One Summer

by David Baldacci

  gently pried his youngest son’s frantic fingers from around a patch of his hair.

  Jack picked up a book and opened it, and his jaw dropped.

  “What is it?” asked Cory, who had seen his reaction.

  Jack held up the book. There was a bookplate on the inside cover.

  “Property of Lizzie O’Toole,” read Jack. “This was your mother’s book,” he said. “Maybe they all were.” He looked excitedly around. “I bet this was your mom’s room growing up.”

  Now Mikki stepped into the room and joined them. “Mom’s room?”

  Jack nodded and pointed eagerly to the desktop. “Look at that.”

  Carved into the wood were the initials EPO. Mikki looked at her dad questioningly.

  He said animatedly, “Elizabeth Pinckney O’Toole. That was you mom’s full name. Pinckney was Grand’s maiden name. She kept her last name even after she married.”

  “Why did Mom leave her books behind?” she asked.

  “Maybe she thought she would come back,” replied Jack uncertainly.

  “I remember her telling me about a beach house she grew up in, but she never really said anything else about it. Did you know much about it?”

  “She told me about it. But I’d never been here before.”

  “Why’d she never bring us here?” Mikki asked.

  “I know that she wanted to. In fact, she was planning to bring all of you here this summer after I… Anyway, that was her plan.”

  “Is that why we’re here, then? Fulfilling Mom’s wishes?”

  “Maybe that’s part of it.”

  Jackie tugged on his dad’s ear.

  “Corwee?” asked Jackie.

  Jackie was pointing at his brother, who was now wearing a pink boa, long white gloves, and a tiara.

  “Still Cory,” said Jack, smiling broadly. “And obviously completely secure in his masculinity.”

  He glanced at Mikki, who was running her fingers over her mom’s initials.

  Jack looked out the window. “Hey, guys. Check this out.”

  The kids hurried to the window and stared up in awe at the lighthouse that rose into the air out on a rocky point next to the house.

  “It’s really close to the house,” said Mikki.

  Cory added, “Do you think it belongs to us too?”

  Jack said, “I know it does. Your mom told me about it. It was one of her favorite places to go.”

  They rushed outside and over to the rocky point. The lighthouse was painted with black and white stripes and was about forty feet tall. He tried the door. It was locked, but he peered through the glass in the upper part of the door. He saw a spiral wooden staircase. There were boxes stacked against one wall, and everything was covered in dust.

  “What a mess,” said Mikki, who was looking through another pane of glass.

  On the exterior wall of the lighthouse was an old, weathered sign. He scraped off some of the gunk and read, “Lizzie’s Lighthouse.” Jack stepped back and stared up at the tall structure with reverence.

  Cory looked at the hand-painted sign. “How could this be Mom’s lighthouse?”

  “Well, it was one of her favorite places, like I said,” answered his father, who was now circling the structure to see if there was another way to get in. “Isn’t it cool?”

  “It’s just an old lighthouse, Dad,” Mikki said.

  He turned to look at her. “No, it was your mom’s lighthouse. She loved it.”

  Jackie pulled on his dad’s pants leg again. He pointed at the lighthouse.

  “What dat?”

  Cory said, “It’s a lighthouse, Jackie. Big light.”

  “Big wight,” repeated Jackie.

  Jack gazed around at the property. “I’m sold.”

  “What?” exclaimed Mikki.

  “This will be a great place to spend the summer.”

  “But, Dad,” protested Mikki. “It’s a dump. And my friends—”

  “It’s not a dump. This is where your mother grew up,” he snapped. “And we’re moving here.” He paused and added in a calmer tone, “At least for one summer.”

  22

  Back in Cleveland, they moved out of the rental and parked their few pieces of furniture at Sammy’s place, because he’d decided to come with them to South Carolina.

  “What am I gonna do by myself all summer?” he’d said when told of the family’s plans. “And Sam Jr. expects the kids to be around now. Whines all the time when they’re not here. I mean, I can get by without you folks, but it’s the damn dog that troubles me.”

  They closed up Sammy’s garage house and pushed Sam Jr.’s big butt into the VW, and off they went. Sammy drove the VW, and Jack followed in his pickup truck with Sammy’s Harley tied down in the cargo bed. They made one stop, though, to Lizzie’s grave. Jack knew it would be hard on everyone, but he also didn’t want the kids to leave without going there to visit their mom.

