Another Summer (12 page)

  A
NN WAITED FOR
C
RAIG’S BREATHING PAT
tern to change from light to heavy sleep before she slipped out of bed and took her robe off the chair by the dresser. Instead of curling up on the sofa the way she normally did at home, she carefully unlocked the sliding glass door and went out onto the deck.

A full moon rode the crest of the night sky, laying a shimmering path across the water. For a moment she imagined herself on that path and that the path led to Angela. She would go there even if told there might be no way home–no hesitation, no doubts, no looking back. She couldn’t bear the thought that her baby had no one to hold her when she cried or sing to her when she was sleepy or tell her how much she was loved when she awoke in the morning.

Ann’s arms ached to hold her little girl. Her daughter’s feel was imprinted in her memory. She had only to close her eyes and have Angela there again. Only more and more the baby who came to her wasn’t the smiling one with the sparkling happy eyes. She was the fragile, unresponsive little girl the nurses and doctor had told her was beyond their help. They unhooked her from an array of leads and monitors to wrap her in a soft pink blanket and put her in Ann’s arms.

Ann knew without being told that she had only moments left with her daughter. She struggled to find the words to tell her how much she was loved, words with the power to bring solace and comfort in the loneliness of a world without her mother and father and brother.

Then for a brief heart-stopping moment Angela did what no one believed she would ever do again. She opened her eyes and looked directly into Ann’s. It was as if she could feel her mother’s heart breaking and with incredible effort had gathered the delicate threads of strength left in her tiny body to rally and say good-bye.

Ann didn’t need the nurse to tell her when Angela was gone. She’d known the moment the light left her daughter’s eyes. She hadn’t understood until later that a part of her had died, too, the part that found joy in spring mornings and believed each day was a small miracle.

She’d held Angela and rocked her and sung to her until Craig arrived from the airport two hours later. Angela grew cold inside the pink blanket despite being held in her mother’s arms and Ann still fought releasing her, even to Craig.

Finally, Jeremy convinced her to let go. Craig had called the woman taking care of him and asked her to bring him to the hospital. He came into the room and silently put his arm around his mother. After several seconds he reached down and gently ran his hand over Angela’s downy head, the way he did when he left for school in the morning. Only this time he kissed her, too.

Tears spilling from his eyes, he pressed his cheek to his mother’s and asked to hold his sister one last time. Ann made him sit in a chair, then carefully placed Angela in his arms, reminding him by rote to hold her with both hands and support her head.

Jeremy huddled over his sister, his back curved, his head bent as if it were still possible for him to protect her. His voice barely above a whisper, he recited from memory “The Three Little Kittens,” the poem he’d read to Angela every day for three and a half months. It was from a book his grandmother had read to him as a baby. Finally, he said he would take care of her toys, then he kissed her good-bye. The parting over, he turned to his father. The bond between them was unmistakable.

Craig took Angela and walked to the window that overlooked the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He stood motionless for a long time, his back to Ann and Jeremy, softly talking to his daughter. He told her how the green leaves on the trees outside the window were beginning to change to gold and red and orange and how snow would follow to coat the branches in white and how those bare branches would come alive again in the spring. Unheeded tears spotted the pink blanket as he promised that from then on he would look closer and longer at the world he had come to take for granted because he would be looking for her, too.

Every moment of that day remained in Ann’s memory as if it had been etched in the window to her soul. She’d never prayed as hard or long as she had the three days following Angela’s death–not for her return, but for a way to go with her. Only knowing what her leaving would do to Craig and Jeremy kept her from finding her own way. At the time, the division of her love and loyalty between Angela and Craig and Jeremy had nearly destroyed her. Now, after eight and a half months, she was numb from the battle, unable to give the smallest piece of herself to anyone or anything.

The fog that had lain offshore all day began its journey inland, consuming the moon’s silver path. The damp breeze caught Ann’s cotton robe, rippling the hem around her legs. She brought her chin up and closed her eyes and focused on the sound of the waves.

Tomorrow she would try harder to be the wife

Craig wanted and the mother Jeremy needed. She would dig deeper and find the woman she used to be so they could be a family again.

If only she could remember who that woman was.

T
HE NEXT MORNING, HIS APPETITE CONSUMED
by the escalating argument between his mother and father, Jeremy ignored the orange juice his father put in front of him. In response to the halfhearted order to finish his breakfast, he poked at the scrambled eggs, moving them to the other side of his plate and tucking a forkful under a slice of toast.

