A Sweethaven Summer (6 page)

This was her life.

She turned off the ignition. As she pushed open the door, Lila
smelled a mixture of lemon and bleach. The cleaning lady had been there that morning, and once again, Lila had forgotten to ask her to dust the blinds in the study. She’d have to make a note to have her do it next week.

As she sorted the stack of mail a plain white envelope fell onto the floor.

She picked it up and turned it over. She opened the envelope and pulled out the card inside. On the front was a beach scene, hand painted and signed by someone with the initials
SC
.

Suzanne
.

It had been years. Over twenty years, but Suzanne’s art seemed to have a voice that transcended time. So many of her paintings had been of their favorite places in Sweethaven.

She opened the card, but before she could read it, the garage door sprang to life.

Tom
.

He entered through the back door, his tie loosened around his neck. Seeing him in that uniform always caused her heartbeat to quicken—no matter how great the expanse between them.

He frowned as he met her eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing. I was just about to read this.” She held up the card.

“What is it?”

“It’s a card—from Suzanne.”

“Suzanne Carter?”

As kids, Tom and his friends had seized every opportunity to terrorize the girls. They’d dug night crawlers from rich, black soil, waited until the girls weren’t looking, and then placed them in whatever spot would garner the loudest scream. Lila had endured crickets, frogs, a raccoon tail they swore they’d cut themselves—all at the hands of those boys. Ironic she’d ended up falling in love with Tom after that trauma.

She hadn’t thought about it in years.

“Seems strange she’d be writing after all this time. After leaving the way she did.” If she thought about it very long, jealousy would overtake her. Getting pregnant had been a burden for Suzanne, the same way
not
getting pregnant had burdened Lila.

“Yeah.” Tom grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and took a long drink. “Are you gonna read it?”

She opened it and read the words slowly. “ ‘Dear Lila. It’s been so long—too many years have passed and I should’ve written ages ago. I hope you are well. I hope you are happy. I am sure you are just as beautiful as ever.’ ” She paused for a moment, as if she expected Tom to agree with Suzanne, but he said nothing.

“ #x2018;I’ve had a lot of time lately to think about my life, and I realized that when I thought of happiness, I kept thinking about our summers in Sweethaven. I kept thinking about the homemade ice cream in the Commons and the fireworks on the Fourth of July. I kept thinking about you—about the four of us. About how easy and simple and wonderful things were back then.’ ” She looked at Tom. “She certainly knows how to romanticize things, doesn’t she?”

He shrugged. “Maybe not. There is something special about Sweethaven.”

“I guess so.” She turned her attention back to the card. “ ‘I do have regrets, though. I’m sure you can imagine. I regret so much of what happened the last summer I was there, but most of all, I regret the fact that I allowed our friendship to dissolve. I have so much more to say, but sadly, I am running out of time.’ ” Lila realized there had been a question in her voice. She scrunched her eyebrows together.

“ ‘It’s cancer.’ ” Lila stopped, surprised at the sorrow that welled from somewhere down deep. “ ‘The doctor isn’t giving me much longer.’ ”

Through clouded eyes, she kept reading.

“ ‘Do you still go to Sweethaven? Do you still spend your summers standing on the beach, digging your toes in the sand? Do you find the time to let the wind mess up your perfectly styled hair? Do you watch the kids on the carousel or maybe even go to those crazy dances they used to have in the Commons? If you don’t, will you come back for the Blossom Festival? It’s still the first weekend in May. It might be my last chance to say good-bye. I pray you come. I pray you find that magic—that magic we all felt there. I pray you can find it in your heart to forgive the sins of the past, and when you think of me, I pray you’ll find a way to smile at all we once shared. I love you, Lila. Suzanne.’ ”

Unable to speak, she whispered Suzanne’s name. It hung in the air between them, tangible, thick, and dense as fog.

“Cancer,” Lila spat. “I can’t believe it. She’s so young.”

“Cancer doesn’t seem to care,” Tom said, shaking his head. “Do you want a glass of wine?”

Lila nodded and he poured.

“I’m sorry you can’t go.” He handed her the Chardonnay.

