One Summer

by David Baldacci

  stupid Miracle Man story in the first place. That was your fault.”

  “Okay, you’re right about that. I wish I hadn’t but—”

  “So now everybody thinks Mom was a slut and you’re a jerk. And I’ll spend the rest of the school year having people talking behind my back.”

  “Will you just listen to me for a sec—”

  Before he could finish, she’d fled inside, slamming the door behind her. When he started to go in the house after her, he heard the lock click. Staring through the side window at him was Cory. He gave his father a furious scowl and ran off.

  Jack ended up taking Cory and Jackie to Chuck E. Cheese’s for Jackie’s third birthday. Jack wore a ball cap and glasses so people wouldn’t recognize him during his fifteen minutes of “infamy.” On the table in front of him were a half-eaten cheese pizza and a mass-produced birthday cake. While Jackie jumped into mounds of balls along with a zillion other kids, Cory sat slumped in a corner looking like he would rather be attacked by sharks than be here. Jack didn’t even know where Mikki was. The only moment in his life worse than this was when the cop told him Lizzie was dead.

  Later, after they returned home, Jackie played with the monster truck that Jack had rushed out to buy him the night before. Cory had escaped into the backyard.

  “You like the truck?” Jack asked quietly.

  Jackie made guttural truck noises and rolled it across his dad’s shoulder.

  At least I’ve still got one kid who doesn’t hate me.

  Carrying his youngest son, Jack walked up the stairs and peered inside Mikki’s bedroom. It was small, lighted by a single overhead fixture that gave out meager illumination, and her clothes were all over the floor. A half-empty jar of Nutella sat on a storage box. Her guitar and keyboard were in one corner. A device to mix musical tracks was on the floor. Sheet music was stacked everywhere. There was an old beat-up microphone on a metal fold-up table that she used as a desk.

  Jack put his son down and then walked over and picked up some of the music. It was actually blank sheets with pencil notes written in, obviously by his daughter. Jack couldn’t read music and didn’t know what the markings represented, but they looked complicated. She could create this but couldn’t even manage a B in math or science? Then again, he hadn’t been a great student either, except in the subjects that interested him.

  He took Jackie’s hand and walked into the bedroom the boys shared. It was far more cluttered than Mikki’s because it was smaller and housed two people instead of one. The beds were nearly touching. There was a small built-in shelf crammed with toys, books, and junk that boys tended to collect. Cory had stacked his clothes neatly in the small bureau Jack had gotten thirdhand. Jackie’s clothes were on top of the bureau.

  Jack noticed a box crammed with papers on the floor next to Cory’s bed. He looked inside. When he saw the top page, he started going through the rest. It was printed information about his disease. He saw, in Cory’s handwriting, notes on the pages.

  “He thought maybe he could find a cure.”

  Jack spun around to see Mikki standing there.

  She came forward. “He wanted to save you. Dumb, huh? He’s only a kid. But he meant well.”

  Jack slowly rose. “I didn’t know.”

  “Well, to be fair, you were pretty out of it at the time.” She sat down on one of the beds, while Jackie rushed toward her and held out his truck for her to see. “That’s really cool, Jackie.” She hugged her brother and said, “Happy birthday, big guy.”

  “Big guy,” repeated Jackie with a huge smile.

  She glanced at her dad. “It’s a nice gift.”

  “Thanks.” He stared back at her. “So where does that leave us?”

  “This is not where we say stupid stuff and hug and then bawl our eyes out and everything is okay, cue the dumb music. It’s one day at a time. That’s life. Some days will be good and some days will suck. Some days I’ll look at you and feel mad; some days I’ll feel crappy about being mad at you. Some days I’ll feel nothing. But you’re still my dad.”

  “The thing is, I was supposed to be gone, not your mom. I’d accepted that. But then your mother was gone. And somehow I got better. It just wasn’t supposed to happen that way.”

  “But it did happen exactly that way. You are here. Mom isn’t.”

  “So where do we all go from here?”

  “You’re really asking me?”

  “You obviously know a lot more about this family than I do.”

  His cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID. It was Bonnie’s number. Now what? Hadn’t she done enough damage?

  “Hello?” he said, bracing for a fight.

  It was Fred. He sounded tired, and there was something else in his voice that made Jack stiffen.

  He said, “Fred, is everything okay?”

  “Not really, Jack, no.”

  “What is it? Not Bonnie?”

  “No.” He paused. “It’s Cecilia. She died about two hours ago.”