“Can I go outside now?” he asked.

Craig looked at his plate and sighed. “Drink your juice.”

Jeremy managed half the glass. “Now?”

“Stick close to the house. I don’t want you going down to the beach without me or your mom.”

Ann put her hand up to stop Jeremy. “Wait a minute.” She took a piece of toast and scooped the scrambled eggs into the middle, then folded it over to make a sandwich. “Take this with you.”

He looked to his father for confirmation.

“Do it,” Craig said. “And I better not find it in the bushes later.”

It was on the tip of Jeremy’s tongue to ask where his dad wanted to find it, but that would only get him sent to his room. Then he really would have to eat the gross-looking thing.

He opened the front door, saw the fog, and went back inside to get his sweatshirt. When he was outside, he stood on the porch for several seconds and looked around, hoping to see some other kids. Even though the fog wasn’t thick or even very cold, there wasn’t anyone outside, not even a grown-up. Thinking they might be on the beach, he went around the house to the old pathway that ran in front of the deck. He followed a brick sidewalk through some flowers and was almost to the back when he heard something in the bushes that scared him so bad he let out a scream–just like a girl.

He waited for it to happen again, his back pressed against the side of the house. The second time it was clear enough for him to make out what it was. An animal was hiding in the flowers. A big animal, judging by its fierce growl. Probably something that lived in the forest they drove through to get to the house. Probably wild.

His dad had told him he should never run from wild animals no matter how scared he was, something that sounded easy enough when they were hiking in the mountains and nothing was around. But it was hard when it actually happened. So hard Jeremy was afraid he might wet his pants if the thing growled again. And then he would just have to let the thing eat him because there was no way he was going to let anyone see him with a big wet spot in the front of his pants.

He should yell for his dad, but it was like his throat had closed and nothing would come out. He could throw something, but all he had was that stupid sandwich.

The flowers moved. He threw the sandwich. It bounced off the yellow rosebush and landed on the bricks not two inches from the toe of his tennis shoe. A high moan squeaked through his closed throat. Seconds later something big and gray and brown and ugly poked its head out. It looked around and cautiously moved toward him.

It was a
cat.

All that screaming and squealing for a dumb old cat. He felt so stupid his first thought was to walk by and pretend it wasn’t there. But he liked cats, at least he liked his grandmother’s, and since no one had seen how dumb he’d acted, it was just as easy to drop to his haunches and put out his hand as it was to walk away.

The cat moved away, arched its back, and let out a hiss with all its teeth showing. When it stopped hissing, its eyes started shifting from Jeremy to the sandwich.

“You hungry? Is that what’s wrong with you?” He retrieved a piece of egg that had fallen on the ground and held it out toward the cat.

The cat stood its ground but stopped hissing.

“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Something in Jeremy’s voice triggered a response. Slowly, hesitantly, the cat came forward. When it was inches away from his outstretched fingers, it lunged, incredibly snatching the egg without biting Jeremy. It backed away and swallowed what it had taken in one big gulp, then looked up to see if there was more.

Jeremy fed the cat another chunk of egg. With each morsel, the cat became more trusting. Soon all that was left was the toast. Jeremy showed the cat his empty hand. “All gone,” he added.

The cat sniffed every finger. Detecting something unseen, it licked his fingertips, tops, bottoms, and sides. Jeremy tore off a corner of toast. The cat took it without hesitation.

Settling into a cross-legged position, Jeremy fed the cat pieces of the toast until it, too, was gone. After licking his fingers a second time, the cat sat on the walkway in front of Jeremy and ritually began cleaning himself.

“Well, would you look at that.”

Startled to discover he was no longer alone, Jeremy glanced up to see an old man watching him, his white hair covered with a baseball cap. He was standing beside the tall wooden gate that had roses growing over the top and had a beach bag in one hand and an umbrella under the arm of the other hand. Obviously the fog didn’t bother him either.

The smile he gave Jeremy crinkled his eyes. “That cat has been wandering around here looking for someone to take care of him for over a month. Not one of us has been able to get near it.”

Jeremy wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. Everyone said so, even his teachers. But the man didn’t look anything like the strangers he’d been warned about. And not only was he all the way on the other side of the garden, there was no way he could catch Jeremy if he decided to run. “He was hungry.”