“Why can’t I?”

“Doesn’t Priscilla need you here?”

Lila frowned. “I think this is a little more important, isn’t it?”

“Is it? You haven’t spoken to Suzanne in over twenty years.” Tom removed the tie from his neck and put it on the counter.

“But she was one of my best friends, Tom.”

“A long time ago.”

“You know how close we all were.”

“I know. But I also know how long it’s been since you last saw her.”

She stared at him. She and Suzanne had their differences, as all friends did. They’d come from two different worlds, and a part of
Lila envied Suzanne her carefree ways. She’d only realized how jealous she’d been of Suzanne when it came up in therapy.

First Suzanne had stolen Jane from her. Doting Jane who’d been her best friend since second grade. Losing Jane’s undying attention annoyed Lila, but not worse than the realization that Suzanne had won
her
over too. While Lila envied Suzanne’s low-pressure, I-can-do-anything-I-want-to attitude, she couldn’t deny that Suzanne had drawn her in from the moment she gave her a hand mirror she’d found at a flea market.

“Just imagine how many other beautiful faces have looked in this mirror,” Suzanne had said. “It made me think of you.”

“Looks old.” Lila took the mirror and turned it over. The glass had brown stains around the edges.

“But it’s neat, right?” Suzanne’s eyes widened.

Lila fought the urge to toss it off the way she brushed off every other kind gesture. “Thanks,” she said. “It
is
really neat.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Suzanne said. “Even though it’s old.”

Lila held the mirror in front of her, catching her reflection. Suzanne pushed her face next to Lila’s and grinned. “Yep. We’re stunning,” she said.

When Lila laughed, the pain of the morning skittered away. A morning of trying to please Mama. No one else had ever done that for her before.

Had Tom forgotten that?

She glanced down at the card. It got her thinking about the long summer days they’d spent at the beach. Lila smiled at the memory. Suzanne had always been the fun one—the first one to explore Old Man McGuffrey’s barn. The first one to jump in the lake in spite of frigid water. She’d always been daring and audacious, and the rest of them took their cues from her.

Suzanne had given her the courage to stand up to her mother. One simple question was all it took.

“What do
you
want, Lila?”

Lila stared at her.

“You’ve never even thought about it, have you?” Suzanne shrugged as if she’d just stated the obvious, but the question sent Lila’s mind reeling.

Suzanne grabbed her hand. “You’ve gotta figure out what you want to do, and start doing that.” Suzanne flashed a smile and squeezed her hand.

Suzanne’s words gave Lila courage she’d never had before. Enough courage to confront Mama later that afternoon.

“Mama, I’m sorry I can’t go to the Harbortown interview this weekend.” The pageant had been on Mama’s radar for years.

Mama’s eyes darted up from her magazine and settled squarely on Lila’s face. The shock of it was enough to scare Lila back into the pageant spotlight, but she tried to appear brave. “I don’t want to do pageants anymore.”

Mama’s glare shook Lila to her core. One penciled-in eyebrow peaked higher than the other, and she stood straight and grand like the oldest oak tree in Sweethaven.

“We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

“I’m not going. I wasn’t making that up, Mama.”

Her mother inhaled, her nostrils flaring. “You will go upstairs, change into something presentable, and we will drive to the Harbortown interview without another word of this nonsense.”

The evenness of Mama’s tone sent a shiver up Lila’s spine. “I’m through discussing it,” her mother said. “As long as you live here, you’ll do what I say. Now get upstairs and put your dress on. The pink one with the thick straps.”

That was that. Lila would compete in the Harbortown Festival
Pageant. She would then compete in every other pageant Mama entered her in, leading all the way up to Miss America. It’s what Mama wanted.

It’s what she would do.

Lila held Suzanne’s card in her left hand, her right hand now massaging her forehead. As if she could knead the sorrow away.

This could be her last chance to say good-bye. Surely Tom would understand.

“I’m going to go,” she announced as she stood from the table.

His face fell.

“These are my oldest friends.”

“Your friends are here.” Tom crossed his arms.

“I need to do this, Tom. Why can’t you just understand that?”