  They put fresh flowers in the vase, and each of the kids said something to their mother, though Mikki’s remarks were inaudible. Jack stood behind them, trying to hold the tears back. When Jackie wanted to know where his mom was, Mikki told him that she was sleeping. Jackie lay down next to his mom’s grave and started whispering things as though he didn’t want to wake her. At that point Jack disappeared behind some bushes and cried into his hands.

  They split the trip up into two days, spending the night in adjoining rooms at a motel outside of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. They left Sam Jr. in the van with the windows down and a big pan of water; he was too big to climb through the opening. But around midnight he started howling so mournfully that Jack and Sammy had to run out and bundle him into their room before anyone could see them. That night, Sam Jr. slept curled up around Jackie on a blanket on the floor.

  Jack woke up early in the morning and went outside to get some fresh air. He found Mikki already fully dressed and leaning against the VW.

  “What’s up?” he asked, stretching out his back.

  “Why are we doing this?” she said in a surly tone.

  “Doing what?”

  “You know what!”

  He walked over to her. “What is your problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem. Do you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We just settled back in Cleveland, Dad. And now you’re moving us down to South Carolina.”

  “Yeah, to the home where your mom grew up.”

  “Okay, Dad, but in case you didn’t realize it, Mom’s not there.”

  She turned and walked back to her room.

  Jack stared after her, shook his head, and headed off to get ready for the rest of the trip.

  They got an early start and arrived in Channing, South Carolina, before lunch. Jack had had the electricity and water turned back on at the beach house before they got there. He’d also found a cable TV provider, so when they hooked up the TV they’d brought it actually worked. Huge TV watchers Jackie and Cory were immensely relieved by this development.

  It didn’t take them long to unload. They put the Harley under a side deck. As they were carrying things in, Jack found an envelope on the knotty pine kitchen table. It was addressed to him with a Post-it note on the outside from the lawyer, Royce Baxter. It read,

  This is a letter that Ms. Cecilia left for you, with instructions to deliver it to you when you moved into the beach house.

  “Man,” said Sammy, dumping his old army duffel bag on the floor and looking around. “This place is something else.”

  “This ‘something else’ needs a lot of work,” said Jack. “But it’s got great bones. I made a list when I was down here before. We’ll need materials and a lot of sweat. There’s a hardware store the lawyer recommended that’s not too far from here.”

  Sammy looked at him curiously. “Fixing it up? You said you couldn’t sell it.”

  “That’s right, I can’t.”

  “So why are you planning to fix it up?”

  “Because Lizz
ie—I mean, because we might be staying down here.”

  “Staying down here? For how long?”

  Jack didn’t answer but pointed out the window.

  Sammy exclaimed, “Is that a lighthouse?”

  “Yep.”

  “Does it work?”

  “No. But it used to. That’s Lizzie’s Lighthouse.”

  “Lizzie’s Lighthouse?”

  “Yeah. It was kind of her place.”

  Sammy eyed the letter that Jack was holding. “What’s that?”

  “Just something from Cecilia’s lawyer.” Jack stuffed the letter into his pocket, and they all spent the next several hours putting things away, cleaning up, and exploring. After that they changed into bathing suits. The kids sprinted toward the water, with Mikki in the lead, Cory second, and Jackie bringing up the rear. Sam Jr. stayed back with him, keeping pace with the chubby-legged three-year-old, who ran on his tiptoes. Sammy and Jack carried towels, a cooler, beach chairs, and an umbrella to stick into the sand. They’d found the chairs and umbrella in the lower level of the Palace.

  After playing in the water for a while, Cory went up to the house and returned with a tattered old football.

  “Hey, Dad,” he called out. “Can you throw with me?”

  Jack didn’t look thrilled by the request; he was tired. However, right before he was about to decline, a memory struck him.

  It had been a basketball, not a football. In his driveway. His father had driven up after work, and six-year-old Jack was bouncing his new ball. He’d asked his dad to play with him. He wasn’t sure if his dad had even answered. All he’d remembered was the side door closing with a thud. And if that memory had stuck with him all these years?

  He got up from his chair. “You’re on, Cor.”

  Sammy said, “Okay, big guy, show your old man some moves.”

  They threw for more than an hour. Jack hadn’t lost his touch from high school. And Cory, after a few dropped balls, started catching everything that came his way. Jack could see the athleticism showing through his son’s chubby, prepubescent frame. Jackie, and even Mikki, finally joined them, and Jack ran them through some old high school football plays he remembered.