  20

  Though she’d lived the last ten years in Ohio with her daughter and son-in-law, except for her short stint in Arizona, Cecilia Pinckney was a southerner through and through. She’d requested to be buried in Charleston, South Carolina, in the family crypt. So Jack bundled the kids into a pale blue 1964 VW van with white top that Sammy had lovingly restored, and headed south. A large crowd gathered under a very hot sun and high humidity for the funeral. Bonnie looked older by ten years, shrunken and bowed. Seeing this, Jack couldn’t bring himself to offer anything other than brief condolences. As she looked up at him, Jack thought he could see some affection for him underneath all the sorrow.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said.

  “Cecilia was a great lady.”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “When some time has passed, we need to talk.”

  She slowly nodded. “All right. We probably should.”

  After the service was over, Jack and the kids drove back to the hotel, where they were crammed into one room. Jack had just taken off his tie and jacket when the hotel phone rang. He answered, thinking it might be Fred, but it was a strange voice.

  “Mr. Armstrong, I’m Royce Baxter.”

  “Okay, what can I do for you?”

  “I had the pleasure of being Mrs. Cecilia Pinckney’s attorney for the past twenty years.”

  “Her attorney?”

  “That’s right. I was wondering if I could meet with you for a little bit. My office is only a block over from your hotel. Fred O’Toole told me where you were staying. I assumed you’d be heading back to Ohio soon, and I thought I would catch you before you left. I know the timing is bad, but it is important and it won’t take long.”

  Jack looked around at the kids. Jackie was passed out in a chair, and Cory and Mikki were watching TV.

  “Give me the address.”

  Five minutes later he was sitting across from the very prim and proper Royce Baxter, who was dressed in a dark suit. He was in his sixties, about five-ten, with a bit of a paunch and a good-natured face.

  “Let me get down to business.” Baxter drew a document out of a file. “This is Ms. Cecilia’s last will and testament.”

  “Look, if she left me anything, I really don’t feel that I should accept it.”

  Baxter peered at him over the document. “And why is that?”

  “It’s sort of complicated.”

  “Well, she made this change to her will very recently. She told me that even if you never used it, it would always be there for you.”

  “Well, what is it exactly?” Jack said curiously.

  “The old Pinckney house on the South Carolina coast in a town called Channing.”

  “The Palace, you mean?”

  “That’s right. So you know about it?”

  “Lizzie told me about it. But I’ve never been there. Once she moved to Ohio she never went back.”

  “Now, let me warn you that while it’s right on the beach, it’s not in good
condition. It’s a big, old, rambling place that has never been truly modernized. But it’s in a lovely location. The coastal low country is uniquely beautiful. And I say that with all the bias of a proud South Carolinian. Ms. Cecilia told me that you’re very good with your hands. I believe she thought you were the perfect person to take care of it.”

  “Beachfront? I couldn’t afford the real estate taxes.”

  “There are none. Years ago Ms. Cecilia placed the property into a conservancy so it could never be sold and developed. She and her descendants can use the property but can never sell it. In return the taxes were basically waived.”

  “But we’ve got a home in Cleveland. The kids are in school.”

  “Ms. Cecilia thought that you might have some trepidation. But since most of the summer is still ahead of us, the issue of school does not come into play.”

  Jack sat back. “Okay. I see that. But I still don’t think—”

  Baxter interrupted. “And Cecilia said that you told her that Lizzie was thinking of taking the kids there this summer.”

  “That’s right, Lizzie was. She told me that. I thought it was a good idea but…” Jack’s voice trailed off. He’d made Lizzie promise him that she would take the kids to the Palace. Now she couldn’t.

  Baxter fingered the will and studied him. “Would you like to see it before you make up your mind?”

  “Yes, I would,” Jack said quickly.

  21

  Less than two hours after leaving Royce Baxter’s office, Jack and the kids pulled down a sandy drive between overgrown bushes after following the directions the lawyer had given him. He surveyed the landscape. There were marshes nearby, and the smell of the salt water was strong, intoxicating.

  “Wow!” said Cory as the old house finally came into view.

  Jack pulled the VW to a stop, and they all climbed out. Jack took Jackie’s hand as they walked up to the front of the house, which was shaded by two large palmetto trees. It was an elongated rambling wood-sided structure, with a broad, covered front porch that ran down three-quarters of the home’s face. A double door of solid wood invited visitors to the entrance. The wood siding was faded and weathered but looked strong and reliable to Jack’s expert eye. The hurricane shutters were painted black, but most of the paint was gone, leaving the underlying wood exposed to the elements. Five partially rotted steps carried them up to the front entrance.

  The furniture on the porch was covered. When Jack and the kids looked underneath, they found quite the mess, along with animal nests. One squirrel jumped out and raced up a support post and onto the roof, which had many missing shingles, Jack had already noted. A snake slid out from under a pile of wood, causing the older kids to scream and run. Jackie approached the serpent and attempted to pick it up before Jack snatched him away. He looked at the other kids, who were cowering by the VW.

