Second Chance Summer

by Allie Boniface

  When his mom remained silent, he glanced up. A smile played on her face.

  “What?” He didn’t like that look, the one that speared through his skin and into the deepest part of his heart. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep anything from her. She knew when he hurt, when he needed space, when sleep evaded him or when he felt like jumping for joy.

  Hannah slipped into the chair opposite him and rested her elbows on the table. “Summer seems a little lonely, if you ask me.”

  “She just lost her father. And she’s back in the place where her brother died. With a house she doesn’t want.” And an ex-boyfriend who’s still in the picture. He frowned and drank an entire glass of iced tea without stopping.

  “That’s all the more reason for you to take her out, spend some time with her while she’s here and keep her mind off things.”

  “Ah, I...I’m not really interested,” Damian lied. He couldn’t afford to be.

  “Why not? She’s attractive. Intelligent. Successful, too, from what I hear.” She laid a hand on his wrist. “You can’t shut yourself off forever.”

  “I’m not.” Couldn’t his mother just accept that he didn’t want to get involved? “She’s got something going on with Gabe Roberts, anyway.”

  “Who’s that? Someone here in town?”

  “Yeah.”

  She didn’t say anything after that.

  Damian pushed his chair back and slammed his knee against the table. His mom meant well, but she didn’t understand. Gabe wasn’t the only reason Damian was keeping his distance. Summer had no plans to stay in Whispering Pines. She had a whole other life on the other side of the country. The bottom line was, he didn’t trust himself to take her out once or twice and then say goodbye. A few kisses had sent his mind reeling. He could only imagine what an entire evening with her would do.

  A sleepy Dinah smiled at Damian as he poked his head into the living room an hour later.

  “Hey, ladybug.”

  “Hey.” She’d tucked a blanket around her legs and curled into the corner of the sofa.

  “Ready for bed?”

  She nodded, eyelids heavy.

  Damian smiled and took her hand as they climbed the stairs. Though she seemed to grow an inch every day, this was still their bedtime ritual, the one he’d started when she was only a few months old. Back in Poisonwood, she’d stopped sleeping for a while as an infant. Between a rough bout of colic and his mom and T.J. fighting, she wailed all night in her crib. Only Damian’s voice singing lullabies in the darkness could soothe her.

  Now he tucked Dinah into her twin bed and pulled the pink-and-white curtains closed.

  “Dame?”

  “What?”

  “Can I come to work with you tomorrow?”

  He switched on the pink nightlight to keep the boogeyman away. “We’ll see.”

  “I like it when Summer’s there.” Dinah propped herself up on one elbow. “I hope she stays for a while. Do you think she will?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie.” First his mother, now his sister. Seemed like all the women in his life wanted to match him up with the one person he absolutely, positively, could not get involved with.

  Dinah lay back down and pulled the sheet up to her chin.

  Damian lifted his guitar from its case in the corner and ran his fingers lightly over the strings. He took a minute to tune it, then settled himself in the chair by the door and began to play. He never needed the light or any music to read. He just listened to his heart and let its rhythm move his fingers. Sometimes he played Dinah’s old favorites, children’s songs she knew every word to. Other times he relied on the Beatles or Elton John, depending on his mood.

  Tonight, he played his own composition, a new tune that had been running around his head the last few days. The notes rippled through the room like slow-moving water, and Damian hummed as the line took shape beneath his fingers.

  In a few minutes, Dinah’s breathing deepened, but Damian played on. The bridge formed itself. The chorus turned into something in a minor key. Lyrics sharpened inside his head. Closing his eyes, he let the notes fall, painting a landscape of brilliant color in his mind’s eye. He hadn’t written anything in a long time, but tonight the song almost composed itself.

  When the last note hung in the air, he sat in the dark and let his heart return to normal.

  PAST MIDNIGHT, THE farmhouse’s landline rang.

