porch swing knitting new scarves and hats for the coming winter, the young girl sat pouring over a book on battles of the Revolutionary War. Her mother had tried to teach her knitting, but Emerson found that sitting for any length of time over something other than a book impossible. She also knew that in 1996 if she really needed a new scarf, she could get to a store and buy one, but gaining as much information as she could about an historical event needed all her free time. Getting too dark to read any longer, she looked out over the dimming fields and down the road.
“When’s Daddy getting here?”
Her mother looked up and sighed, but continued knitting, her hands knowing what to do in the dark. “I don’t know, honey. Perhaps he saw Empa on the way down and followed.” Emerson sighed, got up to walk to the end of the driveway, and climbed the fence to look down the dirt road.
“Are we spending the night?” she called from the fence.
“Come up here and talk to me like a young lady please instead of hollering at me,” Linda scolded. Again, Emerson sighed, but jumped off the fence and made her way back up to the porch, tripping on one of the stones getting another grass stain on her knee. She watched as her mother tucked her knitting into her bag and got up, wrapping her cardigan tighter around her, shivering. “Oh, it’s cold all of a sudden,” she said to Emerson, ignoring the latest tumble. Emerson walked over to her and hugged her for warmth. “Let’s go inside and get dinner started since we’re not going anywhere for a while.” Emerson smiled at the suggestion, loving the thought of more time at the farm. “I don’t think this baby will wait much longer for some food.” Emerson hugged her mother, loving the feeling of her growing belly and her growing family.
Emerson had gotten used to the “Only Child” role, but the thought of a little brother or sister thrilled her. People in town teased her, knowing how close she was to her father and to Empa saying that the green-eyed monster would create such sibling rivalry it would make the easy-going Emerson unrecognizable, but Emerson never felt threatened by this new little life. She only felt joy. Besides, she knew what she had with her father could survive anything, and he certainly had enough love to give to two children.
Inside, Emerson set the table in the dining room with four place settings, and helped make the salad. Now she sat in the window seat reading once again. Linda set right to work, as if the kitchen in the old farmhouse belonged to her, making small talk with her daughter.
“Have you decided what you’d like to get Melanie for her birthday?” Her mother asked. Melanie and Emerson had their birthdays in the same week, were polar opposites, but best friends since preschool. Emerson looked out the window as she thought, both to check if her father’s car had appeared and to remember what gifts she thought about getting Mel.
“I know that she wants more Barbie’s…” making a face that equaled “yuck,” causing Linda to laugh.
“Would that be so horrible?” she teased.
“No…” she stalled.
“To get the girl something that she would like for her birthday?”
“I know, but I found this book down at Sampson’s Market that I think…”
The loud ringing from the phone on the wall interrupted the frivolous chat. Emerson glanced out again as her mother talked then focused her attention back into her book. The crashing of the casserole made her jump out of her seat, and then she saw her mother falling to the floor.

CHAPTER 3
Emerson dashed over to her mother unconscious on the floor. “Mom?” Emerson got down and shook her mother with more strength than an eight-year-old should have.
“Linda!” the voice on the phone screamed.
The back door flung open and Empa burst through the door, in an instant surveyed the scene, and ran over to Linda.
“Put cold water on a washcloth and come to the living room,” Empa directed as he lifted Linda in his arms and carried her to the couch. Emerson moved fast and kneeled by the couch in a flash.
“What happened?” she asked handing him the washcloth, very confused.
“Sonny,” Empa sighed looking down, holding the cold cloth on Linda’s forehead. “Emerson,” he started again. Empa using her real name never meant anything good. “The alarm…there was an accident.” He refolded the washcloth and wiped Linda’s cheeks. Although his daughter-in-law, Emerson knew he loved Linda as his own. She waited, anxiety rooting her to the floor.
“Your father…” At the mention of her father, Emerson stood up, already shaking her head. Empa took his attention off of Linda and grabbed Emerson by the arms. “There was nothing anyone could do. It happened in an instant.” She wiggled her arms free of Empa’s hands, shaking her head as she backed up. “Please, Sonny, it’ll be okay,” he choked. “I promise.”
“No,” was all she could manage, and turned and sprinted out the front door into the woods and up the mountain in the dark.
Two days later, Emerson sat in the same kitchen window seat looking out over the barn and the fields drenched in a cold autumn rain. She was glad it had rained. She had needed it to pour. The deluge and the murmurs of the townsfolk as they gathered throughout Empa’s house helped numb her pain.
“Why aren’t we at their house instead of up here?”