  “It’s a black snake. Not poisonous, but it will bite, so stay clear of it.” He watched as the snake slowly made its way down the steps and into the underbrush around the house.

  “They don’t have giant snakes in Cleveland,” said a breathless Cory.

  “It was only a three-footer, son. And there are snakes in Ohio.”

  That information did not seem to make Cory feel any better.

  “Come on,” said Jack. “Let’s at least check it out while we’re here.”

  Using the key Baxter had given him, he opened the front door and went inside with Jackie. He turned to check on the other two kids. They hadn’t budged from next to the VW. “Remember, guys, that snake is out there with you, not in here with us.”

  A moment later, the two kids flew up the front steps and past their dad into the house, with Cory screaming and looking behind him for the “giant freaking snake.”

  Jackie and his father exchanged a glance.

  Jackie pointed at his brother and said, “Corwee funny.”

  “Yeah, he’s a riot,” said Jack, shaking his head.

  Inside, the spaces were open and large, with high, sloped ceilings where old fans hung motionless. The kitchen was spacious but poorly lighted by tiny windows, and the bathrooms were few in number and small. There was an enormous stone fireplace that reached to the ceiling in the main living area, a big table for dining that showed a lot of wear and tear, and several other rooms that served various purposes, including a laundry room and a small library. On the lower level were an old billiards table, its green felt surface worn smooth with use, and a Ping-Pong table with a tattered net. Water toys, flippers, flattened beach balls, and the like were stacked in a storage room.

  The furniture was old but mostly in good shape. The floors were random-width plank, the walls solid plaster. Jack knocked on one section and came away impressed with the craftsmanship. Yet when he stepped toward the back of the house, he drew in a breath. The rear of the house was mostly windows and glass doors; there was also a second-floor screened-in porch with stairs leading down to the ground. The view out was of the wide breadth of the Atlantic, maybe two hundred feet away, the sandy beach less than half that distance.

  Jack breathed in the sea air and pointed out to the ocean. “There’s really not a drop of land between here and Europe or Africa,” he said. “Just water.”

  As the kids stared out at the views, Jack looked down at the backyard. It was sandy, with dunes covered in vegetation. He stepped back inside and smelled the burned wood of fires from long ago.

  They clumped upstairs and looked through the shotgun line of bedrooms there, none of them remarkable, but all functional. Where others might have seen limitations, builder Jack saw potential. All the bedrooms had views of the ocean, and the largest one had a small outdoor balcony as well.

  “What do you think is up there?” This came from Mikki, who was pointing to a set of stairs at the end of the hall going up another half flight.

  “Attic, I suppose,” he said.

  Jack eased open the door and fumbled for a light switch. Nothing happened when he flicked it, and it occurred to him that the power had been turned off when the place became uninhabited. The room was under the eaves of the house, and the ceiling slanted upward to a peak. It was large, with two windows that threw in good morning light, though now the sun had passed over the house and was going down. There was a bed, an old wrought-iron four-poster, a large wooden desk, a shelf filled with books, and an old trunk set in one corner. A door led to a closet that was empty. Jack stepped cautiously over the floor planks to test their safety.

  “Okay,” he said after his inspection was complete. “Explore.”

  Cory made a beeline for the trunk, while Jack led his youngest over to the desk and helped him open drawers. He glanced back at Mikki, who hadn’t budged from the doorway.

  “You going to look around?”

  “Why? You’re not thinking about moving here, are you?”

  “Maybe.”

  Her face flushed with anger. “I already had to move to Arizona. And all my friends are in Cleveland. My band, everything.”

  “I’m just looking around, okay?” But in his mind, Jack was already drawing up plans for repairs and improvements.

  In his mind’s eye, there was Lizzie seated next to him on the bed, on what would turn out to be her last day of life.

  You never know, Jack, you might enjoy it too. You could really fix the place up. Even make the lighthouse work again.

  “So Grand left you this place?” asked Mikki.

  Jack broke free from his thoughts. “Yeah, she did.”

  “Well, why don’t you sell it, then? We could certainly use the money.”

  “I can’t. It’s a legal thing. And I wouldn’t have felt right selling it even if I could.”

  Mikki shrugged and leaned against the doorway, adopting a clearly bored look.

  Jack glanced over at Cory, who’d nearly tumbled into the large trunk he’d opened in his eagerness. He came up wearing on old-fashioned top hat, black cloak, and a half mask covering the upper part of his face.

  “M
oo-ha-ha-ha,” he said in a dramatically deep voice.

  “That Corwee?” said Jackie, uncertainly, hugging his father tighter.

  “That’s Cory acting funny,” said Jack encouragingly as he