“For more than food from the looks of it. I think he needs a friend every bit as much as he needed a meal.”

Jeremy stared at the cat. He was right. The cat didn’t seem afraid anymore. “I could be his friend. Just for a while though. Then I have to leave because this isn’t where I live.”

“Sometimes ‘a while’ is enough.”

“Do you have a cat?” He seemed to know a lot about them.

“I used to.”

He looked kind of sad when he said it, so Jeremy didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t think he wanted to know anyway. He didn’t like hearing sad things. “I had a snake once, but it wasn’t really mine. I just got to keep it over the summer because it couldn’t stay at school all that time by itself. Timmy got to take the rat. He really wanted the snake, but his mom wouldn’t let him bring it home.”

“Jeremy–
“

“That’s my mom,” he said, unfolding his legs and standing. “I better go see what she wants.”

“It was nice talking to you, Jeremy.”

“Thanks. I liked talking to you, too.”

He smiled. “Take good care of your new friend.”

“I will.”

Ann called again, louder.
“Jeremy–
“

“Coming,” he called back.

He found her standing on the front step, still in her bathrobe. “Where were you?”

He pointed toward the way he’d come. “Over there.”

She moved out of the doorway to let him pass. She used to make him hug her before she let him in the house. It was a game she liked to play and he kind of liked, too, but he never told her. Now she hardly ever touched him at all. She’d let him hold her hand, but he could tell she didn’t like it because she let go as soon as she could.

“What were you doing over there?” Ann asked.

“Stuff.”

“If I went there and looked, would I find your sandwich hidden someplace?”

“Huh-uh.” He liked telling her the truth even if it wasn’t the right truth.

She believed him and rewarded him with a smile that he wished he deserved.

  J
EREMY PUT HIS PILLOW OVER HIS HEAD TO
muffle the sounds of the birds outside his window. It helped some, but he could still hear them and knew there was no way he was going to go back to sleep. He’d looked to see if the fog was still hanging around when he got up to go to the bathroom and check on his mom. The sky was clear, and she was sleeping on the sofa. He saw that his dad had been there first and covered her with a blanket, so he went back to bed.

Today was July 4. His birthday. He’d liked it when he was little because there were fireworks at the end of the day and he’d believed everybody when they told him the fireworks were for him. Now he knew better. He knew a lot of things weren’t what people said they were.

Sharing a day with a whole country that was supposed to be special just for him was hard. He could never have his party on the actual day because his friends were always busy doing something with their families.

Then his sister was born on his birthday and it had made him a little mad that he would have to share the day with her, too. He never said anything to anyone and even changed his mind when Angela came home and he saw how cool it could be to have a little sister grab his finger and hold on like she knew what she was doing. Then she started smiling at him whenever she saw him and acting like she was listening when he read “The Three Little Kittens” and he figured sharing his birthday with her wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.

But he never got a chance. Now, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to have a birthday anymore.

He pulled the pillow off his head and tossed it on the floor. Lying spread-eagled on the bed, he stared at the ceiling and discovered a spider doing a zigzag dance toward the light in the middle of the room. Seconds later another spider came shooting out from the light, heading straight for the first. It stopped inches away. For a long time neither of them moved, then the zigzag guy started to zig and the straight-running one charged and the first one dropped like a brick onto Jeremy’s bed.

Wide-eyed, Jeremy bolted up and hit the floor before the spider had time to get its eight legs headed in the same direction. Almost by accident Jeremy caught a glimpse of the glistening thread that ran from the ceiling to the bed. His first impulse–to pick up something and smash the spider–disappeared on a wave of wonder. All of a sudden
Spiderman,
his favorite cartoon, made a brilliant kind of sense. Peter Parker did what real spiders did, escaping danger the same way. It wasn’t something someone just made up.

Wanting to share his discovery, Jeremy hiked up his pajamas to keep from tripping on the too-long legs and left to find his father. At the same time he glanced into his mother and father’s bedroom he heard their voices in the kitchen–not happy, conspiring voices planning a birthday surprise for their son, but cold, tired ones saying the same old things they said to each other almost every day at home.

Jeremy didn’t stick around to see if the voices would change. There was no reason to believe being in a new place would make any difference.

When he got back to his room, the spider was gone.

“H
E WON’T EVEN KNOW
I’
M NOT THERE,”
Ann insisted. “All those rides only take two people at a time anyway. I’d just be standing around all day waiting while you two were going from the Ferris wheel to the roller coaster to the tilt-a-wheel.”

