Distant Shores by Kristin Hannah

clustered together, a brick-and-mortar enclave huddled around what had once been the only stoplight in town.
    Now a four-lane road ran through Springdale, with long, strip malls on either side. A Wal-Mart sat kitty-corner from a Target; foes locked in a discount dogfight in a blue-collar town. There were golden arches and neon Winn-Dixie signs and even a Blockbuster Video store. Everything was decorated red and green for Christmas. Countless signs advertised holiday sales.
    But there, tucked on the corner of First and Main, between a sprawling new Kroger and a Cracker Barrel restaurant, was the tavern her daddy had loved. More than once, Elizabeth had dragged him home from there.…
    Why, darlin’,
he’d always say in that roaring voice of his, with laughter just below the surface,
it can’t be time for supper yet?
    A mile out of town, the road thinned down to two lanes again, and she was back in the place where she’d grown up. On either side of the quiet road, empty tobacco fields stretched to the horizon, broken only by occasional groves of bare trees. A few homesteads presided over it all, the houses hidden from view by carefully planted evergreens. The only signs of progress were dozens of manufactured houses and the billboards that looked down on them. Up ahead, there was a four-way stop. On one of the corners was a tall pole; a rusted orange tractor sat atop it on a metal plate. It had been the landmark entrance to Sojourner Road for as long as anyone could recall.
    Elizabeth turned onto the long gravel road that bordered her father’s land.
    To the right, everything belonged to Edward Rhodes. Acres and acres of tilled red earth. Soon, the crops would be planted. By July, the corn would be as tall as a man and go on forever. By October, the leaves would be brownish gold and thin as paper,and when the early winter winds came, the rustling stalks would sound like a hive of bees. That was the cycle of the land, the measure of time. Everything in her daddy’s world had been tacked to seasons. Things came and went and lived and died according to sunlight.
    At last, she came to the driveway. A huge, scrollwork metal arch curved above the road. Swinging gently in the breeze was the copper sign, long since aged to blue-green, that read: sweetwater
.
    Elizabeth eased back on the gas. The car slowed as she drove down the driveway. On either side of her, bare, brown tree limbs reached beseechingly toward the winter-gray sky.
    She was home.
    The Federal style brick house stood proudly on a manicured yard. Clipped evergreen hedges outlined the perimeter, the perfectly shaped line broken here and there by ancient walnut trees. One of those trees still held the tire swing that had been young Elizabeth’s favorite place to play on a sunny summer’s day. Beneath it, the ghost of a long-unused footpath remained.
    Elizabeth parked in front of the carriage house turned garage and shut down the engine. When she stepped outside, she smelled chimney smoke and wet earth and mulch. She pulled her garment bag out of the car and headed up to the front door, where she rang the bell.
    There were a few moments of silence, then the shuffling of feet and a muffled voice.
    Daddy opened the door. He wore a blue-checked flannel shirt and a pair of crumpled khaki pants. His white, flyaway hair was Albert Einstein wild, and his smile was big enough to break a girl’s heart.
    â€œSugar beet,” he said in that gravelly voice of his. His molasses-thick drawl stretched the words into taffy,
Sugah beeat.
“We didn’t expect ya’ll for another hour or so. Come on, now, don’t stand there a-starin’. Give your old man a hug.”
    She launched forward. His big arms curled around her, made her feel small again, young. He smelled of her childhood, of pipe smoke and expensive aftershave and peppermint gum.
    When she drew back, he touched her face. It had always amazed her that a hand so big could be