Chapter 4: Emma

She exhaled, trying to release the pain in her heart. She started to laugh in frustration as she turned her attention from the letter and looked out the window to the fields. She heard her father's voice as she mulled the letter over in her mind. Emma watched once again as the wind rolled across the grass. She wiped her eyes and turned and looked back to the books.

Part of her wanted to walk out of her father's office, go get in her car and drive back to New York as if she could run away from all that was facing her, but she knew she couldn't. Her place was right there, behind her father's desk with his work. She ran her hand through her hair and then pulled the book closer. As she did, she let out a big sigh and turned the page.

On the next page, she found one of her father's prized sunrise shots along with several sheets of handwritten notes. She picked them up, studying the photo for a moment and looked to the words written on the first page.

Lost Sunrise

Emma turned it over, finding more pages written in beautiful script. The corner on this page was folded over. She reached up smoothing it out and began to read.

It was late summer in 1950 when Joe pulled his truck on top of the hill at the back of his family's farm there in Harrison Indiana. He could just barely make out the tree-filled valley in front of him through the darkness. He reached for the Contex 35mm camera that lay on the seat next to him and stepped from his truck. He took a deep breath of the crisp morning air. The sweet smells of the maple trees in the surrounding woods filled his lungs. He glanced to the horizon; the thin clouds in the distance were beginning to turn light pinks and oranges as the sun made its way into the sky.

As Emma read the first words, she found herself to be very distant from his writing. It was as if she was editing some project that had come across her desk, some article by someone she barely knew. She wasn't sure why she had done this at first.

Part of her thought it was natural for her to distance herself from the work she read. She felt it allowed her to maintain her objectivity, but as she read her father's writing, she felt guilty for having treated it like it was written by someone she didn't know.

She reached up, rubbing her brow, and as she did, she heard a distinct chirp from her phone. Her cell reception at the farm was anything but great so she was surprised by the welcome interruption.

She pulled the phone from her back pocket, then leaned back, crossing one arm under the other as she brought it up and clicked the power button. The email icon refreshed and showed a red number thirty-two next to it. She tapped the screen, opening her mail, and glanced at several of the subject lines. She scrolled down through the messages, but she didn't open them as she really didn't want to hear from anyone from the city.

Over the past few months, things back home had become very difficult, and Emma felt that she had lost her way in her writing and her relationship. Things with her longtime fianc¨¦, Steven, who her mother swore was perfect for her, had been pretty rocky, and it seemed that their days were filled with more drama than joy.

Steven was to have made the trip home with her, but when she left New York, she told him she didn't want him to come. When she'd left him alone in the city, she felt very distant from him, but now as she thought of him, she felt she'd almost been cruel. Everything seemed to have come to a head with her father passing and now, as she sat there, she felt more alone than ever.

Over the years, Emma had developed a pretty good method for dealing with stress-ªor running away from it, as Steven had suggested. This usually involved long hours in the office pouring herself into her work and now, as she sat there at her father's desk, she scoffed as she, for a moment, believed that Steven might have been right.

As Emma looked at her father's manuscript, she couldn't help but laugh at the thought of how her father had planned this moment. She couldn't run away; she didn't have her work or her office to hide in. Her phone and internet reception was terrible, and he'd known she would be left there with her thoughts and his notes.

She put the phone down on the desk and reached up, rubbing her neck. She cleared her throat and looked across the room to her father's picture.

"Alright, Dad, you win."

She picked up the pages again, taking a deep breath, and began to read.