“He grew up here.”
“How do you think Linda will survive without him?”
“Not only Linda, what will that poor child do?”
“Oh, that child will fade away to nothing, you mark my words.”
“Never seen a family so close, never seen a daughter closer to her father.”
“At least there’s the grandfather.”
Emerson stared outside, desperate to run up the mountain. She knew Empa would let her, might even go with her, but her mother wouldn’t like it. Not now. Empa joined her on the window seat and looked out with her, not saying anything for a while.
“The rain may stop,” he nudged. She couldn’t respond. He pressed on, “Think you’d be up for a ride in a little while? I think those horses of ours are about ready to kick down their stall doors,” his tone as easy as a Saturday afternoon. Emerson shrugged. He sat for a while, saying nothing else, then got up without a word and went back into the thick of the people and they enveloped him. Melanie came over hoping to follow Empa’s lead. Emerson couldn’t summon the energy to talk with her but Mel attempted to start a conversation anyway.
“I’m real sorry, Em.” Silence. Another attempt. “I hope you still come to my party — I mean if you still want to. It wouldn’t be the same without you.” More silence followed so Mel got up and walked away. No one else approached her. She sat looking out the window as she had the night she sat waiting for her father to come home, her body turned away from everyone. She didn’t want anyone to come over. No one but her father would do.
Empa left his little girl alone for the rest of the day, never taking her out for that ride. The house emptied as the sun disappeared down the mountain behind the breaking storm. Not many people would want to drive down the steep, precarious road in the dark. Still dirt and full of deep ruts, people avoided The Pass whenever they could. They left without saying a word to Emerson. With everyone gone, she remained in the window seat, unmoving, while Linda sat in the living room on the couch where she stayed since coming back from the cemetery — both LaMonica girls planted in their opposite corners.
Empa found them both in their spots as he came downstairs from changing into work clothes. Emerson heard him pause between the two rooms, wondering which way he would go. She had wanted to be alone all day, but now something inside her wished more than anything that he would choose her, come get her, come heal her.
He moved. “Get out of those clothes, Sonny, and meet me in the barn,” he called and walked out the back door. She moved as if swimming through molasses, but she got off the window seat, changed her clothes, and met him in the barn. The warm air and smell of horses met her at the door as she made her way over to her horse. She stood with her back to the door for some moments before going over to the stall. She climbed up onto the half door, eye level with her horse Chip. He came right over and rested his large head into her chest and she leaned on him, feeling his heat, the movement of his breath, his life.
“Sorry I didn’t get you out, boy,” she said, her first words all day. With the break of her silence and this warm life nuzzled into her, the gates opened and she began to cry. Chip supported her with his strong head as she came off the door to the floor, curling up in his stall in the straw and sobbed. Empa cleaned out the stall next to Chip, his own tears streaming, and let her weep.

CHAPTER 4
The sun had disappeared for a few days after the funeral, but returned in time for Melanie’s birthday party. Emerson’s own birthday had passed without anyone but Empa acknowledging it. Some of the children’s mothers stuck around in the kitchen as Melanie and the girls played with all the latest Barbie’s, while the boys and Emerson played football outside in the last warmth of the season. A cross between touch and tackle, few would leave without bruises.
“Come on, Billy,” Andy scolded. “You should’ve had that!” Emerson ran off with another touchdown, having intercepted the ball right out of Billy’s hands. She trotted back with the ball and threw it into Billy’s stomach.
“Not feeling your usual nasty self?” she asked, a bit perturbed he was taking it easy on her. Billy Platt had picked on Emerson since the first day of nursery school and never stopped. She did not want any sympathy from anybody, least of all Billy.
“Yeah, right,” in his best sneer. “Just get ready for the kickoff.”
They played long past dusk and mothers’ calls and complaints about how filthy their clothes got. Walking up from the yard toward the house, laughing and shoving all the way, Emerson could feel Andy coming up closer to her.
“Hey,” he started, “nice game.” He stalled, “Um, I’m real sorry about your dad.” She made it a point to brush him off and keep moving. She didn’t want to think about her father and the constant pain of him. Everyone had to stop bringing it up. She would make everyone know not to bring him up. She ran ahead to catch up with Mel.
“Did you have fun with the boys?” Mel teased, then stumbled, “Oh, sorry, I shouldn’t have teased.”
Emerson rolled her eyes and overlooked the unspoken directive among all her friends to take it easy on her since her father died. She teased right back. “Did you have fun with the girls?” and bumped Mel with her hip.