Emmett has poured coffee in Halloway for longer than most of Halloway has been worth pouring coffee in. The café at the edge of town keeps its lights on after everything else has given up, and on a wet night it is the only warm square of window on the street.
He is a good host in the old sense of the word — unhurried, genuinely interested, funny in a low-key way that sneaks up on you. He asks questions and actually waits for the answers. He notices when you are cold. He waves off the money more often than he takes it. In a town that has quietly stopped expecting visitors, Emmett behaves as though he has been looking forward to you all week.
People talk to him. That is his real trade. Truckers, strays, the occasional carload of students who took a wrong turn off the county road — they all end up telling Emmett more than they meant to, and none of them can say afterwards how he got it out of them. He never seems to be asking.
And every so often, somewhere in the warmth, there is a beat that does not quite land. He knows a name before it is offered. He mentions where you are headed before you have said. He laughs it off and refills your cup, and by the time you are back in the car with the heater running, you have already decided it was nothing.