  Damian jerked awake, clutching at the sheet. He sat up and looked at the clock. One-fifteen. It rang again and he lunged for the cordless extension in his room before Dinah or his mother woke. Fear squeezed an icy fist around his organs. Telephone calls this late rarely meant anything good.

  “Hello?”

  Silence.

  “Hello!” His fingers, slippery with adrenaline, clung to the receiver.

  Still Damian heard nothing. Then something mechanical clicked, and a low panting into the phone ran chills up his spine. He glanced at the Caller ID screen, but it read Private Number.

  You son of a bitch.

  “T.J.? That you?”

  “Sure is. Been a while.”

  Damian hadn’t heard the voice in over three years, but it sounded exactly the same as he recalled: slurred and pissed off.

  He found us. How? Damian crept to the window and peered outside. No moon. No stars. T.J. could have been sitting fifty feet from the house, and Damian wouldn’t have known it. He’d never thought much about gun ownership before, but in that moment he wished for a trigger in his hand. He’d point it straight at the guy’s head without thinking twice.

  “You know she’s got a restraining order against you,” Damian lied. “You come anywhere near us, the police’ll dump your ass in jail.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. You need a personal invitation to your own funeral?” Come and get it. I’ll take care of you before the police ever have a chance. “I’ll kill you myself if I have to.”

  “You and whose army?”

  “Did you hear me?” Again he scanned the darkened yard. Worse than feeling T.J.’s fists on his back, worse than watching him shove Hannah across the room, was the thought of his threatening presence somewhere out there, close by. “I’m calling the cops.”

  At that, the line went dead. Across the hall, Dinah mumbled something in her sleep. The floorboards creaked beneath him, and Damian knew the call had woken his mother too. He threw the phone across the room, where it hit the wall and fell onto the carpet. He punched his pillow, imagining T.J.’s face in the wrinkles beneath his fist. Sleep had fled, probably for good, and in its place rage grew in his belly. A simmering fire spread to his chest and up through his lungs until he thought he would either scream or vomit in anger.

  He retrieved the phone and dialed 911, knowing it probably wouldn’t do any good. Wherever he’d called from, T.J. wasn’t stupid enough to get caught near their house.

  They’d done everything they could—relocated, changed their phone numbers, started a new life under the protection of a custody agreement that prevented T.J. from ever seeing Dinah again. He didn’t care about them. He couldn’t. All that man cared about was getting drunk and living off the government’s money. He couldn’t possibly want to be a father to Dinah. Why couldn’t he accept the shambles he’d made of his life and move on?

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “Nice to see you again.” Gabe walked into Common Grounds cafe, pulled out the chair opposite Summer and smiled.

  She smiled in return; she couldn’t help it. He still had that way of harnessing the sun and turning the whole day bright. “Likewise.” She pushed a cup of coffee across the table as he sat and cracked his knuckles. “I ordered yours.”

  “Thanks.” He dumped in two packets of sugar. “How’s the house?”

  “Better every day.”

  “Got any buyers yet?”

  “Couple of people looking. It’s huge, you know. Big purchase for Whispering Pines, even with the lowball price.”

  He nodded. “
I remember people talking when your father bought it.”

  She wrapped both hands around her mug. “Talking like he was crazy?”

  “Nah. Just wondering what he was up to.” He took a sip. “I think it was his way of making amends. With himself, with the town. With you too, I guess, though he never got around to telling you that.”

  “That’s what Joe tried to tell me.”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  “I don’t know what to believe. My father was so angry after the accident. Every time I talked to him, we fought.”

  “Then he willed you a house.”

  “Exactly. And unless someone around here can communicate with ghosts, I don’t think I’ll ever know why.”

  “Maybe you should stop asking why. Maybe if there aren’t any answers, you just have to move on.”

  “When did you get so philosophical?”

  He grinned. “Spent a lot of time thinking after you left.”

  “And?”

