Boardwalk Summer

by Kimberly Fisk

  “There is something important I need to talk to you about, but why don’t we go around back and sit on the porch,” she suggested. “I could use a glass of iced tea. How about you?”

  Nick continued to study her, and she felt herself grow even more self-conscious under his intent stare.

  “Sure,” he finally said.

  Hope led him to an outdoor patio table and motioned for him to have a seat. “I’ll be just a minute.” She ducked into the kitchen, shut the French doors behind her, and took her first deep breath since he had arrived. Her mind whirled with a thousand different thoughts. But it all boiled down to one thing. Nick was here.

  She set her gloves and garden tote on the counter and headed to the refrigerator, only to stop short when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror Susan had hung by the back door—a last-minute checkpoint before she headed out. Hope grimaced at her reflection.

  The shirt that had once been blue was now a faded pale gray, dotted with yellow paint from when she and the twins had repainted the house two years ago. And her shorts were no better off. Stray blond curls had escaped her now-lopsided ponytail. With a shake of her head she walked over to the kitchen sink and turned on the water to wash her hands. How she looked was of no importance. Only one thing mattered today.

  She squirted soap in her hands, lathered, and was just about to rinse when she looked out her window and caught sight of Nick.

  He’d wandered over to the edge of her property, looking around as if drinking in every detail of her house. Her yard. She wondered what he was thinking. Was he noticing the vegetable garden that was never finished because during the tilling, Joshua had taken sick and everything else had failed to matter? Or did he see the small flower bed the kids had planted for her one Mother’s Day where the blooms spelled out MOM?

  While she stood there watching him, he turned and walked a little farther down the back, running his hand over the tops of the white pickets that defined her yard.

  She’d thought when she spoke with him for the first time after all these years it would be over the phone, where she’d have distance to insulate her.

  Quickly she rinsed her hands and shut off the water, anxious to move away from the window. Away from visions of Nick. Drawing in several deep breaths, she told herself she could do this. She could do anything where her children were concerned. But even with that truth fresh in her mind, her hands still shook as she poured iced tea into the tall tumblers.

  Nick turned at the sound of her approach. When his gaze connected with hers, glass clinked against glass. He smiled as if to ease her discomfort but, if anything, it only made her more nervous.

  He walked toward her and accepted the drink she handed him. “I wasn’t sure I’d catch you at home,” he said.

  She took a seat and waited for Nick to take one across from her. Her mouth felt so dry. She lifted her glass to take a sip, then set it down on the table and shoved her hands in her lap. She couldn’t stop their shaking. “I’m one of those lucky few who get the summer off. I work at the local high school.” For a reason she didn’t want to examine too closely, Hope chose not to mention her night job at the local family-owned grocery store. A job she had taken to help cover the overwhelming number of medical bills insurance didn’t pay.

  “So you did it. You became a teacher.”

  Hope thought she detected a note of pride in his voice but that couldn’t be. Why would Nick care about her achieving her dreams?

  It had taken Hope an extra year and a half to obtain her teaching degree. College had been a challenge with two little babies. There had never been enough time or money, but all the sacrifices had been worth it. “I teach ninth-grade English. The kids are great.”

  “Sounds like you enjoy it.”

  “I do.” She tried to smile, but her cheeks felt frozen. A small gust of wind whipped around her. Loose hairs escaped her ponytail, blew in her face. She tucked them behind her ear as she gathered her thoughts. “Except for hearing myself referred to as Ms. Thompson all day. It makes me feel a hundred years old.”

  Nick rocked the bottom of his glass back and forth. After several silent moments, he said, “Yeah, I noticed the name on the mailbox. So, you’re married.”

  His assumption surprised her, though it shouldn’t have. It was a reasonable deduction. It was just that she had never come close to getting married. “No. Thompson was my mother’s maiden name.”

  She wasn’t going to offer any further explanation; her past, her last name, was so unimportant in the scheme of things. But Nick remained silent, looking at her expectantly, and she found herself saying, “Growing up I went by my father’s last name even though Thompson is my legal name. My mother gave birth to me before she and my father were married. So the name on my birth certificate is Thompson, my mother’s maiden name. But my mother didn’t want anyone to know I was born before they were married, so I used Montgomery.”

  Nick leaned back in his chair. “Good old Claire.” He gave her a wry smile that hinted at a shared past. “You never told me.”

  “I didn’t tell anybody. When I moved to Washington, using my legal last name, Thompson, seemed appropriate.” It had been a new start, a new life. And a new name fit the bill.

  Nick didn’t say anything for a moment. “I thought we knew everything about each other back then.”

  Back then . . .

  “Not everything,” she said quietly.

  Images from her teenage years flashed through her mind. Her mother staring out the living room curtain whenever Nick would bring her home. The outside porch light flicking on as a signal for Hope to hurry in. And the time her mother had gone to the high school dance to check up on her and discovered she and Nick had left early. They’d gone down to the lake, where passion had overruled sense and the dress Hope had saved for all summer had become a mass of unheeded wrinkles on the pickup’s bench seat.