  After everyone was sufficiently exhausted, Cory said, “Thanks, Dad, that was great.”

  Jack rubbed his son’s head. “Nice soft pair of hands you got. Wish I had you on my football team in high school.”

  Cory beamed and Jackie squealed, “Me too?”

  Jack snatched Jackie up, held him upside down, and ran to the water. “You too.”

  Hours later, the sun started to set while the kids were still running around in knee-deep water, building castles, chasing wide-butted Sam Jr., and throwing a Frisbee that they’d also found in the house. Sammy and Jack sat back in the tattered beach chairs, Jack with a Coke and Sammy with a Corona.

  Sammy finally tipped his baseball cap over his eyes and leaned back, settling himself so deeply in the chair that his butt touched the sand. Jack drew the letter out of his pocket and opened it. In spidery handwriting, Cecilia sent her love and hope that Jack and the kids would find as much fun and contentment from the house as she and Lizzie had. As Jack read the letter it was as though Cecilia was talking to him in her richly soothing, southern cadence.

  She wrote:

  My life on earth is over of course, or else you wouldn’t be reading this letter. But I had a fine, old run, did everything I wanted to do, and, hell, the things that might’ve got left out I didn’t need anyway.

  I’d never seen a little girl who loved the ocean and sand more than Lizzie. And she loved this old house, even though, as you know, it carries some bad memories. And Lizzie’s Lighthouse, as she called it. That child was always up there. I think Mikki, Cory, and dear Jackie will love this place too; at least that’s my hope. And I feel sure that you, Jack, will find some comfort and peace in the place where Lizzie grew up.

  I know it has been a most difficult and heartbreaking time for you. I know that you loved Lizzie more than anyone could. And she loved you just as much back. Fate dealt you a terrible hand by separating you two long before you should have been. But remember that every day you wake up to those three darling children, you are waking up to the most precious things that you and Lizzie ever made together. Because of that, you will never be apart from the woman you love. That may not seem like nearly enough right now, when you want to be with her so badly. But as time goes by, you will realize that it will actually make all the difference in the world. It’s not so much that time heals all wounds, honey, as it is that the passage of the years lets us make peace with our grief in our way.

  I know they called you the miracle man after you got better. But just so you know, I considered you a miracle from the moment you came into Lizzie’s life. And I know she felt the same way. You got a second chance of sorts, son, so you live your life good and well. And Lizzie will be waiting for you when your time has run too. And I’ll probably come by for a cup of coffee myself. Until then, keep hugging those precious children and take care of yourself.

  Love,

  Cecilia

  Jack slid the letter back in his pocket, drew a long breath, and wiped his eyes. Even though he had never been to this place before, he felt like he’d just come home. He rose, took off his shoes, and jogged out toward the water to be with his kids. When they were tired out and headed inside for a late dinner, Jack stayed behind, walking along the beach as the sun dropped into the horizon, burning the sky down to fat mounds of pinks and reds. The warm waters of the Atlantic washed over his feet. He stared out to sea, one of his hands absently feeling for the letter in his pocket. It had been a good first day.

  “Hey, Dad!”

  He turned to see Cory frantically waving to him from the rear screen porch.

  He waved back. “Yeah, bud?”

  “Jackie turned the hose on.”

  “Uhhh… okay?”

  “After he dragged the other end in the house.”

  Jack started to walk fast to the Palace. “In the house? Where’s Sammy?”

  “In the bathroom with a magazine.”

  Jack started to jog. “Where’s Mikki?”

  Cory shook his head helplessly. “Dunno.”

  Jack started to run faster as he yelled, “Well, can’t you turn the hose off or pull it out of the house?”

  “I would, but the little knobby thing came off in my hand and Jackie won’t let go of the end of the hose. He’s a lot stronger than he looks.” Cory’s eyes grew a little wider. “Is it bad that stuff’s starting to float, Dad?”

  Oh, crap.

  Jack started to sprint, rooster tails of sand thrown up behind him. “Jackie!”

  My three precious children. This one’s for you, Cecilia.

  23

  The next day, while Sammy stayed with the other kids, Jack and Mikki drove in the pickup truck to the hardware store in downtown Channing, about three miles from the beach house. Along the way,