His father had finally said you can go East and I will support you for one year but you won’t waste it in the stock market. The bond business. Me and your uncles agree that is where the future lies. After that year you are free to be on your own or you will come back here and take over this business. That is your offer.
Nick accepted. His father had a contact from New Haven at a firm in Manhattan and he made a call and Nick had a job. Two long weeks passed and then he packed a trunk with the boxes marked Paris and Judah buried on the bottom beneath the clothes. But ten minutes before he was to leave for the train station, he opened the trunk and dug and took out the boxes. He went upstairs to his room and all that he had written over the last two years, all the words that had helped to settle his hand and settle his thoughts, he hid underneath the chest of drawers that still held some of his childhood clothes. He then lay on the floor and whispered to Paris and Judah, I am going to start again.
Nick sat down on the damp ground. Another horn echoed and the earliest birds sang through the trees. Daylight was coming as the stars began to flake away in a melting sky and Nick closed his eyes. Felt the anticipation of a new day and his heart beat faster as he thought of the vast American city that awaited him. So many faces and sights and sounds and I will be one of the millions, he thought. I will join in.
He sat leaning back on extended arms and waited for the sunrise. He watched the world awake and he looked over toward the pier of the great mansion to his right. The shifting light of night to day and the mist from the water played with his eyes but he thought he saw a figure at the end of the pier. Nick watched for movement but it remained still. A silhouette waiting for dawn. But even in silhouette Nick thought that the figure seemed to hold some magical stature, as if a fairytale were being whispered into his ear and his mind creating the vision for it. A gaggle of ducks landed in the water and caught Nick’s attention and when he looked back to the pier the figure had vanished. He dismissed it as imagination and then he stood and the first light brushed the horizon. And he raised his arms and reached out for the dawn as if to warm his hands on the rising sun.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Ellen Levine, Josh Kendall, Sabrina Callahan, Yuli Masinovsky, Jason Richman, and the teams at Little, Brown, No Exit Press, and Trident Media Group. As always my utmost thanks to my wife and daughters.
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About the Author
Michael Farris Smith is the author of Blackwood, The Fighter, Desperation Road, Rivers, and The Hands of Strangers. His novels have appeared on Best of the Year lists in Esquire, Southern Living, Book Riot, and numerous other outlets, and have been named Indie Next, Barnes & Noble Discover, and Amazon Best of the Month selections. He has been a finalist for the Southern Book Prize, the Gold Dagger Award in the UK, and the Grand Prix des Lectrices in France, and his essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Bitter Southerner, Garden & Gun, and more. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife and two daughters.
Also by Michael Farris Smith
Blackwood
The Fighter
Desperation Road
Rivers
The Hands of Strangers
Nick Page 24