Second Chance Summer (32 page)

“So I understand you have a date,” he said, startling Warren, who turned red and finally started shucking the corn.

“Really?” my mother asked, smiling at Warren, as she joined my dad, sitting on the arm of his chair. “Since when?”

“Since Taylor asked her out for him,” Gelsey piped up as she straightened up from her stretch.

“What?” my mother asked, frowning, and I laughed and crossed
over to help my brother with the corn while he began to recount the story. And as I sat there and listened, chiming in when necessary, it occurred to me that we had somehow never done this back home—just hung out, talking over details of our lives. If we’d been at home, my father would have been at work, and the three of us would have no doubt been doing various activities. And despite the circumstances that had brought us here, I couldn’t help being glad for just a moment that we were sharing this together, as a family, at last.

chapter twenty-six

I
COULDN’T SLEEP
. T
HIS SEEMED TO BE THE THEME OF THE
summer, as I found myself lying awake for hours every night, even when I’d worked all day and was exhausted and should, by all rights, have fallen fast asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. But whenever I lay down, I would find myself tossing and turning for hours, my thoughts keeping me awake. It just seemed like ever since we’d arrived in Lake Phoenix, I was constantly being confronted with all the things that I’d done wrong and had been trying to avoid thinking about for the last five years. And it was always at night, when I couldn’t escape them, that they took up residence in my head, refusing to go away.

What was keeping me up tonight, oddly enough, was the dog. There was something in Henry’s reaction to hearing he’d just been left behind that had stuck with me. Because as much as I’d wanted to demonize the renters for leaving their dog behind, it was basically what I’d been doing for years now—running away or quitting whenever things got hard. I’d just never had to deal with the reality
that this came with a cost. In fact, most of the time, I’d done my very best to avoid ever having to confront the consequences of my actions. But Murphy was the living proof that leaving something or someone was never just free and easy.

When I couldn’t take it any longer, I rolled out of bed and pulled on a sweater, figuring that some fresh air might help, or at least clear my head a little. I tiptoed down the hall and let myself out through the screened-in porch. I didn’t bother with shoes, and just stepped barefoot out into the grass.

It was a gorgeous night, the moon huge in the sky, and just as huge reflected on the surface of the lake. There was a little bit of a chill in the air, a light breeze that ruffled the leaves, and I pulled my sweater a little tighter around me as I headed down to the dock. It wasn’t until I’d walked down the steps that I noticed the dock wasn’t empty. This wasn’t that unusual—I’d noticed Kim and Jeff out there one night, each holding pieces of paper, pacing around the dock, apparently trying to brainstorm. I slowed down as I squinted, trying to make out who was sitting on the edge of the dock. Then the figure turned slightly to the left and I saw that it was Henry.

I froze, wondering if I could walk away now without him noticing me. He hadn’t turned his head far enough to see me, but I was worried that sudden movement would attract his attention. Though a second later, I thought back to all those moments that had just been keeping me awake, reminding me that I’d run away when I should
have stayed. But with Lucy, and now maybe with Henry, it seemed like I was getting an opportunity to at least try and make things right. So I took a deep breath and kept on going, putting one foot in front of the other until I had reached the dock. Henry turned toward me, and it was only then that I considered that he might not care about my need to confront my faults—that he’d probably come out to the dock to be by himself, and had most likely already had far too much of me that day. Also, that I was wearing what I had slept in—very short terry cloth shorts and a tank top with no bra. I was suddenly very grateful for the sweater, and hugged it even closer around me. I nodded rather than lifting one of my arms to wave at him. “Hi,” I said.

“Hey,” he said, sounding surprised. I made myself keep walking toward him, sensing that if I stopped or hesitated, the part of me that I usually listened to would take over and I’d turn and go hustling back inside rather than risk humiliating myself in front of him for the umpteenth time that day.

I sat down next to him at the end of the dock, careful to leave at least a person-space between us. I extended my legs until they reached the water. The lake was cold but felt good against my feet as I moved them in small circles under the surface. “I couldn’t sleep,” I offered after we’d been sitting in silence for a moment.

“Me neither,” he said. He looked over at me and smiled faintly. “Cold?”

“A little,” I said, as I hugged the sweater around me. He seemed
comfortable in the cool night air, wearing a gray T-shirt that looked much-washed and soft, and a pair of drawstring shorts. I suddenly wondered if this was what he’d been sleeping in as well, and the thought was enough to make me avert my eyes, quickly, back to the lake and the moonlight.

“I’m sorry about before,” he said, looking out at the lake as well. “In the car. I didn’t mean to shut down like that.”

“Oh,” I murmured. I hadn’t known that’s what had happened. “Was it…” I started, then paused when I realized I wasn’t sure how to say this. “Did I say something wrong?” I finally ventured.

Henry shook his head and looked over to me. “Not really,” he said. “It just…” He let out a breath, then continued. “My mom left,” he said. He kept his eyes on mine as he said this, and trying not to betray my shock, I made myself keep looking into his eyes, not letting myself look away. “Five years ago,” he said. “At the end of the summer.” He broke our eye contact and looked back out to the lake. I looked down and saw that his fingers were curled around the edge of the dock, and his knuckles were white.

“What happened?” I asked softly, trying not to let the shock I was feeling seep through my voice. But inside, I was reeling. Mrs. Crosby had just
left
?