He threw the empty water bottle in the garbage and walked out of the room.

She stared at the card then walked into the bedroom and caught Tom’s eye in the bathroom mirror. He stood at the counter, shirtless.

“I’m leaving in the morning.”

He pulled a gray T-shirt over his head, walked past her into the bedroom, and sat on the end of the bed to put on his running shoes.

He looked up from his shoelaces, and for a second she thought he might challenge her—give her an ultimatum or argue why she should stay. Instead, he shook his head and she watched him walk out of the room and heard the front door slam.

Lila sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the closed door of her walk-in closet. Behind it, she knew her floral luggage sat on the top shelf.

She heaved her suitcase down and dropped it to the floor. If she hurried, maybe she could be gone before Tom returned from his five-mile run.

If the map on the old scrapbook page was still accurate, I-94 North would take her straight to Michigan and deposit her almost directly in Sweethaven, but it wouldn’t answer all the questions swirling around in her head.

Her decision to leave town the day after her mother’s funeral might have been a rash one, but she needed the distraction to shake the image of her mother’s flower-covered casket. To stop the replaying of “It Is Well,” which had been running through her mind since Tuesday morning.

She glanced at the open book on the passenger seat as she drove in the direction of the little town.

The pages of the scrapbook showed four inseparable girls who lived for their summers in these cottages. One of the pages outlined the history of Sweethaven, but instead of reading like a page from a school book report, this layout gave a colorful description of the small town where her mother spent her summers.

Photos of the Sweethaven landmarks were arranged on the right-hand side of the page in a vertical line. A lighthouse. A carousel. A diner with a red and white awning. The beach. To the left, various samples of handwriting shared interesting facts about the little town.

Sweethaven became a village in 1834 and a city in 1891. In the early 1900s, people started the tradition of spending their summers in
the cottages and houses to be near Lake Michigan. Some of the relatives of those earliest founders still live here today—either year-round or during the summer. Someday our parents will pass their cottages to us and we’ll all bring our kids here to grow up on the banks of the lake just like we did
.

Campbell smoothed a hand over the page. If her grandparents had a cottage, who owned it now? Did these girls—now women—still spend their summers in Sweethaven? Had they stopped the scrapbook altogether because of Mom’s pregnancy?

Because of her?

She knew she’d ruined her mother’s life back then, but she never considered that she might have stolen her friendships too.

The most pressing question of all, though, still begged an answer. Who was the boy—the man, now—her mother had loved? Who was the one she could claim as her father?

And why hadn’t he claimed her as his daughter?

Campbell glanced in the rearview mirror at the large bag she’d crammed in the back seat beside Mom’s trunk. Apparently, she’d packed for a week, though she had no idea why or what would keep her in Sweethaven that long.

A father. A father could keep her there forever.

She scrolled through her iPod till she found Norah Jones. Mom had loved her as much as she had. They’d bonded over the cool, jazzy sounds and long discussions of art and photography and their future as gallery owners.

Now, Campbell had no reason to dream that dream. She had no desire to make it come true without Mom at her side.

The time passed more quickly than she expected. Just after 11 a.m., she saw the sign: Sweethaven—Two Miles. According to the directions, she got off at Main and turned left.

She opened the car window and inhaled. The sweet, distinct scent of lilacs, Mom’s favorite, filled the car. Springtime, a time of new beginnings, begged to burst forth, and Campbell felt inclined to let it.

As she entered the small town, her tires
clunk-clunk-ker-plunked
over the brick road beneath them, almost as if she were entering a third dimension. Old-fashioned street lamps lined either side of the street separated by oversized bushes, blossoming with bright pink flowers.

“Wow.” Their beauty nearly took her breath away.

It wasn’t until that moment she realized she should’ve called Adele and let her know she was coming. In her excitement, she hadn’t even remembered to bring the woman’s phone number. Thankfully, her address was in the scrapbook, assuming she still lived in the same cottage.

Brick buildings flanked both sides of Main Street. Striped awnings advertised Sweets in Sweethaven, a quaint bakery, The Sweethaven Art Gallery, and at the end of the block, The Main Street Café.