  But talking about Claire Montgomery and remembering a past better left forgotten was the last thing Hope wanted to do. She needed to tell him about the twins—about Joshua’s illness.

  “So, you’ve never been married?” Nick asked.

  “No. Look, Nick”—she leaned forward, folding her hands on top of the table—“there’s something I need to tell you.”

  The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the heavens opened up. Ignoring their glasses, they sprinted for the shelter of her house and spilled inside.

  “Whew.” Nick whisked the rain off his shoulders and closed the French doors behind them. “Does it do that often?”

  Hope wiped the rain from her face. “Only about nine months out of the year.”

  “And people actually want to live here?”

  She walked around the edge of the kitchen island and grabbed two clean, dry hand towels out of a drawer. “More every year. Here.” She turned to hand him one of the towels and found he was right behind her.

  Her kitchen was so small and he was so close. She could smell the fresh, outdoorsy scent of his aftershave, his breath tinged with spearmint, and see the droplets of rain that dotted his black hair. Moisture clung to his forehead and the angular planes of his cheeks. The towel hung forgotten in her hand as his gaze caught and held hers. A catch formed in her heart and she found it hard to breathe.

  She had always heard the expression about time standing still, but now, it was as if time were moving backward.

  The music she’d turned on earlier murmured in the background. Rain splattered outside and hit the roof. The rhythmic pitter-patter of the drops blended with the country song. Hope felt suspended by its melody, captivated by the nearness of the only man who had ever held her heart. The intensity in his blue eyes sent a spiral of . . . she didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to admit that it was desire. Warmth flooded her cheeks and she dropped her head forward to hide her embarrassment.

  She watched his chest rise and
fall, the way his upper body seemed to expand and then slowly release. Suddenly she felt a subtle shift in his position. A stiffening of his shoulders, a barely perceptible shortening of his breath.

  Hope eased back and when she looked up at him, it was to discover that his eyes were fixated on a photo on the refrigerator.

  She didn’t need to look at the picture to know what one it was. It had been taken two summers back, when they had spent a week at Lake Chelan with Dana. After days of relentless badgering, Josh and Susan had managed to get her on a Jet-Ski. She’d been scared to death. With Josh and Susan standing on either side of her in the shallow water supporting her, Dana had yelled “smile” and snapped the picture.

  It was a photograph of a time when they were still untouched by the horrors of cancer. When sitting on a Jet-Ski had been Hope’s greatest fear.

  “You’ve changed,” Nick said. “You never would have gotten on one of those back in Minnesota.”

  “I have changed. More than you realize.” Hope looked at the picture, at her two beautiful children, then back to Nick. “Those are my children, Joshua and Susan. They’re twins. And you’re their father.”

  Three

  YOU’RE their father.

  The words ricocheted through Nick’s mind and pounded through his body. He stared at the picture, stared at the two children smiling back at him. He reached forward and pulled the photo off the refrigerator. Unconsciously his thumb moved over their faces. He drank in their features: the girl with her long blond hair and bright green eyes. A replica of her mother. And the boy, so much like Hope too with his wide smile and high cheekbones. But his bright blue eyes and black hair were all Nick.

  He turned to Hope, his fury building. “How could you?”

  “How could I what?”

  “How could you hide this from me?”

  Hope took a barely perceptible step backward and wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I didn’t hide anything.”

  “Don’t play games with me, Hope. You may be a lot of things—”

  dishonest

  devious

  traitorous

  “—but stupid isn’t one of them. Why didn’t you tell me about them? About Joshua and Susan?” Their names felt foreign on his tongue and that made him all the angrier.

  “I tried to tell you.”

  “Don’t lie to me. You should have told me.”

  “You should have called me back.” Hope was all but shouting. “What was I supposed to do? Leave a message that said, ‘Tell Nick I’m pregnant’?” She laughed bitterly. “That’s not the type of message I’d leave with a stranger.”

  “Don’t blame this on me.” Fury consumed him and he didn’t know if he’d be able to speak. She’d deceived him. Lied to him. Kept his children from him. But not any longer.

  “I want to see them.” Meet them would have been more accurate. Christ. Meet his teenage son and daughter.

  “Look.” Hope took a step forward and set her towel on the counter. “Why don’t we go and sit in the living room. There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Do they know about me?”

  She had the grace to flinch. “No.”

  If possible, he grew even angrier. She’d lied to all of them. “I want to see them,” he said again.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean no?”

  “Th-they’re not home.” Hope unfolded her arms and took a deep breath, as if she were gathering strength for a battle ahead. “Nick, please, shouting will get us nowhere. We need to talk. There are things you don’t know.”

  “All I need to know is when Joshua and Susan will be home.” He knew he should calm down, get a handle on his emotions, but he couldn’t do it.

  “Susan will be home later, but—”

  Nick couldn’t stay here a moment longer. He had to get away. He had to think.

