Sarah Morgan - Suddenly Last Summer

“Of course. My passion is my biggest strength.” She sipped her coffee and gave a wry shrug. “And my biggest failing.”

He remembered how that passion had felt under his hands and mouth. “I don’t see it as a failing.”

Their eyes met briefly and he knew her mind was in the same place as his.

Then she turned away. “This is my favorite time of day, before I face the stress. When I see the mist on the lake, I think it’s the most beautiful place in the world, don’t you agree?”

He didn’t, but he’d learned long ago to keep those feelings to himself so he stood still and let the silence wash over him.

“Sean?”

For a moment he’d forgotten she was standing there.

“This place is full of memories.”

He turned his head and looked at what needed to be done to finish the deck, but instead of seeing planks of wood he saw his grandfather, back curved like a bow as he hunched over, sawing wood and banging in nails, Jackson kneeling next to him, soaking it in.

It had been his grandfather who had taught all three boys about the forest, the lake and the wildlife. His love for Snow Crystal was deep and unwavering. He’d been born on O’Neil land and his wish was to die on it. Sean remembered his grandfather taking him into the forest when he was five years old and showing him the growth rings on a tree trunk that had split during a storm in the night. He remembered wondering if his grandfather had the same inside him. A ring for every year he’d spent at Snow Crystal. Walter O’Neil loved the place so deeply he wasn’t able to comprehend that others might not share that devotion. That some people needed more than fresh air, beautiful scenery and a family so close there were days it had felt like being buried in an avalanche.

Sean had felt trapped and unable to breathe. Smothered by expectation.

Élise sighed. “It’s so peaceful, isn’t it? Unbelievably beautiful. You must miss it when you’re in the city.”

Miss it?

He forced himself to glance at the water and see what she was seeing. This time, instead of his grandfather, he saw trees reaching skyward, their shape reflected in the mirrored surface of the lake with perfect clarity. He saw light bounce and sparkle as the early rays of the sun kissed the surface of the water and realized that at some point in his life he’d started to see Snow Crystal as a pressure, not a place.

How often did he take the time to stand still and admire the beauty around him? His day was a series of obligations and commitments. He lived a life that barely allowed time to breathe and rarely allowed time for reflection. His job was about working fast and hard and getting things done, never about standing still.

“It’s going to be a pretty day.” It was the closest he could get to saying what she expected to hear.

“This is one of my favorite spots.” Élise moved to the edge of the deck, stepping over the part that wasn’t finished. “I went for a run on my first morning here and couldn’t understand why it hadn’t been developed along with the rest of the buildings.”

“Snow Crystal has always been full of falling-down buildings. Restoring it is a labor of love.” And he didn’t feel the love. Just the pressure. He wasn’t like Jackson, who had taken the old dilapidated barn and turned it into a stylish home. It was Jackson who had seen the potential for building log cabins in the forest for families to enjoy the outdoors. Sean was happy fixing bones, but not buildings. Left to him, the whole place would have all fallen down.

“It was an obvious site for a café. The building was already here and it had become a safety issue.” She turned, her eyes glowing with pride as she looked at the Boathouse.

Sean remembered the shaft of light that had shone through the hole in the roof onto his textbooks.

Science had excited him the way a steep slope had excited Tyler. While his brother had been executing eye-wateringly difficult feats on the snow, Sean had been indulging his fascination in the development of surgery in prehistoric cultures. He’d learned about the Edwin Smith Papyrus , the earliest known surgical text, which showed that the Egyptians had had a scientific understanding of traumatic injuries. He’d greedily devoured everything he could find about the history of surgery, reading about the Greek Galen, the work of Ambroise Paré, a French barber surgeon, and studying Joseph Lister’s contribution to reducing infection rates during surgery.

The potential of surgery to change and save lives excited him in a way that living a quiet life at Snow Crystal didn’t.

At seven years old he’d known he wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. It was a burning ambition inside him and he knew then he didn’t want to die here with those rings inside him, showing how long he’d spent in the same place doing the same thing. He didn’t want to spend his days mending leaking roofs and maintaining trails so that tourists could churn them up again. He wanted to fix people’s bones and help them walk again. How cool was that?

“We spent a lot of time on this lake growing up.”

“Jackson told me about the time you all sank the boat.”

“That was Tyler. He was the one who sank the boat. We built it from scraps of wood lying around the place. It wasn’t what you might call completely watertight. Tyler couldn’t help standing up in the thing and rocking it. Jackson was yelling at him to sit down but Tyler never did anything anyone told him. Damn boat sank to the bottom of the lake and we all took a soaking.”

Her eyes danced. “Growing up here must have been very special.”

Special?

“It didn’t look anything like this back then.” He leaned back against the railing, remembering. “This place was a wreck. Perfect for playing pirates. We used to scoop up spiders to take to Mom.”

“Poor Elizabeth. It is a wonder she is sane.”

“She’s good with spiders. We taught her to be.” Looking at the Boathouse, he saw that its position was perfect. Nestling in the sunshine on the edge of the lake, the wooden structure blended with the forest so that at a single glance you might not even notice it. It had been beautifully restored, the work in keeping with the original structure although hardly any of that remained. But the real charm was the wide deck that almost circled the Boathouse, allowing for alfresco eating. The wide deck that wasn’t finished.

He dropped to his haunches and ran his hand over the planks, feeling the grain under his palm and hearing the gentle lap of the water beneath. “He’s using marine grade wood. It’s a nice job. Zach has improved since the days when we built your lodge.”

“You built Heron Lodge? I didn’t know that.”

“The five of us, with the occasional intervention from Gramps.” But never his father.

His father had vanished on one of his many trips and when he’d returned the job had been done. Sean frowned, wondering why of all the memories he’d banked, that was the one to come to mind.

“You three and Zach makes four. Who was the fifth?”

“Brenna.” Sean straightened, pushing away thoughts of his father. “She pretty much did everything we did. I guess she was the little sister we didn’t have. She climbed the same trees we climbed, scraped her knees right along with us and skied down everything we skied down. She and Tyler were inseparable. The two of them were so close it was impossible to find one without the other.”

It seemed ironic to him that the one relationship that wouldn’t have needed sacrifice and compromise had never happened. Tyler and Brenna both shared the same love of Snow Crystal and the land around it. They were both athletic, outdoor types, perfectly matched. Both of them had built a life around lakes and mountains.