Nicholas Sparks - The Lucky One

"Excuse me?" He set down the file he'd been labeling.

"I love homemade ice cream. There's nothing better when it's hot, but it's no fun to make if you can't share it with someone."

"I don't know if I've ever had homemade ice cream…"

"Then you don't know what you're missing. You in?"

Her childlike enthusiasm was contagious. "Yeah, okay," he agreed. "That sounds fun."

"Let me run to the store and get what we need. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Wouldn't it be easier just to buy some ice cream?"

Her eyes shone with delight. "But it's not the same. You'll see. I'll be back in a few minutes, okay?"

She was as good as her word. Thibault just had time to straighten up the desk and check on the dogs one last time before he heard her coming up the drive on her way back from the store. He met her as she was getting out of the car.

"Would you mind bringing in the bag of crushed ice?" she asked. "It's in the backseat."

He followed her into the kitchen with the bag of ice, and she motioned to the freezer as she set a quart of half-and-half on the counter.

"Can you get the ice-cream maker? It's in the pantry. Top shelf on the left."

Thibault emerged from the pantry with a crank-handled icecream maker that looked to be at least fifty years old. "Is this the one?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Does it still work?" he wondered aloud.

"Perfectly. Amazing, isn't it? Nana got that as a gift for her wedding, but we still use it all the time. It makes delicious ice cream."

He brought it over to the counter and stood beside her. "What can I do?"

"If you agree to crank, I'll do the mixing."

"Fair enough," he said.

She dug out an electric mixer and a bowl, along with a measuring cup. From the spice cabinet, she chose sugar, flour, and vanilla extract. She added three cups of sugar and a cup of flour to the bowl and mixed it by hand, then put the bowl on the mixer. Next, she beat in three eggs, all the half-and-half, and three teaspoons of vanilla extract before turning on the mixer. Finally, she splashed in a bit of milk and poured the entire mixture into the cream can, put the can in the ice-cream maker, and surrounded it with crushed ice and rock salt.

"We're ready," she announced, handing it to him. She picked up the rest of the ice and the rock salt. "To the porch we go. You have to make it on the porch, or it isn't the same."

"Ah,"h e said.

She took a seat beside him on the porch steps, sitting fraction' ally closer than she had the day before. Wedging the can between his feet, Thibault began to rotate the crank, surprised at how easily it turned.

"Thanks for doing this," she said. "I really need the ice cream. It's been one of those days."

"Yeah?"

She turned toward him, a sly smile playing on her lips. "You're very good at that."

"What?"

"Saying, 'Yeah?' when someone makes a comment. It's just enough to make someone keep talking without being too personal or prying."

"Yeah?"

She giggled. "Yeah," she mimicked. "But most people would have said something like, 'What happened?' Or, 'Why?'"

"All right. What happened? Why was it one of those days?"

She gave a disgusted snort. "Oh, it's just that Ben was really grumpy this morning while he was packing, and I ended up snap-ping at him to hurry up because he was taking so long. His dad usually doesn't like it when he's late, but today? Well, today, it was as if he'd forgotten that Ben was even coming. I must have knocked on the door for a couple of minutes before he eventually opened it, and I could tell he'd just gotten out of bed. Had I known he was sleeping in, I wouldn't have been so hard on Ben, and I still feel guilty about it. And, of course, as I'm pulling away, see Ben already hauling out the garbage because dear old Dad was too lazy to do it. And then, of course, I spent the whole day cleaning, which wasn't so bad the first couple of hours. But by the end, I really needed ice cream."

"Doesn't sound like a relaxing Saturday."

"It wasn't," she muttered, and he could tell she was debating whether to say more. There was something more, something else bothering her, and she drew a long breath before sighing. "It's my brother's birthday today," she said, the faintest tremor in her voice. "That's where I went today, after dropping Ben off. I brought flowers to the cemetery."

Thibault felt a thickness in his throat as he remembered the photograph on the mantel. Though he'd suspected that her brother had been killed, it was the first time that either Nana or Elizabeth had confirmed it. He immediately understood why she hadn't wanted to be alone tonight.

"I'm sorry," he said, meaning it.

"So am I," she said. "You would have liked him. Everyone liked him."

"I'm sure."

She twisted her hands in her lap. "It slipped Nana's mind. Of course, she remembered this afternoon and called to tell me how sorry she was that she couldn't be here. She was practically in tears, but I told her it was okay. That it wasn't a big deal."

"It is a big deal. He was your brother and you miss him."

A wistful smile flickered across her face, then faded away. "You remind me of him," she offered, her voice soft "Not so much in your appearance, but in your mannerisms. I noticed that the first time you walked in the office to apply for the job. It's like you two were stamped out of the same mold. I guess it's a marine thing, huh?"

"Maybe," he said. "I've met all types."

"I'll bet." She paused, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "Did you like it? Being in the marines?"

"Sometimes."

"But not all the time?"

"No."

"Drake loved it. Loved everything about it, in fact." Though she seemed mesmerized by the movement of the crank, Thibault could tell she was lost in her memories. "I remember when the invasion began. With Camp Lejeune less than an hour away, it was big news. I was scared for him, especially when I heard talk about chemical weapons and suicide stands, but do you want to know what he was worried about? Before the invasion, I mean?"

"What?"

"A picture. A dumb old photograph. Can you believe that?"

The unexpected words made Thibault's heart suddenly hammer in his chest, but he forced himself to appear calm.

"He took this picture of me when we first arrived at the fair that year," she said, going on. "It was the last weekend we spent together before he joined, and after we made the usual rounds, we just kind of wandered off to be alone. I remember sitting with him near this giant pine tree and talking for hours as we watched the Ferris wheel. It was one of the big ones, all lit up, and we could hear kids oohing and aahing as it went round and round under this perfect summer sky. We talked about our mom and dad, and we wondered what they would have been like or whether they'd have gray hair or whether we would have stayed in Hampton or moved away, and I remember looking up at the sky. All of a sudden, this shooting star went by, and all I could think was that they were listening to us somehow."

She paused, lost in the memory, before going on. "He had the picture laminated and kept it with him all through basic training. After he got to Iraq, he e-mailed me and told me that he'd lost it, and asked if I could send him another one. It seemed kind of crazy to me, but I wasn't there, and I didn't know what he was going through, so I said I'd send another one. But I didn't get around to sending it right away. Don't ask me why. It was like I had some sort of mental block against doing it. I mean, I'd put the disk Into my purse, but every time I was near the drugstore, I'd just forget to get the photograph developed. And before I knew it, the invasion had started. I finally got around to sending it, but the letter was eventually returned to me unopened. Drake died in the first week of the invasion."