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“Shut down? What? What does that mean?” Emerson was confused and didn’t like the agitated churning that began in her stomach.

“It means the company was
shut down
. As in closed. Bankrupt. People were sent home in the middle of the day on Friday. Sales reps out in the field were called on their cells and told to stop what they were doing immediately and go home. The T-751 knee replacements? The company’s bread and butter? Yeah, the rumors we’ve been hearing are true. That one lawsuit has multiplied. They’re defective, Emmy.
Coming apart
. Losing pieces. It’s a disaster. There are now sixteen lawsuits in process and probably hundreds more on the horizon. McKinney Carr is done.”

“What the fuck?” It was all Emerson could think of to say. The T-751 was a fairly new model. It represented a whole new generation of joint replacement, and McKinney Carr had built their reputation on it. Hell, Emerson had put thousands of dollars into her own pocket by convincing some of the finest orthopedic surgeons in California to use it. “This is a fucking nightmare.”

“I know. I can’t even believe it. We are now unemployed, my friend. And better yet, we may have to testify down the road.”

“What?”

“If the lawsuits go to trial, they might need the salespeople to testify that we knew nothing about the defects.”

Emerson started to sweat. “I didn’t. Did you?”

“Of course not. Nobody had any idea. Not any real idea. We all heard the talk, but that’s all I thought it was. Talk. Nasty rumors started by our competitors.”

“Me, too. Holy shit, Bren.”

“I know.”

They talked for a few more minutes, then hung up. Emerson sat in stunned silence on the couch, unable to comprehend the fact that she was out of work. No warning. No severance. No time to find another job. Being away from L.A. wasn’t helping. McKinney Carr had twenty-three sales reps, and Emerson was certain that most of them spent the weekend calling and visiting the competition, hoping to be hired, while Emerson was three thousand miles away stumbling over cobblestones and staring at reminders of what might have been.

Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

The thought hit out of nowhere. It was possible. Brenda was a little quirky, it was true, but could she be mistaken about something so big?

Deciding some research was in order, Emerson punched some buttons on her phone to get to the Internet before noticing she had very little battery life left. “God damn it.” She plugged her phone in and dug out her laptop instead. It booted up and immediately asked her for the password to her mother’s WiFi. “God damn it,” she repeated, a bit harsher this time. The small desk in the corner of the living room seemed a safe bet. Rifling through the piles of papers there, Emerson surmised it was where Caroline paid her bills and took care of paperwork before Emerson located a Post-It with an alphanumeric code. Taking a chance, she punched it in and was rewarded with success. She hopped online and the e-mail she had received from the HR Department at McKinney Carr confirmed what Brenda had said. It was simple—almost too simple—and basically said the company had shut down with no intention of reopening and that a representative would contact her in the near future. Her work number—which was automatically forwarded to her cell—had been disconnected and no messages would be forwarded. This was to save her from the barrage of customer phone calls she’d likely get, which Emerson thought seemed incredibly cold. The thought of her clients trying to get ahold of her and being unable to do so bothered her…not that she wanted to field their calls, as she had no idea what she’d say. When she tried to send a reply to the e-mail, she received a MAILER-DAEMON failure notice telling her the address she was sending to was invalid.

Shifting gears, she went to Google. One search of the T-751 artificial knee was all it took for dozens of articles to pop up detailing the problems with the model. Countless lawsuits were pending.

“Son of a bitch.” Emerson rubbed her hands over her face in disbelief. How was this even possible? In this day and age, how was it possible for such an important piece of medical technology to go so horribly awry? Absently massaging her own knee, she thanked her lucky stars the T-751 hadn’t been invented when she’d had hers reconstructed. She could almost imagine what the recipients of the McKinney Carr knee who had
not
had problems were thinking right now. Several of the articles mentioned the recommendation of having an additional surgery to replace the knee replacement and prevent possible future issues. That would be the last thing they’d want to do, given the lengthiness and excruciating pain of the physical therapy the first time around. Do it all over again?

“No, thanks.” What a nightmare.

Emerson sat back and stared out the window at the growing darkness, the water clear and calm as glass as her mind reeled from the sheer scope of everything that had been thrown at her in the past week.