  “And I decided that we gotta deal with what life gives us. No use looking backwards.” He paused. “I guess maybe that’s harder for you, though, since that’s what you do for a living.”

  “Look backwards?” Summer frowned. Maybe Gabe was right. Maybe she needed to turn and start facing forward. Look to the future, and not so much the past. But she couldn’t do that until she knew where she’d come from. All of it.

  THE DOOR BEHIND THEM opened and a teenage couple walked into the coffee shop. They held hands as they glanced at the order board and chose matching skim lattes while barely looking away from one another. Gabe shook his head. Young love, blind to everything else around them. Maybe a thousand years ago, he’d looked at a girl like that. Not in a long time.

  “Think we were ever like that?” Summer’s voice echoed his thoughts.

  He smiled. “Nah. I was much better looking.”

  “Me too.”

  “You still are.” Sometimes he felt so far from adolescence, he could barely remember it. The silliness of it. The carefree ways he’d spent his days. No pain and no regrets. Now pretty much everything hurt, from his knees to his hands to his heart, when he let himself think about the things he’d lost. To his surprise, though, sitting across from Summer over a cup of coffee gave him a feeling of peace he hadn’t had in a long time.

  “Can I tell you something weird?” she asked.

  “Sure. I like weird.”

  She cracked a half-smile. “I don’t remember much of what happened the night of the accident. For a long time, I didn’t remember anything at all. But since I’ve been back here, I keep having these flashbacks.”

  He said nothing.

  “All of a sudden, I’m right there in the minutes after the crash. I can hear Donny. I can see you, and me, and the car. Mr. Hartwell standing over to the side. And the cops.” Grief filled her eyes. “I remember being at the ice cream stand earlier in the night. And going to the movies with Donny.” She paused. “But then there’s....all this space. I have no memory of the actual crash or what led up to it. There are like thirty minutes of that night that are completely gone. You were always such a good driver. So was it my fault? Did I distract you? I keep feeling like I did.”

  Gabe chose his words carefully. He’d come here meaning to tell her the truth. He’d convinced himself that full disclosure was his only choice. If she didn’t hear it from him, she’d hear more stories from someone else. But the longer he sat there, the more he lost his nerve. He couldn’t bear to break her heart a second time.

  “Mr. Hartwell was drunk. He ran the flashing red light. Everything happened so fast. It wasn’t like we could’ve stopped.”

  “Does he still live around here? I haven't seen him since I’ve been back.”

  Gabe frowned. “He died in the hospital.”

  “Wait—what?”

  “Max Hartwell didn’t make it. He had a massive heart attack after he got to the hospital that night. You didn’t know?”

  “No. My father and Rachael both said—” Summer raised a hand to her mouth. Her eyes widened.

  Gabe tried to read her face. “What?”

  “Rachael said once, ‘at least someone went to jail for it.’ No matter what I could or couldn’t remember, at least someone paid for killing Donny. I thought she meant the other driver.” She murmured the words, and tears filled her eyes. “But was she talking about you? Because if Mr. Hartwell died, then it couldn’t have been him.”

  Gabe’s chest constricted. He thought somehow she knew that he’d served time. He’d thought someone, at some point, had told her that detail. “Yes.”

  “But why? It was an accident. And Mr. Hartwell hit us.”

  “I’d been drinking that night.” He said the words quickly and simply, without embellishment.

  She went completely still. She didn’t even blink.

  “I was at a party earlier. When the chief asked me to do a sobriety test, I failed. So yes, I did two years for involuntary manslaughter.”

  “You...” Summer had gone almost completely white. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  He cracked his knuckles. “I’m not sure. I don’t think most people were in touch with you. Besides, you’d gone through enough, losing your brother. You needed to heal.”

  She shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe I never knew.”

  Gabe rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn’t either. Now he could never tell her the rest. She looked as though she’d seen a ghost. She didn’t need any more of the details of that night. He could carry them around inside his skin forever. It got easier every day, anyway.