“You don’t have to stand around. You can go on the rides with him.”

“You know I don’t like that stuff. I never have.” Ann opened the egg carton and began cracking eggs into a bowl for French toast, Jeremy’s favorite breakfast. “And Jeremy knows how much I hate crowds. You two can spend the day together and then we’ll all go to Monterey tonight to watch the fireworks.”

“How can you do this to him, Ann?”

She turned on him. “How can you do this to me?” She sucked in her bottom lip and bit down hard. She might not be able to give Jeremy what he really wanted or needed on this day, but she was determined she wasn’t going to let him see her cry on his birthday.

“I’m hanging on by my fingertips, Craig. And you keep pulling on my ankles.”

“It’s his
birthday,
Ann. Can’t you get it together just this one day?”

Her throat hurt from trying to hold back tears. “It isn’t just Jeremy’s birthday–it’s Angela’s, too. I don’t understand how you can put that aside so easily.”

“And I don’t understand why you pick days to focus on her loss. Why was it more important to think about what she missed by never experiencing a Christmas or Valentine’s Day or Easter than it is to know she missed knowing what a terrific big brother she had every single day of the year? Who the hell cares about a box of candy shaped like a heart when there are snowflakes and rainbows and butterflies to see and feel?”

“You can’t know what it’s like to carry a baby all that time and–”

“But I do know what it’s like to cut the cord that attached her to you. And I know what it felt like to be the first one to hold her and welcome her into the world.”

“You welcomed her … I told her good-bye.” Ann couldn’t look at him anymore. She turned away and picked up another egg, balancing it on the edge of the bowl as the tears she could no longer control began to fall.

“Please,” Craig said. “This will be a birthday Jeremy remembers the rest of his life.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“If you know,” he said, anger thick in his voice. “Why don’t you care?”

She caught her breath in surprise and in pain at his cutting remark. She turned to face him. “How could you say that to me? What gives you the right?”

He stared at her a long time before answering. “How long is this going to go on, Ann? Months? Years? Give me something to shoot for. If nothing else, dangle a carrot in front of me to keep me going. I need something to hang on to.” Looking away and then purposely looking back again as if making the point that what he wanted to say was more important than mere words, he told her, “I can’t go on without it.”

“What are you saying?”

“You know exactly what I’m saying.”

“You want a divorce?” How could she not have known? Craig didn’t make quick decisions. He thought things through from every angle, looked at every option, planned for every possibility. He must have been thinking about this for a long time. And yet she hadn’t seen it, hadn’t even guessed.

“You need help, Ann.
We
need help. Our lives are falling apart. Jeremy is–”

“You think us getting a divorce is what’s best for Jeremy? You would leave him?”

“No,” he said softly.

She gasped. “There’s no way I would let you take him from me.”

“You left him months ago,” he countered.

“That’s not true.” But it was, and she didn’t know how to find her way back.

“When was the last time you talked to him?”

“We talk all the time.”

“Really
talked to him. His first day of fifth grade you were so wrapped up in Angela you didn’t notice when he left the house and then on his last day of school you were still so wrapped up in losing her you forgot to pick him up.”

“I didn’t forget; I overslept,” she protested weakly.

“Because you won’t sleep at night.”

“Because I can’t.”

Craig didn’t immediately answer. In the strained silence they heard the soft click of the front door closing. He ran his hand through his hair in a frustrated gesture. “Jeremy heard us arguing.” He picked up the towel from the counter and threw it across the room. “Some birthday. Maybe we could arrange for it to rain and really screw it up for him.”

A
S SOON AS
J
EREMY ROUNDED THE HOUSE HE
stopped to pull out the toilet paper he’d wadded up and shoved in his ears. He used to listen to the things his mother and father said to each other when they were fighting, but he didn’t anymore. Most of the time it was like some stupid contest to see who missed his sister the most. His mother always won because she would cry and his dad would get up and leave. Jeremy would wait to come out of his room until his dad was back and he and his mom pretended everything was all right again.

No one ever asked him how he felt about Angela being gone. It didn’t seem to matter that he missed her, too, or that he secretly read her “The Three Little Kittens” every night before he went to bed.

He talked to Timmy about it sometimes when they were alone in his fort in his backyard. Not a lot. Just once in a while when they’d run out of other things to talk about. Timmy didn’t think he’d miss his sister as much as Jeremy missed Angela, but then Timmy’s sister was older and always thumping him on the head when their mom wasn’t around.