“What the hell do I do now?”

Emerson was dreaming. That
, she was sure of.

Bells.

Ringing.

Her brain struggled to make sense of the sounds until she gradually woke from a very sound sleep and realized her cell phone was ringing. A quick peek at it through one squinted eye told her it was barely 5 AM. The number was international, and she groaned, but then cleared her throat and hit the green button.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Emmy! My sweet girl. How are you? Are you okay? I just heard. I’m so sorry.” Fredrik Rosberg spoke quickly, his accent barely detectable. Emerson was constantly amazed by the quality of English they spoke in Sweden. In all of Scandinavia, really. His English was better than hers.

“Yeah. Thanks. I’m okay.”

“Are you in Lake Henry?”

“Yes. Where it’s 4:53 in the morning.”

“Oh, for god’s sake. I’m sorry, honey. I forget.” He always forgot. It was a regular thing, and Emerson had learned if she ever wanted to speak to her father, she was most likely going to have to do it in the wee hours of the morning while she was bleary-eyed and foggy-headed.

“S’okay,” she said, not bothering to stifle her yawn.

“I’m sorry I missed the funeral. I was in Oslo visiting with Ellen’s family, and I couldn’t have gotten a flight to get me there in time. She wants to get married in the spring. I figure, why not?”

His ability to shift from something as serious as her mother’s death to the subject of his own love life so smoothly never ceased to amaze Emerson. It was a gift her father had. Playfully sarcastic tone firmly in place, she asked, “Fifth time’s the charm, huh?”

Fredrik’s laughter rumbled through the phone and vibrated in her ear. Emerson could picture him, his too-long, wavy blond hair falling across his forehead, his face almond brown almost year-round from time spent on the sunny ski slopes all over the world—painfully good-looking, even as sixty was moving in at breakneck speed. He was famous, at least to the world of championship skiing, with a gold and two bronze Olympic medals. Female companionship was not something he ever lacked; Emerson’s mother was merely the first in a long line of women. He’d married and divorced four of them, including Caroline. Emerson knew Wife #2, Marlena, very well. She’d ended up being the big sister Emerson never had. They were in touch on Facebook, and talked on the phone fairly often. She lived in Colorado with her husband and baby, and was one of the few people Emerson felt
really
knew her. Wife #3, Anna, was only in her twenties and wanted to have children, but Fredrik was “way past fatherhood,” as he told her. She was the only one of the four who served
him
with divorce papers rather than the other way around, and that earned her Emerson’s grudging respect. Wife #4 was Shannon, a supermodel from the UK, and Emerson hadn’t met her at all, mostly because the entire union lasted less than a year. Ellen was Norwegian, and had been on her father’s arm for nearly six months now—a new record for him. Emerson met her over the summer when the couple had come to L.A. so Fredrik could narrate a documentary on the history of downhill skiing. Ellen seemed very nice, and they’d gotten along quite well. She seemed almost too down-to-earth for her dad, but Emerson had learned long ago that Fredrik was a big boy fully capable of making—and handling—his own mistakes. He was a ladies’ man and a crappy father, but he was the only one she’d ever have, so she put up with his idiosyncrasies and took whatever time and attention he was willing to give. It wasn’t much, but it was as good as it would get, and Emerson had made peace with that a while back.

“Seriously, my girl,” he said now, his voice gentling. “How are you? Are you doing all right?”

Emerson nodded. “I’m okay. It’s hard. It’s hard to be here in Mom’s house with her things, and it’s hard to be back in this town.”

“I know. Some bad memories there for you. When was the last time you visited?”

“Long time ago,” she evaded, not wanting to admit to the truth.

“Do you miss the city?”

“Oh my god, it’s so quiet here!” She laughed at that, trying to lighten the mood. “I forgot about that. I’m used to L.A. We don’t have cicadas there. We have traffic. Always.”

“That’s one thing I really liked about Lake Henry. The quiet. I don’t think I have relaxed quite as well anyplace else. You should give it a try, my girl. Just sit by the water and clear your mind. It’s rejuvenating.”

“I’ll try that,” Emerson said as she rolled her eyes. Meditation was so not for her.