Henry shrugged, and kicked one foot in the water, sending out a series of ripples that grew and grew, until finally the water stilled again. “I knew she was having some trouble that summer,” he said,
and I tried to remember back. Truthfully, in a summer that had mostly been defined by first dates and carnival kisses and drama with Lucy, I hadn’t been paying a lot of attention to Henry’s mother. She had seemed like she always had—a little distant and not particularly friendly. “I hadn’t thought it was anything. But the week before we were supposed to go back to Maryland, she went into Stroudsburg to do some shopping. And she didn’t come back.”

“Oh, my God,” I murmured, trying—and utterly failing—to imagine my mother doing something like that. For all the times we’d argued or disagreed, for as hard as I’d sometimes tried to push her away, it had never once entered my mind that she would go.

“Yeah,” Henry said with a short, humorless laugh. “She called later that night, I guess so my dad didn’t wouldn’t call the police. But then we didn’t hear anything from her until she contacted us two years ago, when she wanted a divorce.”

This was somehow continuing to get worse. “You haven’t seen your mother in five years?” I asked, a little faintly.

“Nope,” he said, a hard edge coming into his voice. “And I don’t know if I ever will again.” He looked over at me. “You know what the worst part was? My dad and I were at a baseball game. She just left Davy alone in the house.”

I did the math and realized that Davy would have been seven then. “Was he…” I swallowed hard. “I mean, did anything…”

Henry shook his head, thankfully stopping me from having to
finish the sentence. “He was fine,” he said. “But I think it’s the reason he got so into wilderness survival after that. Even though he tells us it’s because of a show he saw on Discovery.”

Slowly, things were beginning to come together. “Is this why you moved up here full-time?” I asked. It was also, of course, the reason that none of us had seen Mrs. Crosby the whole time we’d been here.

“Yeah,” he said. “My dad needed to do something else, find a job where he could be around more. He’d always liked it up here. We had to move houses, because in the old place Davy and I were sharing a room. Not that he ended up needing a room of his own,” he added, his lips curling in a small smile as he looked toward his yard, where Davy’s tent sat. Henry shrugged, and kicked at the water again. “My dad was kind of a mess for a while after she left,” he said, his voice quieter. I waited for him to say more, give me details about it, but he was already continuing. “So moving here… it just seemed like the right thing to do.”

I nodded, but was still trying to wrap my head around everything. It suddenly struck with a force that sent a chill through me, that only a week or two after I had suddenly left with no explanation, his mother had done the same. “Henry,” I said quietly, and he looked back at me. “I’m really, really sorry.” I hoped he knew that I meant it, and wasn’t just tuning out these words as I had been doing with everyone who had tried to offer them to me.

“Thanks,” he said quietly, but not meeting my eye, and I couldn’t
tell if he believed me or not. “I just wanted to let you know why I flipped out like that.”

“It didn’t look like flipping out,” I said.

“I tend to flip out very quietly,” Henry said, deadpan, and I smiled. “Sorry to tell you all this,” he said with a shrug.

“I’m glad you did,” I said. He met my eye and gave me a small smile.

I realized there was something I had to tell him in return. I took a breath, but somehow, telling him out here in the darkness didn’t seem quite as impossible. “My dad’s sick,” I said. Immediately after I said it, I could feel my eyes prick with tears, and my bottom lip start to shake. “He’s not going to get better,” I said, making myself go on, and sparing Henry having to ask. “That’s the real reason—” My voice caught in my throat and I looked down at my feet in the water, forcing myself to get through it. “The real reason we’re up here. To have a last summer.” As I finished speaking, I felt a tear spill over, and I wiped it away, fast, hoping Henry hadn’t seen, willing myself to keep it together just a little bit longer.

“I’m so sorry, Taylor,” Henry said after a moment. I looked over at him, and saw in his face something I hadn’t seen from any of the people who knew—a recognition, maybe, of what I was going through. Or someone else who, at least, had gone though something that most other people were unable to really understand.

“I probably should have told you that first day,” I said. I ran my
hand over the smooth planks of the dock and thought that it was fitting, maybe, that we were here, at the place where we’d first met again—that we had come full circle like this. “But I think I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening.”

“I can understand that,” he said. We sat in silence for a moment, and the breeze kicked up again, blowing Henry’s hair over his forehead. “What you said earlier,” he said. “About being friends. I think we should do it.”

“Really?” I asked. Henry, his face serious, nodded. “But what about what you said—about all the stuff that’s happened in the last five years?”

Henry shrugged and gave me a smile. “So we’ll catch up,” he said. He pulled his feet out of the water and turned to face me. “Should we start now?”

I just stared at him in the moonlight for a second, not quite able to believe that this was being offered to me so readily. It made me ashamed for thinking so little of Henry—feeling like he wouldn’t be willing to forgive me, just because that’s how I would have acted. But in that moment, it was like I’d suddenly been given a second chance. It was one I knew I didn’t deserve, but it was one I was getting anyway. I pulled my feet out of the water as well, and turned toward him. “Yes,” I said, feeling myself begin to smile, just a little. “Now sounds perfect.”

chapter twenty-seven

T
HE DAY AFTER
H
ENRY AND
I
MADE OUR PEACE ON THE DOCK, HIS
brother showed up on our porch with a proposition.