  Summer’s hair fell around her face, and her mouth trembled. “Oh, Gabe, I’m so sorry.”

  That, he found, was enough.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Later that evening, Summer met Joe Bernstein for dinner. He buttered a dinner roll and smiled. “I’m honored to have such a beautiful dinner companion. It’s certainly been nice having you around.”

  “Ah, yes. Thanks. I mean, it has been nice.” Distracted, she dropped her fork, then her napkin. Why hadn’t Joe told her about Gabe? Why hadn’t someone? Why had everyone assumed she was too weak to know? “I don’t know as I’ll be staying too much longer, though. It was only going to be a few days. Can’t believe it’s already stretched into almost two weeks.”

  “Funny how that works out, isn’t it? How the past pulls you back before you realize it.”

  I’m not sure funny is the word for it. Frustrating, maybe. Strange. Not really funny, though. “I’m not meant to be here, Joe. That house is too big for one person to live in. Sadie has everything in line, and I don’t have to be here to sell it. It needs someone with a family who can fill it up with all the things I can’t. That was my plan all along.”

  “Family isn’t always made up of parents. Or brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  The waitress brought their entrees. Steam rose from their plates, obscuring Joe’s face in the dim light of the Corner Lounge restaurant. Summer tried, but she couldn’t read his eyes.

  “I told you I was retiring from teaching at the college, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Which means they’ll be looking for someone to take over those classes in the fall.” With deliberate strokes, he sliced his steak.

  “Well, I’m sure they’ll find someone, though your shoes are going to be tough to fill.” Summer’s stomach growled, and she dug into her ravioli.

  “I recommended you.”

  “What?” She waited for the rest of the joke. “Oh, no. I can’t. I told you—I’m leaving.”

  “Let me finish. The Adirondack Historical Society has talked for some time about establishing a small museum in this area. Last week, they got the grant funding they’ve been working on for almost four years. Who better than you to help get them up and running? You know everything about Whispering Pines, Silver Valley, the entire county area. You might even consider using the house as
part of the museum itself. Do some research, use some of the grant money to restore the rooms with reproductions of period furniture. People love touring old homes. You know that. Then you can teach on the side.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I know you have a job you love out west. But wouldn’t you at least consider this? It’s a chance to come home.”

  Home. Where was that, any longer? Frustration tied her stomach into knots. “I guess I did come back for more than just to look at the house. I thought I could say hello to some old friends, see Donny’s grave, make peace with a few things. I know Whispering Pines’s my home. Or was, anyway.” She drew in a long breath. “But being here has pulled me under. I keep having these flashbacks, and weird half-memories, and...Gabe told me today that he went to jail for driving the car the night Donny died.” She grabbed Joe’s hand. “I never knew.”

  “Ah.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Well, I wasn’t in touch with you back then. And I didn’t think it was my place to tell you something like that. Your father didn’t want you to be involved to that extent,” he added. “I wanted to respect his wishes.”

  Summer rested her hands in her lap. “He thought he was protecting me, I guess. But all he did was keep me in the dark about things I should have known. I was involved. No one can change the past. We can’t undo things or pretend they never happened.”

  “True. But the past also only shapes us as far as we allow it to. Yes, there’s sadness here for you. I know that. But there are happy memories too, aren’t there?”

  She nodded. Of course there were. Playing at Rachael’s house and dipping her toes in the lake. Telling secrets with Donny late at night while their father worked two jobs. Falling in love with a boy who’d tugged her pigtails ten years earlier. Learning, loving, laughing, losing, letting it go, then doing it all again.

  And there was happiness now too, in the form of a man she’d just met but couldn't get out of her thoughts. Damian had thrown her into a tailspin. The way he looked at her. The way he kissed her. The way he seemed to understand what she was thinking, or how she struggled with her past. Leaving him would be harder than she wanted to admit to herself.