“Okay, love. I have to run. I just wanted to check in with you and make sure you’re doing all right.”

“I am.”

“I am really sorry about your mother. She was a wonderful woman.”

She appreciated his words, especially since her parents’ split—albeit ages ago—had been anything but pleasant. “She was. Thanks.”

“You take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

“Good. I love you, my girl.”

“Love you, too, Dad.”

A strange sense of loneliness seemed to settle over her once she hung up, and she found herself suddenly missing the sound of her father’s voice. Baffling. Not the kind of person who needed a lot of human contact, the melancholy feeling surprised her, but she wasn’t sure what to do about it. She lay in her mother’s soft bed, warm under the down comforter, and listened to the early morning, something she’d often done as a child. It was still dark out, but she could hear the various creatures near the water. Bullfrogs, birds, the occasional cicada, a snapping twig that indicated something larger…a squirrel or fox or maybe a deer. Straining her ears, she was momentarily taken back to her childhood when she’d lain in bed and tried to identify each gentle sound of nature she heard in the early morning quiet, as if each creature was moving on tiptoe, trying not to wake the still slumbering humans.

The reminiscent peace didn’t last long as Emerson glanced from the window to her mother’s dresser, and it occurred to her just how much there was to be done. On the footsteps of that thought came the reminder that she was now unemployed and had nothing that would make her speed up the cleaning and sorting process, which then led to a sad depression that seemed to push her down into the mattress with its weight. Her brain felt no clearer this morning than it had last night; she still had no idea what to do.

Emerson knew there would be no more sleeping today. Her body felt sluggish and gooey, and she suspected it was because she’d gotten very little physical activity since she’d arrived. She couldn’t run the way she did when she was younger, not with her knee, but she could bike. She needed to. Rarely did she go two consecutive days without a ride, so it was no wonder she was feeling blobbish. When her father spoke of meditation clearing his head, Emerson equated that to biking. That was how she cleared hers. She hadn’t been able to bring her bike with her on the plane, but she needed to do something.

Throwing the covers off, she announced to the room, “A brisk walk it is then.”

Not having much in the way of exercise clothes in her suitcase, she donned a pair of tight-fitting workout pants over the ACE bandage she wrapped around her knee for extra support, then rifled through her mother’s dresser drawer and found a soft gray long-sleeved T-shirt that was emblazoned with Adirondack Girls’ Hockey on the front in white.

“Perfect.” Thanking her lucky stars for whatever reason she’d decided to pack her sneakers, she laced them up, grabbed a jacket from the hook near the door, and headed out. Maybe she couldn’t catch any sleep, but she could certainly load up on fresh mountain air.

***

If her memory served her, Lake Henry was just over three miles around. Emerson had done one lap at a somewhat brisk pace, but now slowed a bit and allowed herself to relax, to just take in the fresh air, the sounds of nature. She hated to admit that her father was right, but something about the quiet of the woods and clear reflection of the lightening sky in the lake put her mind at ease. She felt infinitely better than she had last night.

Walking had been a grand idea. Her legs were working, her knee was no longer stiff, and she felt at peace for the first time in…well, since she’d arrived. She’d passed a grand total of four people during her trek, two joggers, one biker, one walker, and they’d all smiled, nodded, and continued on their way.

Hearing the slap, slap of running shoes on the path behind her, she inched herself to the right to allow room for the runner to pass.

“Thanks,” the runner said as she went by, giving Emerson a quick glance before continuing on her way, doing a double-take, and turning back. Cassie Prescott pulled her ear buds from her ears and said, “Hey, you,” with a cheerful smile. She pulled up alongside Emerson and slowed her pace so she jogged almost in place next to her. Dressed in black running pants, a purple hooded pullover, and expensive-looking Nikes, she kept up the grin, and her dark ponytail bobbed at the back of her head as she fell into step. “Good morning. How are you?”

“Morning,” Emerson said, instantly irritated at being interrupted. She wasn’t a fan of tandem workouts. She preferred to exercise on her own, in silence rather than carrying on a breathless conversation, but she also had manners, so she answered. “I’m okay. You?”