Jeremy came to the place he and the cat had met the past three mornings and sat down on the brick pathway to wait. He’d gathered stuff from the refrigerator the night before, not taking too much of any one thing so his mom and dad wouldn’t notice. He didn’t want them to know about the cat because they might make him stop feeding it, and he didn’t want to stop.

He took the paper towel off the plastic bowl he’d found in the bottom cupboard, and softly called, “Hey, kitty, kitty, kitty.” It was the way the lady next door at home called her cats when they were outside.

The cat didn’t come. Jeremy called again. When he still didn’t come, Jeremy checked the daisy bush and then the one next to it with the pink flowers. He could see where the cat had been lying, the stems were pushed aside making a kind of cave, but it wasn’t there.

He stood and called again, his voice a notch above a whisper but low enough not to be heard inside. He was at the end of the walkway when he saw the cat running up the path toward him.

Instead of immediately going to the bowl, the cat stopped to rub himself against Jeremy’s legs, moving back and forth and purring like he’d turned on a motor inside his chest. Jeremy smiled.

“It’s my birthday,” he said, bending down to scratch the cat’s ears.

The cat let out a soft meow.

The old man in the straw hat appeared at the garden gate again dressed for another morning on the beach. “I’m pretty sure that means happy birthday in cat language.” He smiled. “How old are you today?”

“Ten.”

“Ten …” He got a faraway look on his face. “You’re going to have such a good time being ten. It’s a wonderful age to be.”

“Nine wasn’t very good.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Usually nine is a very good year, too. But not always. Mine wasn’t either.”

The cat left Jeremy and walked toward the bowl. He stopped and looked back, as if waiting for Jeremy to follow. He did and could see it was clearly what the cat had wanted. He stood nearby while the cat ate. “What happened when you were nine?”

“My father lost his job and didn’t have the money to feed us, so my brother and I were sent to live with cousins. They didn’t like us much and weren’t happy to have us there.”

Jeremy wouldn’t like living with his cousin either but he wouldn’t mind living with Timmy for a year or so, even if his sister thumped him on the head once in a while, too. “Did your dad get a job again?”

He nodded. “When I was eleven. That was a very good year for the whole family.”

Maybe eleven would be a good year for him, too. Ten wasn’t starting out too well. “I’m going to the boardwalk for my birthday. Then we’re going to come back here for cake and ice cream. Would you like to come for cake?” he asked on impulse. “You don’t have to bring a present.”

“Oh, but I already bought you a present.”

“You did? How did you know it was my birthday?”

“As it turns out, it was just one of those fortuitous things.” He put his umbrella on the ground and reached inside his beach bag.

Jeremy had no idea what fortuitous meant, but went along. “My grandma sent something in the mail last week, but my dad said I couldn’t open it until tonight.”

“Well, you don’t have to wait to open this.” He held out a small, brightly wrapped package.

Jeremy stepped over the cat to reach him. “Thanks.”

“As you’ll soon discover, the present is actually for both of you.” At Jeremy’s confused look, he added, “You and your cat.”

Now he really was curious. “I can open it now?”

“Please do.”

He turned it over and popped the tape. Inside was a funny-looking comb, a bag of cat treats, and a collar with a tag that read,
Francis–friend of Jeremy.
“His name is Francis?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I thought he looked like a Francis. And I liked the way it went with Jeremy. Give him a treat when you want to comb him, and he’ll get the idea that being combed is a good thing. I have a feeling there’s a beautiful cat just waiting to be found under all that matted fur and that you’re just the young man to find it.”

Jeremy smiled and turned to look at the cat, who had finished his breakfast and was licking his paws and wiping his cheeks in front of the empty bowl. “I never knew a Francis before.”

“And I never knew a Jeremy.” He picked up his umbrella and beach bag. “Time to go.”

“Thank you for the present. I like it a lot.”

“You’re welcome.”

He went back to the cat–to Francis–and when he looked up again, the man was gone. Sitting on the ground with his legs out in front of him, he opened the treats and offered one to Francis. He stretched his neck forward, working his nose. He stood to move in for a closer smell, decided it was something worth pursuing, and gently plucked the treat from Jeremy’s palm.

Tomorrow they would try the comb. He liked thinking about having something to do. The man’s present was a good one.