  “I’ll stay in town.” He made the decision instantly, wondering even as he turned to leave if this small town had a motel. “I will see them tomorrow.” He stormed out of the kitchen. Out of the house.

  She ran after him. “Nick, wait. Please. Listen to me. There’s something I have to tell you.”

  He was done with listening to her. “I will see my children tomorrow.”

  His tires screeched as he left her driveway.

  * * *

  LATER that afternoon, Hope sat by Joshua’s hospital bed and watched the uneven rise and fall of his chest. Ever since she’d arrived a little over an hour ago, he’d been sleeping, and from the update she’d gotten from his nurse, he’d been mostly resting since his friends had left. But even in sleep, it was easy for her to see that Josh wasn’t at peace. How could he be? How could any of them ever be until he was once again healthy?

  Careful not to wake him, she gently stroked his left hand, the one free of the IV. Her heart clutched and she bit her lower lip, afraid her sorrow would escape. She had to stay strong, strong for all of them.

  It hadn’t surprised Hope when Susan had once again begged off from coming to the hospital, pleading to spend one more night at her friend Chelsey’s. Hope understood. The reality this sterile environment forced upon you could not be ignored—especially for a fifteen-year-old.

  Not for the first time Hope worried about her daughter. Cancer was a greedy beast that wasn’t satisfied until it had infected the whole family. Even then, it wanted more.

  Hope worked hard to be there for both of her children but knew that even with her best efforts, she didn’t always succeed. She worried constantly about their visible pains and heartaches, but she also spent countless hours worrying about the struggles they tried to hide. Joshua’s illness had robbed him of so much, but it had stolen from Susan, too. All Hope could do was continue to be there for her children, trying to be the best mom she could.

  I will see my children tomorrow.

  Even now, hours later, Nick’s parting words—spoken like a threat—heralded through her mind. It was ironic. His words wouldn’t leave her, but she knew he would. Just like he’d done before. But this was one battle she could fight for her children. One pain she could spare them from.

  She tried not to remember the heartache from those long-ago years. How she’d measured time from one phone call until the next. How, in the beginning, Nick had called as often as promised and the minute they heard each other’s voice, they’d resumed their conversation as if it had never ended.

  Life had been perfect. Exactly as they’d planned. They had talked for hours, about anything and everything but mostly about his plan to make it big in NASCAR. But as the days turned into weeks and then into a month and then into another, the calls had dwindled. Her calls to his cell went unanswered and unreturned. The few times they did connect, there was a stiltedness to their conversations that had never been present before. It was almost as if he didn’t want to talk to her anymore. As if he’d lost interest in her, in the plans they’d made.

  And why wouldn’t he? She was nothing but a small-town girl with nothing to offer a man with dreams as big as the sky. So her life became a game of waiting and worrying. Waiting for the phone to ring. Worrying it never would. Waiting to hear his voice. Worrying he was never coming back for her.

  Waiting for her period to start . . .

  Then reality set in. She was pregnant.

  The first thing she did after she found out was to call Nick’s cell only to discover it was no longer in service. Desperate to get in touch with him, she called the only other number she had for him and left a frantic message with a stranger for Nick to call her as soon as possible.

  But his call never came.

  Not even when she left a second and a third message.

  When she realized he was never going to call and he’d undoubtedly turned off his phone to sever all ties with her, she still couldn’t let him go. She still couldn’t stop loving him, waiting f
or him. She’d packed her bag, ready to flee and find him. Only she didn’t know where he was. And if by some miracle she had found him, what then? Tell him about the baby and force him to stay with her? She’d seen how that had played out in her own parents’ marriage; she wasn’t about to force a child of hers to endure that pain.

  But she was a pregnant seventeen-year-old still in high school. What was she to do?

  Her mother hadn’t been as indecisive. The minute she learned of the pregnancy, Claire gave her daughter two options—get rid of it or get out.

  Not for one second had Hope entertained the thought of not having their baby. So she left and fled to her only other relative, her Aunt Peg.

  As Hope’s tummy blossomed and she felt her baby (then babies when she learned she was having twins) move inside her, her jumbled feelings for Nick faded and a new emotion took hold. One more powerful and protective than any she’d ever before felt. She was no longer the young girl madly in love; she was Susan and Joshua’s mother. She would do anything for her children. Even if that meant protecting them from a father whose abandonment would crush them just as it had crushed her.

  But now Nick was back in her life, insisting on seeing her children. She wasn’t exactly sure how she would continue to protect them, but she would. She would find a way just like she had since they’d been born.

  Joshua let out a soft snore and rolled onto his side, pulling his covers down as he turned. She leaned forward and readjusted them.

  A gust of wind rattled the hospital window and splattered rain against the glass. Through the darkness small rectangles of light from the windows of neighboring high-rises punctured the Seattle skyline. It was nearing five o’clock. Hundreds of people would soon be getting off work in those buildings, hurrying home for the evening, rushing to get dinner on the table, to throw a load of clothes in the wash, to spend time with their healthy children.